AKB48 is a Japanese female idol group produced by Yasushi Akimoto.
The group has achieved enormous popularity in Japan. Its eleven latest consecutive singles topped the Oricon Weekly Singles Chart. In 2010 "Beginner" and "Heavy Rotation" placed, respectively, 1st and 2nd in the list of Japan's best selling singles for the year, while in 2011 AKB48 occupied the whole Top 5 of the Oricon Yearly Singles Chart. The band has sold over ten million records. More precisely, with 11,787,000 CD single sales according to Oricon, AKB48 holds the record for most singles sold in Japan by a girl group, formerly held by Morning Musume. On February 1, 2012, Japan will issue a postage stamp in honor of the group. AKB48 is named after
Akihabara (
Akiba for short), the area in
Tokyo where, on the 8th floor of a
Don Quijote store, the band's own theater is located.
Akimoto's idea, later advertised as "idols you can meet", was to create a theater-based
idol group whose fans could see the girls live daily. AKB48 still performs at the theater every day, although, due to great demand, tickets are now distributed only via a lottery.
AKB48 holds the
Guinness World Record for being the world's "largest pop group". Currently, it consists of four teams:
Team A,
Team K, and
Team B with 16 members each and
Team 4 with 11 members, summing up to a total of 59 members as of September 2, 2011. Additionally, there are a number of aspiring members, who are called "
kenkyūsei" ("trainees"). Each team produces a new own concert show each theatrical season.
Another concept, first put into action in 2009, is
general elections in which fans vote to determine the member line-up who will participate in the recording of AKB48's next
single. In the last election, held in June–July 2011, where over a million votes were cast, 40 girls were chosen out of 152 members in AKB48, SKE48, SDN48, and NMB48. In 2010, a new and inventive selection method appeared: the girls competed against each other in a
rock-paper-scissors tournament for being on a single. The second tournament took place on September 20, 2011.
History
2005
On December 8, 2005, the group debuted in the theater with only 20 girls, later known as Team A. A new audition was announced, this audition was held in cooperation with Japanese telecom company NTT DoCoMo. It was the first audition ever where the applicants had to send in their audition video with their mobile phones. 19 of the 11,892 applicants were chosen to join AKB48, but in the end only 18 girls joined the group to become Team K in April 2006.In July 2005, Yasushi Akimoto held an audition for a new theater-based idol girl group. Of the 7,924 girls that applied, 45 passed the first round of auditions, detailed screening of the application documents. Finally, only 24 girls were chosen to be in the group.
2006
In January 2006,
Akimoto let
Mariko Shinoda join the group without passing audition, after she won a popularity vote by fans, although she was working as a waitress at the Theater Cafe after she failed to attend the first audition back then.
AKB48 released its debut single "
Sakura no Hanabiratachi" in February 2006, which made it to #10 on the
Oricon weekly charts and sold 22,011 units in its first week - surprising for a group on an indie label.
On June 7 they release their second indies single "
Skirt, Hirari", and sang their song first time on TV programs,
Music Station and
Music Fighter, on June 9, and on the 17th
Ayako Uemura graduates.From April 1, 2006, Team K begins performances at the theater.
In August 2006, they signed a major label contract with
DefStar Records, a part of
Sony Music Entertainment. Their first single under DefStar Records, "
Aitakatta", was released on October 25, 2006 and got to #12 on the Oricon weekly single charts. "Aitakatta" sold 25,544 copies, during the first 6 weeks charted on Oricon.
In October 2006, a new audition was announced to form Team B, resulting in the arrival of 13 new members in December 2006.
2007
On January 31, 2007, AKB48's fourth single (second on DefStar Records) "
Seifuku ga Jama wo Suru" was released, reaching 7 on Oricon charts. There has been speculation that the PV and lyrics to this song are an allusion to
enjo kōsai—voluntary underage prostitution—though this has not been confirmed.
In April 2007, Team B was added to AKB48's official website; albeit with five fewer members than had originally been announced. This brought the group's numbers down from 53 to 48 - the first time since its creation that the member total reflected the group's name. Members
Yū Imai,
Michiru Hoshino, and
Ayana Takada graduated at roughly the same time during June 2007. However, Takada was the only one of these to appear in the PV to the group's sixth single "
Bingo!", which was released on July 18, 2007.
On December 31, 2007, 43 members of AKB48 appeared on the 58th Annual
Kōhaku Uta Gassen for the first time. They sang as part of the Akihabara performance, with
Leah Dizon and
Shōko Nakagawa following them. They became the largest number of people in a single group to be on stage at one time.
