(born September 14, 1986) is a Japanese singer and actress formerly associated with the Hello! Project and is best known as the leader of Morning Musume and Hello! Project until 2011. She is also a former member of its popular subgroup Mini Moni. Biography Morning Musume Career (2001–2011) In 2001, Ai Takahashi joined the Japanese idol group Morning Musume as part of the group's fifth generation of performers, along with Makoto Ogawa, Asami Konno, and Risa Niigaki. Her audition involved a three-day training camp where participants were expected to learn a new song, a dance routine and a script. Takahashi was one of nine applicants selected out of 25,000 for the camp. Her debut with the group was on their single "Mr. Moonlight: Ai no Big Band", and her first appearance on a Morning Musume full-length release was their fourth studio album, 4th Ikimasshoi!. Her first appearance within a Hello! Project shuffle unit release was on the 2002 single "Shiawase Beam! Suki Suki Beam!" under the group name Happy 7. In 2003, Takahashi replaced Mari Yaguchi in the Morning Musume spinoff group Mini Moni and debuted in the group's movie Mini Moni ja Movie: Okashi na Daibōken! and its accompanying soundtrack. Later in 2003, she was part of the Morning Musume splinter group Morning Musume Sakuragumi, which performed mainly slower numbers on the group's two EPs, "Hare Ame Nochi Suki" and "Sakura Mankai", and the shuffle group 7Air, an R&B-inspired septet. Takahashi's vocals became more prominent on the second and final Mini Moni album, Mini Moni Songs 2 (2004), as well as on Morning Musume's singles from their spring 2004 release, "Roman: My Dear Boy". She sang a duet with Tsunku on the cover version of Tsunku and Ayumi Hamasaki's duet "Love: Since 1999" and on his solo album Take1. In 2005, Morning Musume's first single release of the year, "The Manpower!!!", featured Takahashi in a prominent co-lead-vocal role which she has continued in on subsequent singles. That summer she became part of the 2005 shuffle group Elegies. In 2006, Takahashi played the lead role, Sapphire, in Ribon no Kishi The Musical which was a collaboration work by Hello! Project and the Japanese all-female theatrical company Takarazuka Revue. The musical was based on Tezuka Osamu's manga and starred v-u-den, Nozomi Tsuji, Aya Matsuura and Natsumi Abe as well as Marcia and Kaoru Ebira of the Takarazuka Revue. On July 2,