Minimoni - Original Minimoni (2000-2004)

Original Minimoni (2000-2004)

The group was founded in late 2000 by Morning Musume member Mari Yaguchi, who had an idea for a subgroup whose members were 1.5 m (4 ft 11 in) in height or shorter. Yaguchi and Morning Musume's songwriter and producer, Tsunku, selected two of Morning Musume's newest members, Ai Kago and Nozomi Tsuji, for the new subgroup, and the trio began performing in concerts as Minimoni. American-born Mika Todd of Pop band Coconuts Musume was later added into the group to give the group "an international flavor", and Tsunku made them official. Their debut single, "Minimoni Jankenpyon!", was a #1 hit.

An interesting side note is that Mika Todd usually wore drastically different costumes to her bandmates (while the other girls wore skirts and bows, Todd was often seen wearing jumpsuits or typically more masculine outfits). This could be attributed to her being the tallest member of the group, just making the height requirements at the band's founding. It is also possibly due to her being from Hawaii as opposed to the other members.

While Minimoni was initially directed towards younger listeners (in spite of the fact two of the members, Yaguchi and Todd, were in their late teens), they also had an older fan base consisting of older Morning Musume fans (especially of Yaguchi, Kago and Tsuji) and the parents of the younger Minimoni fans.

The quartet released several singles in 2001 and 2002, with most of these tracks compiled into their first album Minimoni Song Daihyakka Ikkan. The album's musical styles spanned wildly from track to track, defiantly incorporating such diverse styles as blues, electronica, march music, jazz, reggae, and horn-driven 60s soul music.

The group's almost anarchic presentation would also carry into some of the group's television appearances, many of which are circulated online, especially amongst the band's non-Japanese cult audience; these antics have included Kago playfully saying "big doo-doo" (in English) in response to a question on the music variety show Fun, Kago and Tsuji kanchoing host Norika Fujiwara backstage at Fun, and an Utaban appearance where Kago slugged Yaguchi in the crotch while Yaguchi was in the middle of a sentence (which was actually a Morning Musume appearance for the song "Sōda! We're Alive").

Simultaneous to their single releases, the band became the subject of a series of short cartoons of their own, Minimoni Yaru no da Pyon!, for which they supplied their own voices. They also contributed their voices to a string of movies based on the Hamtaro cartoon series, which featured a hamster version of Minimoni known as Minihams. The group released five songs on three singles under this pseudonym.

In 2002, Mari Yaguchi graduated from Minimoni to take on leadership of the subgroup ZYX, one of the first Hello! Project groups to incorporate members of the Hello! Project Kids (who would later split into Berryz Kobo and Cute). Another Morning Musume member, Ai Takahashi, took Yaguchi's place, while Mika Todd, as the oldest member of the current lineup, took over as the band's leader. That same year, all five members of Minimoni filmed the movie Minimoni ja Movie: Okashi na Daibōken! (Minimoni The Movie: The Great Cake Adventure), part of the storyline of which, in the context of the movie's fantasy setting, "explains" how Yaguchi ended up leaving Minimoni to begin leading ZYX and how Takahashi ended up in the band.

They started to have a more mature, modern R&B-heavy sound to their music with the single "Crazy About You", a style the group explored more heavily on their second album Minimoni Songs 2. However, their silly side was also well represented on the album with two of the songs they contributed to Hamtaro as Minihams. Former member Yaguchi also appears on three cuts, two of which previously appeared on the Okashi na Daibōken soundtrack. They also starred in a mini-series called Minimoni de Bremen no Ongakutai starring Takahashi, Tsuji, and Kago; Mika Todd made brief appearances in two episodes.

The group originally disbanded in May 2004 at Mika Todd's graduation concert, following the release of a final single, "Lucky Cha Cha Cha!"