Takamina’s Hair Raising Experience!

Although this goes back nearly 2 weeks now, it wasn’t until last week that Takamina revealed during one of the revival concert at the TDC Hall that she had an accident the previous week which had made her hair catch fire. It was lucky that she spotted her hair burning quickly or this incident could have been serious.

The drama started apparently on May 4th during the afternoon and Takamina had gone shopping to a clothes shop in Saragakucho, Shibuya on her way to work. This shop was decorated with some aromatic candles and Takamina was carrying a paper bag as she had purchased something from another shop. The paper bag somehow must have been too close to a candle as the next thing she knew her paper bag was on fire which quickly spread and it must have caught her hair as well. The fire was spotted immediately by staff and it was out quickly.

Takamina knew that something was amiss as she smelt something burning but she didn’t realise that it was her that was on fire! Due to her hair being burnt she had to have a haircut straight away as she had a performance in a couple of hours. She showed off her new shorter haircut later on that day but it wasn’t until last week that fans put two and two together and realised why Takamina cut her hair. The shop took down all of the aromatic candles after the incident. It’s not good publicity for them if a national idol burns her hair in their shop!

Thank God no permanent damage was done to Takamina.

Takamina Responds On Her Current Situation

Yesterday saw Takamina expressing her thoughts on the current situation in her life including the recent troubles with her mother on No Sleeves’ blog.

I’ll just give a summary of what she said: Takamina expressed that she was sorry for all the worry and trouble she has caused recently. For that she is truly sorry but she is grateful for all the warm comments she received from the fans. For the past week she has thought long and hard about what to do including leaving AKB48! The support from everybody which includes the staff, AKB48 members and fans has persuaded her that she wants to continue to be in AKB48 even though there may be people out there who thinks she shouldn’t be allowed to be in the group anymore. One day she said she wants to stand on her own two feet and make her dreams come true. That will be her way of thanking the fans. She would appreciate if you continue to watch over her warmly.

I feel so sorry for Takamina – having to apologise for something that isn’t her fault at all. It’s her mother that should be apologising not Takamina. It’s a disgrace that some people think she should quit AKB48. Takamina is quite a strong person and doesn’t seem like a quitter so I’m so happy that she’s staying. I couldn’t bear to think of AKB48 without her and watching the latest AKBingo made me realise just how much she is loved and respected by all the members. Takamina will always get my love and support. Ganbare!

Takamina’s Mother Arrested For Having Sex With A Minor

Nearly 2 weeks has gone by and the latest scandal involving an AKB48 member has reared it’s ugly head. Be aware that this scandal does not directly involve Takamina – she’s not in the wrong at all. AKB48’s leader Takamina has been left deeply embarrased after her mother was arrested for an indecent act with a 15 year old boy! When reports first came out, it was only said that the mother of a 20 year old AKB48 member had been arrested but the weekly magazine Shukan Bunshun went even further and printed that it was Takamina’s mother.

It is said that a senior classmate of Takamina’s 15 year old brother made advances towards her mother and thus begun their illicit relationship. The boy in question was involved with 2 others in beating up a classmate. When they themselves were arrested, it was then he blurted out he was having a relationship with an older woman to the cops. He had also been boasting around to his friends that he was having sex with Takamina’s mother. She has admitted to committing a sexual act on the boy last November at her home of all places in Hachioji, Tokyo but she said that she was forced to do it. There was a possible threat made against her son that unless she had sex with him he was going to be beaten up. It is also alleged that both of them went to love hotels! She doesn’t face jail but more likely a fine of 500,000 yen.

Fans are beginning to worry that Takamina could quit AKB48 because of this shameful slur on her family’s name but I doubt that very much. She’ll get a rough ride from the media over the coming weeks that’s for sure – they’ll want to know every little sordid detail about this but Takamina has to stay strong and with support from her friends in AKB48 she’ll get through it. There is no way that any member in AKB48 would allow her to quit. However, on saying that Takamina could very well leave AKB48 for a while until this blows over. It’s unfortunate with GIVE ME FIVE being released next week and there’s going to a lot of heavy promotion to do. It’ll look odd if they do the round of music shows without the lead guitarist in Baby Blossom.

AKB48 fans have bombarded Takamina’s G+ pages with over 10,000 messages of support which is nice to hear.

EDIT: For those that want to know what Takamina’s mother looks like, here’s a piccy of when she appeared on the TV programme Mujack.

