19th Single Janken Senbatsu Tournament

Pictures: Grouping the Janken Tuornament
(Pic 1: Togasaki-san / Pic 2: Minegishi Minami / Pic 3: Tournament bracket / Pic 4: final bracket)

General Information

During the 3rd Concert of the 2-DAYS LIVE Show "Surprise wa Arimasen", it was announced by Togasaki-san that the Senbatsu Members for AKB48's 19th Single were going to be selected by a Janken Tournament (AKB48 19thシングル じゃんけん選抜大会, "AKB48 19th Single Janken Senbatsu Taikai" ) to be held at the Nippon Budoukan in September 21st.

Janken (じゃんけん) is the japanese name (and way, since like in most of the countries they have different rules) of the Rock, Scissors and Paper game.

all the 48 Members from AKB48 (minus Ono Erena who announced her graduation some minutes after this announcement) and 4 previously-selected Kenkyusei were randomly shuffled during the concert to decide the order of the matches.

little is known of the way they'll execute the whole tournament yet, but it's already confirmed that the girl that wins the tournament will be center of the single. and then the top 2 will be the 2#, top 4# will be 3# and 4# and so on (what means i'll be just like the Senbatsu Election).

Senbatsu will consist of 16 Members (Top 16) and the rest of the girls will be featured as Undergirls and Theatre Girls (the method in which they'll split the girls hasn't been explained yet)

Drastic Changes

this senbatsu will show an AKB48 never-seen before for sure.

such as one where it's already certain that 6 girls that never made it to senbatsu before (Maeda Ami, Oya Shizuka, Suzuki Mariya, Tanabe Miku, Kobayashi Marina or Nagao Mariya) and those who made it only once and those girls that haven't been part of senbatsu since the Keibetsu Shiteita Aijou times (like Kobayashi Kana, Nito Moeno and Umeda Ayaka) have a really big chance to make it again.

there's also a 75/100 chance that a Kenkyusei member (Kobayashi Marina or Nagao Mariya) will be part of senbatsu, marking it as the second time a Kenkyuusei members would be part of Senbatsu (first time being Komori Mika in Namida Surprise!). and in the case both lost their matches, the winner from their block would be Kobayashi Kana, a member that hasn't been part of senbatsu since 2006 in Keibetsu Shiteita Aijou.

AKB48's ace Maeda Atsuko and Team B's ace Watanabe Mayu are in the same group, meaning there's a large chance that they may go against each other and already confirming that either one of them wont be included in senbatsu for the first time. and that's not all, since there's a 50% chance that both wont make it. (Winner of their group would either be the recently promoted kenkyusei Maeda Ami or Masuda Yuka)

but not only those two were affected, the same thing happens in the 32~36# Group, were either Takahashi Minami or Oshima Yuko won't be part of an a-side for the very first time as well.

Confirmed Changes

• either Minegishi Minami (1st gen member, only wasn't senbatsu in Skirt, Hirari) or Kashiwagi Yuki (this year's senbatsu election 8#, always senbatsu since Baby!Baby!Baby!) won't make it to senbatsu.
• either Umeda Ayaka (Senbatsu in Aitakatta only), Suzuki Mariya (never in Senbatsu before, recently promoted kenkyusei) or Tanabe Miku (never in Senbatsu before) will make it to senbatsu.
• either Takahashi Minami ("the voice of AKB48") or Oshima Yuko (this year's Senbatsu Election 1#) won't make it to senbatsu.
• either Maeda Atsuko ("the face of AKB48") or Watanabe Mayu (Team B's ace. this year's Senbatsu Election 5#) won't make it to senbatsu.
• either Maeda Ami (never in Senbatsu berore, recently promoted kenkyusei), Oya Shizuka (never in Senbatsu berore, recently promoted kenkyusei) or Nito Moeno (Senbatsu for Namida Surprise! only) will make it to senbatsu.
• either Kobayashi Kana (Last Senbatsu was Keibetsu Shiteita Aijou 4 years ago), Kobayashi Marina (never in Senbatsu before, Kenkyusei) or Nagao Mariya (never in Senbatsu before, Kenkyusei) will make it to senbatsu.

Tournament Bracket

( bracket made by ossan@S48 )

color code (upside down): Top 1 / Top 2 / Top 4 / Top 8 / Top 16 (Senbatsu Line) | Top 34 (Undergirls?) | Top 52 (Theatre Girls?)