Hello! Database: Morning Musume

Morning Musume was originally founded in 1997. Tsunku and members of Sharan Q decided to hold an audition for a female rock vocalist. The audition was held on tv show Asayan and in the end among the finalists were the following six people: Natsumi Abe, Kaori Iida, Asuka Fukada, Aya Ishiguro, Yuko Nakazawa and Michiyo Heike.

The original choice was Heike, and she became a solo artist. She wasn't that succesful, though, and Tsunku had a new idea: he took the five of the other finalists and had them make and try to sell a single. The group reached the set goal of 50.000 copies sold and Morning Musume was formally formed.

Not long after the group was formed began also one of the peculiarities of the group: graduations and new auditions. Graduation in this case means that a member of the group leaves it, either to pursue a solo career, or for other reasons. To compensate for the lost members, new auditions have been held in order to get new blood to the group.

The timelines page provides a graphical version of the graduations and auditions, but in short, the first graduation was that of Asuka Fukada's, in January of 1999. Over the years three first generations have no members left, and after Rika Ishikawa's graduation in May 7th of 2005, the only remaining member from the first four generations is Hitomi Yoshizawa. As for auditions, there have been total of 7 auditions after the original one, with various amounts of new members (one of them with none chosen). The most recent set of auditions produced only one new member: Koharu Kusumi.

Related to graduations, completely unexpectedly in April 14th of 2005, Mari Yaguchi, at the time the leader and oldest member of the group, resigned from Morning Musume without a graduation or any other kind of ceremony.

You can read more about auditions and generations on their specific group pages:

• Morning Musume, 1st Generation
  
• Morning Musume, 2nd Generation
  
• Morning Musume, 3rd Generation
  
• Morning Musume, 4th Generation
  
• Morning Musume, 5th Generation
  
• Morning Musume, 6th Generation
  
• Lucky 7 audition (none chosen)
  
• Morning Musume, 7th Generation
  

Starting in 1998, some members of Morning Musume (and other Hello! Project people as well) formed subgroups which contained usually at most 4 members. The groups had varying themes and styles and they helped the main group often at live events. It should be noted that members of the subgroups remained members of their primary groups as well.

In fall of 2003 Morning Musume was split into two distinct groups: Sakura Gumi and Otome Gumi, both of which have quite distinct styles. They have still released singles as Morning Musume as well, though, and since summer of '04 the gumis seem to have been discontinued.

For a more graphical representation of the history of Morning Musume and Hello! Project, you might want to visit the timeline page. If you are more interested in auditions, graduations and releases and how they releate to each other there is another timeline page describing that as well.

The amount of Morning Musume related merchandise is one indication of the group's overall success. There are calendars, photobooks, etc. and even a Playstation 2 game. In addition to that, there has been a weekly TV variety show Hello! Morning since 2000, and while the show is about the entire Hello! Project, Morning Musume is with very few exceptions the center point of the show.

Members by generation (those marked with * no longer in the group)

• 1st generation
  
  • Asuka Fukada *
    
  • Aya Ishiguro *
    
  • Kaori Iida *
    
  • Natsumi Abe *
    
  • Yuko Nakazawa *
    
    
• 2nd generation
  
  • Kei Yasuda *
    
  • Mari Yaguchi *
    
  • Sayaka Ichii *
    
    
• 3rd generation
  
  • Maki Goto *
    
    
• 4th generation
  
  • Ai Kago *
    
  • Hitomi Yoshizawa
    
  • Nozomi Tsuji *
    
  • Rika Ishikawa *
    
    
• 5th generation
  
  • Ai Takahashi
    
  • Asami Konno
    
  • Makoto Ogawa
    
  • Risa Niigaki
    
    
• 6th generation
  
  • Eri Kamei
    
  • Miki Fujimoto (not through audition)
    
  • Reina Tanaka
    
  • Sayumi Michishige
    
    
• 7th generation
  
  • Koharu Kusumi