TV / Radio OUT OF 48 (2023/04/20 - 2024/03/28)

Officially announced on today's AKB48 Sayonara Mouri-san. A new show will be premiering replacing Sayonara Mouri-san and it will Be Out of 48. Which will premiere on April 20, 2023.

Info:
On 24 April it was learned that OUT OF 48 (Thursdays at 25:29 midnight), a terrestrial programme-linked audition in which current members of AKB48 will also participate, will start on 20 April on NTV.

OUT OF 48 is a programme-linked audition for idol groups starting from scratch, stepping outside the 17-year history of AKB48's high profile, with AKB48 and NTV teaming up.

The group will be produced by Yuki Ichinomiya of blowout Inc. and will make the most of the strengths of AKB48, while aiming for a group with a different 'girly-pop x dance number' image. The new group will be formed by AKB48 members and applicants from the general public.

The audition period is from 25:29 midnight on 23 February to 11:59pm on 19 March: the first stage is a document review, the second stage is online, the third stage is an in-person review in Tokyo, the fourth stage is a dance-singing review, and the final stage is a final review to be held on the programme from April onwards.

Applicants must be women who live in Japan and who are not in a production company, aged between the first year of junior high school and 22 years old as of 19 March 2023.

https://www.akb48.co.jp/lp/outof48/
https://www.ntv.co.jp/outof48/

SNS

• https://twitter.com/outof48
• https://www.instagram.com/outof_48/
• https://www.tiktok.com/@outof_48
• https://www.youtube.com/@outof48/featured

if the video does not show watch the video here

 

It's more than just a variety idol show:

DeepL:
On 24 April it was learned that OUT OF 48 (Thursdays at 25:29 midnight), a terrestrial programme-linked audition in which current members of AKB48 will also participate, will start on 20 April on NTV.

OUT OF 48 is a programme-linked audition for idol groups starting from scratch, stepping outside the 17-year history of AKB48's high profile, with AKB48 and NTV teaming up.

The group will be produced by Yuki Ichinomiya of blowout Inc. and will make the most of the strengths of AKB48, while aiming for a group with a different 'girly-pop x dance number' image. The new group will be formed by AKB48 members and applicants from the general public.

The audition period is from 25:29 midnight on 23 February to 11:59pm on 19 March: the first stage is a document review, the second stage is online, the third stage is an in-person review in Tokyo, the fourth stage is a dance-singing review, and the final stage is a final review to be held on the programme from April onwards.

Applicants must be women who live in Japan and who are not in a production company, aged between the first year of junior high school and 22 years old as of 19 March 2023.

https://www.akb48.co.jp/news/detailpage/185068597
https://encount.press/archives/422220/
https://natalie.mu/music/news/514084
https://mdpr.jp/news/3618047
https://realsound.jp/2023/02/post-1265264.html


Official sns:

• https://twitter.com/outof48
• https://www.instagram.com/outof_48/
• https://www.tiktok.com/@outof_48
• https://www.youtube.com/@outof48/featured

if the video does not show watch the video here

 

I just wonder if the AKB girls who apply for this will leave AKB for good or not. It seems to be a difficult task to acquire just the right amount of popular/unpopular members in order for AKB48 to not take a dive in popularity or for the new group not to fail immediately.

 

It's the part I'm not exactly sure about.
Natalie.mu's article looks clearer
"OUT OF 48" is an audition project in which AKB48, after 17 years of history, teams up with NTV to start their idol career from scratch again.
The aim is to create a group whose image is 'girly-pop x dance numbers' while making the most of AKB48's appeal.

But still it's subject to interpretations.

 

AKB members with people from outside. DH wants to create their Produce 48. What they don't understand is that it wasn't the show's concept that made it popular but the fact that it belonged to K-Pop. For everyone outside of AKB's fandom this will be just another AKB thing. If they think that they can create popular groups with the current members why don't they just create sub-groups or sub-units and push them as if they were something like =LOVE? With other producers, other agencies, other minds. And then AKB could be the Avengers.

Spoiler

Losers will have to get out of 48.

 

I've done some digging about the company involved with this, Blowout Inc. (website: https://blowout.co.jp/) Back in 2021 they were involved in a boyband audition series with ABEMA TV called '14ALL' which resulted in a boy group called VECTALL (source: https://prtimes.jp/main/html/rd/p/000000001.000092355.html). In that PRTIMES article, Blowout is described as 'a digital native music label with the concept of remixing J-POP and K-POP'.

As to what happened to VECTALL, they certainly didn't last long - the Japanese Music Wiki has this in English at https://jpop.fandom.com/wiki/VECTALL:

Reading that, I can't say that I'm filled with much optimism about OUT OF 48.

 

what the...
the yuki/korea thing was supposed to be a joke.
"OK GUYS, We obviously can't compete with k-pop! we've gained so little; lost so much... so, let's put even more energy into something we're obviously terrible at!"

 

Uhm... I'm not sure how to feel about this honestly... I mean maybe once we find out more about it, it will be ok. But from what I know so far, I'm not liking this idea :/ First of all, it does sound like the members would have to quit AKB to be in this new group, and even if they don't, they'll have a kennin and be less active in AKB anyway. and if it's not a temporary thing, it would be even more of a loss to AKB. and people could prefer the other group to become a separate thing etc. Also, this group might get more (and better) promo than AKB...

