With the every booming popularity of AKB48, and with upcoming election, a recent 2ch thread points out a shift in the focus on the idol industry, while waxing poetic about last generations great idol group, Morning Musume.  Are you nostalgic about the old days? I certainly am.

The thread starts out with a picture of Goto Maki, aged 13 at the time. Someone then points out: “Love Machine didn’t have a hand shaking ticket, and it sold a million copies”. But alas, someone countered that by point out: “Morning Musume 7th Single, Love Machine, did indeed a special promo and handshaking event” (Source: http://www7a.biglobe.ne.jp/~namiken/repo3.html). Someone else later replies that this was the last time that Morning Musume had such an event.

The thread continues one:

• “How many million-seller songs does Morning Musume have?”
• “The Morning Musume that sang Love Machine is not the Morning Musume we know today.”
• “You can’t really compare past sales with current sales”
• “Is the current Morning Musume selling well?”
• “It would be great if they sold well.”
• “Morning Musume don’t sell CDs, it was records, right?”
• “No way, HKT is way better!”
• “People talking about the old days — how long have you been an idol otaku?!”
• “What’s wrong with having a handshake ticket with a CD?”
• “Heavy Rotation sold over a million digitally. That doesn’t have a handshake ticket.”

Like many internet debates, it quickly falls apart afterwards, and dissipates into nostalgia for the old Morning Musume. I can definitely relate here. I even have nostalgia about the old days of AKB48!

Oddly enough, the thread opens with a picture of Goto Maki when she was 13 years old. Just for kicks, here’s a picture of Maki-chan in her prime!