Morito Chisaki to graduate from MM at the end of the sping tour

[DonJuan]

Announcement on their website.

She wants to go abroad and study English. Apparenly she's planned to graduate in 2021, but going abroad was not possible due to Covid, so she decided to stay.
She will study for a year and a half and then return to continue working with the company.

Her final concert will be on Monday, June 20 at Budokan.

- - -

A bit of a surprise, especially concerning the studying part - does H!P have connections to schools abroad? It seems like the number of girls leaving to study English increased over the years. Also, my Japanese might be rusty, but explicitly saying that she'll return to the company sounds interesting.

Personally I'm both sad and a bit... indifferent. Chii sure was cute, and I wish I could have gotten more into her. But at the same time she didn't bring anything to the group for me.

[AquaChan]

I felt it coming as I was watching the fall team concerts and she seemed so.. done? Anyways, I can't say, I wasn't really her biggest fan when she got into MM.
I'm curious thought with the "return at the company" thing.

[Shoujo Q]

So it begins, the great Morning Musume purge. And not with who I expected. :O

Honestly, Morito leaving is like when Ogata Haruna left. It wont leave much of an impact for me because I don't feel like she herself left much of an impact, especially vocally. Visually, maybe? But she is/was competing with so many more stronger personalities. Considering she was a Country Girl under Momoko, chances were high she was eventually going to leave to do something. I feel sorry for her fans, but at the same time, she's coming back? Will she be an Aika 2.0?

[al kusanagi]

I can honestly say this is the first MM member to join and graduate without me knowing who they are...

[Zoe]

I am shocked she's graduating before Erina.

I think many of the recent girls aspiring to study English have ended up in Australia? Wonder if that's where she'll go as well.

[Vikitty]

I never really latched onto her. The whole "putting random people from Country Girls into established groups" never really sat right with me, and if I recall correctly none of those movements lasted as long as she did.

[arcobaleno]

I wish her well, and I hope she can recover vocally a bit. I felt like her voice was getting super strained… and Australia has my favorite English accent so I’m definitely 100% on board with the idea H!P has some connections there for girls who want to study English to pursue.

I liked her in CG, but I feel like she kind of lost any personality she had when she joined MM, so she was always in the background for me, especially being “bookmarked” by 13ki before her and 15ki after her.

[DonJuan]

I never really latched onto her. The whole "putting random people from Country Girls into established groups" never really sat right with me, and if I recall correctly none of those movements lasted as long as she did.

Yeah. It was a dumb idea. I said in the discord chat that they should have tried and kept CG. Would have kept Yamakki and Ozeko more visible to the fans and Chii would have been more comfortable and a more obvious center girl. MM is too focused on seniority for any new girl to actually get to the front - Kitagawa Rio is about as far as it gets, and even that is nothing compared to Mizuki, Sakura or (until December) Masaki level.

I think many of the recent girls aspiring to study English have ended up in Australia? Wonder if that's where she'll go as well.

We don't know if Minami is studying English, but the signs are that she's in Europe.

[TicTacAnyone]

Feel the same as others here—liked her well enough in CG, but she just never felt like an MM member to me even though she was part of it for years. Tbf I felt the same about Funakki… Manaka and Yanami were solid JJ members for me, though. Odd.

Anyway, happy for her she’s moving on, but a bit surprised she’s going to study English instead of dance.

[JPope]

No Chii fans here, eh?

I wasn't a fan, either, although she seems to have been wildly popular in Japan, and universally beloved within MM. Gonna be a lot of tears at her grad concert. I felt bad for her when CG was dissolved, as she was the only one to join a different group as a solo generation, and it appeared to take a couple of years for her to really settle in with her new group. But she was such a bad singer, and never had the obviously magnetic personality to compensate that I just never connected with her. So I wish her well in whatever she does, but I won't miss her in MM.

Feel the same as others here—liked her well enough in CG, but she just never felt like an MM member to me even though she was part of it for years. Tbf I felt the same about Funakki…

I'm still salty about Funaki graduating Angerme. She had become very good at pretty much everything and fit in with Anju perfectly, at least from a performance perspective. Of the more recent grads not named Sayuki Takagi, Funaki is the one I'd most want to see make some sort of comeback.

[Madara]

I'm a big fan of Chisaki and consider her the best dancer in H!P after Manaka. I got to see her do a little dance of her own onstage during a number at Hina Fes in 2018 and it was wonderful. I was privileged to be one of the very few audience members to see it. I had turned around in my seat to watch MM at the front of the runway and Chisaki's dance was at one corner and pointed away from the main audience and was visible only to people in my section most of whom were looking at the screen not the stage. And I wouldn't have been able to turn around if the aisle seat next to mine hadn't been empty. I found her quite charismatic in each of the four concerts I saw. (For the record, Ayumi did a little dance exclusively for my section also during the same number. Hers was seen by even fewer people. The big difference between the two is that Ayumi danced for us, while Chiichan was in her own zone and danced for herself. Amazing either way.) I also like Chisaki's voice, esp. in CG which gave us more opportunities to hear her.

I also think she's absolutely radiant:

[JPope]

Chii keeping the streak of great grad outfits alive. Been a while since we've seen a disaster.

[DonJuan]

I want to share my favourite scene of the concert, Maria quoting Dragon Ball.

[JPope]

That was hilarious. Maria finding creative ways to avoid bawling uncontrollably is hella endearing.

I just finished the concert (A!O, yo) and it's a lot of fun. Cool setlist and mucho Chii-chan. It's too bad her voice never fully recovered, because every now and then it stabilizes into a decent, unique voice. She's just not able to keep it stabile, though.

[Madara]

For those of us who can't read Japanese, here's the Dragon Ball Z clip that Maria referenced:

[JPope]

LMFAO!

[DonJuan]

Iconic. Maria just made another legacy her own.

[JPope]

Some dude tweeted this out, but deleted it for some reason. Maria is becoming a MM legend in front of our eyes, lol