19.02.07 VSA - Opening Talk + Mini Talk “Turning Point of Life” - ARASHI

[Opening Talk]
S: Tonight is the commemorative 400th episode of VSA. Thank you~
M: We’ve had so many battles thus far?
A: Despite so many battles, we aren’t good at the games at all.
M: Not at all.
(ARASHI: 210 wins, 175 loses)
S: So, to commemorate this 400th episode, the programme staff prepared gifts to us.
(The gifts to ARASHI are photos which were the most impressive scenes to the staff)

O - Hawaii SP (2014.11.06)
M: What a face.
S: Without the context, just by this photo (subtitle of the photo: “I’ll cry just by seeing Sho-chan’s face” by Leader), the relationship between me and Ohno-san is a bit ... people would think “What have you done to Ohno-san?”.
O: Really what a face it was.
S: When you looked back the past time in Hawaii.
S: It feels like you’re drinking the 4th round at 04:30.
S: But it’s great, you are No.1 at membership.
O: I’m happy about this.
O: But I hope a better photo had been chosen.
S: No that was a good photo. Oshima-san also cried so it was a good photo.

S - First time conquered the chin of cliff climb (2014.09.04)
S: I was also happy about this ... I’m bit touched by this. Finally I managed to climb to the top of the cliff.

M - Quiz Matsumoto Jun (2018.08.30)
O: This corner can only be for MatsuJun.
M: No no it can also be for us all.
S: When there were three or four choices we tried to act silly and said “The answer is not in these choices” but our answer was the correct answer. There can be nobody else who could answer this.
M: Because it’s team battle.

N - Kamen Rider jacket (2014.05.15)
S: That was fun. I laughed so much that I held my stomach.
A: You’ve put on various costumes in these 400 episodes.
S: You’ve also put on thing of Arare-chan, right? (2011.07.28)
S: And clothes with a big bear on your chest. (2012.10.25)
M: Yes he did.
A: He did.
M: Thinking of those clothes, your clothes now got calm.
N: While mine is getting calm now, my 400th anniversary photo, anyone can be this person, right? (because the face is masked)
S: Indeed.

A - When he lost in “distance battle”, teased as “being shipped” (2017.10.19)
S: This photo is the whole story of “Aiba Mass Production Factory”.
S: Was it a chicken race, in fact?
A: Right.
S: That you had to stop at a very close distance.
A: That it was not chicken.
M: You were not afraid about this.
M: The reaction of the us four in the photo was great too.
A: Wait, wait, sorry, but I was not in the photo. (because Masaki-san was in the foam)
M: You discovered it!
A: (To N) The photos of us two are meaningless. (because their faces were not taken in the photo)

[Mini Talk “Turning point of life”]
S: It should be when I sent my resume to Johnny’s agency. (To members) Were we in the same system (of being recruited)? I have no idea, as we haven’t talked about this. I sent my resume myself when I was junior high school grade 2, because I was very cute that time. I didn’t tell my parents about this. One day when I returned home and opened the door, I sensed that the atmosphere at home was different from usual. My parents said “What is this?”, I replied “Ha?”. The letter was “You passed the first audition of Johnny’s Agency”. I pretended I didn’t know what it is, I was like “What is it about...”. I won’t forget about this, the notification letter was in green letter paper.
(O/N/A were also green letters)
M: I was called by Johnny-san (so no letter).
S: Oh yes, super elite course.
S: I received the letter on 21 October Saturday. Johnny’s Agency is splendid, the letter wrote “Please come to the Roppongi studio tomorrow 22 Oct (Sunday)”. Though it wrote “tomorrow”, I was like “What is it about...” to my parents at that time.
N: You must have been happy inside. “Tomorrow I have to go there”.
S: I was like “So I was called to the studio? ... But what is it about?”.
S: At the end I had various talks with my parents and I went to that studio and today I am standing here. (To members) I think we’re the same, right?

