Sae Miyazawa

Sae Miyazawa (宮澤 佐江, Miyazawa Sae, born August 13, 1990 in Tokyo), is a Japanese idol singer. She was a member of the girl group AKB48 between 2006 and 2014, until she was transferred to SKE48 in February 2014. Since 2012, she has also been affiliated with the Chinese sister group SNH48. She is also a member of the AKB48 subunit Diva.

After being rejected during the first audition for AKB48, Miyazawa auditioned again in February 2006 in an applicant pool of about twelve thousand. This time, she was selected as one of the 19 girls for AKB48's newly created Team K, which made its stage debut on April 1, 2006.
Miyazawa has participated in the title tracks for 25 of the 27 AKB48 singles released between October 2006 ("Aitakatta") and August 2012 ("Gingham Check"), missing the A-sides of "Chance no Junban" and "Ue kara Mariko", for which the featured members were determined by a rock-paper-scissors-tournament. During this time, she became a member of two AKB48 side projects. Chocolove from AKB48 was established in 2007 as a trio with fellow AKB48 members Sayaka Akimoto and Rina Nakanishi. The group released two singles and an album, but disbanded in 2008 following Nakanishi's departure from AKB48. In 2011, AKB48 announced that she and Akimoto would be part of another spin-off called DiVA, along with Ayaka Umeda and Yuka Masuda. Although Masuda and Akimoto have left AKB48 since then, DiVA has not been officially disbanded as of January 2014.
In January 2011, an exhibition of her self-portraits was held at the AKB48 Official Shop in Hong Kong, She then visited Hong Kong on January 28, and attended a series of events, including an AKB48 Cosplay Event held in Dragon Centre in Kowloon. In March 2012, during AKB48's trip to the National Cherry Blossom Festival, Miyazawa visited the Strong John Thomson Elementary School in Washington, D.C., to explain Japanese pop culture to the pupils.
In August 2012, it was announced that Miyazawa and fellow AKB48 member Mariya Suzuki would be transferred overseas to help lead Shanghai-based sister group SNH48. This transfer was initially scheduled to last six to twelve months. Because she and Suzuki did not have working visas for China, they rarely appeared with SNH48; for instance, they only appeared as audience members for the group's first public performance. During the opening ceremony of SNH48's theater in Shanghai in September 2013, group officials announced that Miyazawa would begin to perform with the group on October 11, 2013. Indeed, both Miyazawa and Suzuki debuted with SNH48 on that date, triggering media coverage in both Japan and China. Her endeavors as a Japanese idol in a Chinese environment made the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology name Miyazawa a representative for the "Tobitate! Ryugaku Japan"-campaign ("Take off! Study abroad!").
In January 2013, during the annual "Request Hour" concerts held by all Japanese AKB48 acts, the Miyazawa-led song "Kiseki wa Mani Awanai" ranked second in fan voting, which made it the highest ranked stage unit song among "Request Hour" events. Following this, Miyazawa promoted AKB48's 30th single "So Long!" in TV broadcasts, even though she did not participate in the actual single recording. In March 2013, Miyazawa started a Twitter account, but this was suspended when it gathered too many followers on the first day; her Twitter was reopened two days later. Meanwhile, Miyazawa took part in AKB48's 31st single "Sayonara Crawl".
During the AKB48 Group Rinji Sokai concert in Nippon Budokan in April 2013, AKB48 announced her return to Team K and concurrent membership with SNH48. In the 2013 AKB48 general election, she finished tenth overall. During the election results event, she declared her plans to focus on SNH48, and after confirmation with AKB48 management, became the first AKB48 member to voluntarily drop concurrency. As a result, she did not participate in the rock-paper-scissors tournament in 2013. On February 24, 2014, In February 2014, at the Grand Reformation Festival, AKB48 announced that Miyazawa has been transferred to SKE48 and is now a concurrent member of that group and SNH48. She was appointed the 'leader' of SKE48's Team S. On that same day, she accepted that new position on her google+, after learning of the transfer via a live phone call from that event.
Miyazawa, who is signed to media agency Flave entertainment (formerly office48), has been promoted in many of AKB48's own shows, but also frequently appears in Japanese radio and TV. In October 2011, she was the AKB48 member with the most appearances in the popular show Music Japan on NHK, with 34 performances. She has also published one photobook in 2009. Occasionally, she is cast as an actress for feature films, stage plays and Japanese TV dramas. In January 2014, Miyazawa was selected to play a major role in the stage play Wings of Kuzariana (クザリアーナの翼^?), the 13th volume of the Gorgeous Earth series, which will be performed in Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya, and Fukuoka.

Miyazawa, who is often called "Sae-chan" (さえちゃん) by fans and media, belongs to the most popular members of the 48 group family with consistent high finishes in audience polls. In the AKB48 general elections, in which the lineup for a given single is decided by fan voting, she placed 14th (2009), 9th (2010), 11th (2011), 11th (2012), and 10th (2013), respectively, which gave her a spot on the related title tracks. Miyazawa and former team captain Sayaka Akimoto were frequently referred to as the "Twin Towers" of Team K, because of their comparably tall height and their key roles in that team. Another nickname she bears is "Genking" (from Japanese "genki" = energetic, cheerful), as she is often portrayed as loud, impulsive and energetic. She is also known as AKB48's "handsome idol" (Japanese: "ikemen idol") due to her tomboyish mannerisms and image.
In the animated series AKB0048, the character Miyazawa Sae The 10th / Asamiya Youko is modeled after her, voiced by Mai Nakahara.

^{Reference: Wikipedia}