There have been three versions of BABYMETAL: the original trio, the years with two members and a rotating third dancer, and the trio that followed. Only two people have been in all of them. One is the lead singer. The other is MOAMETAL.
Nagoya
Moa Kikuchi was born in Nagoya on 4 July 1999. She signed with the agency Amuse at eight, after finishing as runner-up in the 2007 Ciao Girl Audition, and joined the idol group Sakura Gakuin on 2 August 2010, on the same day as Yui Mizuno.
Sakura Gakuin’s heavy music club was BABYMETAL. The two newcomers were placed either side of SU-METAL, and Moa Kikuchi became MOAMETAL. She was eleven. She stayed in Sakura Gakuin until 2015, by which point BABYMETAL had long since become a group in its own right.
Song 4
She was a writer early. “4の歌” (“Song 4”), on the 2014 debut album, is credited to BLACK BABYMETAL, which is the name MOAMETAL and YUIMETAL used when the two of them took a song without the lead singer. They wrote it together.
It’s a small credit on a big record. It is also the first sign that the two flanking members were contributors and not decoration.
Three, Two, Three
YUIMETAL was absent from the stage from December 2017 and left the group in October 2018. From 2019, the third position in the choreography was filled by three support dancers taking turns. Through those years MOAMETAL was the only other permanent member, performing a three-person stage show as half of a two-person group.
On 1 April 2023, one of those support dancers, Momoko Okazaki, was announced as MOMOMETAL, and the group was a trio again.
What Stayed the Same
The milestones belong to her as much as to anyone: Wembley Arena in April 2016, Tokyo Dome that September, the O2 Arena in London on 30 May 2025, and Metal Forth entering the Billboard 200 at number nine in August 2025.
She was on every one of those stages. Lineups are usually described by who left and who arrived. This one is easier to understand through the person who did neither.
Start with the 2014 debut for “4の歌,” then Metal Forth.
