Morning Musume Otome Gumi

Morning Musume Otomegumi (モーニング娘｡おとめ組) was one of the subgroups that divided the Japanese pop group Morning Musume when the group split in 2003 to enable the towns with smaller venues a chance to see the idols perform. The groups counterpart was Morning Musume Sakura Gumi. Otomegumi remained active from 2003 to 2004 before the seperate groups merged once more to form the full Morning Musume line-up. There hasn't been a split like this since.

The words otome (おとめ) and gumi (組) mean "young girl" and "group," respectively. If translated to English, the group's name will be "Morning Musume, the Young Girl Group." This made sense as three of the four newly added sixth generation members were included in the groups line-up.

Purpose
The sole purpose of Morning Musume Otomegumi — as well as its counterpart, Sakuragumi — was to seperately perform in small towns that couldn't provide large enough venues for the full ensemble of Morning Musume. Aside from their separate tours, the groups also released two singles each with Otomegumi's representing the modern Japanese woman. The groups both became inactive in the Spring of 2004 when they merged back together to form Morning Musume once more.

2003
The news of Morning Musume's planned split into two seperate halves was announced in 2003 and met with dismay by fans of the group. It hadn't been made clear at first that the group was not to be splitting for good and as a result much confusion arose concerning Morning Musume's future. On September 18, 2003 the group's debut single was released, titled "Ai no Sono ~Touch My Heart!~". The single contained an upbeat title track that was supposed to represent the modern Japanese woman. Their counterpart sang slower paced songs about the traditional Japanese woman and the groups competed for sales with Otomegumi losing out to the more popular image of Sakuragumi.

2004
This was the final year of Otomegumi's existance as a seperate group and they soon joined back into Morning Musume. However they released one more single before the merged, once again competing for sales with Sakuragumi. "Yuujou ~Kokoro no Busu ni wa Naranee!~" was released on February 25, 2004 and lost out to Sakuragumi's single once more.

Members

 * Iida Kaori (飯田圭織) Leader
 * Ishikawa Rika (石川梨華)
 * Tsuji Nozomi (辻希美)
 * Ogawa Makoto (小川麻琴)
 * Fujimoto Miki (藤本美貴)
 * Michishige Sayumi (道重さゆみ)
 * Tanaka Reina (田中れいな)

Trivia

 * Morning Musume Otome Gumi never sold as many copies of their singles as their counterpart, Morning Musume Sakura Gumi did.
 * Otome Gumi had one less member that Sakura Gumi (until the graduation of Sakuragumi's leader, Abe Natsumi) and three of those members were from the newest generation to be added to Morning Musume.
 * Kumi (くみ) is the rōmaji of the kanji "組" when used alone. If the kanji is used with an another word — in this case, otome — the rōmaji will be gumi (ぐみ).