Last week, AKB48 announced that it’s cancelling its “General Election” for 2019, meaning that for the first time in a decade, fans won’t be offered the chance to vote for their favorite singer from ...

The AKB48 song “365 Days of Paper Airplanes” has served as the theme music of public broadcaster NHK’s morning TV drama Asa ga kita (Morning Has Come) since the program went on the air in fall 2015.

Idol group AKB48 elicits extreme reactions from people. The unit has nurtured a rabid fanbase who are willing to buy multiple copies of a single CD to show their devotion. On the other hand, critics ...