Hashiriya Wrote:For the girl with the 手ブラ, you guys have some seriously high standards if you don't think she is hot. In fact, if that wasn't a joke, I'd like to see what girls you actually do think are hot O_O. For the girl with the shaved head, that was a bit overkill. She needs her hair to complete her look. It looks like she went Britney Spears on us.

Aibu Saki is my main squeeze.

Edit: Also the girl who shaved her head looks like a chipmunk. Honestly.

I don't know anything about AKB48, but I heard about this shaved head business. Was this a crazy Britney Spears kind of move, or is it something that's acceptable to do in Japan?

it's all over the net.. read about it in Japanese (good practice) http://jin115.com/archives/51928476.html

I'd find it easier to believe she shaved her head of her own accord if the video hadn't been posted on AKB's official freaking YouTube channel. C'mon, that's sketchy as hell.

Hashiriya Wrote:For the girl with the 手ブラ, you guys have some seriously high standards if you don't think she is hot. In fact, if that wasn't a joke, I'd like to see what girls you actually do think are hot O_O.

I wasn't joking. She does not have a good looking face. My wife has referred to her as a cross between Mariah Carey and a gorilla. Not sure I see the similarity to Mariah Carey, but I definitely see the gorilla part.
As for some actual good-looking Japanese ladies:
Nozomi Sasaki
Yumi Sugimoto
Meisa Kuroki
Satomi Ishihara
and plenty others.

TheVinster Wrote:Also the girl who shaved her head looks like a chipmunk.

She looks like Yoda.

People always complain when a conversation on this forum devolves into a pro-AJATT anti-AJATT battle. But for me on a personal level, this conversation is way less palatable.

Tzadeck Wrote:this conversation is way less palatable.

What aspect?

this was interesting, especially with what mitsuman glove said... it's about minegshi

@JimmySeal, you must be married to a supermodel Plus, I think you just showed me why I find Yoda so attractive heh.

Hashiriya Wrote:@JimmySeal, you must be married to a supermodel

That I am not, but when some celebrity is being paraded in front of us with the sole premise being that she is good looking (because she sure has no other qualifications), I think it's anyone's prerogative to point out that she looks like a gorilla.

From what I gathered from all the Japanese friends (male & female) I've spoken to the girls aren't picked because they're good looking, they're picked on the basis that they're normal looking thus making it easier for the male fans to develop a genuine crush and the female fans can dream of one day being asked to join the group.
I mean, I certainly wouldn't say "no" to most of them but girls like this are everywhere in Japan.

The saying is that AKB girls are the usually the second cutest girl in your class.

JimmySeal Wrote:

Hashiriya Wrote:@JimmySeal, you must be married to a supermodel

That I am not, but when some celebrity is being paraded in front of us with the sole premise being that she is good looking (because she sure has no other qualifications), I think it's anyone's prerogative to point out that she looks like a gorilla.

No one's parading her in front of you. AKB48 is a product you have to choose to buy into. It's very easy to avoid. I've literally made absolutely no effort to avoid it, and yet, I've managed to live my entire life not knowing anything about them. The only reason why that changed is because, when seeing that image of a girl with a shaved head, I chose to look into it a little bit.

So, the real question is, why are you watching and discussing AKB48, if you really consider yourself too good for it? If you're really not interested, there are plenty of articles on quantum physics out there for you to read and comment on.

But when you do actively seek out something, and then complain that it sucks and it's being forced on you, you're nothing more than a petty hypocrite. Please, post a picture of your wife/girlfriend/right hand, so we may have a point of reference on what you consider attractive.

Hey Stansfield, could you put down that bat? The strawman you're beating is looking mighty ragged.

So...

Quote:So, the real question is, why are you watching and discussing AKB48, if you really consider yourself too good for it?

Where did I suggest that I consider myself "too good for [AKB]", whatever that means?

Quote:But when you do actively seek out something, and then complain that it sucks and it's being forced on you

Where did I complain that AKB sucks? Where did I complain that it was being forced on me?

Quote:No one's parading her in front of you.

As a matter of fact they are. This particular member shows up in TV commercials several times a day making pouty faces at the camera. If that doesn't constitute parading her in front of me, I don't know what does.

