Inoue Haruka (17 years old) and Yumigeta Ako (14 years old).
They were both added through the direct Morning Musume audition, and the group now consists of 14 members.
Congratulations to both of them!!
First of all, this was a very sudden announcement, but I was expecting it to happen soon anyways. They could have easily waited to announce it at their Budokan performance or through Hello Station. My biggest guess (and hope) is, that this means they are already preparing to perform together and recording a new single.
Even though Momusu has been busy with touring, they have yet to release music this year. That is really frustrating, especially since Fukuchan is set to graduate this year and she deserves all the attention and some great releases! Initially I was hoping for two singles and one album this year, but I wonder if that is still possible.. Adding to that, Rairii has also been in the group for almost a year and participated in only one release so far. Hello Project has sadly been really slow with music releases the last few years.
Enough about that. With the two new members I am sure that things will speed up a little more. Morning Musume is always about the ever changing line-up and this is a really exciting part of being a fan! The two membets are cute and I am excited to see their skills, especially Haruka. I will definitely keep an eye on her and it would be funny, if another Haruka would be my favourite member haha.
Ako is the youngest member now and while she is obviously very young, I am glad that all the other members are 17+ right now, with more than half being older than 20 years.
I know that this is a whole other topic and there is a lot to critizice about Idols debuting at a very young age, but I feel like we are witnessing a change in the Idol industry. Of course there are still Idols that debut very young, or training at a very young age (just look at the KKS). But I hope that the times are long gone when they would add 12 year olds to groups. As a former Duu fan, I think one of the reasons she had a rather short tenure is because she was added at such a young age.
Even AKB48's newest generation was mostly over 17 years old, and they have not been adding under 18 year olds to Senbatsu for a while now.
This is kind of the opposite to Kpop right now, where it feels like the Idols have to debut at a younger age. Which is even crazier if you consider, that they train for yeaaaars before even getting to debut and it is also much harder and stricter than for example the Hello Project Kenshuusei program.
Talking about them:
Hello Project KKS additions to existing groups
There have been a few more announcements, and several KKS have been added to existing groups:
Goto Hana and Shimoitani Yukiho -> ANGERME
Kawashima Mifu -> Juice=Juice
Hinoha and Kamimura Rena -> KKS Unit '23 (set to debut in 2023)
They announced a new Hello Project audition for this year as well, so this has been a lot of news at once.
I currently do not have a lot of knowledge about the KKS members. I do know that Mifu was the Best Performance winner of this year, so she definitely fits into Juice=Juice. A lot of people were hoping her or Hana would be added to Momusu, which is understandable as they are in need for a new main vocal. Even though I hope they slow down with the Juice=Juice additions for now, I am pretty excited about the new Hello Project!
This is all for now, and I will see you soon.