|
@Haak
Agree with mochichan here. Super plastic surgeries aside, K-Pop idols are incredibly manufactured. Than again the whole Asian Pop industry, especially the idols (female OR MALES) are all manufactured to a degree. Just look at the boy bands under Johnny's banner headed by SMAP and Arashi and that not even get into group like Kinki Kids, Tokio, Johny's Jr, etc.
What AKB really did was that instead of the old stereotype "perfect" idols, they also successfully use the shortcoming of the girls and turn them into moe points (for lack of better term). That's something that Johny's has perfected since SMAP but somehow never really seen in the female side until AKB.
In addition, unlike other female idols, individual or group. They are also really the first group that works from ground up, by doing daily shows in a little theater before working their way into TVs and radios. They got powder faced, pie- tossed, forced to do bungie and sky diving, to eating worms and scorpion, just to raise their profile. Sure they are many things, but the one constant is that the group works incredibally hard especially for the earlier members. I mean even now you continually hearing top members working themselves into exhumations and hopital when they really could have slow down a bit. Which is also why while there are some tabloid here and there, almost none of them are direct at their work ethics or attitudes.
|