Quote:you're nothing more than a petty hypocrite

My personal life is irrelevant here. AKB is a product sold through marketing girls' looks, and I as much as anyone have every justification in criticizing that product and its content on its merits. I could be the worst cook in the world, but if I think Taco Bell makes crappy food, I am entitled to say so because unlike Taco Bell, I am not a multinational restaurant chain. I am not a filmmaker, but I have every right in the world to say that The Phantom Menace was a bad movie.
If the managers of AKB are going to sell their products by putting Tomomi Kasai in commercials and displaying her mostly naked on magazine and book covers, then you, I and anyone else are welcome to critique that decision, no matter how unattractive our right hands are. Are you going to tell me you've never criticized something that you yourself could not produce?

JimmySeal Wrote:Hey Stansfield, could you put down that bat? The strawman you're beating is looking mighty ragged.

Dead horse.

JimmySeal Wrote:As a matter of fact they are. This particular member shows up in TV commercials several times a day making pouty faces at the camera.

Pretty much every commercial on television has young women in it. I have no idea who any one of them are, because no commercial ever says their name or who they are. They're just random faces on the screen. You'd have to be obsessed before you could tell them apart, just from watching commercials. There's no way I'm gonna buy that you learned this girl's name and what she does, just from commercials.

JimmySeal Wrote:Are you going to tell me you've never criticized something that you yourself could not produce?

Of course I would criticize it. I would criticize anything. But not dishonestly. I would never call restaurant food crappy, if it's better than what I eat at home. That wouldn't be criticism, it would just be pointless verbal diarrhea. I would just be saying shitty things for the sake of saying shitty things. I wouldn't do that.

If you honestly believe this girl looks like a gorilla, then logically there are only two options:
1. you're used to high standards, because the women in your life are far more attractive
2. you really believe that the women you date look worse than gorillas - that's unlikely (even if you're dating a plain looking girl, you still see beauty in her, otherwise you wouldn't date her).

Other than those two options, the only other one is that you don't really think she's that ugly, you just felt like attacking her gratuitously. Personally, I'm convinced this is exactly what's going on, and you should think about working on your personality. Of course there's a very easy way for you to prove me wrong: pictures.

Stansfield123 Wrote:There's no way I'm gonna buy that you learned this girl's name and what she does, just from commercials.

Actually, I had no idea what her name was until this scandal broke and someone posted her name in this thread a few days ago. I had to double-check her name in the previous page of this thread when replying to your post. I knew that she was a member of AKB because they're on TV as a group constantly, and she stands out because most of the girls in commercials don't look like gorillas dressed up in lace and lipstick.

Quote:If you honestly believe this girl looks like a gorilla, then logically there are only two options:

No, the very logical third option is that my standards are normal and she actually does look like a gorilla.
And as I've already said, I'm using celebrities as the basis of comparison here because she is purporting to be a celebrity. My personal life is irrelevant. If you're curious what actual attractive women look like, I've already posted some links above.

Quote:Other than those two options, the only other one is that you don't really think she's that ugly, you just felt like attacking her gratuitously. Personally, I'm convinced this is exactly what's going on

And why would I do that?

I'm going to second Stansfield123 assertion that in actuality, JimmySeal doesn't really believe that hand-bra girl is THAT "ugly."

To have the opinion that hand-bra girl isn't attractive is in one thing. To claim that she is as ugly as, and even resembles a gorilla, is another.

I mean, if Asian hand-bra girl "looks like a gorilla", then what the hell does that make girls of dark complexions?

As for why JimmySeal is making overly gratuitious claims without believing in them, my theory is perhaps just for fun, controversy and to test the responses of forum readers? It's like gratuitous violence/nudity in movies, except in text form on message boards.

Stansfield123 Wrote:If you honestly believe this girl looks like a gorilla, then logically there are only two options:
1. you're used to high standards, because the women in your life are far more attractive
2. you really believe that the women you date look worse than gorillas - that's unlikely (even if you're dating a plain looking girl, you still see beauty in her, otherwise you wouldn't date her).

Other than those two options, the only other one is that you don't really think she's that ugly, you just felt like attacking her gratuitously. Personally, I'm convinced this is exactly what's going on, and you should think about working on your personality. Of course there's a very easy way for you to prove me wrong: pictures.

I do not believe that JimmySeal's life is filled with good looking women, hence his supposed high expectations in beauty. Otherwise, he would be out there impregnating them, not wasting time on a forum calling girls gorillas. We can rule out option 1.