It's sad because I feel like things were going so well in the past year... I love everything about the last single (HisaLip), management has been giving amazing promo to the 17th gens, we learned more about a lot of members thanks to Sayonara Mouri-san (and I'm so sad that it's going to end), etc. Even getting a 18th gen was exciting, if the girls debuted normally, and received promo like 17th gen, appeared on Sayonara Mouri-san etc. it would have been fun... But now this won't happen, and I feel bad for them going through all the auditions, and now before they even debut, there will be this new project with AKB members and non-idols, and this project might be favored in terms of promo etc. they're kinda sabotaging the 18th gen.

I'm confused what is the point of doing all of this, and after reading what @David61 posted above about that company, their goals, and their group that disbanded after a month, I don't understand why would AKB think that this is a good idea... I doubt that this project could be good for AKB tbh... I would prefer if they did subunits like in the past, no3b, Not Yet, French Kiss... this kind of thing made the group stronger. Kinda like what @Aka said above.

 

That subunit thing that they did in 2020 just before Covid hit was actually one of the better things I thought they did in the past few years, unfortunate that the only groups to get any form of longer term activity were IxR and Honey Harmony while the rest just disappeared after 1 performance; I actually thought that Mion's band had some good potential to be a long term subunit. Would have been nice if they did something like that again and tried to promote them like they did for no3b and the old subunits, give them some longer term activities or stages instead of being a one-and-done thing. Right now there's too many uncertainties surrounding this to tell how successful this will be, and the revelation that the company's previous group only lasted one month is not helping to quell the uneasiness

On another note, they should have given us another variety show if they were planning to cancel Sayonara. There's a dearth of AKB variety shows now, and with Sayonara cancelled we're now left with just Saikin Kiita and Nemousu? Give us more variety shows please

 

Actually HUETONE had performed once in TIF and TinTlip had a performance on MUSIC GATE but they dropped both right when there was a graduation which is such a waste. I agreed that they should continue promoting subunits like this, because of HUETONE I realized how great Missaa is. With the coming of 17th and 18th they surely can fill in the blank space. If they want a Kpop-like unit why don't they just add Hiichan and Yukinee to TinTlip and promote them?

Spoiler

And move SatoMina to a more c unit, her leg aren't long enough for TinTlip

 

just when i started to liking Sayonara Mouri san alot. . i think they should just do a next generation audition and make it a tv show. inviting famous ex members for each episode to give feedbacks and tips. i seriously starting to wait for next episodes of Sayonara Mouri sans weekly. .

 

Management can't even create songs for the AKB itself! 12 songs and 4 MV in a year? GJ! The teaser looks disgustingly cheap!
Kibouteki Refrain has 11 songs and 11 MVs

 

Just with the info we have now looks like very bad decision, they just drop the bomb yesterday and today we have no more explanation of this project. I really want someone from the management come and explain all the terms of this new show, and most important, what is going to happen with the AKB members who will join the new group as a result of this new audition variety show.

 

I wonder if the age limit for auditions applies to members as well?

I'm not sure how this benefits AKB as a group, however the new group ends up going. If they end up doing well then this just means the members could have been utilised in AKB to begin with.

Their hope is that a show like this brings greater attention, but it seems like a big risk when you could lose some potential good members. Even if it is similar to Izone where the members return with a bigger profile, like Hiichan. Sakura ended up graduating, and members like Takahashi Juri saw opportunities outside the group.

 

The show staff according to Realsound's article above:
(If that of any use)

Ueno Hiroyuki, Nakajima Yuichiro, Mouri Shinobu (from NTV), Masuda Shunjiro, Igarashi Kuniyan, Miyamoto Tetsuya (Salavage, the show producing company), Kiyotaka Tokunaga

Also, Blowout is working with Avex, Sony Music, Universal Music, Hakuhodo, Gree, Cyber Agent.

 

Do you remember before it came down to "Saikin kiita?", it was rumored that DH planned to make survival show, in which eliminatees would have to resign from the group, and the project was canceled due to strong protest from members?

This highly likely is the revival of that project. It was mentioned the staff was upset with the cancellation as they thought AKB needed something radical to effectively reboot. The project coming back suggested the executive thought the group seriously needed a radical reboot.

Also, this is a chance for DH to crawl out of Aki P's shadow.

I don't think this will be so bad to participating members. If the project flops, they will just return to AKB. If it miraculously goes well, they have something better than AKB to do.

On the concern over members quitting early, that can easily be solved with fixed long-term contract.

Seeing "girly and dance", my mind went to Newjeans and NiziU but, Hinatazaka could somewhat fit the description as well.

I can't see what is to be badly worried over as DH will again half-assed/stingy on this project thus, it will be yet another flop.

 

They can follow up "OUT OF 48" in a couple years with "BACK TO 48" where the finalists of the original compete to be allowed back into AKB.

 

don't give them anymore "ideas"

 

Oh my, they forgot about Aoki.

 

^
He abandonned eitos when Nao left anyway.