[1][user-generated source] Each group had its own theme - the Sakuragumi girls were much more traditional in song and clothing than Otomegumi, performing ballads, with a calmer and more subdued image.

Sakuragumi performed "Hare Ame Nochi Suki" with Abe for the final time at her graduation concert in January.

In the years that followed both Yaguchi and Ai Kago left Morning Musume and Up-Front Works respectively due to scandals, and both Asami Konno and Hitomi Yoshizawa graduated in 2007.

In February 2009, at the Elder Club's graduation concert, Sakuragumi (without Kago, who had been fired from the agency altogether in 2007) performed together for the first time in almost five years, singing "Hare Ame Nochi Suki".

At Morning Musume's 2009 autumn tour, a Sakuragumi unit composed of Ai Takahashi, Risa Niigaki, Eri Kamei, Aika Mitsui, and Linlin performed "Sakura Mankai".