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AKB48 Spawns NGT48 Sister Idol Group in Niigata
posted on by Egan Loo
The female idol group AKB48 will spawn NGT48, a new sister group based in Niigata Prefecture. A video at the evening session of the "AKB48 Request Hour Set List Best 1035 2015" event made the annoucement at Tokyo Dome City Hall on Sunday.
Auditions for the first generation of NGT48 members will begin in March. A new theater will debut along with the new group on October 1.
NGT48 will be the fifth domestic group in the AKB48 franchise. AKB48 itself debuted in Tokyo's Akihabara district in December 2005, followed by SKE48 in Nagoya's Sakae in October 2008, NMB48 in Osaka's Namba in January 2011, and HKT48 in Fukuoka's Hakata March 2012. Outside Japan, there are JKT48 in Indonesia's Jakarta and SNH48 in China's Shanghai. There is also the "rival" group Nogizaka46.
AKB48 Request Hour is the regular event for which fans vote for the top songs from the entire catalogs of AKB48 and their sister groups. About 14,000 fans attended the event over the course of five days from January 21 to January 25. "Graduated" former members Atsuko Maeda and Yuko Oshima made surprise appearances on the fifth day.
Below is the annoucement video for the upcoming 2nd AKB48 Group Draft Gathering:
Source: Oricon Style via Hachima Kikō, Mainich Shimbun's Mantan Web
