As I said before, I wasn't a fan when they started. For the first 1-2 years I didn't even bother checking them individually and only treated them as a group.
But there were some really great fansub clips, like the private videos, that had subliminally made me a fan of of some of the girls without even knowing their names.
Also the Music Fighter episode on 2006-11-11. Which I call the most important AKB48 clip on my PC.
MaiMai was cute as hell then. Look at her hooping!
And Miichan showed her crazy dance skills. This "girl 1" and "girl 2" would be the first 2 AKB members I really liked.
Then there was some other girl that had no skills or interests in anything... other than a goal of singing in a concert in Tokyo Dome.
Yeah, right... she's gonna be gone by the end of the week...
She even laughed out of her nose in this pic~ I wonder where she's gone to?
Then in 2007 they had this really cool dance song called Seifuku ga Jama wo Suru. It got me serious with following the group's songs.
Jeez, they were like an army in the dance. A really cool schoolgirl army.
In the PV, there was this super-cute, crazy-innocent, angel-face schoolgirl. Super cute!
So sad seeing her waiting there for a guy that wouldn't come. That guy sucks.
No, I don't remember seeing her looking like this in the making till today. Or guess that she could do a great chicken.
Then in 2008 came TV shows like AKB 1ji 59fun and Nemousu TV. Which started helping me recognize them by name.
Concerts showed up, and the interesting shuffles got me into checking out stage songs more.
So in 2009, I put a lot more effort learning Team K and B (then they went and shuffled 'em...).
I was really suprised how good Team B's 3rd stage songs were. B B B WASSHOI!~
A chain reaction happened:
Shuffle Concert finding
Temo Demo no Namida (Shinoda, MaiMai) < Temo Demo no Namida (Yukirin, Mikacchi)
Infinity
telling Yukirin I love Temo Demo
New residents moved to Yukirin World +1
And the rest is history. in the making.