I've got to confess that I'm a little old-fashioned, and I tend to enjoy concerts that involve the actual production of music. This puts me in a difficult spot when attempting to enjoy AKB48, a complete and unapologetic idol group. (They're totally unescapable in Japan. Their faces seem at times to surround you, like grim harbingers of some Hello Kitty-themed apocalypse.)
I was actually unprepared. Some of the others here are fans, but I'd missed all discussion, and I didn't realize that the "48" in the name referred to the number of members. (Actually 56, I'm told.)
They came out all at once, dressed in uniforms, each one slightly different from the rest. Even their small detachment -- 16, I later found out -- seemed to fill the stage completely. Humans can grasp very small numbers intuitively, but anything after about 7 or so turns into 'many'. Intuition just gives up.
One of the things that I like best about jpop is that they don't dance. This has become increasingly inaccurate in the last few years, but I still cling to it. They, however, danced, and sang, and didn't do very much else, and the sheer number of them made it hard for me to relate to the act.
I guess this means I shouldn't really be writing about them, but hey. "I can't even begin to grasp this genre" is a valid criticism, in a sense, and at least I'm not pretending to offer valuable insight to fans of the genre.
But the fact remains I haven't got much to say about the music. It was fun to listen to, it was bouncy, the Nokia theatre is a nice venue, and they did a good show.