I do not believe that JimmySeal cannot visually tell the difference between gorillas and hand-bra girl. Since he is on a forum, we can assume his eyesight is competent. We can also assume that there is not an exotic eye disease that causes such a problem. We can rule out option 2.

Therefore, the only option available is 3: JimmySeal DOES find hand-bra unattractive to his personal tastes, but he is gratuitiously exaggerating that fact by saying she looks like a gorilla.

I also saw the links of the "superior" looking girls that he posted above. If you examine them closely, you can find actually monkey features on them too which makes sense since we descended from primates. However I would not go as far as to say that they LOOK like monkeys.

I guess if you held my feet to the fire I would admit that she's not THAT unattractive, but still not to my liking, and not up to the standard that should be held to someone in her line of work. And I still maintain that she has, at least mildly, gorilla-like features.

I'll also point out that when I made a comment about her unattractiveness on the previous page, I was doing so in the process of veiled compliment about her other, um, characteristics. Perhaps my wording was too subtle.

JimmySeal Wrote:As a matter of fact they are. This particular member shows up in TV commercials several times a day making pouty faces at the camera. If that doesn't constitute parading her in front of me, I don't know what does.

-

My personal life is irrelevant here. AKB is a product sold through marketing girls' looks, and I as much as anyone have every justification in criticizing that product and its content on its merits. I could be the worst cook in the world, but if I think Taco Bell makes crappy food, I am entitled to say so because unlike Taco Bell, I am not a multinational restaurant chain. I am not a filmmaker, but I have every right in the world to say that The Phantom Menace was a bad movie.
If the managers of AKB are going to sell their products by putting Tomomi Kasai in commercials and displaying her mostly naked on magazine and book covers, then you, I and anyone else are welcome to critique that decision, no matter how unattractive our right hands are. Are you going to tell me you've never criticized something that you yourself could not produce?

If we're to be objective to the point that there's nothing abnormal or morally questionable about eloquently explaining how you think a 20-something year old girl is so ugly that her appearance doesn't even constitute to that of a human being, I don't think you can use those analogies.

If you paid for a meal you have the right to criticize the value of your money, and if you paid to see a movie you can vocally express whether or not the money was worth the content. But you're not really paying to see or hear AKB48, you say. You are paying to watch what's on a TV channel, but you're doing so knowing that controlling what's on isn't part of the deal, and if a company pay's enough money to have their commercial up then that's how it's gonna be. Commercial is needed for the channel (your product) to be able to run, and criticizing the content of the commercials isn't productive because you're not paying for the entertainment value in the commercials, leaving unsubscribing to the channel in question the only option if you don't like what it's airing.

Now, I'm not adding anything of value to this discussion and I'm not even a fan of AKB408, JSK5500, ASGDF454545 or anything else, but I just thought come on... Also, those girls you linked to up there have features that seem to be conveniently in line with western perspectives of beauty for being "actually attractive Japanese women".

[Zgarbas]

^^' it is really common to criticize celebrity females (and males sometimes) based on their looks and the way they do not cater to a particular person's tastes. It rarely is personal or a personal trait or proof that the commenter is surrounded by abnormally beautiful ladies, but simply a comment which is normally considered socially acceptable (imho, unfortunately.... but your mileage may vary).

Criticism is normal regardless if you paid/didn't pay for the product, and when someone is a product of a idol factory based on their looks, or hey, not even that, just selling a product using her looks (otherwise why the need for 手ぶら) then not expecting criticism would be a bit silly. People have different beauty standards, and some are more forward about them than usual. No need to make that have more importance than it does.

^^ y'all be friends now. I don't mind if you get into an "is it alright to judge public figures basedon subjective opinions regarding looks" but make it a bit less personal, please.

TwoMoreCharacters Wrote:If you paid for a meal you have the right to criticize the value of your money, and if you paid to see a movie you can vocally express whether or not the money was worth the content. But you're not really paying to see or hear AKB48, you say. You are paying to watch what's on a TV channel, but you're doing so knowing that controlling what's on isn't part of the deal, and if a company pay's enough money to have their commercial up then that's how it's gonna be. Commercial is needed for the channel (your product) to be able to run, and criticizing the content of the commercials isn't productive because you're not paying for the entertainment value in the commercials, leaving unsubscribing to the channel in question the only option if you don't like what it's airing.

