2017-03-09, 22:40 | Link #122 | |||
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Join Date: Feb 2011
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That being said, I do agree that your complaint about HPT has merit. If we look down at the numbers, we have VERY long solos, even by sub-unit standards. Suwawa solo: 0:22 -0:44 - 22 Seconds Aikyan Solo: 0:45 - 1:06 - 21 Seconds King Solo: 1:07 - 1:19- 12 Seconds Now, the big issue I think isn't so much that the Center get's a long solo, but rather, the next top two performers in the polls also get similarly long solos. It makes me wonder whether this is a one-off event due to how narrowly Suwawa (Kanan) beat out Aikayan (Yohane) in the Center Elections or part of a longer trend. I'm less concerned that the Centers get long solos, because it seems to me that the Aqours fanbase has more or less a broad consensus that girls who already won the Center shouldn't be winning the Center twice in a row. If You, for example, appears to be winning the Fourth Single Center, it's very likely the "no two centers in a row" crowd would simply rally around the second most likely person to win the elections. The big issue here, though, is when the top three performers in the elections get a disproportionate amount of Solos. There are certain girls that have a very high chance of at least making it to the top three (You, Yohane, Hanamaru) in any poll, and other girls with next to zero chance (the gem sisters, Dia and Ruby). And the problem get's worse if there are always certain very popular girls who always make it to the top three, but can't quite win the center. Hanamaru and Yohane are probably the two most prominent examples right now, and the longer they don't win the Center, the longer they'd remain in the top three because these girls have rather.... huge and fanatical fanbases. In part, it's because King and Aikyan have two of the best voices in Aqours.... which basically means that the part of their fanbase who love their singing is basically locked in for what is probably most of the lifespan of Aqours. In all probability, if the First Live produces a Riko victory for the next election, she's probably going to be joined by Hanamaru or Yohane in the top three, unless the anime's second season radically rearranges the popularity of Aqours characters. Quote:
But I am not certain whether Guilty Kiss has received that outside-Idol anime attention yet. I don't think Lantis has been marketing Guilty Kiss outside of the Love Live context, and Guilty Kiss entire setup DOES run the risk of alienating more orthodox minded Love Live fans. We also have to remember that youtube view counts do take into account repeated views from the same Ip address after a cooldown of around 6-8 hours (though the weight repeated views bring to view count is unknown). To me, it suggests to me that Guilty Eyes Fever is simply more streamable as a song that you might return to listening every day rather than Ps Musou. I do think the stunning popularity of Guilty Kiss is a topic that deserves more discussion. Is it because the Aqours fanbase, especially those coming over from Muse demands innovation and novelty, and Guilty Kiss delivers while CyaRon promises more of the same? Is it because Guilty Kiss is seen as the successor of Bibi among large portions of the sub-unit following fanbase and it is Bibi fans (by the way, Bibi songs at the end of Muse's lifespan were out streaming their other sub-units by large margins, though GK's margin is even larger) literally transferring their loyalty to Guilty Kiss as worthy successor in a way the other sub-units might not be doing ? Is it, as you have said, because Guilty Kiss is actually managing to hook in fans from outside the Idol fandom, most likely from the EDM and larger J-pop fanbase? The third possibility suggests that Love Live and Lantis has a potential Baby-metal situation on their hand with Guilty Kiss - a sub-unit that can potentially make it as a big major J-pop group even if spun-off from the main unit. Babymetal was basically once a sub-unit of an Idol Group called Sakura Gakuin... that became big on it's own. But until Gk singles actually start beating or coming close to matching Aqours animated singles in sales, the extent GK is drawing fans outside the Idol fanbase is probably not clear. I'd like to know if anyone else here have any other thoughts on this matter. Quote:
Which is my concern with HPT. It feels like a step back from Thrilling One Way. |
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2017-03-10, 01:30 | Link #123 | ||||
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Location: New Zealand
Age: 42
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2017-03-10, 01:40 | Link #124 |
Senior Member
Join Date: Jun 2007
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Another possibility regarding Guilty Kiss' popularity: Given that the current idol boom has been going on for a while now, maybe it's a sign that audiences are ready to move on to something else? If you've watched Viga's Idols of Anime series on Youtube, in one episode she talks about the end of the Golden Age of Idols in the 80s, and how J-Pop was supplanted by J-Rock in the 90s. Maybe something similar might happen in the late 2010s? We know that musical trends come and go, and the current idol boom has to end sooner or later.
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2017-03-10, 02:22 | Link #125 |
green hair, don't care
Join Date: Aug 2016
Location: under my covers
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The genre Guilty Kiss covers is rather popular. I agree with Laevatein - times are changing, these kinds of songs are more popular now. I don't think the idol trend is going to end (like, ever) but they're moving on from sugary pop to pop rock, even pop metal.
HPT doesn't worry me, I hope they push for variety rather than a complete makeover. That being said.. CYaRon does worry me ^^' They could use more variety. Still feels a lot like Printemps with different voices.
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2017-03-10, 03:48 | Link #126 | |
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2017-03-10, 03:55 | Link #127 | |||||
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Join Date: Feb 2011
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Thanks for all the responses!
