Ozono Rei, Fujiyoshi Karin, Moriya Rena interview from BUBKA November 2021

 

Each of their twenty years of age

Q Have the three of you ever had a photoshoot before…?

Karin: It’s our first time.

Q I’m curious about what kind of relationship the three of you have. How do the two of you see Fujiyoshi-san?

Rei: Karin-chan is generally a free-spirited person. When we had a photoshoot on the roof just now, the two of us were doing our best to keep our eyes open against the sunlight, but Karin-chan pretty much kept them closed (laughs).

Karin: I’m bad with it (laughs).

Rena: Karin-chan is my-paced, but has an amazing aura. I always thought that that part of her is nice. She’s pretty much art already? The same goes with her blog, it’s all art. Stylish.

Karin: Are you saying that while laughing?

Rena: I’m not! She’s art.

Karin: I think the kind of idol Moriya-chan is is that of an orthodox idol. I want to entrust her as the orthodox idol of Sakurazaka46 (laughs). She’s feminime. Her actions, her way of speaking, and even her writing.

Rei: Rena is always cute. She may seem older sisterly, but she’s also an airhead.

Rena: You just want to call me a dummy, don’t you?

Rei: Since she would say worrisome remarks with a face full of smiles. But that part of her is cute too.

Q That side of her could be seen in “Love it!” as well.

Rena: I hope to show it in the future (laughs). Though I think it just shows naturally.

Q Then, what about Ozono-san?

Karin: She’s a bit weird. She’s always muttering to herself.

Rei: Eh? I don’t do that.

Rena: You do.

Rei: Eh!? That must be something I do unconsciously.

Karin: You have a strong impression of it (laughs).

Rei: I think that I mean to talk with someone else, but I’m just speaking to myself? I don’t really understand it myself.

Rena: That’s right! I only realized this recently but Rei-chan never joked around before. That's because the six new 2nd generation members are filled with girls that want to be jokesters, so Rei-chan would be the one to deliver punchlines for us. But lately it’s clear that Rei-chan is also a jokester herself.

Rei: The truth is that I always wanted to joke around. When I make a light joke, Matsuri-chan (Matsuda Rina) or (Takemoto) Yui-chan would say a retort back at me.

Q So you wanted to make jokes (laughs). And Fujiyoshi-san is going to turn 20 years old soon (She was 19 years old at the time of interview), do you have any thoughts on that?

Karin: I loved being 19 years old because it’s the age where you are neither a high school student nor an adult, so I don’t want to turn 20 years old (laughs). But aren’t mature women cool? So in that way I’m looking forward to it.

Rei: I wanted to hurry up and turn twenty. Though if someone were to ask me how I changed, then there’d be nothing to say.

Rena: I also wanted to hurry up and turn twenty. I somehow wanted to feel how it is to become an adult. Before I turned twenty, I longed to enter an adult-like store, but I haven't been able to do it yet.

Karin: My grandfather is quite a drinker, but I have a bit of longing to drink with him. I saw how he drinks during family gatherings, and I thought that it looked fun. I want to make memories with my grandfather (laughs).

Faced With Reality

Q Well then, I hope that we can talk about the new song, “Nagaredama”. What do you feel when you listen to it?

Rei: It was released following “BAN,” so I thought that they’re connected. I wondered if after they got BAN’d, they were struck by a stray bullet. It’s a shocking lyric. If you only look at the words they’re just extreme, but we might be the only group who can sing such lyrics, so I’d like to deliver it with confidence.

Rena: When I heard the intro, I thought that it sounded similar to “W-KEYAKI FES 2021” opening, and wondered if there is any relation to it. I talked about it with Rei-chan as well, and we were like, “It’s a stylish choice if that’s the case.” (laughs). And when you look at just the words, there are phrases such as “witch hunt party” that appear, and I thought that the problems of social media society are realistically depicted.

Karin: I was surprised at first. In the past there were many songs where you can feel the loneliness, but I thought that ever since we became Sakurazaka46 there are many songs with “the figure where I (Boku) is changing”. That is also shown in “Nagaredama”. There is a part of the lyric that goes, “Let’s talk it over, let’s look at each other / Without love, the world is going to end,” and I think that it’s something that wasn’t really written before, so I think that that change is interesting.

Q How’s the dance choreo?

Rei, Karin, Rena: Intense.

Rei: It’s cool, but I think how fun it is to dance is what wins me over more. How should I put it… The feeling that you can go crazy feels good. It’s an energetic choreography where it’s like we’re having a party together.

Q What did you think when the senbatsu was announced?

Rei: I was on the leftmost position of the 3rd row, so I was the first to be called. It was the same position I was in for “BAN”. I feel happy to be selected although I always have no confidence, so I feel grateful for it, but I have a feeling inside of me that I want to take the next step, so to be honest I felt frustrated.

Q What do you mean by the next step?

Rei: I have feelings of wanting to stand in the row in front of me, to enter Sakura Eight. But it’s difficult because every day I can feel that I’m lacking in too many areas. There are both feelings of “I’m lacking” and “I want to enter (Sakura Eight)”.

Rena: I always feel nervous as to whether my name is going to be called or not. I also still feel a lack of confidence. But it was genuinely a happy thing to be chosen, and I wanted to inform the fans as soon as I could. Now that time has passed since then, what I think now is that I want to be someone more vital to the group. Not someone that represents the group, but I want to be someone that could be seen as such.

