In a heartfelt moment during the AKB48 20th Year Live Tour 2025 at Nippon Budokan, Atsuko Maeda moved the audience to tears with her emotional tribute to Yasushi Akimoto, the mastermind behind the ...

Both SAKURA and Rina Kawaei have made significant strides since their days with AKB48. SAKURA, who debuted as a member of HKT48 in 2011, quickly rose through the ranks, becoming a center for the group ...

Top Japanese girl band AKB48 have released a single created using AI, after it proved more popular with fans than a rival song written by famed J-pop producer Yasushi Akimoto. As part of a songwriting ...

Bandai Namco Games is bringing the idols from AKB48 to the arcade, but Sailor Zombie: AKB48 Arcade Edition isn’t a run of the mill music game. It’s a light gun shooter where you shoot vaccine bullets ...

Two years ago, around the time the Democratic Party of Japan’s brief spell in power was coming to a close, I met with two colleagues—one a noted political scholar and chancellor of a public university ...

Japan’s 140-member supergroup AKB48 is holding its second annual draft next month, in which sub-teams will choose new members from a draft of 48 young hopefuls. And among the finalists is one of the ...