Roger Ebert is paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to say whether movies are good or bad. I doubt that he himself has ever made a movie in his life. Are you saying that what he's doing is wrong because he isn't paying to see those movies or making his own?

Quote:If we're to be objective to the point that there's nothing abnormal or morally questionable about eloquently explaining how you think a 20-something year old girl is so ugly that her appearance doesn't even constitute to that of a human being

Where did I say that her appearance doesn't "constitute to that of a human being?" A cloud can look like a freight engine and still look like a cloud at the same time.

Haha I know my writing was slick Like I said, I don't think I'm adding anything to this, I just wanted to put perspective to or at least come along and poke at the seriousness behind criticizing her looks.

I still do think that flat out saying that she looks like a damn gorilla is kind of a hit towards more people than just her--a big part of the population actually. And showing models (with make-up, lighting effects and post-processing) that look very similar to models here in the west as "actually attractive Japanese girls"... I don't have suggestions to what you should show instead but you have to agree that it does show quite some attitude that's calling for trouble.

edit: Oh, forgot to apologize. I'll stay out of this if it stays focused on attacks, sorry.

JimmySeal Wrote:Roger Ebert is paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to say whether movies are good or bad. I doubt that he himself has ever made a movie in his life. Are you saying that what he's doing is wrong because he isn't paying to see those movies or making his own?

Roger Ebert is paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to say whether movies are good or bad AND because he has seen a lot of movies (both the good and the bad) and is therefore knowledgeable about it AND because he is good with words and good at articulating his opinion.

Random internet movie commentator who says "THIS MOVIE SUX!!!!" are worthless, which is why they aren't paid for their opinion but Roger Ebert is.

The point I am making is that you're not Roger Ebert. Viewing and critiquing the physical features of female celebrities is not your full time job, and since you have a wife, you're probably not doing it as a hobby either.

Rather you are the equivalent of the random worthless internet movie commentator giving away his opinion for free, except instead of saying "THIS MOVIE SUX!!!!", you say "SHE LOOKS LIKE A GORILLA!"

JimmySeal Wrote:Where did I say that her appearance doesn't "constitute to that of a human being?" A cloud can look like a freight engine and still look like a cloud at the same time.

I think we're heading into semantic territory here. I'll simply let your quotes speak for themselves and readers can decide your intent:

JimmySeal Wrote:She does not have a good looking face. My wife has referred to her as a cross between Mariah Carey and a gorilla. Not sure I see the similarity to Mariah Carey, but I definitely see the gorilla part.

JimmySeal Wrote:I think it's anyone's prerogative to point out that she looks like a gorilla.

JimmySeal Wrote:she stands out because most of the girls in commercials don't look like gorillas dressed up in lace and lipstick.

JimmySeal Wrote:No, the very logical third option is that my standards are normal and she actually does look like a gorilla.

JimmySeal Wrote:And I still maintain that she has, at least mildly, gorilla-like features.

Only after replying to my post did you concede from "she looks like a gorilla" to "she is a human with gorilla features."

TwoMoreCharacters Wrote:I still do think that flat out saying that she looks like a damn gorilla is kind of a hit towards more people than just her--a big part of the population actually.

I myself don't find hand-bra girl too attractive but I am under no illusion that she is better looking than at least 90% of the population. A simple walk in the street or shopping mall experiment confirms this statistic. All I see is fat people, ugly people, or fat and ugly people. At the very least, hand-bra girl is not fat so statistically speaking, she's doing well since the majority of western society is overweight or obese.

If hand-bra girl looks like or is a gorilla, then someone wake me up, because I think the primates have taken over the world and it is now the Planet of the Apes.

Thank you CNN. Only YOU (and maybe Fox) could take something somewhat minor and turn it into insanity.

When a teen pop star breaks J-pop 'bushido' code
The craziness starts in the first freaking paragraph.

Quote:If Japanese starlet Minami Minegishi's shaven head and tearful mea culpa looked more like a disgraced samurai trying to retrieve his honor, then it owes much to Japanese pop phenomenon "AKB48's" military structure.

Complete with four main divisions of girl performers, the J-pop sensation have their own theater training camps, a sub-corps of as many as 14 sister groups, a rigid order of succession and a strict code of conduct.

I believe the girl who shaved her head has grew it back so tragedy has been averted.

On the other hand two girls recently got stabbed or slightly sliced by a knife.