IDOL | AKB48's 7th Sousenkyo Senbatsu Elections 2015

Hi there everyone! How have you all been? 

It's that time of year again, where many people around the world have been voting for something, whether its the British Government Election or Eurovision, this month has been filled with voting! 

Although I wasn't able to vote in the UK Gov Election due to me being born a few months too late (It's still frustrating that I have to wait another 5 years to make a vote on something I know about NOW), AKB48's 41st Single Senbatsu Sousenkyo Elections is something I can vote for now!

For those of you who don't know what the heck I'm going on about, The AKB48 Sousenkyo Elections is an annual event that happens in June, where the fans get the chance to vote for who they want to be in the next AKB single (as opposed to management deciding on who will be in the single). All 48 Groups (AKB48, SKE48, NMB48, HKT48, SNH48 and NGT48) members are eligible.

You're all probably even more confused now, so I'll go into a little more detail.

AKB48 is the main group, and most popular of the 48GROUP franchise, since it was the first group to be made. Each AKB single features 16-20 main girls called Senbatsu*. Because there are so many members in the 48group franchise (Over 250 members, I'm not kidding!), it's extremely hard to see every girl.

The Sousenkyo Election Single includes FIVE groups of 16 members, similar to a typical AKB single. That means that there are 80 spots to fight for in the sousenkyo elections. That's right, 80 POSITIONS! Each group has it's own name //Senbatsu (1-16), Under Girls (17-32), Next Girls (33-48), Future Girls (49-64), and Upcoming Girls (65-80)//, and each girl gets put into the teams according to their rank. The higher the girl ranks, the better her position in the single.

There are many reasons why this event is so important to the members, management and fans. For the Members of the groups, Ranking in a good position (or at all) shows them that they have supporters that are happy with their work as an Idol, and allows them to receive even more work which will help them in the future. For Management, it's a way of seeing which member is the most popular, which member they should push* more, and which member is the best money maker. For fans, it's simply to support their favorite members and help her rank in.

Of course, although there are 64 more positions than a usual AKB48 single, there are many members who still wont rank in. In this years election, there are 272 members eligible to vote for, meaning more than 100 of them wont rank. Of course, fans don't want their girl to be part of the batch that doesn't rank, so they do the best they can to vote.

Before the actual event, AKB hold a "Festival" where every group performs, before going onto the main Election event. Here is a little video from the event in 2013, it shows a few clips of the songs and the best moments in the 2013 election!

I hope this long explanation helped you understand the elections more!

If you remember my post last year, I voted for Yamamoto Sayaka for the last three years. This year however, I'll be voting much differently.

I usually have 10 votes each year and decide to vote for my favorite girl. This year however, I wanted to support many girls that I like. As you all know, Shimazaki Haruka (Paruru) is my AKB48 oshi, and Yamamoto Sayaka (Sayanee) is my NMB48 oshi. These two girls ranked into Kami 7* last year, and there is a high chance of them being there again this year, so although they're my favorite members, I won't be giving them as many votes as usual.

Although I like many girls from the 48groups, I only follow AKB48 and NMB48, so my 10 votes will only go to them.

 
Casting my votes for Yamamoto Sayaka (Left) and Shimazaki Haruka (Right) 

There are a few other girls who I would like to support this year, so these are the members I voted for, and how many votes I gave each of them!

Yamamoto Sayaka (NMB/AKB) and Shimazaki Haruka (AKB) will get 3 votes each from me.

Shiroma Miru (NMB), Watanabe Miyuki (NMB), Shibuya Nagisa (NMB), and Kato Yuuka (NMB) will also get 1 vote each from me.

I also held an event for a member called Tano Yuka (AKB) who is my 3rd favorite member of the 48groups behind Sayanee and Paruru, but unlike those two members, she isn't part of Kami 7, or Senbatsu, or even Undergirls. This event was to get as many votes as possible to give to her, so we ended up collecting 11 votes for her!

No one can truly predict the outcome of each Sousenkyo Election event, every year is filled with shock, so I hope that this year, my favorite members do well!

Click here to vote for your favorite member!

Click here to see how to vote!

A lot of people might think "Why do they spend so much money this event?" and to be honest, I could give them a lot of reasons, but non of those reasons would satisfy them. Why do One Direction fans spend so much money on 5 random English guys? Why to beauty bloggers spend so much money on Makeup? Why do football fans invest so much time into the sport? You'll only get one reason for it, It makes them happy, and if something like this makes fans happy, it's okay, right?

It might be a naive way of thinking, but I'll go with that.

That's it from me! I hope you enjoyed this post. This is something that I'm quiet passionate about. I love Idols just as much as I love Makeup, Anime, Gaming and Dancing, so I'm happy I could share it with you all!

Readers, What do you think of the AKB48 Elections? Was it too weird to understand? Did you like the idea of it? Leave a comment below!

And Wota! Who will you vote for?! Are you going to vote at all? Who do you think will win? Do you think Yukirin fans can snatch the top spot from Sasshi and Mayuyu? Leave a comment behind too!

*Senbatsu - A term used by the 48 Groups and fans to refer to the members selected to be featured in the A-side of a single, performance, and theater stage.

Push - When members receive a "push" from Management, they're promoted a lot in singles, events, and tv shows more than other members for a significant amount of time. 

Kami 7 - The term Kami7 (God 7) describes the 7 most popular members among all 48-groups. Fans use the rankings of the Senbatsu Sousenkyo each year to determine the Kami7 of that year.

This years election will be held at the Fukuoka Dome on June 6th. Send me a message closer to the date if you would like to watch the event! You don't want to miss it!