Japanese girl group formed in 1997 by rock singer-songwriter turned record producer Tsunku, who later composed a vast majority of the group's songs over the decade. They are the lead group of Hello! Project that specialises in upbeat, pop-oriented music coupled with dance performance. The group's name can be translated as Morning Girls; as the name suggests, it consists of members mostly in their late adolescence and early 20s.The average age of the group members has remained more or less unchanged since its original formation because the group maintains a "school-like" system for their continuous line-up changes, with older members "graduating" and new, usually younger, members selected from nationwide auditions admitted to the group annually.
