Morning Musume Reportedly Second Only to Juice=Juice in Audience Size — 5ch: “That’s Like Two Tiers Above, Actually”

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The story

Morning Musume’s 2026 fall tour holding roughly the same scale as the fast-rising Juice=Juice became a hot topic on 5ch’s Hello! Project board. Posters initially pushed back with positive takes like “the venues are filling up decently,” but then data was posted showing an actual decline — from 66,336 total seats on the 2025 fall tour down to 57,541 for 2026, including a drop in per-show venue capacity — fueling a harsher view that the group is just coasting on past glory. When independent audience-count estimates were posted for comparison, the discussion flipped even further: far from being “the same scale,” Morning Musume was pegged as roughly two tiers above Juice=Juice, calling the entire premise of the thread title into question.

What people said

1AnonymousOct 3, 2026 09:48
Every venue's filling up decently,
and that's honestly despite the fact that Morning Musume isn't exactly on an upswing right now.
3AnonymousOct 3, 2026 09:51
Re: #1
There are signs of a comeback, though.
4AnonymousOct 3, 2026 09:51
Re: #3
Nope. Turns out a 1,200-capacity venue is apparently the "right size" for their fan club events now.
52AnonymousOct 3, 2026 10:25
Feels like they could make a comeback once Oda graduates.
57AnonymousOct 3, 2026 10:26
Re: #52
The very first event after she leaves is the one in Re: #4, so no chance.
6AnonymousOct 3, 2026 09:54
Their baseline "group-oshi" vote (fans who support the whole group rather than one member) is huge. Hope Juice gets there too.
7AnonymousOct 3, 2026 09:55
Re: #6
Another thread was saying Juice=Juice's bar events only fill up because there are a lot of group-oshi fans running a "mutual aid circle" (互助会 — fans buying tickets to prop up each other's favorite members), not because the members are individually popular.
8AnonymousOct 3, 2026 09:55
They played the "Oda's graduating" card for fall,
so I think next year's going to be rough.
10AnonymousOct 3, 2026 09:57
Re: #8
This spring ended up being Makino's graduation tour, but since it was originally planned as a "no graduations" tour, the scale got slashed hard compared to last spring.
106AnonymousOct 3, 2026 10:52
Re: #8
Gen 17, 18, and 19 are about to blow up, just you wait.
9AnonymousOct 3, 2026 09:56
Outside of Morning Musume, barely anyone even knows these groups.
11AnonymousOct 3, 2026 09:57
Re: #9
These days even legacy groups can't hold onto name recognition without going viral on TikTok.
16AnonymousOct 3, 2026 10:07
Watching stuff like the singing contest, Musume. has looked pretty good lately.
Their singing's rough, but they've got that unmistakable Musume-ness.
Watching them is just plain fun — it really is Musume.
18AnonymousOct 3, 2026 10:08
Re: #16
They looked totally gassed out there.
17AnonymousOct 3, 2026 10:08
It's not actually holding at a high level —
if anything it's being quietly scaled down.

Morning Musume '26
2025 Fall Tour (Haga & Yokoyama graduation, 33 shows) *halls
Total capacity: 66,336 seats
Average capacity per show: 2,010 seats
↓
2026 Fall Tour (Oda graduation, 29 shows) *halls
Total capacity: 57,541 seats (down 8,795 from last year)
Average capacity per show: 1,984 seats (down 26 from last year)
23AnonymousOct 3, 2026 10:12
Re: #21
Looking at Re: #17, even that nest egg seems to be steadily running out.
21AnonymousOct 3, 2026 10:11
They're just living off past glory at this point.
32AnonymousOct 3, 2026 10:18
Re: #21
If you can still eat off past glory, that's all that matters, honestly.
35AnonymousOct 3, 2026 10:19
Re: #32
Not every show is selling out though, so they're not really "eating" off it.
41AnonymousOct 3, 2026 10:21
Re: #32
Question is how much longer that nest egg lasts.
26AnonymousOct 3, 2026 10:14
Panda: "Ah, good thing I'm Morning Musume." (a jokey 5ch quote format, not an actual panda)
30AnonymousOct 3, 2026 10:16
Re: #26
Sapporo's not exactly selling out though.
28AnonymousOct 3, 2026 10:15
Juice=Juice has nowhere to go but down once Danbara graduates.
29AnonymousOct 3, 2026 10:16
Re: #28
By then Okamura, Yamazaki, and Sakurai will probably have left too.
34AnonymousOct 3, 2026 10:19
Musume's got a mountain of upbeat, crowd-pleasing songs to draw on, after all.
36AnonymousOct 3, 2026 10:19
Re: #34
But their lives are boring, which is why the Blu-rays don't sell?
42AnonymousOct 3, 2026 10:21
Danbara's in the "Oda position," so she'll probably stick around until just before 30.
43AnonymousOct 3, 2026 10:21
Re: #35
Someone who thinks you can't turn a profit without selling out?
44AnonymousOct 3, 2026 10:22
Re: #43
Juice=Juice has been hearing that line for a while now.
48AnonymousOct 3, 2026 10:24
Re: #1 "Same scale"????? The group that's actually the same scale as Juice is Angerme.


