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“Racist” Noel Gallagher Pans AKB48, AKB48 Fans Attack

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British musician Noel Gallagher, of “Oasis” fame, has caused a storm of controversy online after his less than flattering comments about AKB48 were circulated on 2ch, enraging their notoriously dedicated fans into attack mode.

His appearance with AKB48, a surreal juxtaposition if ever there was one:

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Noel Gallagher’s original comments about his appearance on a Japanese music show (the original article later became accessible for a time):

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The implicit (if completely accurate) criticism of AKB48 as “manufactured” and his general low opinion of the show are readily apparent, although were this the end of the matter the only response it might have provoked was the obvious “then why did you agree to go on it?”

However, this passage was evidently well beyond the English language abilities of most Japanese otaku, and there was some clamour for a translated version due to his mention of AKB48.

The version provided to 2ch diverged from the original in certain crucial respects when it came to AKB48, and crucially it seems nobody was capable of noticing the difference (or cared about it) before compulsively pasting the quote into yet another 2ch thread or social media outlet in a fit of pique:

“I was stuck on there with a horde of shitty Jap self-proclaimed musicians, and there was a group of girls on there churned out of some factory called AKB48.

This is no joke, there were like 30 of them, all crappy brats aged 13-15. I suddenly started to feel very old.”

This had the predictable effect on AKB48 fans, who flooded onto his site and began denouncing him as an evil racist, eventually forcing the post to be pulled – though plenty of others merely found themselves forced to agree with his evaluation…

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