Those Are Big Shoes To Fill…
This must be the year for Hello! Project to be doing the unpredictable. First, Morning Musume making their long-demanded debut in the United States, and now this:
Tsunku announced on his blog today that he’s reviving MiniMoni with an all-new lineup.
MiniMoni hasn’t exactly been far away from Tsunku’s – or fan’s – minds. Their first single, “MiniMoni Jankenpyon”, has turned up on set lists during the W/Berryz Koubou 2004 tour (sung by members of Berryz, despite the fact that two ex-MiniMonis were headlining) and during a Wonderful Hearts package tour a few years later with random MoMusu (one of which was Reina Tanaka, who had once cosplayed as a MiniMoni member in her pre-MoMusu days), Berryz and C-utes. Both times, the random members were dressed in the standard old-school MiniMoni covers.
So far, only one member has been confirmed for the new lineup: Hello! Project Egg Kanon Fukuda:
My initial presumption would be that Tsunku will be utilizing mostly H!P Eggs for the new lineup, rather than shoehorn existing Wonderful Hearts into the band, despite the original group’s origins as consisting of 3/4 Morning Musume. Whether the original 150cm and under rule concieved by Mari Yaguchi in 2000 is held to is also presently unknown. But whoever gets in the new lineup will have some big shoes to fill – especially vocally, since the group had four very distinctive voices in Ai Kago, Nozomi Tsuji, Mika Todd and Mari Yaguchi. Ai Takahashi’s later membership in the band in Marippe’s place did nothing to diminish that, thankfully.
The timing of this annoucement is interesting: Mari Yaguchi FINALLY issued a solo single earlier this spring, and was recently in the studio with fellow O.G. MoMusu Kei Yasuda. Meanwhile, Ai Kago’s first post-Hello! Project single is coming out in a few weeks. Nozomi Tsuji is concentrating on her “new” career as a designer of baby clothes at present, and it’s been awhile since anything new was heard about Mika Todd.
Also a mystery right now (give Tsunku a break, he’s only announced one band member so far!) is what the musical content will be like. MiniMoni’s original sound, however varied, was more youth-oriented, until 2003 when the group started turning towards a more mature R&B-oriented sound. An educated guess might surmise that a new lineup might hark back to MiniMoni’s original approach, but again, with only one horse in the starting gate it’s too early to tell.
More on this when there’s more to talk about.
