Apologies for yet another AKB48 post but this was too interesting to pass up.
Kyodo News is reporting that Mayu Watanabe’s victory at the AKB48 General Election last weekend in the rain came thanks to the Chinese vote, a revelation which should stump the typically right-leaning netizens of Japan.
A Chinese newspaper claimed on June 10th that of the 159,854 votes that got Mayu Watanabe the coveted top idol spot, around 35,000 of those came from fans in China, playing a decisive role in the tight contest with Rino Sashihara.
Mayu Watanabe’s supporters in the Third Kingdom apparently collected around 29 million yen through online fund-raising, which they used to purchase CDs from Japan with voting rights.
Like certain Japanese porn stars, AKB is popular in Japan and a Shanghai sister group SNH48 with all Chinese idols formed in 2012 to cash in on the lucrative Chinese market.