2008
On February 27, 2008, AKB48 released their tenth single, titled "
Sakura no Hanabiratachi 2008". At the time of the release of their debut single "Sakura no Hanabiratachi", there was only Team A in AKB48. This 10th single features ten members from Team A, along with six selected members from Team K, and five selected members from Team B making it the 2008 version. It was planned that people who collected 44 posters of the single CD would be invited to a special event, but this act was suspected as the violation of the
antitrust law and was eventually cancelled by DefStar Records. In August 2008, they moved from DefStar Records of
Sony Music Entertainment to
King Records.
In August 2008,
Ayaka Kikuchi was fired, though she was later rehired through another audition.
On October 22, 2008, the single "
Ōgoe Diamond" was released from newly contracted
King Records on the "You, Be Cool!" label, and finished the first week at number three in the
Oricon charts. It was AKB48's first single that reached top three of the chart.
2009
AKB48 released their 11th single, "
10nen Zakura", on March 4, 2009. The single reached number three on the Oricon charts in the first week and eventually became the first single for them to sell over 100,000 copies on the Oricon charts.
AKB48 Team A became the honour guest for the Japan Expo in Paris between July 2 to 5, 2009, and featured English-lyric version of "
Ōgoe Diamond" first time.
AKB48's 12th single, "
Namida Surprise!", was released on June 24, the single include handshaking event ticket and a voting card (with a serial number) for their next single. "
Namida Surprise!" sold 104,180 copies in the initial week on the Oricon charts.
The 13th single, "
Iiwake Maybe", released on August 26, 2009, surprisingly outsold
SMAP on its first day, taking the 1st place in the Oricon Daily Singles Chart, but eventually ranked 2nd for the week.
2010
AKB48 released their 15th single, "Sakura no Shiori", on February 17, 2010. The single topped the Oricon chart and sold over 300,000 copies in its first week, which is the best record in seven years of Japanese female artists. Their 16th single, "Ponytail to Chouchou", released on May 26, 2010, sold over 400,000 copies in its first day, and over 513,000 copies in its first week, making it AKB48's biggest selling single in its first week. On April 27, 2010, it was announced that AKB48 would be attending and performing in the United States at Anime Expo, the nation's largest anime convention, as official guests of honor. AKB48 performed at a concert on July 1, 2010, at the Nokia Theatre. On 23 October the band represented Japan and performed at the
7th Asia Song Festival, organised by
Korea Foundation for International Culture Exchange, at the
Seoul Olympic Stadium. On October 27, 2010 AKB48's new single "
Beginner" was released. In only the first week, the 18th single sold 826,989 copies making it the highest first week sales for AKB48, as well as highest first week sales ever for a female idol group single. As of February 2011 the single has sold over 1,010,000 copies. At the end of October
Mayu Watanabe appeared on the cover of the December issue of
UP to boy magazine together with
Airi Suzuki from
°C-ute. That was the first
gravure collaboration between
Hello! Project and AKB48. At AKB48's concert at the
Yoyogi National Gymnasium on a Sunday in July 2010, it was announced that Team K member Erena Ono would be graduating from AKB48 to study acting abroad. Erena graduated from AKB48 on September 27, 2010 in a Team K theater performance.
In November 2010, AKB48 performed in
Russia for the first time. A 12-member team gave a concert on November 20 at the Japanese Pop Culture Festival which took place in
Moscow. Also in November 2010, AKB48 performed in the Cool Japan Night in
Singapore as part of the Anime Festival Asia X. This is followed by a 2nd performance also in Singapore at the Singapore Toy Games & Comics Convention.
2011
The first single of the year, named "
Sakura no Ki ni Narō", was released on February 16. Upon the first day of release, AKB48 sold 655,000 copies of their single, beating their previous top record (568,000 copies of "
Beginner"). The single sold 942,479 copies in its first week, AKB48's highest record.
In February, it was announced that
Yūki Kanazawa and Manami Oku would be graduating from the group.
Their third studio album, named
Koko ni Ita Koto (
ここにいたこと?), was announced on 21 February 2011. This is their first original album (as opposed to collections of previously released singles), and it contains 11 new songs that were never released before, including the title track
Koko ni Ita Koto. It was scheduled to be released in
Japan on 6 April 2011.
