First, let's take a look at the AKB48 Visual Books.
With one book per team, these provide a great introduction to the members of AKB. Each member gets a brief bio and a few pages of pictures. There is also a 48 question interview with each girl.
Lastly, the teams each voted for the best member in a variety of fields that range from "best singer" to
"person who uses their phone the most." The only downside to these books is that they are a few years old and thus some of the information is out of date. I really feel they should release another set of these, especially since I know very little about the members of the most recent team, Team 4.
Next up is a pair of books comprised of pictures taken by AKB members of AKB members: AKB48 Yusatsu.
I like the candid nature of a lot of pictures in these books. I like the profesional photo books too, but it is refreshing to have something a little different. Each picture includes a little description of who is in the picture and who took it. It's fun to see some of the trends in the pictures, like how Oshima Yuko took most of the pictures of Kojima Haruna or how Kashiwagi Yuki and Watanabe Mayu are rarely seen apart from one another.
Next we have the 2010 and 2011 AKB48 Sosenkyo! mooks (magazine books). These are released each year following the senbatsu election and include pictures of the top 40 girls along with their thoughts about the election and their future goals. They also include information on AKB48's recent activities such as music videos and magazine appearances as well as interviews with the producer, Akimoto Yasushi. Another set of books that would make a great start to any collection.
The Limited Edition Kamigami Korin AKB48 is basically a photo book for the most popular members of the group. With the most popular girls getting 12 full-page pictures each, it quickly dwindles down until by the end of the book two members are sharing the same page. The quality of some of the pictures isn't great and it isn't considered an official AKB book. Still, if you want a photo book, especially if you are a fan of a less popular member, it's a decent purchase.
Individual member's photo books seem to be the bread and butter of AKB's print media. Once a member becomes popular enough, they are given a book specifically dedicated to them. You would find these books grouped together in displays at almost every bookstore in Japan. Here we have Amanda's collection of Oshima Yuko photobooks which includes Yuurari Yuuko, Yuko, Whose Are You?, and Yuko no Arienai Nichijo. Though not the biggest Yuko fan, I have to admit that her first photobook is probably the best of the ones we have, including not only a number of great pictures but also an article about her life and several interviews. I recall a bit of controversy with Yuko no Arienai Nichijo when it was first released as she does have a few topless pictures (all from the back or covered of course).
To date, Erena Ono has only released three photobooks (though The Return of Erena Ono is quickly approaching). I have her 14 year-old summer and graduation books, but am missing Kira Kira Power, which is sadly out of print. These two make a nice contrast with one another, being her first and last books under the banner of AKB. It is nice to see how she has grown and matured and the second book includes a few messages from Erena about her departure from AKB.
The remaining three photo books are for Yuki, Atsuko, and Mayu. Atsuko was my #1 oshimen for a long time, actually. It's surprising I don't have more for her. Again, I remember the cover of Mayu's book getting a lot of attention. And before I forget to comment on this, what is the deal with all the pictures of the girls eating something in their photo books? Seems like an odd thread that runs through almost all of them.
The magazines we have are pretty varied, so I'll just talk briefly about each one.
The May 2011 issue of Yanyan, an idol magazine, contained an interview and photo shoot with Miyazawa Sae and Minigishi Minami as well as some info on DiVA, which was just forming at the time. With two articles pertaining to Sae, how could I resist?
In much the same way, I didn't want to pass up this AKB48 special which highlighted Mayu and Yuki and also contained an article on DiVA.
CM Now is a magazine dedicated to commercials. This one was released during a time when a lot of AKB CMs were circulating, including ads for vegetable juice and the ice fruit commercials with the weird composite AKB girl.
Finally, we have the AKB middle school English guidebook. It was just too perfect to pass up. I kind of like the notion of celebrity school books and hope this helped get kids excited about learning, though I don't know how well something like this would do in America.
No comments:
Post a Comment