Love Live!’s μ’s, AKB48, and more confirmed for this year’s Kouhaku Uta Gasen

After all the speculations, NHK has finally announced the official participants to one of Japan’s most prestigious musical events, the*Kouhaku*Uta Gassen, or Red and White Song Battle. Only the “cream of the crop” of Japan’s music industry can be invited to the annual New year musical extravaganza, and it is considered a huge honor to be invited to perform.

With the Love Live! School Idol Movie being a big hit and having chart-topping singles here and there,*Love Live!’s μ’s have been really popular this year, so much so that they have been confirmed*to perform in an event where only the “Top Brass” of the Japanese music industry are invited to join in.

Another notable group joining the annual extravaganza is BUMP OF CHICKEN, the group best known for performing the theme song for Blood Blockade Battlefront, who surprisingly has decided to join in this year after years of turning down invites from NHK. This can be attributed for the group’s reluctance to perform on TV, however, they seem to have been mellowing out on the idea of performing on TV recently.

Here are the complete line-up of artistes and their teams, who will be performing during the annual New Year special*Kouhaku*Uta Gassen*(the number in parenthesis next to the names represents the number of times they’ve performed on the program):

Red Team:

• E-girls (3)
• Ikimono-gakari (8)
• Sayuri Ishikawa (38)
• Miki Imai (2)
• AKB48 (8)
• NMB48 (3)
• Sakurako Ohara (1)
• Natsuko Godai (22)
• Fuyumi Sakamoto (27)
• Ringo Sheena (3)
• Aya Shimazu (2)
• Superfly (1)
• Mariko Takahashi (3)
• Yoshimi Tendō (20)
• AAA (6)
• Kana Nishino (6)
• Nogizaka46 (1)
• Perfume (8)
• Ayako Fuji (21)
• Seiko Matsuda (19)
• Kaori Mizumori (13)
• μ’s (1)
• miwa (3)
• Rebecca (1)
• Akiko Wada (39)

White Team:

• Arashi (7)
• Hiroshi Itsuki (45)
• EXILE (11)
• X Japan (6)
• KANJANI∞(4)
• Gesu no Kiwami Otome (1)
• Hiromi Go (28)
• Golden Bomber (4)
• Masahiko Kondō(10)
• Sandaime J Soul Brothers (4)
• SMAP (23)
• SEKAI NO OWARI (2)
• Sexy Zone (3)
• TOKIO (22)
• Hideaki Tokunaga (10)
• BUMP OF CHICKEN (1)
• Kiyoshi Hikawa (16)
• V6 (2)
• Masaharu Fukuyama (8)
• Gen Hoshino (1)
• Takashi Hosokawa (39)
• Hiroshi Miyama (1)
• Akihiro Miwa (4)
• Shinichi Mori (48)
• Keisuke Yamauchi (1)
• YUZU (6)

The line-up of artistes greeting 2016 will be split into two groups, red and white, with all the male artistes representing the White Team while all the female artistes representing the Red Team. The winners are then decided via popular vote.

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Source: Mantan via ANN
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