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ANN's Jonathan Carrera Directs New AKB48 Music Video

posted on by Crystalyn Hodgkins
Video shot in 1 day during New York Anime Festival 2009 in September

Not-So-Daily Link of the Day: Jonathan Carrera, Anime News Network's video director, directed the music video for the special American version of the all-girls idol pop group AKB48's newest single, "River." Ken Hoinsky of the translation and localization firm MX Media also worked on the project. The single debuted in Japan at #1 on Oricon's weekly ranking charts during the week of October 19-25.

The Japanese TV show AKB48 Nemousu TV aired Carrera's video and another video by director Mike Fox on Friday, and also aired a behind-the-scenes documentary of the making of the videos. The videos were shot in one day during AKB48's appearance at New York Anime Fest 2009 back in September.

Producer and songwriter Yasushi Akimoto founded AKB48 in 2005 as an idol group that is permanently stationed in Tokyo's Akihabara otaku shopping district, where they perform almost every day. Although AKB48 started out with 48 members, it now has more members due to the addition of "Team Research Students" (Team Kenkyūsei) for new initiates. The full members are split into A, K, and B Teams — named after the three syllables of the "Akiba" nickname for Akihabara.

The group performed theme songs for the Deltora Quest and ICE anime projects. The contemporary artist and occasional anime creator Takashi Murakami illustrated the jacket for the AKB48 idol group's June 24 single, "Namida Surprise!" In return, AKB48 producer Yasushi Akimoto wrote the lyrics for the "First Love" tie-in song for Murakami's "Superflat First Love" anime short. Akimoto collaborated with manga artist Natsuo Kume on the AKB48 Sprout online manga about the members of Team B. AKB sang at the Kōhaku Uta Gassen television event on New Year's Eve 2007, and joined Japanese Prime Minister Tarō Asō for cherry-blossom viewing this part April.

Image © AKS


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