Morning Coffee: The joining of JunLin

For the first Morning Coffee I had actually planned a post about Yoshizawa Hitomi, yet during my research I actually thought a post about the Panda's would be much more appropriate. This is because they were my first every members to graduated togheter with Kamei, I was actually already a fan just before Koharu left, but I didn't understand what graduations were, not who ever member was yet. 

So today we are going to look at beginning of two amazing members . This post will mainly be about them joining and how this was all presented to the fans. I can talk about them and their graduation and stuff another time, because this post would otherwise be HUGE.

Let's go back a few years to the day Morning Musume was leaded by 4th gen member Yoshizawa Hitomi and counted just 8 members. It's the year 2006 and Tsunku just announced the winners of the Happy 8 auditions. Mitsui Aika joined Morning Musume on the 10th of December 2006 and was the sole winner of the 8th generation auditions. 

Two singles were released with this new 9 member lineup: Egao YES Nude and Kanashimi Twilight. Yoshizawa Hitomi announced her graduation and would be leaving Morning Musume in May, yet suddenly there was a suprise announcement. Two members would be joining as the second part of the 8th generation, but who were these two girls?

Linlin

Let's start with the girl who was already a member of H!P at the time. Around the beginning of 2007 Linlin joined Hello!Project through Hello!Pro Eggs. A friend of Tsunku recommanded her. Linlin was known by fans as the mysterious ponytail girl. 

Due to her preformance on stage Tsunku got impressed by her and thought she was just the girl Morning Musume needed. Until today Linlin is the only girls that joined Morning Musume without ever officially auditioning for the group. 

Junjun

Junjun competed in a singing contest in China in 2006. She made it to the top 50, but lost. After this Tsunku contacted her and held a special audition for Morning Musume with her. This was not known by the members of Momusu at the time. Junjun was already 18 at the time. 

Junjun came to Japan and was called to a meeting togheter with Linlin. 

Announcement

Both girls met eachother and were quite exited to meet one another. They are both from China so they must have felt connected. Linlin had been in Japan for some time and was adapting quick. Her Japanese was already pretty good, but for her and especially Junjun, there was a translater present all the time. The announcement was made through a video with subtitels for the girls.

Junjun and Linlin were really suprised. Tsunku saw them as fitted for Morning Musume and hoped they would be the key to make Morning Musume big in the rest of Asia. Both would be joining Morning Musume as 8 generation members, but also foreign exchange students. 

Morning Musume got the news of two members joining not long after during the taping of their tv show. Yoshizawa got a special message from Tsunku and got to meet the new members alone. 

As many juniors before them, they seemed to really like Yossy, eventhough the language barriere was still really big. Although the two girl were officially announced as the 8th generation members on March 15th of 2007, it is not know when they heared it themselfs. After the official announcement Junjun moved to Tokyo.

Their debut on stage was something a lot of fans were waiting for, as the girls made this debut on May the 6th, which was also the graduation date of leader Yoshizawa Hitomi. Junjun and Linlin joined Morning Musume on stage and met the audience. They both introduced themselfs and tried as best as they could to give a little speech. 

As they introduced themselfs and got of stage, both girls were really exited and happy to be there. Yet there were also a lot of tears. Tears of joy and of finally being able to stand on stage, but also tears for the graduation of their already beloved senpai.

No long after Yoshizawa graduated and Junjun and Linlin officially joined Morning Musume, it was announced that leader Fujimoto Miki left the group due to a scandal. This left the new members in the hands of 5th generation member Takashi Ai. 

The first single with the new members would be Onna ni Sachi Are in which Junjun and Linlin had a solo line each. 

Both members got their member colors: Junjun got Blue and Linlin got Emerald Green. Those colors are now inherited by Ishida Ayumi (Blue) and Sato Masaki (Emerald Green), who are 10th generation members. 

Sadly Junjun and Linlin did not get the push everyone expected. The whole 8th generation was kind of pushed into the back and never really got much solo lines. Junjun and Linlin did not become as popular as Tsunku hoped, although both girls had their own fanbases. 

On the 10th Morning Musume album 10 MY ME, the 8th gen got their own song called "Osaka Umainen" and Junjun and Linlin got the chance to sing Ame no Furanai Hoshi de wa Aisenai Darou? in Chinese.

I never really understood why Junjun and Linlin weren't more popular, because they were really great. Yet they never really got as much fans as other members, which is really sad. One day Morning Coffee will talk about their and Kamei Eri's graduation. Please look forwards to it and tell me what you think about this little history lesson!