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During their hand shake event in Tokyo on July 3rd, AKB48 announced and confirmed that they will be having their ‘24th Single Senbatsu Janken (Rock, Paper, Scissors) Tournament‘ in September. This will be the second year in a row that they will be choosing their ’senbatsu’ members for their new single, which is due to be released in December. The event will take place on September 20th at the Nippon Bukoukan once again.
Last month, AKB48 held their ‘3rd AKB48 Senbatsu Election‘ which made headlines and brought much attention to their group in Japan. Now they will be putting their luck to the test by choosing their senbatsu members through a tournament of the game Rock, Paper, Scissors. Last time, the tournament chose the top 16 girls for the senbatsu team from a pool of the 47 members of AKB48 and its 4 research students, but this year SKE48 and NMB48 will be included well. They will choose 5 qualifying members from SKE48 and NMB48 prior to the September 20th event and those top 5 members will be announced on their respective official websites at a later date.
Last year’s winner of the tournament was Uchida Mayumi who, until last year, had no experience being on the senbatsu team. Kojima Haruna and Maeda Atsuko, both regulars to the senbatsu team, were 3rd and 15th place making the top 16. However other familiar faces to the senbatsu team, Takahashi Minami, Itano Tomomi, Oshima Yuko, Shinoda Mariko, Watanabe Mayu, and Kashiwagi Yuki, did not make it to the top 16. With last year’s tournament being a chance for new stars to be born, it appears that this year we may see a new face in the center position for AKB48’s 24th single.
Along with the announcement of their Janken Tournament for the 24th single, AKB48 has also announced that they will be releasing their 23rd single sometime in October. The title is still yet to be determined.
Source & Photos: ORICON