AKB48 Announces Formation of “Team 4(チーム4)″

AKB48 announced the creation of its 4th team. 10 of the group’s research students have been promoted to the newly launched “Team 4,” with 6 more available spots to be filled in the future.

So far, AKB48 and its related groups have roughly followed a structure of having three 16-member teams (for a total of 48 main members) and a pool of “research students,” though the actual number of members assigned to a team has fluctuated with graduations and promotions.

AKB48 originally started just with Team A and later added Teams K and B. Naturally, they are continuing the naming scheme with Team 4, though it is unknown whether there are plans to eventually add a Team 8.

According to the announcement, Team 4′s first 10 members are:
Ichikawa Miori(市川美織)
Oba Mina(大場美奈)
Shimazaki Haruka(島崎遥香)
Shimada Haruka(島田晴香)
Takeuchi Miyu(竹内美宥)
Nagao Mariya(永尾まりや)
Nakamata Shiori(仲俣汐里)
Nakamura Mariko(中村麻里子)
Mori Anna(森杏奈)
Yamauchi Suzuran(山内鈴蘭)

For now, the remaining 6 positions will be support positions, filled in by other research students (currently up to the 12th generation) during Team 4′s stage performances.

The AKB48 blog has also announced details of the group’s upcoming nationwide tour, scheduled from August 1 to August 31. Team 4 has been assigned two of the tour dates, on August 2 in Kagoshima and August 8 in Tottori.



Source: tokyograph.com