Profile Member: Takahashi Minami

Minami Takahashi (高橋 みなみ Takahashi Minami^?, born April 8, 1991 in Tokyo) is a member of the Japanese Idol group AKB48. She is currently the captain of Team A as well as AKB48's de facto captain. She was described as the "eldest daughter of the 48 sisters (48人姉妹の長女^?)" in the group by Yasushi Akimoto during an interview carried out by the Nippon Television network in June 2010.Minami is commonly part of the "Senbatsu" group of singers in the singles released by AKB48. She is also a member of the sub-group no3b, along with AKB48 members Haruna Kojima and Minami Minegishi.

Career

In August 2005, Minami Takahashi become one of the 30th HoriPro Talent Contest's 15 final candidates, but she failed to win the competition's Grand-Prix prize. In October 2005, she participated in the first AKB48 audition and beat 7,924 other applicants to be chosen as one of the 24 founding members of the group. According to Tomonobu Togasaki, the manager of the AKB48 Theater, two factors that gave her an advantage over other applicants. These advantages were the fact that both her birthday (April 8) and her height (148 cm) includes the number "48" inside. She later made her stage debut on December 8, 2005.
In 2008, no3b members, including Minami Takahashi, appeared in the TV Tokyo drama Men Dol. She starred as Nami/Kai in this Television Series.
On August 23, 2009, Minami Takahashi was officially announced as the captain of AKB48's Team A.
Minami Takahashi appears in almost all of the AKB48 singles as one of their key singers. In addition, Minami frequently represents AKB48 on TV programs such as Music Station, and in other of the group's publicity events. She was also scheduled to take part in the AKB48's 3-day live concert event entitled "Takamina ni tsuite ikimasu" (たかみなについて行きます lit. "We will follow Takamina"^?), which was to be held on March 25–27, 2011 at the Yokohama Arena but was cancelled due to the 2011 toohoku eartquake and tsunami.

AKB48 senbatsu elections

• Ranked 5th in the 2009 senbatsu election
• Ranked 6th in the 2010 senbatsu election
• Ranked 7th in the 2011 senbatsu election

Takahashi Minami