message and as insulting to Agron. Some commentators, including The Japan Times, were particularly critical that Akimoto, who at the time was involved in organising the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, would be allowed to represent the nation to the world. Akimoto said that he did not intend to spread discrimination and/or sexual harassment in the lyrics. The full version music video from this song was not released on YouTube by force of contract with the label. The song also received criticism for referring to actress Dianna Agron as empty-headed. Korean group BTS severed ties with Akimoto in 2018 because of the song, not releasing the song "Bird" from their Japanese EP "Fake Love / Airplane Pt.2" (originally "Bird / Fake Love / Airplane Pt. 2") after "Einstein yori Dianna Agron" resurfaced; Akimoto reportedly wrote the lyrics of "Bird". In their paper "Manufacturing Identity: Femininity, Discourse and Representation in Japanese Popular Music" (as published as chapter ten of Music in the Making of Modern Japan: Essays on Reception, Transformation and Cultural Flows), Ayako Ōtomo and Aya Satō noted that while Japanese idol groups had originated as a form of modernization, the HKT48 group was an example of persistent social conservatism, which they said "Einstein yori Dianna Agron" exemplified; they wrote that the song "functions as an externally imposed deformation of female identity, even as Japanese society is, in many ways, attempting to move past such hidebound conservatism." They also wrote that Agron and her Glee character, mentioned and depicted as kawaii in the song, are not representative of each other, and that Agron, in fact, represents a Western modernity that in the song "[has] been sidestepped and turned into a justification for sexism". The essay notes that the target audience for such songs is young men who are attracted to a conservative view of family and so prefer to see young women depicted both as youthfully innocent and as the ideal wife, something about which the Western girl group format allowed them to become fanatics. Selected Members (Senbatsu) Track list References 2016 singles 2016 songs Japanese-language songs Oricon Weekly number-one singles Billboard Japan Hot 100 number-one singles HKT48 songs Songs with lyrics by Yasushi Akimoto