Famous idol music producer, Tsunku? (creator of Hello!Project's Morning Musume and Berryz Koubou), has stated that he would love to create a new group to rival AKB48.� His vision is to create an enka singing troup of a large number of girls, which he would name ENK48.� About the idea, he said "it would be good to do a 48 member enka singing group."

Tsunku said he liked the idea of an enka troup that would go against the popular idol conventions of no relationships, and he would let ENK48 date openly.� Going one step further, he added that he could picture them singing in the corner of a soba noodle shop for customers.� For any other producer, this might seem ridiculously over the top, but no one can question Tsunku's success with groups such as Morning Musume.� Although idols like AKB48 have been gaining ground in Japan lately, Tsunku must be brainstorming on how to compete with the up and coming idol superpower.

Enka is nothing new for the producer; he has written many songs for other famous enka singers (such as Jero and Yuki Maeda) in the past.� The producer went on to say that although he loves Jpop there is something special about the genre of enka.� Plus, with the rise of enka singers such as Jero changing the genre, now would definitely be the perfect time to try something new in the normally traditional category of music.

It's worth noting that the producer did make this statement at an enka performance, so he might have just been saying this to be polite to the people he was with at the time, and people should take his statement with a grain of salt.

At the conference, Tsunku was also asked to comment on the recent marriage of ex-Melon Kinenbi member Hitomi Saito.� He said that yesterday afternoon he received an email from her saying she wanted to be a helpful and supportive wife.

Source: Oricon style