201711 H Interview (IV) – ARASHI

Q: The moment you feel responsibility of being ARASHI.
S: Though it’s bit similar to the third question, I think it’s the moment we are able to do concert at Dome. Before that when we worked on concert, for instance when an album was made, 90% of the songs of that album will be included in the concert. In other words, “Now we hope to show audience this”, “Now we want to do this”. But, at certain time point we added major songs which everyone knows such as “A.RA.SHI”, “Happiness” and “Hadashi no Mirai” into the set list. When we hold the live at Dome, maybe there would be more people who are “I don’t know ARASHI in details but let’s go watch them”, so we started to have a responsibility of showing ARASHI which everyone knows and likes. I remember that we had extensive discussion on this.

But, frankly saying there was moment of bewilderment.

Speaking of (Mikan’s) rap, after “so vain at that time” there is phrase “now, the future beyond dreams”, this is exactly depicting what I’ve just said, that beyond those days “is it a joke?” and then we come to now. Though it may sound tough if I have to explain it (giggle). Indeed I thought about ARASHI when I wrote this rap.
M: And then simply, I feel strongly the responsibility that “this is not ARASHI if any member is missing”. We have been working for 18 years, while there were lots of moments that someone was ill or someone got injured, when I get ill or get injured, indeed I think that I cannot cause trouble to the other four members. Therefore, though it may be easy in some sense that if a member is missing another person can enter the group and says “this is ARASHI”, this is something that definitely cannot happen. Basically we don’t have such thing like “today I am bit ill, let’s work with just four members!”.
O: We are strong.
M: (Strong) in terms of health (giggle). But, though it may sound like a fundamental thing like premise, I do feel it.

O: Though in private if I feel bit ill, I won’t force myself.
N: While you get such sunburn (giggle).
M: When in private you feel ill, you can’t force yourself to go fishing (giggle).
O: I won’t go, even in windy days I won’t go.
N: (Giggle) It’s weather issue.
O: If the ship overturn, I would be pulled out by helicopter like this and then this will be reported by Sho-kun in “(NEWS) ZERO” (giggle).
A: You are trying to go so far (giggle). You are not fisher.
O: I shall not do this in order not to come to such situation (giggle).

Q: But you all always have such awareness that you are a member of ARASHI.
S: How to say. Though we have such awareness all the time, we don’t think about it round the clock. How should I say, it’s like “this is so”.
M: You don’t even feel that you have such awareness, right?
S: Right. I don’t feel “Because I am ARASHI”.
A: But when I got pneumothorax before and saw the stage with only four members, I felt strongly the responsibility.
M: At that time (it was so serious that) as long as you could come with us it’d be fine.
A: I got pneumothorax around one week before the fan event at Hawaii. Though I might not be able to ride on the plane, with the extraordinary recovery I went there on plane (giggle).
N: You don’t say this yourself (giggle).
A: (Giggle) I was just about to catch up. Though I couldn’t dance and sing at that time, I joined the talk part, at that time I was bit regretful like “why am I get ill in such timing?”.
M: This is somehow connected to the 15th anniversary.
A: Yes. It is a great story from those who know about this (giggle).
M: Well but, I think that that is a great resolution. Because, I thought that it would be only we four to go to Hawaii. Though you say extraordinary recovery yourself, actually you didn’t recover that time (giggle).
A: (Giggle) I didn’t. I was still on treatment.
N: If it happens now you won’t be allowed to go. Because (your lungs) might or might not break in plane. If it happens now, no matter what you say, you won’t be allowed to go.

Q: Since long time ARASHI five members have strong sense of responsibility.
N: Yup, strong.
S: Though we’ve strong sense of responsibility, I feel that this is something normal.

Q: Message that ARASHI five members want to convey via “untitled”.
N: What did you think while listening to the title? Did you think it cool?
S: Leading question (giggle).

Q: (Giggle) First of all, I thought about what other artists than ARASHI would fit this title.
M: Tell us more tell us more (giggle).

S: I’m glad to hear this (moderator’s comment).
M: My friend thought “you still haven’t decided the title” (giggle).
N: (Giggle) It’s pretty good.

S: We wanted to try challenging things. It’s certain that every year we try new things, after “THE DIGITALIAN” we had “Japonism” and that moment was new thing, after “Japonism” it was happy “Are You Happy?”, in various moments we tried new things, this time we wanted to make an album summarising the challenges. But, we didn’t only challenge cool things, we also challenged very happy songs we haven’t done before, and we challenged ballad which is very touching. Just we five dancing smartly is not challenge. We made this title with the aim to try new things in a broad sense.

M: Speaking of recent years, “THE DIGITALIAN” was made with the theme of thinking about future, then “Japonism” was with a focus of recall of the country which bears us and brings us up, and Johnny’s entertainment which cultivates us, and with a theme of by knowing the past, what can we here-and-now do? And then “Are You Happy?” wanted to depict us at that time, us in 2016, so the next album would certainly be about future. In these years, we are like stepping one step back then start going one step forward, so this album also included our expectation towards “what will there be in front of us?”.

Q: By the way, did you all on the same ground?
S: No, it was turns and twists, it was extremely tough. We couldn’t somehow reach a conclusion.

Q: Was “untitled” decided smoothly?
N: How was that.
O: I don’t recall (giggle).
N: It seemed we spend lot of time setting the theme?
S: Though I forgot the detailed process, I recalled it was tougher than usual.
M: Well, even we talk about “future” there is no concrete thing about it. If we talk about “here-and-now”, we just need to think about what we want to do now, what music we like, during “Japonism” it was easy for us to think about our solo, performance and what we wanted to try. In terms of “future” each of us is groping around, even we five talked about this, it is difficult to convey our thoughts in words, so the discussion turned to silence frequently (giggle).

