Tamura Hono's interview with Web Sportiva (20th March 2022)
Sakurazaka46’s Tamura Hono “A side that I definitely don’t want fans to see”. During her high school days as part of the volleyball club, and her drastic personality change.
Sakurazaka46 Tamura Hono “A Youth of Volleyball”
Tamura Hono-san plays an active role as a core member of the idol group Sakurazaka46. Last year, she released her first photobook and also served as center for a single main song, so she has experienced a sudden rise in popularity. Before her debut as an idol and during her school days, Tamura-san used to be a sports-oriented girl who was devoted to volleyball. Therefore, the theme of this interview is about Tamura-san’s “Youth of Volleyball”. In the first part, she talked to us in full detail about what made her start playing volleyball, and about her high school days where she was immersed in practice from morning to evening.
School days immersed in volleyball.
Q: What made you start playing volleyball?
Tamura: When I was in the final year of kindergarten, my brother who is 2 years older than me, went to a volleyball class with his friends and I went together with them, so I think it’s because I thought it was interesting at the time. I’ve been playing volleyball since I was small, so I don’t really remember how I started. When I was an elementary school student, I played in a local junior sports club, and naturally, I joined the volleyball club when I was in middle school and high school. During middle school, I think maybe I was invited by a friend to join the club. Then I joined with someone who I played together with during my time in the local junior sports club when I was in elementary school.
Q: During your childhood, were you considered tall? What was your position?
Tamura: I was considered to be around average height. My position from middle school was that of an attacker, I did both left and right sides. Perhaps it may have been an advantage for the team to have an experienced player like me as the attacker, because there were many kids who were in the same team who had just started playing volleyball. At that time, my dream for the future was to become a professional volleyball player.
Q: What was your club activities’ life like during your high school days?
Tamura: I used to wake up early in the morning and have breakfast, then I got on the 6 AM train to get to school and do morning training before classes started, after that I did club activities from the afternoon until the evening and returned home around 10 PM, I felt tired so I would go to sleep right away, and then after having done that, the next morning would come soon again…This is the kind of life I had. I was injured all the time, so I had to be taken constantly to the hospital after getting home around 10 PM.
Q: That sounds very hard. Was it fun or stressful?
Tamura: At that time, I had decided that “I will exhaust everything at volleyball until high school”, so I was extremely concentrated on working hard at it. If you ask me if it was fun…I wonder about that…but there were plenty of stressful things (laughs). What I remember is doing long training sessions at the training camp. It was painful remembering that even now. I hate losing, so if I didn’t win the first prize even after doing long training hours, I would not feel satisfied. I still hate losing now, but I believe that volleyball is what made me become like this.
Q: During the club activities, besides doing practice using balls, did you also put effort in muscle training?
Tamura: I feel that I worked hard at both muscle training and ball practice. I still do muscle training today. However, because the muscles used for dancing are different from those used for volleyball, the muscle training program is not the same. I make sure to train my abdomen, back and core muscles every day. In addition, I do aerobic exercise whenever I can. When I have more time, I may do things like walking back home for 2 hours. I really do simple things but I try to do as much as I can.
Q: Maybe not just related to volleyball, but did you write notes about your club activities?
Tamura: Yes, I wrote absolutely every day. I wrote about things like what I ate, what kind of practice program I had and my thoughts about the games. But the truth is, with the kind of extreme life I was leading, I had no time to write much at all, so I would write on the train when I was commuting to school while being sleepy and dozing off.
Q: Was there a reason for working that hard at club activities?
Tamura: I really loved volleyball, but after all, practice can often be tough. When I got home after club activities, I was already exhausted. However, I would find time to open the computer for a bit and read the blogs from the idols I liked, watch music videos and other videos too. I probably watched all the videos that were uploaded in Youtube, and sometimes I would watch the same video over and over again. Because I had such time, I was able to feel I could do my best again, and I thought I could do my best tomorrow as well. I wanted to meet the idols I admired more directly, however because I had club activities every day, I couldn’t go at all. Perhaps I could have been absent for 1 day only, but making up for that single day would have been hard and there was also rivalry related to the positions, so in the end I didn’t take any day off. Therefore, I was healed by the idols’ blogs and videos. The one I really liked was AKB48.
A painful game that you can’t forget even until today
Q: Looking back at it now, what was the most memorable game to you?
Tamura: During my high school days, there was one game that I will never forget. It was a game where we competed against a high school that was a bit stronger than us, it was a good game. When we played against the strong team, I felt that if there was a time when I had to show a performance that was beyond my abilities, it had to be during that game…. Both teams scored 29 points, and it was my turn to do the serve, and the ball accidentally rolled over toward our club supervisor teacher. Then I received the ball from the teacher and she told me “I’m counting on you”. This was a teacher I liked and respected very much, and despite being told “I’m counting on you” by this teacher, I still missed that serve, and we ended up losing the game. What would have happened if I didn’t make that mistake is something that I still think about very seriously even today. After surpassing the 20 points, the ones who continue the flow of that usually would win, so that miss was frustrating. I still remember the teacher’s words and scenes from that time.
Q: What kind of person was this teacher?
Tamura: She wasn’t a scary person, but she was strict. She was a teacher with very big eyes and a short hairstyle. Even until today, whenever I see this person, I can’t help thinking “I’m sorry about that time”. I still keep in touch with this teacher today, and she even comes to see the concerts too. She is a very caring teacher who loves volleyball. Even recently, the teacher sometimes got worried about my physical condition and she contacted me, for example, one time it was to tell me that she watched a TV music show. Sometimes she would refrain from doing it because she knows I’m busy, but she would contact my mom in those cases, and then when I hear about it from my mom, it would make me happy. I really respect her as a person from the bottom of my heart.