If there’s any more developments on this, I’ll update this post.

AKB48 Top 10 Members (December 2011)

I know it wasn’t that long ago (July 2011) that I did my last top 10 AKB48 members list but things have changed a lot since then which you’ll see below.

10. Yui Yokoyama

I can hear you all saying ‘it wasn’t that long ago you were criticising her’ and you’ll be right on that count but Yui has really grown on me in the past 6 months and she is so funny on Bimyo.

9. Nito Moeno

8. Minami Takahashi

Out of the Top 5 goes Takamina. I still love Takamina to bits but there are more interesting members that rank above her.

7. Rie Kitahara

6. Haruka Nakagawa

5. Yuko Oshima

This is one of the biggest changes on my list – the former no.1 taking a big tumble down to no.5. Something I thought would never happen but I’ve become sort of bored with Yuko lately. She just doesn’t excite me as she used to do before,

4. Mayu Watanabe

Into the Top 5 goes Mayuyu – up 2 places. The more I see and watch Mayu perform the more fantastic I think she is.

3. Yuki Kashiwagi

Yukirin stays in her position at no.3 though it did cross my mind at times to move her up to no.2.

2. Rino Sashihara

Sasshi also stays in her current position. Sasshi completes the cleap sweep of Not yet members in my Top 10!

And at no.1 is……………

1. Ayaka Umeda

In July, Umechan was at no.8 so this is a huge jump from her into the no.1 position. So how has Umechan managed to steer herself into being at the top. I can’t recall any specific moment of seeing her when I thought ‘OMG she’s now my no.1 favorite member’. She’s just completely gained my full attention especially over the Summer. I’ve just been seeing her in many things on Youtube and I just started to really like her a lot. I love her quirky, some say a little eccentric personality and she is just so damn beautiful. Her singing voice is great, she looks like a lot of fun to hang out with and I’m just happy that she’s getting more attention now. I’m kinda peeved that she’s no longer the Tokyo Tower image girl otherwise I would have gone to see her doing her DJ stint on a Friday night there.

So there you have it. The new Top 10 list. Will it be the same when the next one comes out in May/June?

Takamina Meets JKT48 Members

You might have probably read about this piece of news on other websites but Takamina recently visited 2 countries on a whistlestop trip. On October 3rd she arrived in Singapore which has a significant AKB48 fanbase and then the following day she jetted over to Jakarta, Indonesia where she appeared on a TV show and also saw how future JKT48 members are shaping up. She was suitably impressed by what she saw and hopes one day that AKB48 and JKT48 can perform together on stage.

Takamina also held a handshake event for 1,000 fans in a shopping mall which went down very well. Future trips by AKB48 members to Indonesia is a certainty.

Takamina Appears in an American Singer’s PV

Takamina has made an appearance in the PV for American born pop singer JAMIL’s new single “The Rock City Boy”. JAMIL is a big fan of AKB48 and he wanted Takamina to star in the PV for the song. This is the 1st time for Takamina to appear in any PV other than her own.

The plot of the PV has JAMIL coming over to Japan where Takamina keeps popping up as a cabin attendant, a shrine maiden and a schoolgirl. Naturally JAMIL is bowled over by her beauty.

Check out the PV below

Taiwan Goes Takamina Crazy!

Remember when Mayuyu came to Taiwan recently and the place went nuts for her. The same thing has happened to AKB48’s unofficial leader Takamina when she came for a solo handshake event yesterday. Around 300 fans greeted Takamina as she arrived at the airport. Later on, 1500 fans came to shake hands with her at a bookstore. Some of the fans are really dedicated as some female fans had lined up for 30 hours in order to meet her and a bunch of male fans came with a giant ribbon as Takamina usually wears ribbons in her hair. Taiwan’s official AKB48 shop is doing a roaring trade so the decision to open the shop there has really paid off. An AKB48 Cafe will shortly be opening in October.

Take a look at this clip from a Chinese TV programme showing Takamina’s arrival and the fans that worship her.

Takamina Duet With Tokunaga Hideaki

Check out the video below of Takamina duetting with Tokunaga Hideaki on Fuji TV’s Shin Domoto Kyoudai. They sang “Sekaijuu no Dare yori Kitto”. Whilst Takamina’s performance is great, it’s not quite as epic as Yukirin’s duet a couple of weeks ago which was just out of this world.

Take a look and tell me what you think: