If AKB were to host a senbatsu election in current time

Now that almost all 48 big names have graduated or announced their graduation (except for Yukirin), what would your realistic predictions be if AKB were to hold an election now? How do you think the pre-election single would do sales-wise? Do you think it'd be another world senbatsu or AKB-only (like NMB did with theirs) event? Let's discuss!

 

I'd put Hitomi at least in the top 5, because this is what the Handshake results are showing, but it can be all or nothing for her, depending on how her fans are interested in such event.
On one hand, they are willing to give a good support as seen with the Showroom senbatsu event
On the other hand they could simply not care at all, just look where the only song in which she is among the original line up ended in RH. Add to the mix that the sousenkyo idea despite strongly inspiring P **** 8 isn't very well percieved in Korean fans.

Other than that I suppose the final result would more or less follow the HS sales. Minus Yukirin and a a few others.

 

Id put Hitomi in as a definite. I dont know exactly what position she would be in but because of her fanbase in korea and overseas, i think they will whale for her.


as for the other members, idk... maybe okabe rin, yuiyui, sakaguchi nagisa, sora(17th gen), kokko(17th gen) and idk who else.

i only put the 17th gens to be overly optimistic. but i know it may not be realistic going on past results.

 

[HIDE]

Spoiler: Cringe

I agree that Honda can't rely too-much on her overseas fans in an election single. gifting Hong Da-Hee an 8 million won bag or boosting her showroom is one thing, actually buying CDs from right-wing producer would be akin to conceding the Dokdo islands.

[/HIDE]

While an AKB48 only election single would not be too much of a stretch, I would like to see something that would be improbable...an all Japan election. Each sister group releasing a separate single as a voting single with a ballot for a single all Japan election. Don't know how/who would release the senbatsu but maybe as an all-JPN48 release. It would make an interesting power ranking for the different groups. but don't know timing the release would work or skew the results. My guess, however, if they would be able to somehow do this in a fair (ok, it doesn't really need to be fair) but it would be funny to see what DH and the other agencies would do if Nakai Rika centered the all-group release, with Gata-nee centering the undergirls. omegalol

Sadly, I'm not confident that NMB48 would even have a senbatsu member in this system. Nagisa and Chihi could end up as undergirls.

Or they could pick the top 3 of each group. anyway, I miss the collabs, we have been teased with a few though recently, mostly among NMB48, HKT48, and STU48. Nobody goes to Niigata

 

...Mukaichi Mion as the only remaining member from last election's Senbatsu would win.
Then you look at the Undergirls, Next Girls & Future girls & there you have your list:
#1 Mukaichi Mion
#2 Nara Miharu
#3 Iwatate Saho
#4 Nishigata Marina
#5 Oguri Yui
#6 Arai Yuki
#7 Sugawara Maya
#8 Fukuoka Seina
#9 Taniguchi Megu
#10 Fuchigami Mai
#11 Sasaki Yukari
#12 Suenaga Oka
#13 Kumazaki Haruka
#14 Kuranoo Narumi
#15 Komiyama Haruka
#16 Kamata Natsuki

Also I could imagine, that Arai Yuki will not rank, as she dropped out of senbatsu, Nara Miharu & Fuchigami Mai loose popularity due to their hiatus & people would still be salty at Nishigata Marina, as they would still accuse her for the Yamaguchi Maho assault, so we would replace them by Murayama Yuiri, Ishida Chiho, Yamauchi Mizuki & Chiba Erii, as those are members who gained a lot of popularity recently.