Karin: For me, as long as I can participate in the production, I don’t have any particular opinion regarding my position. But ever since we became Sakura, if you weren’t a part of Eight, you cannot join the production of coupling songs, so I feel really frustrated at that reality. I was chosen as the coupling center in 1st and 2nd singles, so I was given a chance, right?? But despite that, I think that the reality is that I am lacking in something, as I have been taken off of that. But now that I’ve been taken out, I’d like to do my activities on the 3rd single to take the fact that I have been taken off and turn it into a strength. I’d like to rejoin Eight and get involved in all of the production.

Q So your feelings of wanting to be involved in production are the strongest.

Karin: Yes. It feels frustrating to be at home when everyone else is participating in the production. It feels frustrating that while everyone else is experiencing something new, I’m missing out on that.

Q What kind of presence do the Sakura Eight have?

Rei: They are the eight members who become the core of the group, so I think that they have more responsibility compared to the other members. I think that they can be proud of the responsibility given to them. I think that it is a spot that I should aim for as long as I am in Sakurazaka46.

Rena: They appear in various places, a presence that leads as the face of the group.

Q In June, the members who are positioned in the back row did the “BACKS LIVE!!”, right? How was it?

Rei: It has become a concert that made me think more about various things. When you’re in the 3rd row of a normal song performance, it’s okay to just get into the song. The moment when you become enveloped by the atmosphere of the song is a very fun feeling, but when I was dancing in the 1st and 2nd row, I feel that it’s not enough just to have fun. You have to think beyond just how you are going to look, and think about how the members behind you are going to look, and the further you stand at the front the more nervous you will become.

Rena: I too, experienced 1st, 2nd, and 3rd row in “BACKS LIVE!!”, and I came to love the group further. In the song that I have been given the chance to center in, there is a feeling that the members are supporting me from behind. It was like everyone was actually pushing my back, it was the first time I felt something like that. It made me feel, “I want them to look at me more!”. It was something completely different from when I was standing in the 3rd row.

Rei: Starting from the way we approach the rehearsal, essentially everything was different. We memorized the choreography on our own first before facing the rehearsal. It’s not done because we were told to do that, but because it felt like it’s something that we have to do. I think that it was a big change for the group.

Q In the 1st and 2nd singles, Sakura Eight members stayed the same, but it changed in 3rd single. Is there anything that you felt about that?

Rei: It made me think that it is something that is bound to change one day. But each member has something that I can respect them for, so no matter who got selected I would agree with it.

Q As you continue to do your activities, you are bound to find yourself in a situation where you’re going to have to face your position. But I think that you understand that each member has their own good points. I think that you have many conflicted feelings, but how do you sort it out in your mind?

Karin: Of course dancing in the front means that there are more people looking at you, but I truly don't have any particular preference on position. I just want to be involved in the productions. Though that is because I have a strong curiosity. That’s why I was able to sort it in my mind, and try to make it lead towards the next [single].

Rena: Of course I feel frustrated as well, but I’m not good at expressing those feelings. I keep it inside myself. In my case, I thought “What should I do to change things towards a good direction for the next single?”, and sort my feelings.

An encounter with their origin

Q What kind of content is in the MV this time?

Karin: The song is lively, so the costume and set are stylish and extravagant. The costume is different for each member. The story is that (the center) Tamura (Hono) is dancing differently from the others, and it upset the other members, who then push Tamura away. But at the end everyone is taken in by Tamura’s pace.

Rei: Hono-chan is wearing a bright red dress costume, and she looks very feminime, but she’s really dancing like crazy. The gap with her appearance became something great.

Karin: They made the set in the studio, and it was gorgeous. It’s like a party venue with flowers spread over it. It was also amazing that the painting with all the performing members was displayed. Everyone is drawn into that one picture…

Rei: Hono-chan is the only one with horns. That is interesting too, and there was a chandelier and such, it was like a ball. It felt pleasant to dance like crazy there (laughs).

Q How about the director?

Karin: It was Ikeda (Kazuma)-san, the person behind “Silent Majority”. It was our first time meeting him, and all the other directors so far gave such detailed instruction on the emotional expressions, but it’s not like that this time. It felt that he was letting us think and present it in our own ways, so that was a big hurdle.

Rei: Until now, when being recorded by the camera, it was like “Okay, next we will come closer to this member,” but this time the cameraman just moved around and recorded the members who are showing good facial expressions at that moment. That’s why there were a lot of parts where we just danced in unison without minding the camera.

Q There will be a tour starting from September 11th, right? With what feeling do you want to face it?

Karin: Until now, I had been thinking about dancing emotionally instead of thinking how to show myself. But I started to wonder if that was wrong. Of course it changes depending on the song, but I thought that I didn’t have any thoughts of drawing out the charm that I have inside myself. I will be dancing many times during the tour, so shouldn’t I be able to explore various things? I’d like to do that and connect it to the 4th single. I think that I have to study what the best way to show the maximum amount of power inside me is. I still don’t know which me I should be.

Rena: I’d like to make it a tour where I can meet a side of myself that I didn’t know before. For example, if I dance like crazy, I might be able to think that there is a side of me that is like this as well. I hope to convey that kind of “me that no one knows yet” to everyone.

Rei: I love the actual performances of a concert the most. If you ask why, it’s because it gives the best feelings. That is when I can put in my emotions the most, and when the emotion that I want to convey becomes stronger. Until now, there is a part of me that is dancing while thinking, I’d like to face it while attempting a theme of using all my emotions every time.

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Translation: tmi

QC: peezy

Raw: kiryu