AKB48 is an all-female Japanese theater/idol group. As of April 2025, AKB48 has 36 members and 8 Kenkyuusei. Unlike other idol groups in Japan, AKB48 are theatre-based and have their own theatre in Akihabara, Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan where they perform once every weekday, and twice on both Saturday and Sunday. The theatre is set up on the 8th floor of Don Quixote. In December 2005, the group debuted in the theatre with only 20 girls, later known as Team A.
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AKB48 is an all-female Japanese theater/idol group. As of April 2025, AKB48 has 36 members and 8 Kenkyuusei. Unlike other idol groups in Japan, AKB48 are theatre-based and have their own theatre in Akihabara, Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan where they perform once every weekday, and twice on both Saturday and Sunday. The theatre is set up on the 8th floor of Don Quixote. In December 2005, the group debuted in the theatre 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. Their debut single dropped in February 2006, which made it to #10 on Oricon charts and sold 22,011 units in its first week. By far, all title songs released as a single has been made a tie-up song for a tv show, a movie or for a commercial. On December 31, 2007, 46 members of AKB48 appeared on the 58th Annual Kohaku Uta Gassen for the first time. They sang as part of the Akihabara performance, they became the most number of people in a single group to be on stage at one time. AKB48's 13th single '10年桜' (Junen Sakura) which was released on March 04 2009, made into number three of Oricon chart in the first week, becoming the first single for AKB48 to sell over 100,000 copies. AKB48's latest single 'ポニーテールとシュシュ' (Ponytail and Chou Chou or Ponytail to Shushu) was first on Oricon weekly singles sales and has sold over 600,000 copies so far. AKB48 has several spin-off groups, including DiVA, ノースリーブス (No Sleeves), 渡り廊下走り隊 7 (Watarirouka Hashiritai 7), Not yet and フレンチ・キス (French Kiss). AKB48 also have "temporary" spin-off groups, including AKBアイドリング!!! (AKBIdolling!!!), Queen & Elizabeth and ナットウエンジェル (Nattou Angels). Besides AKB48 in Tokyo, there are many sister groups in Japan and other countries. In Japan, the groups are SKE48 (Nagoya), NMB48 (Osaka), HKT48 (Fukuoka), NGT48 (Niigata), and STU48 (Setouchi area). Outside Japan, the active groups are JKT48 (Indonesia), BNK48 and CGM48 (Thailand), MNL48 (Philippines), AKB48 Team SH (China), AKB48 Team TP (Taiwan), and KLP48 (Malaysia). Former sister groups include SDN48 (disbanded in 2012), SNH48 (left AKB48 Group in 2016), TPE48 (cancelled in 2018; after AKB48 Team TP), DEL48 (disbanded in 2020), MUB48 (failed to plan), and SGO48 (disbanded in 2021). There are also rival groups known as the Sakamichi Series. These include Nogizaka46, Sakurazaka46 (formerly known as Keyakizaka46), Hinatazaka46, and Yoshimotozaka46.
