2012 Year in Review - Part Three: Departures

Not quite the 卒業 I had in mind, but this will do. 

卒業 (sotsugyou) - lit.: graduation. 

In the entire -48 world, any mention of "graduations" spark a wide range of emotions. To some, sadness and grief. To another, annoyance and anger. But to the girls who are actually leaving, it can be of different motivations. 2012 has certainly seen graduations of all sorts, from the spectacle to the scandal. But the question is: what do we, as fans, ultimately think of them in hindsight? And, more importantly, what does it all mean for the girls who have left?

The Spectacle: Atsuko Maeda

If one could describe 2012 in two words, "Atsuko Maeda" would be near the top of that list. With an (almost the) entire concert day dedicated to her legacy, and a massive media and marketing blitz surrounding her graduation to boot, you'd be forgiven in thinking that AKB48 = Atsuko Maeda, and no one else. Needless to say, such a grandiose exit plan was required for who is pretty much the face of AKB48 in the public eye. I have waxed lyrical about her previously, but given her importance in the entire AKB48 family as the center, nothing less than what occurred during August would have been acceptable. Are we going to expect more of these grand exits for future graduands? I wouldn't rule them out. But Acchan's graduation events will be pretty difficult to top.

What of her exit, then? Post-life in AKB48, she hasn't completely disappeared off the face of the 48 planet: Mariko still trolls Acchan's newly established personal Twitter account, Team Surprise singles released thereafter still feature her front and center, the Tokyo Dome DVD/Blu-ray discs still have her (obviously) and of course, the infamous Request Hour 2013 VTRs. Unblurred and unpixellated. But if there's one benefit that getting out of AKB48 brings, it's that you have a lot of work pressure lifted off your back. Oh, and you can drink to your hearts content. (Preferably of the Sapporo kind...). Whatever the case, for important centers and front girls like her, forgetting her presence in (and association with) AKB48 will be difficult. For the short/medium-term, at least.

At least now she's free to really pursue her dream of being a professional actress. The world is her oyster... 

The Stepping Stone: SKE48, NMB48

I only focused on Kuumin (center) here. The other eight? Well, they're for
the 2013 version of this post...

...and it's the same for these girls too. Even though none of them had epic pomp & show graduations - well, not yet at least for one of them - they're equally as (or even more so) important.

We saw six from SKE48, with one (Kumi Yagami) pending, and another five from NMB48. Some, like Eriko Jo, given their age, decided to finish off their schooling, whilst others, notably Rikako Hirata, decided to move on past SKE48 and towards her aspirations to become a news reporter. It's a bold step to make; some were loved and widely respected by many fans, oshimen or otherwise. Others had bright futures within the 48 group ahead of them, either as next-generation centers, aces, or similar. In the end, they decided that they had bigger dreams to reach for and for that reason (as well as possibly others that may not be known), they dropped it all, deciding to leave the 48 family.

Their departures reminds us of one oft-neglected fact: as much as we hate to admit it, being in the 48 family, for many girls, is not an ends. It is merely a means to reach towards bigger goals. A significant number of fans dislike graduations, and many a fan has left because of them. They fear the possibility of destabilisation within the group once a key member decides to leave, or that once the said girl leaves she will be reduced back to becoming a faceless commoner, never to appear in the entertainment industry again. And of course, they begin to lose interest in the group overall, especially if said member was one of their favourites.

But in hindsight, graduations should really be a positive point in their life for the member. It is a point in time where you're mature enough to make the courageous step and face the realities of the world away from the safe, warm and fuzzy confines of the 48 family. A world where you can really aspire to become who you want to be. Yes, we may seek to remember their legacy within the 48 group, but should we not equally move forward with them as well? This is the path that the girls have decided to choose; if we're truly their fans, we should seek to respect their decision and wish them the very best. Not rather being full of angst, because that is selfishness. High school and university graduations were always a time for celebration, not for mourning. So why should they be for graduations of the 48 kind? 

The Scandalous: HKT48, Yuka Masuda, Natsumi Hirajima et al

Now not all graduations this year had a positive light. Whilst Rino Sashihara may have famously escaped the guillotine (so to speak), instead getting a "prisoner transfer", others weren't so lucky.

Natsumi Hirajima and Rumi Yonezawa were the first graduands of the unfortunate kind during 2012, right off the bat. The string of events that led to their dismissal are well known: from the 2ch "investigations" of both of their illicit rendezvous, the Google+ spat, right up to their eventual fate. Indeed, Nacchan was rather apologetic and regretful about it later on, even agreeing to be filmed in an interview (with Watarirouka stalwart Mayu Watanabe) surrounding the whole fiasco.

Then there was Yuka Masuda, her graduation could be described as "a ferociously quick fall from grace". Rumours surrounding her pending graduation were arife ever since she landed a starring role in the musical, The Wiz, seeing that she had her future laid out (and subsequently missing out on two days of Tokyo Dome).  Even so, she was well respected as one of the better standout vocal talents from within the entire 48 group. Unfortunately, late in November, other rumours surfaced of her relationship with ISSA (from boy band DA PUMP). On a more personal slant, I was flying out from Australia that day. I was made aware of these rumours within a hour of leaving the house to head to the airport. A little more than three hours later, before my flight, she handed in her resignation papers to AKS. If that wasn't quick, I don't know what else could be.

It would also be amiss of me to forget the HKT48 scandal, a dark spot on the ambitions of the "fresh" sister group that just started. Five members handily dismissed themselves after rumours surfaced of four of them engaging in illicit conduct, whilst the other had concerns about the state of the group's management. After withdrawing, one of them (Yuko Sugamoto, who now has her own personal Twitter account) later posted a video onto YouTube denying the rumours that were leveled against her and some of the fellow graduates.

Graduations via scandals have been a divisive topic ever since the creation of AKB48 - nee, the entire Japanese idol industry. Antis seeking to be overly inquisitive in ratting out their hated members, members acting inappropriately and unwisely (especially when it comes to social media), tabloid rumours that serve to fuel gossip... the list of varying factors go on. How management responds to these are equally as controversial as the allegations themselves, and one could endlessly debate on the paradigms of idol culture itself that lead to these sorts of rumours abounding.

Nevertheless, the bottom line is this: you break the rule, (if it gets out into the open) you get punished. A line reiterated over and over for every scandal leading to a graduation.

Conclusion: Who's Next in Line?

Now that 2012 has finished, the spectacle and the scandal alike having resigned to the history books, we look at 2013 in very much the same way during the start of every year: who else is going to graduate? Of course, rumours run amok, fresh new scandals pop their ugly head into the open, and names are dropped every now and so often. But if there's one thing that we can be rest assured about, it's that graduations are a way of life in the idol culture fandom. We move on, we progress forward. They will always happen inevitably to anyone and everyone. Including us fans.

And there's one more thing we can be rest assured about: Mariko will never graduate.