It was announced today that longtime AKB48 member Oku Manami will be leaving the group in May. To be honest, I’m not upset by this announcement in the least bit. Oku has always been incredibly low in my rankings, primarily due to the fact that she is not that great of a performer. She never showed any emotion on stage, and I always thought as the years went on, she got worse instead of improving. In short, she was somewhat boring to watch on stage.
I think it got even worse when it was stated in an interview that AKB’s head honcho, Akimoto, viewed her as an “ace” in the group. How he ever came to that conclusion is beyond me, as Oku was leagues behind a great many of the girls in AKB. I guess that whole “ace” thing no longer matters though, seeing as we’ll never see it come to fruition. Still though, graduations suck, no matter what, and I can only feel sorry for her fans. It’s never nice to lose your oshi.
