Interest

Yuko Oshima Wins AKB48's General Election (Updated)

Yūko Ōshima won first place in the AKB48 idol group's current "General Election" popularity poll on Wednesday. The 23-year-old is a member of AKB48's Team K, and she is also starring the upcoming live-action film adaptation of Shohei Manabe's Shohei Manabe's Ushijima the Loan Shark (Yamikin Ushijima-kun) manga, and voiced the role of Rinne in the ICE video anime. Oshima won the popularity poll with a total of 108,837 votes.

The top five winners and their total votes were as follows:

1. Yūko Ōshima (AKB48 Team K) - 108,837 votes
2. Mayu Watanabe (AKB48 Team B) - 72,574 votes
3. Yuki Kashiwagi (AKB48 Team B) - 71,076 votes
4. Rino Sashihara (AKB48 Team A) - 67,339 votes
5. Mariko Shinoda (AKB48 Team A) - 67,017 votes

AKB48's Google+ and YouTube channels streamed the general election results live in English earlier this morning, and Oshima's election speech will stream live today at 10:00 a.m. EDT.

Update: AKB48's official blog has updated with the complete rankings list. The rest of the top 10 rankings are as follows:

6. Minami Takahashi (AKB48 Team A) - 65,480 votes
7. Haruna Kojima (AKB48 Team A) - 54,483 votes
8. Tomomi Itano (AKB48 Team K) - 50,483 votes
9. Jurina Matsui (SKE48 Team S/AKB48 Team K) - 45,747 votes
10. Rena Matsui (SKE48 Team S) - 42,030 votes

[Via Sports Hochi]