For the past two years AKB48 has asked fans and company staff to submit their own music videos to their newly released singles, and their latest track, “Halloween Night”, is no exception. While the song and official video are fairly typical AKB fare, the fan videos of it are really something to see.
And perhaps the best submitted music video so far belongs to the lovely employees at the Japanese internet advertising firm Cyber Agent. Men and women from every department shake and strut to the AKB Halloween beat, and watching it may cause you to suddenly want to work somewhere else.
First things first, here’s part of the official video to the AKB48 song “Halloween Night” to get an idea of what the fans are dancing to:
Even if you’re not into J-pop, you have to admit that it’s actually pretty good. The girls’ makeup and costumes are fun, and the camera isn’t being shoved right in front of their faces 99 percent of the time like in most of their other videos.
But the salarymen and OLs at the Japanese internet advertising firm Cyber Agent more than give the AKB48 girls a run for their money. Check out the video they submitted to the official AKB48 YouTube channel, with highlights below:
▼ Starting off with the very AKB-esque female members of the Ameba game department.
▼ Followed by the female members of the internet advertising department. But wait, where are the guys?
▼ Ah, there they are! And wearing some spooky Halloween goggles. WooOOOooo!
▼ The costumes continue with the women of the game department dressed up as maids…
▼ And the dudes from the talk application 755 rocking the Waldo look.
▼ Some lovely witches and two, uh, not-witches in the background from the partnered company STRIDE.
▼ Look at those people ignoring a good old-fashioned hoedown going on behind them.
▼ Some “mother employees” who returned from maternity leave dressed up as nuns.
▼ I will buy whatever these women from the Ameba sales department would like to sell me.
▼ The token four foreigners in the company putting in an appearance.
▼ And a final explosion at the end from everyone in the game department. Good job, everyone! Now back to work!
If you haven’t watched the video yet, I highly recommend doing so. There’s so many more departments and people and costumes, it’s really amazing how the whole company was brought together to do this project. The choreography is spot-on, the lip-syncing is great, and not only that but some of the transitions really show that a lot of thought went into editing it all together too.
Of course Japanese netizens had a lot to say about the fan-made video, mostly concerning the physical appearance of Cyber Agent’s employees:
“Wow. Everyone’s so good-looking. Do you have to be hot to work there?”
“It’s not just Cyber Agent. All big companies have good-looking employees.”
“Or maybe they just didn’t let the ugly ones participate in the video?”
“Who cares? All that matters is the ones with the bunny ears are so cute!”
“…I want to work there.”
If you’ve suddenly found yourself a fan of AKB48 or the fan music videos, then check out the official YouTube page. You can watch even more companies make their employees do their best AKB impression, and then maybe even try to persuade your workplace to submit a video of their own!
Source: YouTube/AKB48 via netgeek and Himasoku
Images: YouTube/AKB48
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