AKB48’s Uncensored “Beginner” PV June 13, 2011

You are now reading the blog of someone with a legitimate college degree. Yay! Just this last week I finally finished four long years of undergraduate education! Oh, and before anyone asks, no, that doesn’t mean the quality of my posts here will go up… 😀

What it does mean though, is that I should be able to get back into the regular routine of making at least one post per week. I start work next Monday, but that shouldn’t have any major impact on here, something I’m very glad of.

So, to start back off I wanted to take a look at something that finally surfaced about a month ago. The mysterious “too violent” original PV for AKB48’s “Beginner!”

Video credits: Tokyohive

Honestly, that seems like a neat idea that was horribly, horribly executed. The whole crazy matrix infused PSPs bringing the girls into a video game is a legitimately cool premise, but did we really need to see some of the girls get brutally killed? Personally I found it a bit much.

I would have to say that that was probably why this version was “banned” in the first place. Supposedly it was because it was “too violent,” but save for Kojima Haruna’s head literally being cut in half, I would say most of this really isn’t all that explicitly violent.

Actually, the worst part of this scene was how her limp body slumped down onto the floor. More than a little unsettling.

Really, though, who actually wants to see their favorite idols get smashed to death? Or multiply impaled? Or really, just hurt in anyway? I frankly just can’t see any appeal in this. I’m not even really a big fan of any of these girls and I don’t enjoy seeing this kind of stuff. It just comes across as truly bizarre.

People love their idols. Sometimes to a startling degree even. Which is why I have such a hard time wrapping my head around the idea that this PV would willingly show such harm befalling them. Who really thought it would be a good idea to show them getting killed?

Oh, don't worry about her. She just really doesn't like that flavor of gatorade.

I mean, I can kind of see what they were trying to do, but I think they really went far too overboard on the artistic side of things. These are idols for gosh sakes, they don’t have to be edgy. There’s no reason to push the envelope. Really, they didn’t have to stop the song in the middle so that Acchan could scream out in agony and bleed profusely.

0_o

And, frankly, I wished they hadn’t.

For me, idols should be about happiness. Now that doesn’t mean all-genki-all-the-time, as a nice ballad can still be soothing, or even a rockish number can cheer you up, but death and pain are two things I’d rather not associate with that term.

(I’ve noticed that I’ve tended to be a bit negative on AKB48. I don’t want to give the impression that I dislike the group or anything. I really don’t. Just as an outsider, so to speak, it’s easier to be taken by that which I find disagreeable. I’ll make an effort such that the next time I feature them it will be in a more positive fashion!)