AKB48 Team 8's Natsuki Fujimura, Ai Yamamoto & Moeka Iwasaki Announces Graduations

AKB48 Team 8's Natsuki Fujimura, Ai Yamamoto & Moeka Iwasaki will leave the group. 

The announcement was made on the opening day of Team 8's concert "Team 8 Kessei 2 Shunen Kinen Tokubetsu Kouen in Okinawa Mensore! Haru no Eight Matsuri" held at Nakagusuku Castle in Okinawa.

Natsuki Fujimura & Moeka Iwasaki graduated as of April 3rd.  Ai Yamamoto's graduation concert will be held in the coming days at the AKB48 theater. 

"I've never had a dream until I became a member of Team 8," Fujimura said. "But my current dream is to become a hair and make-up artist. Right now, I am attending a vocational school for hair and make-up, and I am studying very hard."

She continued, "It has become difficult to continue my activities in Team 8. Since I didn't want to cause trouble to the other members, I decided to graduate."

As for Yamamoto, she said, "This year was my 'Coming-of-Age Ceremony,' and I started thinking more and more about my future."

She continued, "After thinking about it very hard, my other dream of becoming an actress became more serious. I want to seriously study acting. It will be a difficult path, but I want to challenge it with my own strength."

Lastly, Iwasaki said, "After getting into my first-choice school, I wanted to go after my childhood dream of becoming a doctor."

"In order to make my dream come true, I have to study a lot. Continuing Team 8 activities in that manner isn't possible. I don't think I could commit to both of them wholeheartedly," she concluded.