"Teacher Zhu Zi, it's really not me who blows. My dance moves are a little ugly, but they're very attractive. Ikuta Erika said very seriously.

"Come on, who said your movements are charming? You call it out for me. Zhu Zi looked at the girl funny.

"Sister Sesame-chan, Sister Yuko, and Kimura-san. Banana-san-san also thinks my dancing is quite good. What do you think? Am I very powerful, Teacher Zhu Zi. Erika Ikuta looked proud.

"Kimura-san would praise you for dancing well, what did he say?" Zhu Zi looked suspicious.

"He said that my dancing is whimsical, not rigid and that I am a good material for dancing. At least in terms of dancing, you are more malleable than Teacher Zhu Zi. Erika Ikuta said triumphantly.

"Come on, Flowey. I don't know how to dance at all, I don't think you can dance as well as Xiao Nan. Although Xiao Nan is no longer fat now. Zhu Zi looked disgusted.

"I'm not fat! I've lost a lot of weight. Minami Hoshino was very unconvinced.

Zhu Zi pinched the girl's pretty face: "Then what is this?" ”

"I'm just at the stage of growing flesh again." Minami Hoshino has a word.

Zhu Zi laughed.

Erika Ikuta laughed too.

"Teacher Zhu Zi, let's go overseas for a trip early next year, right?" Erika Ikuta looked forward to it.

"Of course."

The two girls high-fived happily in celebration.

"You two don't get too happy too quickly, if you don't behave well these days, don't think about traveling."

"Don't worry, Teacher Zhu Zi." Ikuta Erika patted herself confidently and touched her chest.

………………

On December 28, AKB48's new single was released.

This is about three months after the previous work, "Sign", and it is AKB48's fourth single released in 2014. The A-side song was first revealed at the 5th Guess Boxing Tournament held on September 17, and on October 4 of the same year, they performed for the first time on TBS's "All-Star Thanksgiving Festival 2014 Autumn".

As with all AKB48 Group's related albums, this single was released in multiple versions of one single song, with a total of 5 versions of Type-A, Type-B, Type-C, Type-D, and theatrical versions. Each of the five editions is available in the "First Limited Edition" and the "Regular Edition", which will be released for a limited time at the beginning of the album's release, and will include the same songs and the content of the film, but with different cover designs and bonuses. So, if you take these differences into account, the single album actually has a total of 9 different cover designs and 10 different packaging contents.

In terms of included songs, in addition to the main A-side song "Infinite Hope", each record version also includes two to three matching B-side songs. However, unlike AKB48's traditional albums, which usually set a main B-side song shared by each version, with a second B-side song exclusive to each version, all of the B-side songs included in this single are only included in a single version, except for the song "Now, Happy" sung by the Rose group, which is included in both Type-A and theatrical versions. As a result, as many as 11 new songs were included in the five editions, setting a record for the release of a single in the previous editions.

In order to sing a large number of songs, the singing group in this single is a mixture of two groups that have been used in AKB48 group singles, one is the group song sung by each team according to the team to which they belong, and the other is the method used in the 35th single "Go Forward", which breaks up the members of the entire AKB48 group sister group and selects members with similar styles to form a temporary team to sing the B-side song. This is the first time in the history of AKB48 that all five teams of Team A, Team K, Team B, Team 4, and Team 8 have all five team songs, as they were released after the establishment of Team 8. However, a slight difference from the previous situation is that the team song of Team A, Team K, Team B, and Team 4 did not shoot the corresponding MV when this single was released, and only the team song "Wings of Uniform" was filmed as a MV and included in the Type-D version, and then a separate MV was filmed and included in AKB48's sixth album.

In addition to the team to which they belong, this single also formed three temporary teams named "Rose Group", "Lily Group" and "Gardelia Land Group" according to the personal style of the group members. Among them, the Rose group includes the younger members of the sister group, the Lily group is made up of the more mature and sexy members of the group, and the Gardelia Arena group gathers some members who are better at variety show performance or have a more personal style. The songs of the three temporary detachments and the corresponding MVs also have very different characteristics according to the different styles of the members.

In order to match the concept of "running" in the MV of the drama version of the title song "Infinite Hope", the covers of each version of the single have also been designed with unique designs that have never been seen before. The production unit used high-speed photography to shoot the freeze-frame silhouettes of all the members of the 32 singles selection team as they ran, and synthesized them into a coherent strip of photographs, which were then cut open to be used as the covers of different versions of the record. Therefore, if you arrange the outer boxes of these six versions from left to right in the order of Type-A, Type-B, and Type-C first limited editions and Type-A, Type-B, and Type-C regular editions, you will see a photo of 32 people running in relay like a banner poster, led by the two centers of this single, Mayu Watanabe and Sakira Miyawaki.

The title single "Infinite Hope" is a work composed and arranged by Nosei Inoue, who writes lyrics by chief producer Yasu Akimoto and often composes for the AKB48 Group. The music video for this song was directed by Hiroshi Sasaki, who has filmed many high-profile TV commercials, and Hideyuki Tanaka, who shot the main drama version and the dance version called the "live concert version".

In this new work, the production team has selected 32 members to participate in the recording of the title single and the shooting of the corresponding MV, breaking the previous practice of expanding the list of singles that have only been released in the summer. In addition to the 32 members, several high-profile former members who have graduated and left the group, such as Atsuko Maeda, Yuko Oshima, Mariko Shinoda and Tomomi Itano, were also invited to participate in the filming of the MV. Starting with Minami Takahashi, who served as the center of the first single "Cherry Blossom Petals" in the independent release era, the center members of the film, who have recorded millions of sales singles over the generations, protect their black handbags with two golden microphones while continuing to run in a relay race to avoid being overtaken by about 50 mysterious men in black suits who are called Akkanbe, which is a homonym from "AKB-".