SNH48 have gone rogue from AKB48 and have declared their independence

Glorious contract drama has finally hit J-pop shores, as SNH48 in China has recently basically declared they are independent from AKB48 and that entire brand.

It started when AKB48 announced that SNH48’s management would need changing because SNH48 are violating contracts.

AKB48 official site makes an announcement on 9 June 2016 that AKB48 find it is necessary to adjust AKB48’s Chinese sister group SNH48’s management. AKB48 official site explains it is because SNH48’s local management violates the contract, therefore, at current status, AKB48 have removed all SNH48 related advertisement and banner from the web site. AKB48 official site also announces BEJ48 (Beijing48) and GNZ48 (Guangzhou48) have no relationship with AKB48 group.

AKB48 are basically saying that they will stop promoting SNH48 until they get their shit fixed and stop going rogue, which includes starting up BEJ48 and GNZ48 completely on their own.

SNH48’s rebuttal is basically, “Yeah, we declared independence from you guys, what the FUCK are you gonna do about it?”

SNH48 posts an official statement to response AKB48’s announcement, SNH48 clarifies they are fully independent Chinese local idol group, and a star-making which is based on Internet concept platform, so it does not exist breach-of-contract action, SNH48’s operation will remain unchanged. SNH48 explains while they setup their sister groups BEJ48 and GNZ48 on 20 April 2016, they announced their original music strategy, it means SNH48 is becoming totally original.

Despite the fact that anybody would’ve thought AKB48 and SNH48 were hand-in-hand connected until recently, SNH48 are basically daring them to call their bluff with their claim that they are going independent and there isn’t shit AKB48 can do about it.

Thing is, they might end up being right and I wonder how AKB48 management handles this. In any case, it’s about time we get some contract drama from the J-pop side of things.