AKB48’s Mukaichi Mion is nominated as the next general director

AKB48 is celebrating their 13th anniversary and Yokoyama Yui (26) announced that she will be nominating the next General Director of AKB48 (the third in the group’s history after Takahashi Minami and Yokoyama) and Mukaichi Mion (20) was nominated and selected as her successor.

Yokoyama announced, “I felt that it is time to plan to pass the baton to the next generation. I think that when I plan to graduate, I wanted to appoint the next general manager and I’ve watched the growth of this person as a child and when I’m ready to leave the group, this person would be strong and ready, so I want to ask Mukaichi Mion to be the next general manager.  The reason is that Mion loves AKB48 a lot and she loves the songs and dances.  I want to pass on what I learned from Takahashi-san and preserve what I inherited”.

Mukai receiving the current general manager’s nomination was in tears saying, “Thank you very much!”.

Mukaichi said, “At the speech of this year’s general election, I told Yokoyama that I would like to be general manager.  I love AKB48, and I cherish this feeling and I swear to everyone that I will try my best to be recognized as a general manager, so please support me”.

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