AKB48 Members

What is AKB48?

For these who don't know AKB48 :))

AKB48 (short for Akihabara48) is a Japanese Idol Group produced byAkimoto Yasushi. The group has their own theater, located on the eighth floor of theDon Quijote store in Akihabara, Tokyo. The 1st generation members were announced in October, 2005, debuting on December 8, 2005. The debut single of the group, Sakura no Hanabiratachi, was released on February 1, 2006. They are currently signed under King Records, originally from DefSTAR RECORDS/Sony Music Japan.

Introduction

1st - 3rd Generation is what we know as the Original Teams (1st Gen: Team A, 2nd Gen: Team K, 3rd Gen: Team B).

Later on, when more auditions were held, all the future successful candidates would take part of a in-training team of members that would work as sub and under for the official members in various activities (mostly the Theater Performances). And finally, when any of the official members would graduate, a girl would be promoted to fill the space.

This group of girls was called AKB48 SEED. The term was dropped later on and changed to Kenkyuusei Members (Research Students). After more auditions were held and eventually more generations were created, the Kenkyuusei started to perform by themselves in the theater on their own stage.

In 2009 the Team Kenkyuusei was created and the Kenkyuusei Selection was held for the first time. Since then, the Kenkyuusei had more presence in the group, even being part of Senbatsu and appearing on TV shows. After the 2012 Tokyo Dome Team Shuffle, the Kenkyuusei rarely subbed for members of Team A, Team K, and Team B at theater shows any longer. This was because those teams had over 16 members, and since only 16 could perform at once, there was usually a surplus of members to perform. However, until theAKB48 Group Daisokaku Matsuri Team 4 only had 16 members, so whenever a Team 4 member could not perform a Kenkyuusei would fill her place.

Currently three generations (2nd, 6th and 8th) don't have remaining active members. Besides the regular auditions, AKB48 also participates in the AKB48 Group Draft Kaigi to recruit new members. They also had a special audition to recruit Team 8 and two auditions to recruit temporary members (Otona AKB48 and Baito AKB). Team 8, having one member from each prefecture, holds separated auditions everytime a member graduates. AKB48 also has Kennin Members, members from sister groups (SKE48, NMB48 and HKT48) who have a concurrent position in AKB48. Three Team 8 members also have Kennin positions, being members of two teams on the same group.

AKB48 has had 205 original members over 16 generations (not including Draft, Kennin, transferred and temporary members) and a total of 345 members (Plus Draft, Kennin, transferred and temporary members). As of March 2017, AKB48 has 99 members, 7 Kenninmembers, 25 Kenkyuusei.