More Musume for Your Morning: One Pack from 2003

 There are plenty of new card releases for baseball sets, but instead, let's open an idol pack! This is Morning Musume, who I've been featuring on the blog a lot lately. That's not on purpose, by the way. I've just been coming across a lot of their merchandise and cards this summer. I even saw what could be the "ultimate" fan pack, with lots of shirts, magazines, and DVDs. No, I didn't buy it.

Each pack has eight cards. Seven are "normal" cards (seriously, that's what it says), while the other card is a rainbow holo card or clear card. The full set of 96 cards includes 66 normal cards, and 15 each of the holo and clear cards. This is the third series (note the number in the bottom right corner, on the front of the pack). By the way, musume (娘, pronounced moo-sue-may) means daughter.

 Ai Takahashi. With a jungle motif. I think all the photos were in front of green screens.

 Ai Kago. She's ready for school with her book bundle! Why isn't she using a randoseru or bag?

 Asami Konno is on a playing card-style design. Japanese people have a lot of interest in blood types, in a way similar to astrological signs that determines relationship compatibility.

 It's a school book group shot!

 There must not be many different subsets in this series. With 66 cards, I'm guessing there are perhaps four subsets. We've seen jungle, school, and playing card. What will be the fourth?

 I wonder what all these girls are doing these days. Are any of them with the group 10 years later? And I just noticed that this subset has Japanese on the back. It has the same information as the other cards, though, so you can work on your kanji skills! Reina Tanaka would have been 13-14 years old at this time, and today she'd be approaching 24. Still young enough to be an idol, perhaps.

 Risa Niigaki looks much younger, but is a year older than Reina. This is all scary to me. Very scary.

And my short-printed card is a rainbow holo card of Miki Fujimoto. I still haven't really seen anything from Morning Musume. Let's see what I can find on YouTube:

I should mention that the group still exists, and continues to release singles. So I found this from 2003. What do you think? Are you a J-Pop fan now? (I just realized that both this and my Chaos & Kanji posts today are about J-Pop - Kyary Pamyu Pamyu is the focus there.)