“This is AKB48’s Takahashi Minami. The DVD of the Tokyo Dome concert will be released. Tokyo Dome, for us, was a dream stage that we’ve been dreaming of for a long time. It was… I don’t know how to say this. We really did stand there, but thinking about it later, it’s like ‘We were able to stand on such an incredible stage.’ From rehearsals, standing on a stage like Tokyo Dome, it made me fidgety. There’s like a specific time that we had to go in and we weren’t allowed to produce sound unless it was a certain time, but we all arrived way beforehand. Acchan came in at like 6 and I was like, ‘What are you going to do coming in that early?’ We couldn’t make any noise until like 8 or 9. And I was in around 7 too. Everyone was fidgety. That’s how we spent the eve and the first day.The first song of the first day. The first song the first day was Party ga Hajimaruyo, and we were honored to get to sing the first song with just the first generation members. Thinking it over… I think it’s shown, but all the first generation members got together backstage before it started. We formed a circle, an O-shaped circle, and we said ‘Let’s do our best.’ I thought,‘There’s not many of us.’ 7 years ago, there was like 22 of us in Team A, the first generation members, and now 7 years later, there’s only 6. I got pretty emotional thinking that while forming the small circle and I was bawling my eyes out even before Overture and the curtain going up. They were telling me, ‘Takamina, not yet!’ but all of us were emotional and we cried. That moment is precious to me.And the announcement on the first day was the team reorganization. Team reorganization fest. I was like ‘Is this for real?’ There were rumors among the members about a team reorganization, but we were all thinking even if there was one, it’d be on the last day. We were all like, ‘On the first day?’ Togasaki-san came out in his suit and we thought, ‘Here it goes.’ My name was the first to be called like in the team reorganization two years ago. I’m really sorry. Honestly, you might think of me as being conceited, but I thought he was going to say, ‘Captain, Takahashi.’ So I was thinking, ‘Alright, I’m probably going to be the Team A captain,’ and he said, ‘AKB48, Takahashi Minami. I hereby appoint Takahashi Minami as the general manager of the AKB48 group.’ First of all, what does that mean? What is a general manager? Only Hara-san comes to mind for us when it’s announced at Tokyo Dome. I was surprised, but now that a little time has passed and everyone’s teasing me calling me general manager, what I’m doing hasn’t changed. I think that maybe it’s just a title being attached to what I’ve been doing. It’s sad, but Team 4 has been disbanded and it’s back to having 3 teams. Please watch us as we move forward with the new teams.On the second day, my solo debut was announced and I was really happy. Before that, I did a duet with Atsuko, a song called Omoide no Hotondo. I think that was the first and last performance of that song. I was really happy that we were able to sing that there, and I didn’t even imagine that my dream would come true at our dream venue. I was really happy.On Atsuko’s graduation on the last day, I thought, ‘I didn’t realize how sad sending someone off is,’ while singing Yume no Kawa. I thought, ‘Oh, she’s really graduating.’ It was emotional, and I heard the audience sniffling. There’s a part where it goes silent, where the sound stops, like time stopping. All 48,000 people in Tokyo Dome, their time stopping at once and everyone focusing on that area, I think that’s an incredible scene. I hope you watch it while thinking how the 3 dream days were carried out, how they all felt, well, me too, on stage. We’re taking a step into the second chapter. Please enjoy watching it.”
