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The story
Morning Musume looks set to close out 2026 with zero albums and just one single — a first in the group’s history. Juice=Juice is also on track to end the year with zero singles, reportedly the first time that’s happened in Hello! Project since the “MoBeKiMaSu” era (the early-2010s heyday when Morning Musume, Berryz Kobo, °C-ute, and S/mileage were the core lineup). On the thread, opinions were split over why releases have dried up, with posters pointing to member graduation timing, the agency’s management structure, and comparisons to the Tsunku♂ era.
What people said
Through 2018: always had at least 2 singles
2019: 1 album, 1 single
They could still drop one in December though
Because there wasn't one scheduled
She can barely sing anyway
What does whether the new members are ready have to do with releasing a single?
Look at BEYOOOOONDS' "High Tension" — the new members weren't on that one either
Maybe there's a heartfelt winter song from Kohmi Hirose in the works — something like "Ge-Dan" (the Morning Musume hit she wrote back in the day)
After that it's probably just a photobook release — no more CDs for her
Otsubo and Sugiyama should get one too
And Up-Front is the one who stepped in and stopped things from nearly dying back then — pretty ungrateful to turn around and complain
He was cranking out great songs in 2013 right when he got told he was being cut loose — then on the New Year's "Young Town" radio show his voice was completely shot, and soon after that his cancer was found. That's obviously stress from getting fired
Releases dropped because they moved to multiple songwriters — that's got nothing to do with Tsunku
Maybe it's the same one they play in hospitals
Stardust fires off new songs back-to-back whenever something looks like it's about to hit — that's exactly what Up-Front can't do
That's got nothing to do with it. "Burabare" flopped, sure, but they're all over TV thanks to "Moremi" and "Kurakura." Not putting out new music right now is just dumb
"The setlist's gone stale" is a complaint only "omaitsu" (regulars who show up to literally every date) would even notice. For Juice=Juice it's a fight just to get people to one show at all, and everyone already has their one must-hear song, so there's no real need to shake up the setlist
That's just because you've already been a fan for years — it's just gotten harder for new people to get into Juice=Juice, that's all
"Lonely…But not Alone"'s MV isn't even outperforming "BLOODY BULLET," the one that supposedly flopped
It's doing fine, by Morning Musume standards
That's got nothing to do with 2026 lol
It was obvious this graduation-milking excuse of an agency hadn't prepped for Makino's graduation at all
In the end nothing was ready in time anyway and it slipped to September 30 — you can only call that inept
↓ "Moremi"
↓ Juice=Juice's crushing flop
↓ Juice=Juice's massive flop
↓ A release doing even worse than Juice=Juice's massive flop
"Kurakura" isn't even going viral
At the very least, people from Ookami (a separate idol-fan forum, not 5ch) have no right to say that — go ahead and say it on X though
Don't look away from reality
Background and Key Points
Morning Musume was formed in 1997 as a shockingly durable byproduct of the talent show “Asayan,” and became the flagship act of Hello! Project (H!P), the Up-Front Group idol umbrella that has since spun off Juice=Juice, ANGERME, BEYOOOOONDS and others. For most of the 2000s and into the “MoBeKiMaSu” era the thread references — the early-2010s stretch when Morning Musume, Berryz Kobo, °C-ute and S/mileage were H!P’s core four — nearly everything was written and produced by Tsunku♂, and the standard cadence across groups was roughly four singles plus an album a year. Tsunku♂ stepped back around 2014 after throat cancer treatment, and production shifted to multiple outside songwriters while Up-Front simultaneously kept adding new groups to the roster, which is the “Hashi Pro” some posters are mocking. In Japanese idol economics, singles matter less as music sales than as vehicles for handshake/lottery events (like the WithLIVE mentioned for Oda’s send-off), so a release usually gets timed to a member’s graduation — which is why the thread keeps circling back to scheduling, not just songwriting output.
The actual disagreement isn’t over whether output has collapsed — everyone agrees it has — but over why: mismanagement of Makino’s and Oda’s graduation timing, the agency spreading thin resources across too many groups, or simply the post-Tsunku songwriting-by-committee model, versus a defensive camp noting Up-Front rescued H!P from near-collapse in the mid-2010s and shouldn’t be second-guessed.
What outside readers will likely miss is that “flop” here is being measured against Morning Musume’s own historically outsized numbers — sluggish chart or MV performance doesn’t necessarily mean absence from TV or year-end shows, which posters note “Moremi” and “Kurakura” are still delivering despite the single drought.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Hello! Project) thread “Morning Musume ending the year with zero albums and one single is unprecedented; Juice=Juice ending the year with zero singles is a first for Hello! Project since the MoBeKiMaSu era.”
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