Alright, so I watched the livestream on Saturday, so I'll post my thoughts. First, it's annoying how the official TV stream changes from SkyBS to Fuji. Fuji is terrible, thankfully there was that Chinese stream which was a lot more like the SkyBS stream.
Usual thoughts on the entrances - who the hell are all these members?
As expected, Nyan Nyan KAMEN stole the show. From not appearing at the member line-up at the start, to her crazy appearance with Yuko as well, both dressed as crazy characters. Shame she took of the mask and admitted to being Kojima Haruna though. And the long awaited graduation announcement.
Myao ranked really low despite management's hype. Never expected her to rank as high as they reckoned, but surprised how low. I like the recent Myao push. I've always liked her and she looks cute.
Didn't realise Sato Sumire-chan was participating this year, she seemed just generally happy and looked great!
Takeuchi Mai (if it was her, I can't remember fully) fell over, that was funny.
Didn't like Jiina's whole act.
Haruppi looked great throughout the whole event - she was so happy cheering for all her teammates when they ranked in. And she got a lot higher than I expected.
Obviously a little disappointed at Mayu coming 2nd, but apparently (I'd completely forgotten) she only got 3rd last year, and the gap between her and #1 was very big. She seemed nervous throughout the whole event but she took it really well and her speech was good - you can read a translation here:
https://twitter.com/na_fushigiyaro/status/744234209884004352 She thanked the overseas fans, which was nice, and generally seemed to be happy, despite the disappointment. She's got better at this whole election thing over the years, imo. Nice that she spoke about how AKB is in trouble nowadays. Strange to see it recognised by such a prominent member on such a big stage where everyone will hear it. She also tweeted fairly soon after the event, which is an improvement for her.
(Sorry to mostly talk about Mayu, that's just where my focus is, especially these days when I don't follow the AKB Group like I used to.)