Aichan to graduate September 30th?

Morning Musume's Fall tour has been formally announced along with a couple of tour dates (more dates are likely to be added in the future) to the fanclub website.

I saw two things worth noting.

First, the final tour date is listed as September 30th. Nouciel at H!O has gathered together a couple of statements that hint toward September being Aichan's graduation month, and seeing as the 30th is the last day in September (of course, it is impossible to add a later date in September), it seems likely that September 30th will be Aichan's last day as Morning Musume's leader.

The second thing of note is the final venue they are performing in - Budokan! It's not as large as Yokohama Arena, but it is much, much more famous. Many big name foreign artists like the Beatles and Eric Clapton have performed there, not to mention many big name Japanese artists (including Morning Musume themselves, during the so called Golden Era).

Buono! even directly mentions it in their song Rock no Kamisama,

Chiisa na suteeji demo
Atashi tachi ni wa budookan

It may be only a small stage
But to us it’s the Budokan

(Translation thanks to kiwi-musume)

So yeah, it's a pretty prestigious place to perform.

I so wish I could be there~~

At least Aichan will get a proper farewell for her historic time in Morning Musume. Not only has she been a Morning Musume member longer than anyone not named Niigaki Risa, she also will have been a leader longer than anyone else when her graduation date comes up.