Minimoni

2000-2004: Formation

The group was founded in late 2000 by Morning Musume member Mari Yaguchi. Together with Morning Musume's songwriter and producer, Tsunku, she selected two new members, Ai Kago and Nozomi Tsuji and the trio began performing in concerts as Minimoni. American-born Mika Todd from the band Coconuts Musume was later added to the group. Their debut single, "Minimoni Jankenpyon!," was a #1 hit.

The quartet released several singles in 2001 and 2002, with most of these tracks compiled on their first album Minimoni Song Daihyakka Ikkan. Simultaneous to their single releases, the band became the subject of a series of short cartoons, Minimoni Yaru no da Pyon!, voicing their own characters. 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 three singles under this name.

In 2002, Mari Yaguchi graduated from Minimoni to take on the 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). Ai Takahashi also joined the group, while Mika Todd, took over Yaguchi's place as the band's leader. That same year, all members of Minimoni filmed the movie Minimoni ja Movie: Okashi na Daibōken! (Minimoni The Movie: The Great Cake Adventure), which explained Yaguchi leaving Minimoni and how Takahashi joined 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 disbanded in May 2004 at Mika Todd's graduation concert, following the release of a final single, "Lucky Cha Cha Cha!"

2009-2011: Revival as Shin Minimoni

On May 26, 2009, Minimoni's original leader, Mari Yaguchi, posted a blog discussing how the head producer of Hello! Project, Tsunku, had contacted her asking for permission to bring the group out of hiatus. Tsunku would later make a post on his own blog confirming that Minimoni would be revived with an entirely new line-up, confirming S/mileage member Kanon Fukuda as the first member. Morning Musume's Linlin was announced later as the group's leader, and that Hello Pro Eggs Akari Takeuchi and Karin Miyamoto would be the final two members in the new line-up. This line-up is referred to as Shin Minimoni (新ミニモニ。, New Minimoni). They released a new cover song in 2009 called "Tentomushi no Samba" to the Hello! Project compilation Champloo 1: Happy Marriage Song Cover Shū and a brand new original song later in the same year called "Pen Pen Kyoudai" on the Hello! Project compilation Petit Best 10.

In 2010, Shin Minimoni was scheduled to release a new single as part of a joint shuffle release during the summer of 2010, however, the release was cancelled for reasons unknown. Despite the cancellation, Shin Minimoni continued performing in Hello! Projects concerts as always. In August 2010, Linlin's graduation was announced. On the last day of Morning Musume's fall 2010 tour, Rival Survival, Linlin graduated from Morning Musume, and thus left Shin Minimoni as well. (She has returned to China since her graduation.) Fukuda Kanon was named the new leader of Shin Minimoni and the three remaining members proceeded to perform as a trio in the Hello! Project 2011 winter concert. There has been no further activity from Shin Minimoni since 2011.

Legacy

In February 2006, Minimoni's name was invoked on American television (NBC's The Tonight Show with Jay Leno) during a skit claiming that one of Leno's house band members had started out as a member of Minimoni; a manipulated picture of the Leno band member with Minimoni (in their outfits from the cover of Minimoni Songs 2) was aired as part of the sketch.

In June 2007, an excerpt from a November 2000 appearance by Minimoni on Hello! Morning of a prairie dog suddenly turning his head became the basis for the Internet phenomenon The Dramatic Chipmunk. A parody of the Dramatic Chipmunk clip, including lookalikes of Minimoni, appears in Weezer's music video for their 2008 single "Pork and Beans".