AKB48's Atsuko Maeda made a comeback Thursday after being voted the most popular member of the all-girl pop group, dethroning 2010 winner Yuko Oshima.
"I'm really happy. I'll do my utmost," a tearful Maeda, the 2009 champion, said during an internationally televised award ceremony at a packed Nippon Budokan gymnasium in Tokyo. Oshima, 22, came in second.
Maeda, 19, won most of the votes cast by the group's fan club and purchasers of the group's latest single.
Yuki Kashiwagi, 19, came in third, advancing from her eighth-place finish last year.
The annual vote, which was shown in 86 movie theaters across Japan and televised in Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea, selected 21 members for AKB48's 22nd single due for release in August, from about 150 candidates, including those in similar pop groups, such as SKE48 and NMB48.