Ai Takahashi is a Japanese (日本美少女) pop singer connected with Hey! Project, best known as the current leader of Morning Musume and member of its preferred subgroup, Mini Moni.

Ai Takahashi joined Morning Musume in 2001 as component of the group’s fifth era, in addition to Makoto Ogawa, Asami Konno, and Risa Niigaki. Her debut appearance together with the party was on their solitary Mr. Moonlight Ai no Large Band, and her initial look on a Morning Musume full-length launch was their fourth studio album, the appropriately named 4th Ikimasshoi!! Her first physical appearance inside of a Hi there! Challenge shuffle unit launch was within the 2002 solitary “Shiawase Beam! Suki Suki Beam!” under the party title Satisfied 7.

In 2003, Takahashi changed Mari Yaguchi in the Morning Musume spinoff set Mini Moni, 1st appearing within the group’s film Mini Moni ja Video: Okashi na Daiboken! and its accompanying soundtrack. Her best-known nickname amongst non-Japanese fans, “Takitty”, was derived from the cat go well with which she wears inside video.

Later in 2003, she was part of the Morning Musume splinter team Morning Musume Sakuragumi, which carried out mainly slower numbers on the group’s two EPs, “Hare Ame Nochi Suki” and “Sakura Mankai”, along with the shuffle party 7Air, an R&B-inspired septet.

Takahashi’s vocals became more prominent about the second and final Mini Moni album, Mini Moni Songs 2 (2004), as well as on Morning Musume’s singles from their Spring 2004 discharge “Roman My Dear Boy” onward. She also had a duet with Tsunku within the cover version of Tsunku and Ayumi Hamasaki’s duet “Love ~since 1999~” on his solo album Take1.

In 2005, Morning Musume’s initial single discharge with the year, “The Manpower!!!!”, featured Takahashi in a prominent co-lead-vocal role, a role she has retained on subsequent singles since. From the summer of that year, she became component of the 2005 shuffle Group Elegies.

In 2006, Takahashi played the lead role, Sapphire, inside the musical “Ribbon no Kishi The Musical” which was a collaboration work of Takarazuka Revue and Good day! Project. The musical was based on Tezuka Osamu’s manga and also starred v-u-den, Nozomi Tsuji, Aya Matsuura, and Natsumi Abe, as well as Marcia and Kaoru Ebira with the Takarazuka Revue. Soon thereafter, Takahashi released her very first and only solo solitary to date, “Yume Kara Samete”.

Following then-leader Hitomi Yoshizawa’s graduation from Morning Musume on May 6, 2007, the present sub-leader, Miki Fujimoto ascended to the leader position, with Takahashi becoming the new sub-leader with the party. However, on June 1, 2007, after Fujimoto’s resignation,Takahashi took over because the new leader.

Takahashi is also captain in the Hey! Challenge kickball team, Metro Rabbits H.P..

In 2008 Takahashi became a member of Howdy Project’s new unit High-King,a group created to promote Morning Musume’s upcoming Cinderella the Musical, in which Takahashi will play the main character.

It was announced in July 2008, that Takahashi and fellow Morning Musume member Risa Niigaki would play the 80s J-Pop duo Pink Lady inside the TV Drama Hitmaker Aku Yuu Monogatari.