Michiyo Heike

Michiyo Heike was another casualty of the Cute Girls Who Can't Sing vs. Attractive But Not In The Traditional Sense Girls Who Can Sing war. She won the original audition for a lead vocalist way back in 1997, beating out the five girls who would later trample over her on the charts as Morning Musume.

Despite this failure, she was still recognized as the big cheese by the other H!P girls. Even aforementioned trampling-group's leader, Yuko Nakazawa (who was six years older than her, even) referred to her as "Dai Senpai", or "Big Leader."

Still, time went on, and the famous off-key, off-rhythm, and off-balance cuties we all know and love (we're looking at you, Rika Ishikawa) entered the Project, leaving poor on-key, on-rhythm, and on-balance Michiyo an afterthought. She was not only a distant second to the supposed losers of the competition she won, she wasn't even jailbait enough get any attention at all.

Fed up with this, Michiyo left the Project in 2002 and started her own career as simply "Michiyo." She did moderately well and her career putted steadily along.

That is, until March 2007, when Michiyo sprung the news that she was pregnant and marrying the still-unknown father. She gave birth to a baby girl on November 11, 2007. Hey, maybe her kid, Nozomi Tsuji's kid, and Kaori Iida's kid could all get together and play while the moms complained about Tsunku...