Launched in 2011 as a sister group to girl band behemoth AKB48, the Osaka-based NMB48 has become a musical force itself. With a string of No.1 hit singles and albums, not to mention sell-out performances, NMB48 continues Japan’s pop-music phenomena. Director Funahashi Atsushi, whose documentary work has previously chronicled such harrowing events as the Fukushima nuclear meltdown, pulls back the curtain on the life and struggles of the band members and the workings of the idol-making industry.

Raise Your Arms and Twist - Documentary of NMB48

Three days before a cultural festival, reliable heroine Hikari Sasaki suddenly quits the club. Left behind in the theater club are four sensitive girls, Saya Honjo, Aoi Fujisaki, Kurumi Nakahara and Mika Shinoda. The girls have relied on Hikari for such a long time, and are at a loss, with none of them interested in being the next heroine. Nobody has any desire to be a candidate, but without a leader for the theater club the manager Saya has the idea of having a secret ballot.
 But the result of the vote produces a shocking development.