AKB48 “Simply Garbage”

The pitiful sight of thousands of AKB48 CDs discarded as rubbish after creepy otaku fans have extracted the all-important voting and handshaking event tickets has finally answered the question of where they all end up, and perhaps shed some light on their musical value.

Their latest single sold 1.1 million on its first day, and organisers report a total of 1.38 million votes were cast in the popularity contest itself.

The main popularity contest received hours of TV coverage, and broadcasters claim ratings as high as “28%” – although given their chart success evidently relies on a tiny core of creepy otaku fans and how difficult it appears to be to actually find anyone with anything good to say about their music, there are some lingering doubts as to just how “national” their popularity really is.

The handshaking event after the popularity contest, evidently the main event in more ways than one for many fans, also earned the group more notoriety when one of their number gleefully told a fan who had just blown ¥530,000 of his savings to cast 2700 votes “Don’t bankrupt yourself, OK?” as she shook his hand.

Just where all their CDs end up after the vote and event tickets have been extracted has been the subject of speculation for some time, and fortunately Twitter denizens were able to take a break from describing their latest meals in order to describe and photograph the contents of their local rubbish dumps:

“So this is where all their CDs end up…”

“They were just put out with the garbage at my apartment…”

“I found 150 CDs at my rubbish collection point. On closer inspection, they turned out to be AKB48 CDs released the day before.”

“I went to sell some and they offered ¥5 each. The gas I used to get there cost more!”

“The local library will give you dirty looks if you try to donate them to them.”

“Second-hand copies are on sale in Akiba for ¥50 each. I wonder if anyone will buy them…”