The formation of C-ute was officially announced 12 years ago in June 2005. The seven members consisted of the extra girls from the “Hello! Project Kids” audition not selected to be members of Berryz Kobo.  In January 2006 Kanna Arihara, a member of Hello!Project’s trainee group Hello Pro Kenshuusei, was added to the group. As eight the girls finally released their indie debut single “Massara Blue Jeans”, a funky disco jam that has went on to become one of their signature songs. In the span of two months C-ute released three more indie singles: “Soku Dakishimete”, “Ooki na Ai de Motenashite”, and “Wakkyanai (Z)”. C-ute further established themselves when September 10th was officially christened as “C-ute day” during a concert held at Yomiuri Land EAST.

On October 25th, 2006 C-ute hit another milestone with the release their major label debut, the studio album “Cutie Queen VOL.1”. Local folklore says that album name was inspired by the Arama! Japan staff members, despite the website not existing yet. Celebration of the album was somewhat cut short when Megumi Murakami suddenly withdrew from the group. This came as a huge shock to fans since Hello!Project was positioning Megumi to be one of the prominent members of “Hello!Project Kids”. According to Hello!Project’s official statement Megumi decided to leave show business in-order to focus on her studies and live a normal life, Megumi never received a graduation ceremony.

2007 saw the release of C-ute’s major debut single “Sakura Chirari”. Finishing 5th on the Oricon Weekly chart, the girls made history by becoming the youngest group to finish the week within the top 10. At that point the average age of the group was 13 years old. Further success was celebrated when C-ute won Best New Artist at the 2007 Japan Record Awards, receiving 14 votes out of the 21 panelists. They performed their hit single “Tokaikko Junjou” at the ceremony.

The following year C-ute returned to the Japan Record Awards when their 6th single, an enka-pop song titled “Edo no Temari Uta II”, was nominated for the prestigious Song of the Year category. At the time this was one of the very few Hello!Project songs to feature no involvement with Tsunku. The lyrics were written by famed enka lyricist Osamu Yoshioka and was produced by Ryudo Uzaki.

After the groups successful beginnings 2009 turned out to be a very transitional period for the group. In April their 8th single “Bye! Bye! Bye!” was released without Kanna Arihara, which was due to her having difficulties with bunions on her feet. On July 9th, 2009 after a 4 month absence Kanna decided to resign from C-ute wanting to live a normal life. However, rumors were rampant that it might have had something to do with pictures published in July 2008 of her going on a date with Johnny’s member Ryosuke Hashimoto. Kanna ended up returning to show business in 2010.

One month following Kanna’s departure it was announced that sub-leader Erika Umeda would be graduating in the fall to pursue a career in modeling, after the release of their 10th single “EVERYDAY Zekkouchou!!”. Erika is the only C-ute member to receive her own graduation ceremony at a concert.

As a 5-nin group C-ute released their first single “SHOCK!”. It was met with heavy criticism with fans due to four of the members only getting one word as a solo line “CHAA!”, and singing part of the chorus all together. Airi Suzuki sang the remainder of the song alone. Despite the rough start C-ute quickly came into their own as a 5-nin group. Their 13th single “Dance De Bakoon!” became a sleeper hit and was selected to be in the Japanese versions of the highly popular “Just Dance” game series.

In 2011 the girls made history when their concert “C-ute Concert Tour 2011 Spring ~Chou! Chou WONDERFUL Tour~” was broadcast live via YouTube, a first for any artist in Japan. Over 90,000 YouTube viewers from all around the world tuned in to see the girls perform live.

As the years went on C-ute began to continually perfect their craft. The live vocals showcased a sense of confidence, advanced choreography became the norm and was performed perfectly in sync, multiple genres and sounds were dabbled in, and the venues for concerts became bigger and bigger. C-ute is the gold standard when it comes to hard work and dedication. Maimi Yajima, Saki Nakajima, Airi Suzuki, Chisato Okai, and Mai Hagiwara gave up the best years of their life so we could be entertained, their absence will definitely leave a hole in a Japanese idol scene.

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