What does Morning Musume's future look like?

It seems like every Morning Musume member is the same. No matter when it is, everyone wants to know who the next member to graduate is going to be. With graduations being completely random, and 1/9 odds that your favorite will leave is too risky for most fans. It seems like every fan has underline feelings of fear and hope that their idol isn't next.
Because just like Ice Ages, we're somewhere in between graduations. We're just in the short calm period before another one happens. And even though Koharu is graduating in December you'd think I'd stop worrying about graduation for now. But, the truth is I'm more curious about who's going to leave next and what's next for Momusu more than ever.
With Koharu leaving, and shaking up the current line up for the first time in 2 years, that gives Morning Musume new options. And of course by new options I mean new members. A lot of people have been buzzing lately about new members joining, because it has to happen sooner or later, and now is the perfect time. Koharu is graduating in December, so I'm hoping Tsunku announces the 9th gen auditions by the end of February the latest. Then we could have new members in the begining of April the earliest. But whenever the auditions actually happen, the biggest question to me is what kind of members would we actually be getting.

Lately Morning Musume has been having more mature and adult songs. With Koharu leaving, and the exception of Aika, Morning Musume will be filled with girls from the ages of 18-23. Which is the perfect age range to sing current Morning Musume. Morning Musume is also getting its popularity back singing these kinds of songs. Which makes me think Tsunku will opt to get older members, 17-18 years old, to keep the popularity alive.

But what I'm actually hoping will happen is, Morning Musume will add a couple of younger members. Nothing will change the pace of current Momusu like adding 13-15 year olds. The same thing happened when the 4th and 5th gen joined. Little by little they went from more mature sounding songs to cuter sounding songs. It also caused Yuko to leave the group.


But with new members also means new members leaving. Which brings me to the actual point of this post, who I think will graduate after Koharu. And if you go by past graduations in correlation to members being added, the next member to leave could be sooner than you think. Yuko left 3 singles after the 4th gen joined, Nacchi left 3 singles after the 6th gen joined, Mako and KonKon left 3 singles after the 7th gen joined, and Yossie left after one single with Aika.

Now at first I thought I knew for a fact was going to leave. I thought she would leave even before Koharu, but I was wrong. And the more I think about it there are 3 members I think could be the next to go. You can never be 100% these things, but these 3 seem to have legit reasons to leave.

Michishige Sayumi:


I know Sayumi is a popular member and that she sells well, but lets be honest the girl can't sing. She has improved greatly since she first joined, but how her voice sounds now is as good as it's ever going to be. And frankly it's not good enough to be a big part of the group. And right now she's just floating awkwardly. Her personality is even pushing the limit. How long can she be the cutesy, childish, slightly ditzy one, who is endearingly full of herself? She's 20 years old already, it just seems silly now. In all honesty she's gone as far as she can within the group. Sure, she got a solo song, but that's only because everyone who wasn't a main singer got one. (LinLin got hers on the Chanpuru, but I'm not sure why JunJun got nothing.)


Takahashi Ai:

I know it's almost blasphemy to even mention Ai-chan actually leaving, but it's time for her to go. She's been in Morning Musume for 8 years. In those 8 years she's had plenty of time to shine and plenty of time in the spotlight. I think it's finally time for everyone else to get attention. I mean, she basically sings half of every single. She'll probably stay to train the new members, but beyond that I see her leaving immediately, like Yossie did. And for people who think Momusu can't afford to lose her vocals, they can and eventually they'll have to. Beside Morning Musume has a vocal powerhouse in the making, her name is LinLin.


Niigaki Risa:

It seems kind of odd to add Risa here, but only because she has the least legit reason to leave. But be that as it may, I can still see it happening. So why is it I think Risa will leave? It's simple, Reina. They've been pushing Reina up front ahead of Risa for a while, basically preparing her to be the next leader. But she can't exactly do that if the current sub leader is Risa. If Risa leaves Reina will be all that closer to becoming the next leader. And yes they could make Risa the leader and Reina the sub leader, sort of like they did with Miki and Ai, in hopes of having some aces in the group. On the other hand, Risa has also been there for 8 years. And in all honesty if they were going to hold onto any 5th gen member as long as possible it would be Ai, not Risa. But even if she doesn't leave next, whenever she leaves it won't be a shocker.


Sorry to everyone reading for the extremely long post. But as you can tell I put way too much though into Morning Musume. And if none of this actually happens, I'm sorry but I'm no Mayan Calendar.