Nogizaka46 2026 draw → 500,000

NiziU 2026 draw → 240,000

=LOVE 2026 draw → 220,000

FRUITS ZIPPER 2026 draw → 200,000

CUTIE STREET 2026 draw → 180,000

AKB48 2026 draw → 170,000

Morning Musume 2026 draw → 150,000 ←←←←← this one

Juice=Juice 2026 draw → 100,000 ←←←←← this one

Angerme 2026 draw → 90,000

Momoiro Clover Z 2026 draw → 80,000
50AnonymousOct 3, 2026 10:25
Re: #48
Morning Musume's like two tiers above, then.
OP's a liar.
54AnonymousOct 3, 2026 10:25
Re: #48
There's that much of a gap, huh…
You'd need to fill Yokohama Arena three times over to catch up.
68AnonymousOct 3, 2026 10:33
Re: #48
Same tier as Angerme lol
53AnonymousOct 3, 2026 10:25
Morning Musume's in "nostalgia hit" territory at this point — same class as Hiroshi Itsuki or Southern All Stars.
58AnonymousOct 3, 2026 10:26
Re: #53
That's an insult to Southern All Stars.
59AnonymousOct 3, 2026 10:27
Re: #53
Nobody goes to a Morning Musume show for the nostalgia hits anyway — the old classics aren't even in the fall tour setlist.
73AnonymousOct 3, 2026 10:37
Since they tour year-round, a group with a deep song catalog like Musume ends up winning out in the long run. The younger the group, the more their setlists repeat and the more limited their hype songs are. Hello! Project doesn't play the "double the venue size every tour" game, and I bet even new fans drawn in by flattering photos ("盛れ") will get bored of the same routine.
74AnonymousOct 3, 2026 10:38
Re: #73
Then why don't Johnny's, Kawaii Lab (the agency behind groups like FRUITS ZIPPER), or Sashihara-produced idols ever get boring?
77AnonymousOct 3, 2026 10:40
Re: #73
If anything, "gets boring unless they change the songs" just proves it's only old-guard otaku left and there's no popularity with new fans. Truly popular idols draw people who just want to "go see the popular thing" — nobody's fussing over setlist variety.
83AnonymousOct 3, 2026 10:42
Re: #1
Guess "Juice-scum" (汁カス, a mocking nickname for Juice=Juice fans) doesn't realize they're starting to get stale.
86AnonymousOct 3, 2026 10:44
Re: #83
Compare this↓
[Sad News] Juice=Juice Room Tour 2026 "5ROOMS" Mikuni Kiryu Cultural Hall Silk Hall (Gunma) — general ticket sales sold out in 2 minutes lolololol
https://kizuna.5ch.io/test/read.cgi/morningcoffee/1790989482/

To this↓
[Sad News] Morning Musume '25 fall tour: tickets for today's on-sale in Fukuoka and Hiroshima — and even Gunma, Mie, and Aichi — are sitting completely unsold lol
https://kizuna.5ch.io/test/read.cgi/morningcoffee/1758938433/1

1 Anonymous Wanted… 2025/09/27 (Sat) 11:00:33.57 0
Gunma

89AnonymousOct 3, 2026 10:46
Re: #86
The biggest profit move would be handing Morning Musume's venues over to Juice.

Background and Key Points of This Discussion

The “audience numbers” ranking quoted in the thread isn’t an official figure — it’s an independent estimate compiled by a 5ch user from each group’s number of tour dates and venue capacities, so the numbers would shift depending on the year or methodology used. With that in mind, the list in >>48, which compares groups like Nogizaka46 and NiziU, is probably best read as a rough "ballpark guide" rather than hard data. The venue-capacity comparison in >>17 (66,336 seats in fall 2025 → 57,541 in fall 2026, a drop of 8,795), on the other hand, is based on actual figures with show counts and hall names cited, making it considerably more reliable. The thread title’s claim of being “the same scale as Juice” left it ambiguous whether it meant the gut feeling of how full the venues look or the hard audience-count numbers, and that ambiguity is likely what drove pushback like >>50 and >>68 arguing that Morning Musume is actually above, not equal to, Juice=Juice. The upcoming graduations of Oda and Danbara — each group’s flagship member — also underlie the shared anxiety over how long either group can keep up its current scale.

※This article is compiled and summarized from the 5ch (Hello! Project board) thread “Say what you will, but isn’t it actually impressive that Morning Musume can still pull off a tour the same size as today’s Juice=Juice?“.

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