Morning Musume Sakura Gumi

Morning Musume Sakura Gumi (モーニング娘｡ さくら組) 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 Otome Gumi. Sakuragumi 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 sakura (さくら) and gumi (組) means "cherry blossom" and "group," respectively. If translated to English, the group's name will be "Morning Musume, the Cherry Blossom Group."

Purpose
The sole purpose of Morning Musume Sakura Gumi — as well as its counterpart — was to perform in small towns that couldn't hold concerts for large groups. Aside from separate tours, the group released two singles that represented the traditional Japanese woman, before they became inactive on spring of 2004.

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 "Hare Ame Nochi Suki♥". The single contained an slow paced title track that was supposed to represent the traditional Japanese woman. Their counterpart sang fast paced songs about the modern Japanese woman and the groups competed for sales with Sakuragumi beating Otome Gumi in regards to sales by a large margin (their debut single selling 6,495 copies more than Otome Gumi's). They also had a number one hit on the Oricon.

2004
On January 25, 2004 the group's leader Abe Natsumi graduated from Morning Musume and as such left Sakura Gumi and handed leadership over to Yaguchi Mari. This was the final year of Sakuragumi's existance as a seperate group and they soon joined back into Morning Musume. However they released one more single before they merged, once again competing for sales with Otome Gumi. "Sakura Mankai" was released on February 25, 2004 and beat Otome Gumi's single once more by 8,598 copies, reaching number one once again.

Members

 * Abe Natsumi (安倍なつみ)
 * Yaguchi Mari (矢口真里) Leader
 * Yoshizawa Hitomi (吉澤 ひとみ)
 * Kago Ai (加護亜依)
 * Takahashi Ai (高橋愛)
 * Konno Asami (紺野あさ美)
 * Niigaki Risa(新垣里沙)
 * Kamei Eri (亀井絵里)

Trivia

 * Morning Musume Sakura Gumi always ended up outselling their counterpart, Morning Musume Otome Gumi.
 * Sakura Gumi had one member more than Otome Gumi.
 * However, this was only until Abe Natsumi graduated from Morning Musume.
 * When Abe Natsumi graduated from Morning Musume, Yaguchi Mari took the role as the group's leader.