Meet AKB48: Pop, sex and schoolgirl schtick make for Abuse

AKB48 is an all female "singing" group from Japan created by record producer Yasushi Akimoto almost 10 years ago with their headquarters located in the Akihabara district of Tokyo.   The music produced and performed by them is completely forgettable.  With the core audience being mostly middle aged men.

Why is their core audience mostly middle aged men?  Just look at the costumes they perform in and the sexual innuendo that comes with it.  Like all Japanese performers they are owned by the talent agency which they are signed to. Every aspect of their lives is controlled by their manager nothing is left chance.

In February of 2013 a video was posted to the AKB48 Youtube channel in the video former member Minami Minegishi is pictured crying and with a shaved head apologising not only to other members of the group but their fans as well.  Her transgression:   Having a boyfriend and being  caught by the tabloid press which published pictures of the couple.

Thousands in Japan watched the just-buzzed Minami deliver her tearful apology, and on Twitter the video promptly took up five trending-topic spaces. Many were shocked by what she had done to herself, while others believed the punishment was just and were surprised by what she had done. It quickly morphed into the country's first big entertainment scandal of the year, but Minegishi's painful-to-watch apology is much more than tabloid fodder: Her situation highlights the more disturbing aspects of the Japanese entertainment industry, and also on a growing gender problem in Japan.
One of AKB48's rules—and one found in a lot of Japanese music—is that its members must uphold a pure image. 

Eri Takamatsu was a trainee member of AKB48 until her resignation in 2010 following her departure she ventured into Japanese AV performing as Risa Tachibana as part of the dvd set released for her AV debut is an interview in which she describes being forced to have sex with an older man from the entertainment industry.  What shes really describing is being raped.

Speaking as Tachibana, she explains her motivations for appearing in the film in an interview contained on the 180-minute disc. “I do not have any positive memories regarding sex,” she says. “If I can become comfortable with sex it may change my views of men. My personality of turning my back (to people) may also change a little.”
Her negative views of intimacy and men go back to her first encounter. At the age of 17, a course of events led her to be taken to a love hotel by an older acquaintance she really did not know or care for. “He forced himself on me violently,” she says.

Today, ABK48 are an institution, commanding the nation’s attention for weeks during the lead up to an annual live “election” at Tokyo’s Nippon Budokan concert hall to elect the most popular members. The public can only vote by buying a copy of the group’s latest single – priced ¥1,200 yen (£6.90) – and some have been reported buying dozens of copies. The election is broadcast live on national television, complete with polling updates and expert analysis. 

But all that success is steeped in controversy. There is the group’s flirtation with underage sexual imagery and themes. In “My School Uniform Is Getting in the Way,” the girls sing: “I want to take off my school uniform, I want to misbehave, you can do whatever you like, I want to experience adult pleasure.”

In an interview with CNN in 2012, the producer defended charges of sexual exploitation, saying he was depicting the realities of teenage life in his lyrics  and images.

“I’m not forcing them. I’m picturing their private lives, partly based on my imagination or newspaper articles or television news. I watch what their generation is doing.”