refers to a Japanese idol group franchise that began with
Nogizaka46, an "official" rival group of
AKB48
AKB48 (pronounced ''A.K.B. Forty-Eight'') is a Japanese idol musical girl group named after the Akihabara area in Tokyo, where the group's theater is located. AKB48 has sold more records than any other female musical act in Japanese history. AK ...
. It currently consists of four groups: Nogizaka46,
Sakurazaka46,
Hinatazaka46, and
Yoshimotozaka46. Despite the name, the groups are not required to have exactly 46 members. Except for Yoshimotozaka46, all the groups were named after real streets in
Minato, Tokyo
is a Special wards of Tokyo, special ward of Tokyo, Japan. It is also called Minato City in English.
Minato was formed in 1947 as a merger of Akasaka, Tokyo, Akasaka, Azabu and Shiba, Tokyo, Shiba wards following Tokyo City's Local Autonomy Ac ...
and have all-female memberships.
History
The first group, Nogizaka46, was formed on August 22, 2011 with 36 members and released their debut single "
Guruguru Curtain" on February 22, 2012.
The second group, and Nogizaka46's first sister group,
Keyakizaka46, was created on August 21, 2015 with 22 members. It was initially named Toriizaka46 before it was changed for unspecified reasons.
They released their first single "
Silent Majority" on April 6, 2016. A subgroup named Hiragana Keyakizaka46 was created shortly after with 12 members.
On February 21, 2018,
Yoshimotozaka46 was announced as the third group in the franchise and 46 members passed the final audition on August 20. Unlike the other groups, it has both male and female members of various ages and most members are comedians affiliated with the
Osaka
is a Cities designated by government ordinance of Japan, designated city in the Kansai region of Honshu in Japan. It is the capital of and most populous city in Osaka Prefecture, and the List of cities in Japan, third-most populous city in J ...
-based talent agency
Yoshimoto Kogyo, which also manages the idol group
NMB48 and the
Produce 101 Japan group
JO1. They released their first single, "
Nakasete Kure yo", on December 26, 2018.
On February 11, 2019, Hiragana Keyakizaka46 became independent and changed its name to
Hinatazaka46, thus becoming the fourth group in the franchise. They released their debut single, "
Kyun", on March 27, 2019. On July 16, 2020, it was announced that Keyakizaka46 would also be rebranded into Sakurazaka46,
which came into effect on October 14.
In the summer of 2018, a joint Sakamichi Audition was held for the all-female groups and 36 of those who auditioned were accepted. Of the 36, 21 were immediately accepted into either Nogizaka46 (11), Keyakizaka46 (9), and Hiragana Keyakizaka46 (1), while the remaining fifteen were grouped as the trainee group in 2019.
One trainee dropped out and the fourteen remaining ones were assigned to the three groups on February 16, 2020, with five going to Nogizaka46, six going to Sakurazaka46, and three going to Hinatazaka46.
In 2021, members of Nogizaka46, Sakurazaka46, and Hinatazaka46 co-starred in a television series for the first time in the mystery drama , based on the novel of the same title by
Tetsuya Honda. ''Cinemas Plus'' positively commented on its production values and the members' performances, and highly recommended the drama even for non-fans of the Sakamichi Series.
The three groups would collaborate again in its 2023 sequel, ''Actress''.
Current groups
Parodies
*
WACK debuted a one-off shuffle unit named consisting of every idol under the company at the time, they released the single, , on June 16, 2021.
References
{{reflist
Musical collectives