>Yasushi Akimoto, the producer of Japanese idol phenomenon AKB48, sits down with ‘Talk Asia’ this week for an in-depth interview.
Yasushi Akimoto: None of the girls have strong personalities, but once they get together, they bring about chemical reactions. In other words, all the girls are quite ordinary but when they get together, and each one comes into the picture, you can see their charm.  So, I thought that’s interesting.
Yasushi Akimoto: Unless I take up the issues the girls are facing, as a songwriter, the issues won’t get addressed. There are kids out there who want to take off their school uniforms and misbehave, and I am depicting realities in their lives in which they wonder whether it’s ok to think that way. I’m not forcing them. I’m picturing their private lives partly based on my imagination or newspaper articles or TV news.  I watch what their generation is doing, the issues of bullying, suicides and sugar-daddy traps and turning them to my song themes.