BABYMETAL announce new third member Momometal

It's official: Babymetal are a trio again. On April 1st, the kawaii-metal leaders played their first show since the release of their new album, The Other One — at the Pia Arena MM in Okazaki, Japan — and announced Momoko Okazaki, a.k.a. Momometal, as the new third member of the "reborn Babymetal."

She joins Su-metal and Moametal, who have been fronting the band as a pair since the 2018 departure of Yuimetal. Before being named Momometal and a bona fide member of the group, Okazaki had served as one of the band's trio of backup dancers, known as Avengers, since 2019.

Though relatively new to Babymetal, Okazaki has lots of experience as a performer. She was a member of Japanese idol group Sakura Gakuin (translation: Cherry Blossom Academy) from 2015 through 2018, and in 2021, Okazaki appeared as a contestant on the South Korean reality TV show Girls Planet 999 — though she was eliminated in the first round.

On Twitter, Babymetal shared a photo of their new lineup, celebrating their first two shows — dubbed Black Night and Clear Night — in support of The Other One.