Drastic change of personality during games
Q: What were you like during your time in the volleyball club?
Tamura: During games, there were times when my friends from the same school would come to support us, and everyone would always say “She is so different from what she usually is that I don’t even recognize her”. I was told this very often. It’s true my personality changed during games. Therefore, maybe it would be impossible to imagine it from the way I am today, and it’s something I definitely don’t want to show to the fans, I really wouldn’t like that at all (Laughs).
Q: For example, what aspect you wouldn’t want them to see?
Tamura: I raised my voice a lot, I used strong words, I had extremely short hair…I was not gentle at all (Laughs). However, in terms of mood, I think it’s a bit close to the way I am during live performances.
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Sakurazaka46’s Tamura Hono, from sports girl to idol. “From tears of frustration, to tears of joy, it turned into something that moved my heart “.
About Kimura Saori “I love her”
Q: You have mentioned Kimura Saori-san, a Bronze Medalist in the London Olympics, as someone you admire, right?
Tamura: I love Kimura-san’s personality of course and also her play style. She is originally a spiker; however, she is also very skilled at receiving the ball, and I really like her technique when she performs a spike. She’s not tremendously powerful, but she displays a lot of flexibility in the way she hits the ball during a spike, which I like very much.
Q: Are there any other volleyball players that you like?
Tamura: I liked Shinnabe Risa-san too. Despite not being tall at all, I thought it was amazing that she was able to compete with superior skill in international competitions. She was really good at both spiking and receiving…Also, when she hit the ball during a spike, she knew how to aim it toward a direction that the opponent was not good at. I’m not very tall either, so at some point I thought I wanted to become someone like Shinnabe-san. Besides that, I also liked Ebata Yukiko-san.
Q: So, it’s all about the London Olympics team, huh?
Tamura: I went through a lot of effort to watch the London Olympics. The game where Japan was able to win a bronze medal was happening at the same time when I was just injured and had to be taken to the hospital, so I watched it through the phone. I was not able to watch the volleyball game quietly, so while feeling anxious, I couldn’t help gasping out things like “Yikes! No way!”. After that, just when it was decided that we won the bronze medal, I was called out for the medical examination, so I asked them to wait for me a little bit, and I was safely able to see the moment when we got the bronze medal, then I went to take the medical exam in very high spirits. That was very touching.
Q: Were you able to watch the volleyball competition during the Tokyo Olympics last summer?
Tamura: I watched it. The women’s result was a bit disappointing, however the men tried their best and they were able to get into the best 8 for the first time in 29 years. When I was in the volleyball club, I had the impression that women's volleyball was more popular. Therefore, due to the men’s efforts this time, I hope this makes them become more popular.
Q: Is there any male player you like?
Tamura: The former national team’s captain Yanagida Masahiro. His serve is amazing, and his spiking technique is really beautiful. It’s very disappointing that the Olympics had to be postponed for a year due to the Coronavirus situation, and because of this he couldn’t participate, however I will continue supporting Yanagida-san.
When feeling lost, I choose the difficult way
Q: By the way, you entered college as a scholarship student from the volleyball club?
Tamura: Yes, I was surprised when I received the invitation. As I mentioned before, I had already decided that “I will exhaust everything at volleyball until high school” so honestly, I felt very lost. At that point, I wanted to quit volleyball, study and enjoy myself. However, around that time, Kimura-san whom I admired a lot, was appointed as captain for the first time in her volleyball career. It seems she had always been refusing the position, but the head coach Manabe Masayoshi asked her many times, and about the reason why she accepted, Kimura-san said “When there are options, I will choose the difficult or the tough one”. Those words deeply moved me, I thought about many things like maybe if I didn’t choose the volleyball path, I could probably enjoy college; however, I decided to give it a try once more. Thinking about it now, I was greatly influenced by Kimura-san.
Q: Did you do any part-time jobs while you were in college?
Tamura: Yes, I had more time than when I was in high school, so I worked part-time in a cream puff store. It’s a happy memory. Around that time, my goal was not to become a volleyball player anymore, I wanted to become a kindergarten teacher instead.
Q: Was it around this time that you started to think about becoming an idol?
Tamura: I had more spare time than when I was in high school, so my chances to go and meet idols also increased. However, it’s true that I’ve always admired idols, but I never thought that I could become one myself. I had always been living as a sports girl, so I never imagined I could suddenly become an idol. But it was also a fact that I was able to do my best at volleyball because there were idols I admired, so from there, I started to think about this path little by little. The audition I participated in was called the “Sakamichi Joint Audition”, and before the first judging, there were seminars being held across the country. I’m from Osaka, and there were members from Nogizaka46, Hinatazaka46 and Keyakizaka46 who came to Osaka as well. I also went to handshake events, so with that feeling in mind, I went to the seminar in Osaka and that was probably the trigger for me. At that time, I got “seeded” which exempted me from the first judging, I thought about it a lot because I passed, and I decided to pursue the path of an idol.
Q: Are there things that changed when you became an idol from when you played volleyball?
Tamura: When I played volleyball, there was nothing but tears of frustration all the time. I really hate losing, so when I lost a game, or if the practice didn’t go well, I would end up crying. However, since I became an idol, there’s been tears of joy, and I’ve experienced being moved to tears, so it made me happy to realize that “I’m also able to shed this kind of tears”. This is thanks to all the fans who have shown me this kind of new scenery.
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