(I) https://arashitranslation.dreamwidth.org/131495.html /
(II) https://arashitranslation.dreamwidth.org/131652.html /
(III) https://arashitranslation.dreamwidth.org/131921.html /
(IV) https://arashitranslation.dreamwidth.org/132698.html

180103 ARATsubo – The most ○○ in ARASHI from previous 11 managers – Most obsessive – ARASHI

[Who is with the most obsessive things?]

S: Managers spend more time with us than our family members.
A: They are the closest people to us.
S: Each of them may stay longer than we five.
M: Right, they stay with us at our workplaces.
S: I think they really know us in detail. Maybe they understand me more than I to myself.
O: Indeed.

S: “Who is with the most obsessive things?” Do you know who it is?
N: I already know (giggle).
O: I know.
A: Somehow.
M: Maybe this would be unexpected.
N: Why are you suddenly reacting like this? XD
S: Though bit sorry, I can only think of one face as for this question.
M: Perhaps in normal circumstance, the answer would be me.
S: Right.
M: With the most obsessive things.
N: Yes.
M: To watch us closely, managers may think “no, this isn’t the case. In fact, this person is with the most obsessive things”.
O: Indeed.
S: Recently, we sort of talked about “do you want some coffee?”, “oh no, I’m fine”, yesterday, I saw that he carried the coffee beans.
M: (Yes)
A: Indeed. This is so too, while everyone was having ramen commonly, only MatsuJun, when going to districts, carried the noodles with you?
M: Yes I did, recently.
S: That was great!
A: That was great, right? You only asked for soup to be made and then added the noodles you carried along and then ate it.
M: Yes I did.
S: That is gluten free.
M: Yes.
S: That gluten free noodles, after the concert rehearsal, only MatsuJun needed to go for working meeting and was not in the green room.
N: We were back to green room.
S: When we went back to the green room, his manager had the gluten free noodle with him. I asked “what is it?” and the manager sort of answered “well…” Then I said “let’s eat it”, and his manager reacted vigorously “Really please don’t do this! Matsumoto-san will get angry! Really please don’t do this!” XDD

N: Then let’s see the results.

Result:
M – 8 votes

Manager 1: He is obsessive about the concert’s stage drink. He keeps drinking liquids which seems to be good but common people can’t figure out what it is. (S: XDDDD) Once, he drank some muddy drink in front of me, I said “It’s like mud…” without thinking and he was angry with me. (SJ: XDDD)

O: Do you remember who he is?
M: I don’t. Who is he?
N: Ah, it’s not written. The comments are anonymous.
S: What is it? The muddy drink.
M: What is this muddy drink? What was he talking about?
N: What a miracle that now there is no one manager in this studio.

Manager 2: When I first entered this company, in the first year I was assigned to ARASHI, and followed the SP drama which Matsumoto-san was the leading actor. One day the filming was behind schedule, he had to eat while doing makeup, and he ordered hamburger set and chicken nuggets. Because I heard from the previous manager that he is obsessive with that he only eats potato with ketchup, I didn’t forget this and get the ketchup. Because it was lunch time the restaurant was crowded I was back bit late, and he murmured “so late~” (M: XDDDD). He opened the bag vividly like a kid looking at his Christmas gift, and made joke “different sauce~”. When I thought I should have put the ketchup sauce in and wanted to confirm this, he said “I can’t eat nuggets with BBQ sauce~”. I thought “No no, shouldn’t be that you can’t eat it, right” and said “I’ll go change it” and when I was about to go, he started eating it normally saying “no it’s fine~”. From that day I wrote in my memo “Matsumoto ketchup sauce, mustard, must”, which would be the first thing to tell during handover if I have kouhai. He is obsessive to sauce to such extent.
S: Recently, do you all remember?
M: The crab cream croquette, right?
S: The crab cream croquette
A: He is particular about sauce.
N: His current manager really helps to produce Matsumoto Jun’s bon mot.
S: Ninomiya-san, please tell us the story.
N: Normally, when you have crab cream croquette, when the sauce comes, if this is not the sauce you want, it’s normal that you say “no no, please give me the sauce over there”. While Matsumoto-san faced that person and said “Sauce! This is steak sauce!” losing all his temper.
M: That’s not the case~ I also have my point.
N: He was losing all his temper, “This is steak sauce!”
M: No! Once, before the concert, the live, we ate a lot of meat, we ate a lot steak, they prepared steak, to eat that steak, they prepared various flavourings like steak sauce and salt and wasabi. And then Nino brought crab cream croquette as refreshment. I like crab cream croquette a lot. But that crab cream croquettes were with ketchup sauce in them. But I wanted to eat crab cream croquettes with sauce (close shot to S trying his utmost to hold his laugh and N using the script board to cover his smiling face),
S: I see.
M: I wanted to eat with sauce.
A: You are free-style on this.
M: I wanted to eat it with the cream sauce inside and the brown sauce, so I said to my manager, “the sauce is over there, would you please get the sauce for me?”, and he brought it to me and said “this is the sauce”. Then I said, “no no not this one, this is steak sauce, please give me the common sauce”, then after around two minutes, he put down exactly the same steak sauce. Then I said, “this is not the sauce”, and he said “this is sauce”, then I grasped the bottle and saw the label writing “steak sauce”, and then I said “this is not sauce, this is steak sauce!” (gesture showing manager the label)
N: AHAHAHAHAHA.
(N, S, O imitated M’s showing label to manager)
M: This is steak sauce, I want common sauce!

Members' favourite food: https://arashitranslation.dreamwidth.org/132352.html
Who is with the most obsessive things? https://arashitranslation.dreamwidth.org/132868.html