On March 12, 2011 it was also announced on their blog that the AKB Theater would close due to the
2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, and all public events were cancelled until further notice. Two days later, it was announced on their official blog that their concert
Takamina ni tsuite ikimasu (
たかみなについて行きます?, lit. "(We) will follow Takamina"), scheduled to be held on March 25–27 at
Yokohama Arena, would be cancelled. Bank accounts had been opened to raise donations for earthquake and tsunami relief, as part of their project named "Dareka no Tame ni" (
誰かのために lit. "For someone's sake"?). Under this project, they used the Yokohama Arena for their 2-day charity events starting on 26 March 2011 instead. 12 of their main members attended
Okinawa International Movie Festival on the same day for the same purpose. Three days later, it was announced that
¥500 million will be donated by
AKB48and their sister groups:
SKE48,
SDN48 and
NMB48, and their producer
Yasushi Akimoto to these bank accounts. On the same day, the postponement of the release of their new album,
Koko ni Ita Koto (
ここにいたこと?) was announced. Part of the proceeds from the sales of the album will be donated to the victims of this disaster. It was also announced that the group will hold a
senbatsu election to determine the participating members for their 22nd single. On April 1, they also released a single, "Dareka no Tame ni (What can I do for someone?)" (
誰かのために -What can I do for someone?-?) through the Recochoku website as a digital download, and will donate all profits for earthquake and tsunami relief.
Dareka no Tame ni was originally recorded on a live album released in 2007.
On April 8, Manami Oku graduated after performing at a Team B stage on the same day.
On May 1, a new AKB48 unit named
HKT48 was announced. It will be based in
Fukuoka in
Kyushu, and their theater will be established in the Hawks Town Mall of Fukuoka’s Chuo ward.
AKB48 released their 21st singles album entitled "
Everyday, Kachūsha" on 25 May 2011. On its release day 942,475 copies were sold and 1,333,969 copies in the first week making it the highest first-week single sales record in Japan to that date. Later, on June 7, AKB48 announced a new team titled "Team 4" ahead of their nationwide tour concerts in Japan. The team was formed of ten members, with six more members to be added later to complete the 16-member team.
This also marked 'Team Kenkyuusei' losing the 'Team' from their name.The AKB48 staff blog announced that the trainees Nau Yamaguchi and Sara Ushikobu will leave the group for undisclosed reasons. They will perform their last event as members on June 19.
On June 11, 2011, It was announced at a handshake event that
Aimi Eguchi, a girl who had supposedly auditioned for NMB48, would be joining AKB48 as a trainee. It was later revealed that Aimi Eguchi was not a real person, and had been created to promote the
Glico product Ice no Mi.
Oricon announced on 22 June 2011 that AKB48 had the strongest album sales showing for the first half of 2011 in their sales ranking. They had the only two million-selling singles
Everyday, Kachūsha and "
Sakura no Ki ni Narō", which ranked as the best and second-best selling singles respectively. For the survey period between 27 December 2010 and 20 June 2011, AKB48 garnered
¥6.66 billion in total sales of all their merchandise.
In an announcement made on 28 June 2011, AKB48's producer
Yasushi Akimoto revealed that he will be creating a group to become AKB48's "official rival". The group will be called
Nogizaka46 (
乃木坂46?) and will debut with approximately 20 members.
Yasushi Akimoto revealed that he teamed up with Sony Music Japan to produce this new group, whose auditions for members will start later this year.
AKB48 released their 22nd single, entitled Flying Get (フライングゲット Furaingugetto?), on 24 August 2011. Flying Get sold a total of 1,025,952 copies on its debut day, and sold 1.354 million copies in the first week. Flying Get is the group's 4th single album to sell over a million copies in its debut week. Two trainees, Abe Maria and Iriyama Anna, were added to Team 4 as official members on 23 July 2011. At the same time, the captain of Team 4 was also revealed to be member Oba Mina. AKB48 released their 23rd major single(25th overall),
Kaze wa Fuiteiru on 26 October 2011. The single sold 1,045,937 copies on the first day of release and set a new record for the first day sales of AKB48 singles. They subsequently released their 24th major single
Ue Kara Mariko on 7 December 2011. This single sold 1.199 million copies in the first week after its release.
For the year of 2011,
AKB48 topped 7 of the 16 Oricon's rankings. These rankings includes: Total sales by an artist, Copies sold for a single, Total sales for a single, Total sales by an artist (for singles), Copies sold for a music Blu-ray disc, Total sales for a music Blu-ray disc and Total sales by an artist (for Blu-rays discs). In addition, it was also announced that the group broke the all-time records for the most singles selling over 1 million copies in a year, the best-selling single by a female group and the highest-earning female group.
AKB48 won the 53rd
Japan Record Award for their song
Flying Get.
2012
AKB48 will receive their first television
anime series. This anime series is directed by
Yoshimasa Hiraike, while it is planned and supervised by
AKB48 producer
Yasushi AkimotoThe group will release their 25th single, "GIVE ME FIVE!", on 15 February 2012.
Source : Wikipedia
