is a Japanese

variety show Variety show, also known as variety arts or variety entertainment, is entertainment made up of a variety of acts including musical performances, sketch comedy, magic, acrobatics, juggling, and ventriloquism. It is normally introduced by a com ...

starring

Japanese idol An is a type of entertainer marketed for image, attractiveness, and personality in Japanese pop culture. Idols are primarily singers with training in acting, dancing, and modeling. Idols are commercialized through merchandise and endorsements ...

girl group A girl group is a music act featuring several female singers who generally harmonize together. The term "girl group" is also used in a narrower sense in the United States to denote the wave of American female pop music singing groups, many of who ...

AKB48 AKB48 (pronounced ''A.K.B. Forty-Eight'') is a Japanese idol girl group named after the Akihabara (''Akiba'' for short) area in Tokyo, where the group's theater is located. AKB48's producer, Yasushi Akimoto, wanted to form a girl group with it ...

, airing weekly on

Nippon TV JOAX-DTV (channel 4), branded as , is the flagship station of the Nippon News Network and the Nippon Television Network System, owned-and-operated by the which is a subsidiary of the certified broadcasting holding company , itself a listed ...

since April 8, 2022. It is hosted by the comedy duo Shimofuri Myojo and also features former AKB48 member

Minami Minegishi is a Japanese singer and actress, represented by Production Ogi. She was a member of the Japanese idol girl group AKB48, and its subunit no3b. She is noted for having the longest tenure among the group's original members from 2005 to 2021. Ca ...

as a regular. It is the

spiritual successor A spiritual successor (sometimes called a spiritual sequel) is a product or fictional work that is similar to, or directly inspired by, another previous work, but (unlike a traditional prequel or sequel) does not explicitly continue the product l ...

to '' AKBingo!'', which ran on the same network from 2008 to 2019.

History

In March 2022, it was announced that a new AKB48 variety show would start airing in April, two and a half years after the cancellation of '' AKBingo!'' The show was titled in honor of producer , who had produced the ''Bingo!'' series and other idol variety shows for 13 years. It would be staffed by a new production team in order to "update the show for the

Reiwa is the current era of Japan's official calendar. It began on 1 May 2019, the day on which Emperor Akihito's elder son, Naruhito, ascended the throne as the 126th Emperor of Japan. The day before, Emperor Akihito abdicated the Chrysanthem ...

era"; director Fumihiko Nakamura stated that the key point was "how much they can show something new without betraying the universal image of idols".

, former AKB48 member and ''AKBingo!'' regular cast, would also appear as a regular in the show to "help out". The show's launch was commemorated with the "AKBINGO! THE FINAL Sayonara Mōri-san" concert at the Pia Arena MM in

Yokohama is the second-largest city in Japan by population and the most populous municipality of Japan. It is the capital city and the most populous city in Kanagawa Prefecture, with a 2020 population of 3.8 million. It lies on Tokyo Bay, south of ...

on April 3. The event also included a farewell ceremony for

Miho Miyazaki is a Japanese singer, actress and former member of the idol girl group AKB48 where she was active in Team A. She also participated in the Korean-Japanese show Produce 48. Biography In 2007, Miyazaki passed an audition for AKB48 and became a ke ...

Rena Kato is a Japanese tarento, model, and actress. She is a former member of the Japanese female idol group AKB48, and was in Team A. She was also a member, along with her good friends Anna Iriyama and Rina Kawaei, of a one-shot AKB48 subunit named An ...

, and Anna Iriyama, who had recently left or were about to leave AKB48, and was also to celebrate the eighth anniversary of AKB48 Team 8. In addition, the members participated in a series of games and talent shows to appeal to become the show's "center"; Maho Ōmori won the position by audience vote.

Reception

Idol journalist Yutaka Sato praised the "good chemistry" between Shimofuri Myojo and the group members on the first few episodes, and commented that the show would please long-time fans, particularly noting the embarrassing revelations about the members in episode 2 which were reminiscent of the old AKB48 variety shows.

References

External links

* {{AKB48 AKB48 Japanese variety television shows 2022 Japanese television series debuts Nippon TV original programming