AKB48’s Latest single – RIVER

First of all, I wanted to share this with everybody. I finally downed a particular rare enemy in World of Warcraft the other day, the ever elusive Time Lost Proto Drake!:

This is likely one of the rarest of WOW’s rare spawns, and its especially coveted because it always drops…well, itself, as a flyable mount, making it one of the rarest mounts in the game at the moment. Its especially tricky to get because there are normally a dozen or so people just camping its flight paths hunting it. How did I come across it you ask? Purely by accident to be honest. I was doing the daily quest in Brunnhildar Village to see if that was the day I would finally get the Polar Bear mount (it wasn’t…again. I’m beginning to think it doesn’t even exist. I’ve likely done the quest almost 100 times now). That days daily was to go back and fight in the pit. Now, I was just starting to attack my first opponent, and what do I see? My NPC scan addon alerting me to the Drakes presence, that’s what. And where was it? Right directly above me. Awesome! I quickly got off my war bear, summon my flying mount and flew towards my prey. I took it down within a few seconds, and the mount was mine at last! That defenitly made my day!

Anyway, today I’m going to do a bit of raving over the latest AKB single, RIVER. I don’t know what else I can say about this single other than that it is BEYOND EPIC! This single is a radical departure from practically everything AKB48 has done to date, and in my opinion, its the best song they’ve released. Its edgy, up tempo and just so damn addictive. I also like how its edgy, yet its not dark or depressing, its just badass.

Now, I haven’t seen the PV yet (decided to wait for my copy of the single to arrive so I can watch the PV from the included DVD) but from what I have heard about it (and seen in screen shots) its pretty kick ass. It features the girls as soldiers, which alone sounds awesome. I have a feeling it will be my favorite AKB48 PV to date.

The accompanying tracks are also pretty good. The B-side, Kimi no Koto ga Suki Dakara is awesome. Again, this song really stands out among other AKB tunes, and of course it features the awesome Undergirls group (again, I HATE that name) so its of the same caliber as the A-side. Its a little more cutesy than RIVER, but it still manages to be an addicitve song, and is just as good as RIVER.

Now, the single does include a third song, Hikoki Gumo. Now, I will say this about the song; meh. I don’t care for it. Its generic, boring, and does not stand well against the likes of RIVER and Kimi no Koto. Its also old, in a sense. Its a song from A5, so its nothing even remotely new, and that’s my problem with it. ITS NOTHING NEW. This seems to be a new trend in AKB singles; include a song from the stages. Now, while this is not bad in anyway, I do like singles to give us something new. I also just don’t like Hikoki Gumo, so I am a little peeved at this choice. Everyone else in the fandom seems to like it though…don’t know why. So yeah, I just give this song a meh.

I’m hoping we can get more singles of this caliber in the future. RIVER is an awesome song, and I hope we get more singles like this one. This song is not like the cutesy, happy songs of the past. Its edgy, its badass, and its the idol song I have truly been waiting for. Bring on more singles like this one!

I should really think before I post something….

In the future, if I fall out of a certain fandom, I will not likely bring it up here, or even count on not being a fan for very long, because something will come around that will pull me right back in and never let me go ever again. I’ve found out I’m pretty weak when it comes to fandoms of varying kind.

if you can’t guess already, I’ve rejoined the AKB48 fandom.

You may remember that in one of my earlier posts, I pretty much denounced them. However, since that post was made, 2 epic singles have been released and a crap load of other stuff has happened. And to be honest, I’ve been drawn back. And I thought it back over, and in reality, I’ve figured I just have to learn to live with some of the things I don’t like abotu AKB48, which are really minimal to the things I do like.

One thing that really helped being me back were the release of studio albums for B4, K5 and A5. I love A5 and B5, so having some nice, clean versions of the songs to listen to was exactly what I have wanted since those stages came out. Now they just need to work on getting the albums for B3, A4, H1, H2 and K4, released. If they do that, then I’ll be a happy camper. Though all that crap in regards to their previous record label may hamper those stages getting releases for quite sometime. Gotta love the music industry.

The other thing that helped bring me back is the fact that SKE48’s first original stage done by Team S is actually quite good. You’ll remember a while back I didn’t like what I heard from that preview of S2. Well, having all the songs to listen to in full really makes a difference. I also found 2 members of SKE who I would call my favs: Matsui Rena and Matsushita Yui. Both are phenomenal performers and both are in my favorite of S2’s unit songs, Ame no Pianist. Romance Rocket, Innocence and Glory Days would be my other top favorite songs of the stage, though out of all those songs, Romance Rocket is without a doubt my favorite song of the stage. Its just so damn catchy. So yeah, I consider me a fan of SKE48 now. And with Team S’s 3rd Stage starting soon (boy, that was fast) we’ll be seeing more of them in the near future.

I’ve also been thinking alot about AKB’s recent single releases. I’m still adamant about my opinion that Namida Suprise sucks. However, since then, we’ve gotten two new singles; Iwake Maybe and RIVER. Both kick ass on whole new levels and are a welcome departure from the awfulness Namida was. Iwake and RIVER are especially awesome due to the fact that their B-Sides are equally as good as the A-Side, something I find rarely happens. Its normally one or the other thats good, with the other being somewhat mediocre. Both singles have introduced a new factor for future singles; multiple member lineups. Iwake has the Senbatsu members (those who were chosen via some voting thing from Namida Suprise) who perform the A-Side and the Undergirls (I hate that name, it makes it seem as if they aren’t as good as the Senbatsu members, though in Iwake’s case, I think their better, as the B-side is just a tad more awesome than the A-side, though both are good). Essentially, the Senbatsu members were the ones who got the highest votes ( I think they went up to 16 members) and everyone else who got below that (the number of members for this wasn’t 16, so it was really the next group of members who got voted high, but not as high as the first 16) were put into the Undergirls group. All the other members who weren’t in either of these groups got left out essentially. RIVER took this to the next level and has pretty much included every AKB48 member (and Rena and Jurina from SKE48) into the songs. The Senbatsu members again do the A-Side, the Undergirls do the B-side, and the Theatre Girls (which is the name given to the rest of the girls) gets the short end of the stick by having to do one ofm my least favorite A5 songs, Hikoukigumo. Seriously, they couldn’t have let them do a new song, or at least one that thats as good as the A/B side songs? Ah well, at least all 3 songs get a PV of their own, that’s pretty awesome.

The biggest news of course as of late is the reshuffling of the Teams. Team B was hit the hardest, with only 3 original members remaining (thank god Yukirin is one of them, and she’s the new captain of Team B to boot!). At first, I hated this news, but now as time passes, I’m excited about it. I can’t wait to see the new teams i action, and with some of my Team B favs spread out amongst A and K, I have more reason to pay attention to those teams now.

So yeah, I’m back in the AKB fandom, and loving it.