NMB48 announces stage debut

NMB48, AKB48's Osaka-based sister group, which made their public debut on 9 October, held a press conference on December 4 announcing their 1st Stage. They will start off on New Year's Day 2011 at the NMB48 Theater, which has been 'Base Yoshimoto' , a theater of the entertainment agency Yoshimoto Kogyo, until December 3.

NMB48's Team N's 1st stage itself will be a remake of Team A's 3rd stage [Dareka no Tame ni], performed back in 2006~2007 and the girls will be performing about 2 hours every day. Dareka no Tame ni has brought quite a number of still popular songs including Bird, ranked 10th at last year's Request Hour ~Setlist Best 100 2010~.

However only 16 members of the currently 25 member NMB48 will make it to Team N. The rest of the members not promoted will continue as NMB48 Kenkyuusei.

Since its public debut in October, NMB48 has made quite a few promotion appearances, for example a promising surprise performance during SKE48's concert tour. Now the girls get their own show and I'm looking forward to see what they make out of it. I'm also curious about who will become part of Team N. Currently all 25 members are still Kenkyuusei but I hope that there will be more information about Team N's line-up before their first show.

It is especially interesting to see who gets the positions for Bird and Rider. As mentioned earlier, Bird is still one of the most popular songs in AKB48 and has been performed at almost all of AKB48's recent concerts. And for Rider, not many people know this but that song is actually a tribute to one of the first AKB48 fans. Back then the group was still small and only had a small bunch of loyal fans. Rider-san was one of those loyal fans. He died one day due to a medical condition. His death hurt both the fellow fans and even the girls in AKB48. You can read more about it here.

Personally, I hope Yamada Nana, Ogasawara Mayu and Oota Riona make it into Team N. I'm especially interested in Mayu because I liked her performance during the surprise appearance in SKE48's concert. I'm looking forward to see more of her.