Atsuko Maeda, Flower, Young Magazine

 

Japanese pop group AKB48′s member Atsuko Maeda is featured on recent issue of Young Magazine. Maeda – arguably the most popular girl among the 48 members – has released her first solo single, Flower, which topped the Oricon chart in its debut week. Check out the music video (just an ok song imo) and magazine images…

From Wikipedia

Atsuko Maeda (前田 敦子 Maeda Atsuko?, born July 10, 1991 in Ichikawa, Chiba) is a member of the Japanese idol group AKB48. She is in Team A and is one of the most prominent members in the group, being voted number one in the 2009 and 2011 Senbatsu Election. However in the 2010 Senbatsu Election, she lost to fellow member Yuko Oshima who was the lead for their 17th Single: Heavy Rotation. She is part of the "Senbatsu" group in the most recent singles.

AKB48 released "Aitakatta" on the major label Defstar Records. Before this release, two singles were released as independent records. For this song, 20 members were selected from the 36 members of Team A & Team K. Maeda was one of these selected members, and she performed a leading role in the promotional video of this song. She has appeared at the front of every single since. The group's 12th single, "Namida Surprise", included voting tickets for the 2009 AKB48 Senbatsu Elections where fans can vote for who will be featured in the next single. Maeda won with 4630 votes, becoming AKB48's most popular member and frontgirl for their 13th single, "Iiwake Maybe". However in 2010, another election was held and Maeda lost to Yuko Oshima who had 31448 votes whereas Maeda had 30851 votes so Yuko was the frontgirl for "Heavy Rotation". Later that year a different type of election was held (AKB48 Janken Senbatsu Tournament) where any member in the group could be front girl. The members were selected by using the rock-paper-scissors method and Mayumi Uchida received the top spot of AKB48's single "Chance no Junban" which marked the first time a relatively unknown member has been at the front of a single. Maeda and Yuko were back at the front spots for the next single, "Beginner". In 2011, a third AKB48 senbatsu election was held. During the early results, Yuko Oshima was leading with first place. However in the final results Maeda won first place with 139,892 votes whereas Yuko Oshima had 122,843 votes beating her with 17049 votes.


As a solo singer

On April 23, 2011, it was announced by Maeda herself at AKB48's handshake event in Nagoya Dome that she would make her solo debut with her debut single "Flower", one of the insert songs for Moshidora, a movie in which Maeda plays the leading role, scheduled to be released on June 22, 2011.[1][2] She is the second AKB48 member to release her own single after Tomomi Itano with the single "Dear J".

Acting career

In 2007, Maeda played the sub-leading role in the movie "Ashita no Watashi no Tsukurikata" (「あしたの私のつくり方」?), which was her first performance as an actress. She started shooting this film August 20, 2006 and finished it in the end of September. After that, she had landed various TV drama roles, including lead roles in drama "Majisuka Gakuen" and "Q-10".

Maeda, along with fellow AKB member Minegishi Minami, is due to star in the 2011 movie Moshidora, marking her first lead role as an actress in a film, playing a manager named Minami Kawashima. The movie is about a high school girl who is the manager of a lesser baseball team and how she tries to lead the team to National High School Baseball Championship by learning strategies from the business book Management by Peter Drucker, and is set to release in June 2011.