The all-girl super-idol group Morning Musume has been astonishingly popular since it was formed in 1997. But it isn't because of their singing or dancing, their songs or their looks. What keeps them constantly in the limelight is a carefully crafted and well-oiled mechanism.
Under the direction of their producer, Tsunku -- the alchemist behind the girls' success -- the trick that's worked so well has been simply to change the number of Morning Musume's members through competitive auditions, while also creating new spinoff units. That way, both the mothership (whose name means "Morning Girls" and is abbreviated as Mo-musu) and its satellite units keep themselves visible as they launch one hit song after another.
Also feeding the fan-base has been a pseudo-reality-TV program called "Asayan" that, until this past spring, chronicled each stage of the long journey each Mo-musu member made toward stardom.