AKB48 Janken Senbatsu Report Book

Better late than never

While look through old posts on this slow Sunday afternoon, it came to my attention that we never did post up last year’s AKB48 Janken Results Report Book. This smaller book serves as an accompaniment to what we deem one of last year’s better purchases, the AKB48 Janken Senbatsu book. While it’s kind of outdated by now, here’s a quick look for the sake of completeness.

As the title suggests, the book covers the results of last year’s Janken Senbatsu tournment whom Uchida Mayumi was crowned the winner. But instead of being a bunch of pictorial interviews with the winners (which is the norm for most AKB48 mooks) the book focuses more on detailing the actual tournament itself.

Cover. In a similar format to the pre-tournament book.

Full body stickers of the girls in their chosen outfits.

All of the images in the book take on the form of a collage of on location shots.

The matching and results.

In photo form.

Akimoto Yasushi explains his eccentrics again.

Features of all the members.

Instead of an interview. The girls write down their feelings from the tournmanent.

Not surprisingly, the senbatsu get more space.

But the losers get their own sections too. In order of elimination.

The Janken Queen gets her own additional section at the back.

End with more (better taken) behind the scenes shots.

And a poster. You got to have a poster.

The remaining members on the flip side.

Now, I know that the very nature of event photography makes for some difficult times but that doesn’t change the fact that this book contains some of the worst photographs in any AKB48 mook, ever. The photos aren’t even in focus half of the time and when they are most are cropped awkwardly.

The 700 yen price tag ain’t too bad either but note that this is the thinnest AKB48 mook I’ve seen so far too. Still, if you want a memento book for the event this is your only option and the the sheer amount of photo coverage inside does excuse its brevity.