It’s election time and we don’t mean for a new prime minister. It’s AKB48 “General Election” time.
But with the biggest stars (no more Mariko Shinoda, Yuko Oshima or Atsuko Maeda) already out of the world’s most populous music group, AKB48′s star is beginning to wane and recent album sales have been lower.
In the annual general election, fans can buy votes — yes, vote-rigging is legal in the music industry in Japan — that come with CDs. This encourages the crazies to go, well, crazy.
One fan of minor member Juri Takahashi has allegedly gone so far as to purchase ¥31,502,400′s ($311,905) worth of CDs, as apparently this image of random piles of boxes in a nondescript office shows.
Even by AKB48 otaku fans this sounds a bit much and might just be an internet rumor. That’s ten times the average salary, so economically we think it just isn’t feasible. Plus the original Twitter account source and image has both now been deleted.
We have no proof except for this picture and we are inclined to think this time the story is actually fake. Sure, there are fans who bulk-buy out there but we have to be realistic!
This is Juri Takahashi. Is she worth $300,000?
Last year’s election was surprisingly won by a resurgent Rino Sashihara, the disgraced sex-liking idol. Her comeback is complete, it seems, since she is currently leading the votes again, perhaps proving that in the end the fans WANT an idol who has a sex life rather than the false “virginal” image that the management crafts.
