Morning Musume 10th Generation Audition Results

The results for Morning Musume’s 10th generation were announced during their September 29th concerts. If you look back at my last audition post you’ll see that I called 3 members correctly. Feel free to ask me for lotto numbers if you like.

I am a surprised at 2 of the 4 members who got in and that will be explained further below.

The winners are…

The overwhelming fan favorite was an obvious choice & a real no-brainer. It was fairly clear she was in after the 2nd Hello! Pro Time episode. If a Hello! Pro Egg were to make it in it was either her or everybody else’s favorite from the S/Mileage auditions Karin. (Never underestimate UFA’s ability to fuck with your head, she was a realistic possibility.)

While I still don’t understand why H!P Eggs have to audition at least another one made it out of purgatory. I had a feeling that if Kudou were to be passed over the Internet would have exploded with wota rage. Where her “husky” voice will fit within the current Musume will be interesting. I see her as a mid-level member right off the bat. There’s no way they should give her back row duty.

I can see why she got in based on her overall performance and dance level. Singing-wise she’s okay but she’ll probably be pushed harder to improve that now that she’s in the flagship group. Or at least one can hope that’s what happens.

A very solid choice who will probably be relegated to the back for the short-term until she gets up to speed. Well at least we can have a Morning Musume dance battle between Iishida and Sayashi now. An H!P version of You Got Served is coming soon.

This is one of the girls who did not fare so well during the audition process. She couldn’t dance worth a lick and her singing ability while not exactly sub-par was eclipsed by many of the 8 remaining finalists.

But as all we weary and long time Hello! Project fans know, Tsunku loves these “project girls” that he can mold into some sort of superstar & Satou certainly fills that need.

She’ll definitely be hanging in the back with everyone’s favorite whipping girl Aika & some of the lesser 9th gen members honing her craft. Hopefully she won’t pick up the aura of failure & lost potential that Aika projects & blossoms into a solid Momusu member instead.

It’s no secret that Iikubo was my favorite right from the start & it’s not only because she’s hot. It’s because she’s hot & (relatively) old. Now we have a true stop gap between the youngins & Aika that makes the group look less like a glorified babysitters club.

With that said I found her dancing skills to be quite good. Not exactly stellar but good enough to not get called out by Natsu-sensei for sucking. Her singing is what worried me as she was unable to really make her voice heard in the early parts of the audition. She was so quiet. But she managed to learn how to project when it counted which is a good thing.

She, like Iishida, will probably have to be pushed to acheive more consistent vocals. Obviously I’m fucking elated that she made it into the group. The return of a tall, leggy chick to the group is always welcome in my book.

Exclusions

So what happened to the other favorite Murakami Sara? I had predicted that she would be next in line after Kudou Haruka but sadly that was not the case. Hopefully this is not the last we see of her. If she’s released back into the wild I’m sure Aki-p & his multi-headed AKBeast will come knocking on her door.

I was also expecting the Korean chick or some other outside force not named Karin to be placed into the group just because Tsunku likes to be all “unpredictable” & give that whole anything can happen kind of vibe at these announcements. My worst fear was if Tsunku pulled Mogi Minami out of the eggs & placed her in Momusu. Praise Jebus that never happened.

We fans actually expect the dude to pull some bullshit so to not have any to speak of is kind of disappointing in a way. Even with that odd feeling I believe that Tsunku & UFA made actual rational, level-headed decisions on the finalists that actually add some value to the group outside of being new loli bait.

For once I’m not going to bitch about Momusu. Well not until their first post Aichan song bombs. But when that happens I’ll probably be laughing instead at the mediocrity left in her wake.

For now? 10th gen is looking pretty good to me. Now let’s sexify Iikubo stat. =)