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And that is subjected to quite a bit less unpredictability I think because the issue now becomes whether and how likely a singer is to make it to the top three. You'd probably have to show that Mimorin basically was no more likely to make it to the top three in Center Elections than Muse seiyuu usually thought off as less popular to use that example to debunk my point, since my point was not "who is going to win center". Rather, the problematic thing about the top three getting outsized roles in singles if HPT signals a start of a trend, is that some Seiyuus will likely consistently end up in the top three, and others stand no chance. Quote:
It is also helped by the fact that Guilty Kiss has very distinct voices from their Bibi counterparts - no-one is going to confuse Yohane for Maki or Mari for Eli or Nico. And because Guilty Kiss liberates their Seiyuus not to sing in a moe cutsie manner, those distinct voices makes Guilty Kiss sound nothing at all like Bibi. Still, I do see people making comparisons to Bibi, especially in Guilty Kiss Guilty Night and Guilty Eyes Fever - which personally feels strange to me, since these two songs are far more deeper into EDM than Bibi ever ventured. But it does seem to indicate that at the least as I think you have suggested (correct me if I misunderstand), that while the association of GK with Bibi at least helped kicked off the initial gap in popularity between GK and the other sub-units, the chasm that might be emerging between GK and the rest are rooted in GK's very distinct, edgier, cooler, pseudo-Chuuni identity. I've seen quite a few comparisons to A-RISE too. Perhaps Guilty Kiss is the EDM style sub-unit in the spirit of A-RISE that Muse never quite had. Quote:
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It's also quite possible that GK music, for whatever reason is far more "streamable" than the other sub-units in the sense that it's the kind of music streamers will return to on a daily basis. And this is probably connected to both the current zeitgeist of pop music as well as the advent of music streaming affecting the way music is consumed. Quote:
I agree with you that the Idol Trend is likely changing rather than going away - Idols have always been a marketing tool in many ways, and not one necessarily confined by genre. In that sense, if it's true that the Idol trend is changing and sugary pop is falling out of favor, even among Idol fanbases, then Guilty Kiss is partly fortunate because they are ahead of the curve. However, GK currently has two hard EDM songs and one hard rock song in Strawberry Trapper. If anything, GK's success seems to suggest hard EDM is increasingly demanded even by fans of Idol trend. So, in addition to Hard Rock and Pop-Metal, I suspect EDM is also part of this possible "wave of the future" if GK is a weather vane indicating where the winds of music trends are blowing. What's interesting is that AZALEA seems to also be chasing that same EDM trend.... and is only doing marginally better than CyaRon. And no, I don't think Aqours needs a complete make-over. I do think they can benefit from continuing to offer more genre varierty as the most recent BD songs have provided, and their image and mythos (walk your own path distinct from your predecessors) do permit and justify this variety. That being said, we don't have to look very far to imagine how Aqours would be like with a "Fallen Angel Idol" style makeover proposed in Episode 5. Guilty Kiss is already that make-over made into an actual sub-unit, although it isn't really a makeover since Mari and Yohane's characterization lends itself so brilliantly to that concept. Aqours does not need an image change - Guilty Kiss already functionally is that image change. CyaRon in my view is in a very bad position here, especially if the theory that Idol Music is on the verge of undergoing a shift out of sugar pop to other genres is true. It wouldn't surprise me that if CyaRon again goes for Moe-Genki in their second single as in their first single, they are going to perform the worst again in terms of sales and streams for their second single. Again, I guess we'd have to wait for June to see a clearer pattern, but the view counts are ominous. If the best girl effect partially contributes to sub-unit popularity, CyaRon is basically being carried by You and if she weren't in it, CyaRon would be doing even worse. If anything, GK's success and rather unconventional image for Love Live seems to indicate this repackaging is in the process of happening right now. |
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2017-03-27, 02:55 | Link #133 |
Senior Member
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: New Zealand
Age: 42
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Urrrkk... Aqour's is part of the 2017 Anisama lineup. God help me, do I want to fight for tickets to go to Japan to watch this 3 day concert?
http://anisama.tv/2017/artist/index.php Shit... looking at the line up for all 3 days, they are spreading the good stuff across all of them.
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2017-03-28, 08:14 | Link #135 | |
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Join Date: Feb 2011
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Right now though, an upload of Saint Snow's Self Control has slightly more views - last I checked, it was on 1.09 million views thereabouts. |
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2017-04-05, 02:44 | Link #137 |
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Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: New Zealand
Age: 42
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After rewatching the Happy Party Train PV about a few times and listening to the song even more, I actually grew to love it. Gonna sit down and listen to the B-side songs as well. Hopefully someone gets to the radio dramas as well.
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2017-04-11, 06:16 | Link #140 |
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Join Date: Feb 2011
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Happy Party Train sold 54517 copies in its first week. This makes it the highest sold Aqours album ever - prior to this point, the highest sold Aqours single was the First Single which sold 48477 copies.
Incidentally, HPT is also the first Love Live main unit single to sell within the 50-60k range on its' first week. Only Bibi's third (58k) and fourth single (51k) sold within that range. Prior to the Love Live movies, only Bibi's 3rd Single and Love Live SIP S2 OP (65k) sold more than HPT. |
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