Morning Musume's 13th generation auditions

When there is graduation in the air there does tend to be auditions as well with Hello! Project, and with Sayashi Riho now graduated there has been an announcement for a new round of auditions for the group.

There is not much known for the auditions, even the date for the applications has yet to be announced, other than the fact most are speculating H!P are looking for a potential new Ace.

Honestly even if they find a new girl to be the main face of MM I hope it will not be to the extent Riho was. There are girls in the group that are really starting to shine and still hold plenty of potential that should not be stifled by being shoved in the back once more. Not to mention the pressure Riho was under was a reason she decided to leave so soon so it would be better if some of that was.distributed to other girls.

I also hope it is not another single generation or another set of four. Two or three new members seems like the best, so there is not too much pressure out the gate and the group does not feel like it has gotten too big.

Considering there are no dates yet it makes me wonder if the winners of the audition will even be in MM '16. If they drag it out long enough they could be announcing the new members in the fall and having them debut at the end of year concerts as a part of MM '17, like how 12th gen were announced before the end of 2014 but were not really active until 2015. And they were hardly the first gen that had to wait a while before being properly in the group.

I really do hope MM '16 will be the current line up, that way the current members get to try to prove themselves more in a post-Riho group. That and it would probably be easier to release an album before changing the group once more so there is little need to change the single tracks to reflect the group changes. And the group is overdue for an album at this point. Even if Riho has graduated it would not be the first time a graduated member was still on the album with the singles songs included.

Of course the audition could always end with no one being selected again. I somehow doubt it, but that is part of the fun/agony of auditions: You never know what we get until the results come out.