Aya Ishiguro

The single had the highest 1st week sales than any other Morning Musume's singles, an enormous amount of 600,860 copies.

Even with this large number, the single did not reach number one because Southern All Stars's biggest hit single, Tsunami, which sold total of 2.93 million copies, was released at the same date as Koi no Dance Site.

Morning Musume was formed in 1997 by rock singer-songwriter turned record producer Tsunku, who later composed the 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 produced several splinter groups, and often collaborates with other Hello!

Project acts, including Country Musume, Berryz Kobo, Cute, Melon Kinenbi, and V-u-den.

The group's name can be translated as "Morning Girls" or "Morning Daughters"; it consists of members mostly in their late adolescence and early 20s.

Japanese producer Tsunku started the group in 1997 through an audition for a female rock vocalist for his band Sharam Q.

The audition was held on the Japanese TV show Asayan.

The winner was Michiyo Heike, later to become a soloist under what would eventually become known as Hello! Project.

Tsunku decided to form a girl group consisting of five of the runners-up: Natsumi Abe, Yuko Nakazawa, Kaori Iida, Asuka Fukuda, and Aya Ishiguro.

They were issued a challenge to sell 50,000 copies of their demo single, "Ai no Tane", with just five days of promotion events.

They managed the feat in four promotion days (spread out over November 1997) in a very grassroots manner, and Tsunku began his mission to create the most famous all-girl group in Japan.

In early 1998, the girls were ready with their first official single, "Morning Coffee".

The success of this single (hitting number six on the Japanese pop charts) brought them three new members known as the second generation: Kei Yasuda, Mari Yaguchi, and Sayaka Ichii, bringing the total member count to eight.

The second single, "Summer Night Town", was the first single of the new lineup—a mature pop tune about unsuccessfully attempting to hide one's true feelings.

Their third single, "Daite Hold on Me!", continued in the same vein musically as Summer Night Town, and managed to hit number one on the charts.

Leader Nakazawa also started her solo career.

"First Time" was released in July 1998, featuring the singles "Ai no Tane", "Morning Coffee" and "Summer Night Town".

That year, Tsunku also formed Tanpopo, the first subgroup of Morning Musume, with Kaori Iida, Aya Ishiguro, and Mari Yaguchi.

Tanpopo touted slower, more mature songs.

When "Morning Coffee" was released, however, Morning Musume's label Zetima went by a different name, One Up Music (One Up is a combination of Warner Music Japan (the label that distributed One Up Music's catalog) and Up-Front Group (One Up Music's parent company)).

However, in April 1998, one month before the release of "Summer Night Town", One Up Music ended its distribution deal with Warner, and was rebranded as Zetima when it merged with Y.J. Sounds (another former Up-Front Group-affiliated label).

Distribution rights would be given to Sony Music Japan's sub label Epic Records for "Summer Night Town", "First Time", and all of Zetima's subsequent releases.

The group released its fourth single "Memory Seishun no Hikari" in early 1999, reaching number two on Oricon, second to Glay's "Winter, Again" which had first week sales of 955,780 copies.

The song features rap passages by L The Headtoucha and intense vocal harmonization by the group's members.

This was Asuka Fukuda's last single with Morning Musume; Asuka claimed that she was leaving in order to focus on her studies, only to drop out of school soon after.

"Manatsu no Kōsen" was released in May and went to number three on the charts.

Their sixth single, "Furusato", was released in July.

Second Morning was released in July 1999, and contained the singles "Daite Hold on Me!", "Memory Seishun no Hikari", "Manatsu no Kōsen", and "Furusato".

"Daite Hold on Me!"

and "Manatsu no Kōsen" were remixed.

Tsunku held auditions for the third generation of Morning Musume, and Maki Goto was added.

Goto was 13, the youngest member of Morning Musume at the time.

"Koi no Dance Site" was released in early 2000, reaching number two and selling over a million copies—400,000 away from reaching "Love Machine"'s success.

Morning Musume '24 (モーニング娘. '24), formerly and commonly known as Morning Musume (モーニング娘.) and colloquially referred to as Momusu (モー娘.), is a Japanese girl group, holding the second highest overall single sales (of a female group) on the Oricon charts as of February 2012, with the Oricon record of most top-ten singles, having 64 of them.

The group's seventh single, "Love Machine", sold 1,760,000 copies, making it a major hit; it is still their highest-selling single as of 2012.

It was Maki Goto's first single and Aya Ishiguro's last.

Goto was paired with Kei Yasuda and Sayaka Ichii to form the subgroup Petitmoni (also known as Pucchi Moni).

Petitmoni's first single, "Chokotto Love", sold over 1,123,610 copies.