comic reading circle

Title: Bad Bugs!
Universe: Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, Fortnite
Character(s): Minh Kwan, Tritor
Rating: U
Warnings: N/A
Summary: Athena, she had been told the island was known as, named for the goddess. In the dark, amidst all the structures that the bugs burrowed out and shaped out of the secretions, the island might as well be somewhere far, far away, she thought unhappily.
Length: 861 words
Author's Notes: external link.



( Bad Bugs! )

The Taiwan auditions for AKB48 in 2015 were an amazing thing, giving us both Ma Chia-Ling and laying the groundwork for TPE48. 16 other girls also passed these auditions alongside Macharin, and amongst them was trainee, Lin YuHsin, smiling up at the camera in pictures taken that day, hair pushed behind one ear. In the long wait between the announcement of those auditions, Macharin's transfer to AKB proper, and TPE48 being announced, Lin YuHsin, Reichi to Japanese fans struggling with her name, dropped out—only to return for auditions in 2018 and qualify for TPE48 once more as a trainee just months before the group was rebranded to the modern AKB48 Team TP and the release of their cover of Mae Shika Mukanee.



I've been rooting for TPE48 from the start. I maybe never paid as much attention to them as I should have done, and I wasn't too keen on Abe Maria being away for so long, but, in my mind, success for a Taipei based group might have paved the way for a Hong Kong group, so I really wanted TPE to take off... only they didn't. Between 2015 and the group finally releasing their first single, a lot happened in idol fandom, a lot happened in AKB alone, and, of course, a lot happened in my personal life. Meanwhile, Reichi was there for it all, from those initial auditions to where we are now, the month of oh my pumpkin!'s release.

In 2019, Reichi made it back where she started, "promoted" to the group's first generation, only for something interesting to happen a year later. Team TP has never had defined teams, favouring instead the NGT model, but instead of remaining solely as generations, the group was briefly divided into three units, Daisy, Bellflower, and Sakura, of which Reichi was a member. Each unit released a recorded revival of RESET, Team K's sixth stage before TP had another shake-up in 2022, folding up all three units and dividing anew into Unit T and Unit P, later renamed TIC TAC TOE and Peek a Boo respectively.

Like Liu Yu-ching, former audition finalist and the centre of Mae Shika Mukanee, now a member of Taiwanese group, KIRIS, Reichi and the early members of the group really weathered the storm. I was always resistant to SNH48 because Shanghai was such an unknown quality to me and I was a little intimidated by the sexy image of the group (says former SDN48 fan), but TPE felt the closest to "real" AKB to me, to a group that echoed the sentiments I associated with both AKB48 and Japanese idol music. I'm steering ahead here without going too much off on a tangent on Japan's influence in Taiwan and the terrible history of the 20th century, but it always seemed to me that the management of TPE understood the values of AKB best and were also the closest to providing what wistful fans abroad could not experience without embarking on a three-hour plane journey.

Whilst at work, I was watching a lot of videos of the sister groups over my lunchbreaks before oh my pumpkin! was announced, and I deliberately didn't post about Reichi as I worried that everyone would think I am predictable as she's basically the twin-tail girl. Now the cat is out of the bag, I fear!

It felt like a long journey to get us to where we are now, and all throughout it, Lin YuHsin has been there amidst the senbatsu. I'm really excited to hear what Team TP's solo version of oh my pumpkin! will be like!

Teasers and early performances for the sixty-sixth single, oh my pumpkin!, have been popping up all over the place, including the suggestion of a full Team SH version! I have no idea why a single released in summer and billed as an AKB anniversary project is so seemingly autumnal, but I also won't complain as I'm really excited for the song!

I started thinking about the two Shanghai groups again late last year, having mostly tried to ignore what was happening with SNH48 since they went rogue, and, whilst being a fan of Shen Ying from the successive Team SH, also trying my hardest not to get involved too much with the drama surrounding these groups. However, in order to properly talk about where we are now, we need to at least address some of that since the last time we really spoke of SNH48.



Gui ChuChu debuted as part of Team SH's second generation trainees in August 2019 and was promoted into the generation proper several months later in October with the full debut of her peers. As a group, Team SH was first hinted at in 2017 in a blog post following a year and a half of silence on the matter of SNH48's going rogue and their increasing popularity. In 2018, auditions were held for the first generation, and by December of that year, the first digital single was released, a cover of LOVE TRIP, its video featuring the members sight-seeing in Tokyo, standing outside famous locations, specifically standing outside the AKB theatre as a way of fostering the idea that they were not necessarily just a sister group but an extension of AKB48 itself. It's messy in its clear intent, its attempt to take back ownership of the idea of a mainland Chinese branch of the "AKB franchise" but it is not entirely without appeal. Because the girls being introduced to an audience who are already fans of AKB are framed in the same way as fans—looking up at idols and gathering strength from this—there is a sense that we are one and the same, that Team SH are us.

Into all this, ChuChu and the second generation debuted, Team SH having been sent back to Shanghai to tell everyone that they were "the real AKB sister group in China" whilst never once mentioning SNH48 or commenting on the activities of their predecessors, the promotion for which has grown increasingly risqué. By 2020, weathering the storm of covid, the group's fourth EP, the lead song being a cover of Kaze wa Fuiteiru, was released with ChuChu sharing a Wcentre alongside first generation member, Liu Nian, who, a year later, was suspended and demoted back to trainee status with all the flare of an NGT member, and eventually fired. I tried looking around for details for what happened here, with a lot of AKB sites reluctant to mention it, but apparently it was more to do with career ambitions than the usual business, which... I can understand. It's hard not to eventually become frustrated when your boss is in "another office."

From Kaze wa Fuiteiru, and despite regulations changing in China in terms of the kind of popularity contests that general elections represent, ChuChu has found herself regularly in the senbatsu for Team SH's singles, though her only other time at the forefront of the group until now was another Wcentre, a cover of Ponytail to Shushu alongside third generation member, Qiu DiEr, who debuted in 2020 with her peers. oh my pumpkin! changes that! Realistically, I feel that despite the hype of members of the sister groups being in the senbatsu for the new single, they will no doubt be mostly confined to the back rows, promotion built on the novelty of their inclusion despite only getting one line at best in the song. Not all is lost however! On the same day as the Japanese release debuts, both Team SH and Team TP are releasing versions of the song with their respective members as centre. More on Team TP soon, but it's worth noting that the B side for the SH release is a cover of the recently released NGT single, Otona Ressha, which I bought both versions of but, ah, haven't listened to yet as my CD player broke.

AKB48 Team SH have a weird history, not quite AKB but not entirely a sister group, and yet this latest move with ChuChu in the senbatsu for a proper AKB release seems designed at further building their fanbase in Japan and strengthening their ties. I hope that whatever happens next, we get to see many more of these collaborations!