Looking back, she does not describe the years since joining as an effortless rise.
“I never had confidence, and I felt as though I was behind the other members,” Nakamura told Smart FLASH.
Learning to project confidence
At the Tokyo stop of STU48 Live Tour 2026 on July 26, Nakamura stood at the center for “Ai no Omosa,” the lead track from the group’s first album. The performance gave visible form to advice she had received from fellow member Chiho Ishida around four years earlier.
“I told Chiho that I get nervous when I sing solo. She said I should sing as though I were a superstar,” Nakamura recalled. “Since then, I have tried to project that kind of aura, and I became able to do it.”
She describes that “aura” through eyes, posture and feeling, comparing it to a Stand in JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: a presence behind her that can now be summoned deliberately. The joke is playful, but the change it describes is practical. Nakamura says the worries that once followed her onstage have eased.
Her STU48 record is already substantial. She joined as a third-generation draft member in March 2018, first entered a selected lineup with “Kaze wo Matsu” in February 2019 and has remained in every selection since. She shared a triangle-center position on “Hana wa Dare no Mono?” in 2022, then centered “Ai no Omosa” in 2024 before taking the title-track center for “Sukisugite Naku.” Her work has also extended to stage and film.
Ballet before idols
The competitive instinct came earlier. Nakamura grew up in Seiyo, Ehime Prefecture, where she remembers spending her childhood climbing mountains, playing in the river and fishing in the sea. Her elementary-school year had nine pupils, all girls, and sport was a constant part of school life.
She began classical ballet at two because her older sister attended classes. The commitment did not arrive immediately. After missing lessons in elementary school, she returned to find the other pupils far ahead. She was also unable to do the required splits and had her pointe shoes taken away.
“I was frustrated,” she said. “I became determined to get flexible and win my shoes back.”
A major stage role later in elementary school gave her a reason to take ballet seriously. She liked dancing before an audience, but also learned in an environment where roles could be won or lost and criticism was direct. Nakamura says that world felt normal to her; she did not know an easier pace.
Auditions kept private
Her first idol audition came when her mother showed her the nationwide AKB48 Team 8 call. Nakamura was not an avid idol fan, but she already understood the appeal of performing under stage lights. She applied, was rejected and then saw the finished group. Envy turned an experiment into a goal.
She continued sending applications without telling anyone beyond her family. In her second year of high school, she encountered hometown acquaintance Aoi Hyodo at the STU48 first-generation audition. Nakamura failed; Hyodo passed. Because the successful candidate was someone she knew, Nakamura said, the rejection felt more real.
The timing made the decision harder. University entrance exams were approaching, and her mother suggested this might be the last attempt. Nakamura remembers leaving the audition upset and insisting on buying a large tin of expensive department-store cookies to eat by herself.
She nevertheless joined a small talent school in Ehime during her final year of high school and continued training. When friends entered another audition with her and she alone was rejected, the agency’s criticism left her in tears. It also reinforced her refusal to stop there.
The third AKB48 Group Draft Conference became the final attempt she had promised herself. She passed and joined STU48. The transition happened in three days: high-school graduation on March 1, travel to Hiroshima on March 2 and her introduction as a member on March 3.
“It felt refreshing, as though my life was finally beginning,” she said. “Everything moved so quickly. I was not sad about graduation or leaving home at all; I was full of happiness. My mother seemed to want me to be at least a little sad.”
That persistence does not erase Nakamura’s earlier lack of confidence. It explains how she kept moving while confidence caught up—and why taking the center now means watching the formation around her as carefully as the place she occupies within it.
Interview and text: Manabu Fushimi
STU48 Mai Nakamura 2nd Photobook Maikaze is available from Takarajimasha.
Source: Smart FLASH
