Giant idol group AKB48 is hard to escape now with all the stuff they’ve got on TV. They’ve just added another show to help with world domination. This one is a little different, though, because it’s a sketch comedy show… but is it funny?
Currently AKB48 has many TV shows dedicated to them. Most are of the variety kind, where the girls are seen doing games for prizes and punishments and the like. Sure, they’ve had short skits as part of these variety shows, and they’ve had the occasional season of dramas which involved the whole group. But there hasn’t been a show quite like this for them. In collaboration with Hikari TV, AKB48 presents their own skit program, Bimyo~.
As a fan I was pretty excited when this was announced. There are a lot of funny girls in AKB48, and it’s really easy to see them acting in funny skits, especially my oshimen(favorite member), Oshima Yuko. This was also a chance to get to see other members who don’t get much screen time on their other TV shows, and from the preview pictures it was looking pretty good. The show is formatted just like any other sketch comedy show, but in between the skits it shows some backstage comments from the girls which I thought were nice. Now, while the skits themselves were pre-recorded, this first episode was presented live by a few members and viewers were able to interact with them through Nico Nico Douga to give their opinions.
The skits were, well… not that funny, at least for the first few. The opening play involved top Senbatsu members including AKB’s ace, Maeda Atsuko, as a fresh member from Sapporo who just joined and is attending dance lessons. Kojima Haruna’s air headedness and Takahashi Minami’s height are made fun of, but Sashihara Rino’s lack of confidence was the main thing they were poking at. Most of the skits are aimed at AKB48’s members or AKB fandom. A second short skit made fun a bit of Itano Tomomi’s solo single debut Dear J. It wasn’t till halfway through until I actually had a laugh; of course it was with Oshima Yuko wearing a bald wig acting as a drunken salaryman.
Minegishi Minami, Yokoyama Yui, and Watanabe Mayu as a trio of Osakan boys cleaning out a chicken pen jabbed at some fandom-related things, where Minegishi states that a fan is a noob if he answers Maeda Atsuko as his oshimen. Yokoyama seemed super comfortable as one of the boys. It may be because she’s a Kyoto native, but seeing her talk in the dialect seemed so natural it was funny. The last skit involved a robber taken in for questioning by the police. The robber wasn’t cracking so the police had to call in the Phermone Deka, played by Kasai Tomomi. And oh my word, no one else in the group could play such an erotic character, ever. Even though Kasai doesn’t like being called ero, she’s got the stuff, and she knows it. The skit’s end actually I thought was the funniest thing of the episode, because it involved the staff.
As I was watching the episode, I thought of Morning Musume’s skits of old from their show Hello! Morning. Those certainly gave me some good laughs, and the loosely scripted feel of it made for easy viewing. Seeing those girls unable to stay in character and laughing at the jokes made it that much funnier. I can see Bimyo~ is heading in that direction. This new show should be a great treat for AKB48 fans; and although not an overly funny first episode, I’m sure it will get funnier as it goes along. Non-fans of AKB48 should probably skip… for now, but if you are a fan of AKB48, this should definitely be on your watch list.
