H!P Eggs Will Be Allowed To Audition For Morning Musume’s 9th Gen

H!P Eggs Will Be Allowed To Audition For Morning Musume’s 9th Gen

19 08 2010

An announcement on the official Morning Musume 9th generation audition site has revealed that H!P Eggs that meet the qualifications (being 10 ~ 17 years old) will be allowed to audition, only upon request.
H!P Eggs that decide to audition will pass immediately to the first stage of the audition, which means that they won’t need to be screened initially.
Here is a list of the Eggs that are eligible:

• Sainen Mia
• Mori Saki
• Kitahara Sayaka
• Komine Momoka
• Saho Akari
• Okai Asuna
• Sekine Azusa
• Arai Manami
• Kaneko Rie
• Maeda Irori
• Fukumura Mizuki
• Takeuchi Akari
• Miyamoto Karin
• Satou Ayano
• Kizawa Runa
• Tanabe Nanami
• Takagaki Sayuki
• Katsuta Rina
• Nagasawa Wakana
• Kudo Haruka

There are only a few H!P Egg members that don’t qualify: Aoki Erina (I doubt she would have applied anyway), Tanaka Anri, Sengoku Minami, Kikkawa Yuu, Furukawa Konatsu, and (obviously) Hirano Tomomi.
Unfortunately one of the fan favorites, Kikkawa Yuu, is one year over the limit, which is somewhat disappointing since she did place 2nd in the 8th generation audition after all and she has certainly improved a lot since she has joined H!P Eggs (not to mention that she would be a great addition), but there is still a chance that she may join since right now we have no idea if they will decide to add an Egg as well to the 9th generation or not.
The question most of us might have right now is why are they allowed to audition if they already are part of a company, and the most likely answer is that the rule was added to avoid any contract disputes between companies, and since UFA is the company it won’t affect them at all to have them try out (they were most likely already debating whether to add an Egg, so this way it would be more fair for the applicants since they have to go through the audition process like everyone instead of just being selected and automatically entering).
Despite that there are about 20 Eggs that are eligible to audition, and even though that may seem a bit unfair since they have had experience performing (some for years) it is necessary to remember that they are still trainees which means that they haven’t yet perfected their skills (some haven’t improved that much), and since Tsunku has a specific type of girl he is looking for (talented but not overconfident, basically group material) it shouldn’t affect the other applicants at all.
Overall this is a nice surprise that should add a bit of variety to the audition process, although it is still too early to say how many will apply since there could be only 1 or 2 (or maybe none) that wish to apply, but hopefully we find out when the initial screening process is over (applications are due in September so it should be sometime in November).
Morning Musume 9th Generation Tsunku Messages
Tsunku’s Blog Announcement

EDIT: Here is the translated Tsunku message (translation by Nouciel):
I, Tsunku, who’s done a lot of research in BBS’s (public forums/places of opinions) like Serend and Twitter, will make a comment public here.
The frequently/often asked question,
“Can current Eggs participate in the audition for the 9th generation Morning Musume members?”
will get an answer.
The persons who’re currently on Hello Pro Eggs, who are between 10 years and 17 years old, and have the desire to participate, can do so.
If it’s the case, the persons who didn’t sent the application papers, will still participate when the second part of the judging/examination process starts.

EDIT: According to Tsunku’s blog post it seems that H!P Eggs AND Nice Girl Project Trainees both can apply, which means that apart from the 20 H!P Eggs there are 3 other NGP Trainees that are eligible

credit to hello!SayuNii