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My point:
1 - I love how AKB48 pervert the usual image of the idols by adding some more sinister aspects of japanese culture to it, like bullying/suicide, fetishism on underaged girls and Enjo kōsai... Sometimes they production is so on-your-face about all of this it looks more like paroding or mocking it than praising it.
2 - Even with the parody aspects of the way AKB48 portray those sexualized school girls, it still portray sexualized school girls.
3 - Sexism is unbalance of power on a culture, and this is not a mater of opinion. When the perfect girlfriend is naive, submissive, powerless, dumb and kawaii, this is sexist, because it plays with the idea of the girl being some kind of living sex doll without will of her own. If you are not able to work as a idol if you are not virgin or if you are married (because u should care of your children), this is sexist. Period.
4 - The girls are just kawaii puppets used by Akimoto to send HIS message and make HIM richer. It doesn't matter if people get attached to any of them, they are disposable and the new ones will be (constructed to be) as loved as the past ones.
5 - Chibi-chan's point about the girls having no message to convey was about their lack of creative envolviment with all the process. This doesn't mean they don't work hard, just that they don't put any though on the whole project.
6 - Nobody I can remember represented the whole sexism on the idol industry as well as miss Ayumi Hamasaki on the alterna and Sparkle PVs. The first one showing how the industry turns some girls into living robots luring them with her own dreams, the other showing how behind all those cute virgin-like kawaii idols there's a sexually repressed woman.
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