M: My turning point of life is also when Johnny-san called me.
N: What was your system?
M: On the day of my graduation ceremony of primary school grade six, I also wrote my own resume, after the graduation ceremony, it was the timing of an end of a life stage, so I mailed out my resume that day. Then, in May, suddenly, I went to play baseball on Sunday, and when I was changing my uniform, the phone at home rang and when I picked it up, “Here is Johnny’s Agency. We have a lesson now, would you come?”
S: Now?
M: On that day.
S: You were called to lesson on the day.
A: So you went there in your baseball uniform?
M: No no I changed it.
A: So you changed it, not like “I’m in your care~” (in baseball pose).
N: Baseball practice?
M: So I remembered clearly that when I picked up the phone at home, I thought “Eh? What is it about?” and I gave the phone to my father, then he said “He’s really Johnny’s Agency, not a fake call”. Then my father said “If you want to go, I’ll go with you”. And I went to that lesson.
N: So you haven’t had any audition since you sent resume, then you got that call?
M: Yup.
S: You were called to lesson next week and the week after next week.
O: You were called to lesson continuously, and it became now.
M: Yup.
S: And you sent the resume yourself, right?
M: Yup.
S: And you passed the phone to your parents, right?
M: Yup.
S: And he asked “What is this call about?”, right? In my case, I was acting “Oh~ What is it about~”. So how did you reply?
M: In my case, I told them when I sent out the resume.
N: (To S) Why didn’t you tell your parents? In the first place you were not doing a bad thing.
S: I didn’t think I would be recruited.
N: So it was a so-called commemoration?
S: Right, my male friends were excited “So you send it, would you?”, and I sent out in a high tension like “OK I shall write it~”, but I didn’t think I would be recruited, so I thought there was no need to tell my parents.

A: Perhaps being Johnny’s Jr. was my turning point, but being ARASHI might also be my turning point. Three days before debut, I received the phone call. Johnny-san asked “YOU have passport?”, I replied “I have passport”, then he said “Let’s go to Hawaii three days later”. I thought “I’m going there to play”, when I reached there, it was the debut press conference in Hawaii. Had I not had the passport three days before, I wouldn’t have been ARASHI.
S: Right before that call, I practiced the choreography seemingly to be for the debut song. And then Johnny-san said, “Why are Ninomiya and Matsumoto there but not Aiba? They’re having activities together all the time, right? Why is Aiba not here?” and we all thought “We have no idea~”, “I have no right to select”. Then he immediately called you.
A: He called me three days before debut.

O: When I was Jr., Okada ...
S: V6’s ...
N: Okada-kun.
O: Well well ...
S: Ohno is a bit senpai (than Okada).
O: Okada and I sat side by side. Johnny-san said to me first, “YOU can play volleyball?”. I had no experience of volleyball, and I thought the work was about volleyball, so I replied “I can’t”. Then he asked Okada beside me, “What about YOU?” and Okada answered “I can”. Then Johnny-san said to him “You’ll be V6”.
N: What did you feel at that time? Did you feel “It’s great, so dangerous (I was almost in)”, or “Ah, it was about debut (what a pity)”?
O: I was “It’s great, I won’t be asked to play volleyball”.
M: You played volleyball four years later.
O: Because I wanted to dance.
N: You wanted to dance.
O: At that time I wanted to dance.

(No Nino episode)

19.01.27 ARASHI Suspension of Group Activities Press Conference Full (II)

※ All Members Q&A (I)

Q: Once again I would like to ask, you are not disbanding?

M: We are not disbanding.

Q: So it is suspension. When you heard about this from Ohno-san, what did you think? Please tell us one by one.

N: I was shocked. Because I have not thought about suspension, I was really shocked when I was told about this, and during our proceeding various discussions, indeed as we said all the time, this is not ARASHI if there are only four members or six members, how to say, we are a group that have been fighting in our world called “ARASHI” with our own standards of values, indeed if not these five members ARASHI is not ARASHI, if not these five people 100% performance would not be possible. This time, though this is my own point of view, it was a way of decision making that we had discussions together so that we reached this decision in a form of respecting Leader’s thoughts.

S: I think each member might have different feelings, while I was also shocked. I was having yakiniku with friends the day before, and I got group mail from Leader writing that he would like to have a discussion. Because we have been together for a long time, when Leader said that he would like to have a discussion and I listened to what he said afterwards, perhaps, rather than the nuance of discussion, perhaps he was firm on his mind to certain extent, I personally interpreted so. Though I was very shocked at the very beginning, I thought that it is difficult for the future of ARASHI to be decided by the thought of only one person, at the same time, it is impossible to tie the life of a person with the thoughts of other people. We met each other since we are junior high school students, we are important companions who have been together 23, 24 years, so no matter how long it would take, we had to search for a landing place where we all agree, that would be my role, I thought at that moment.

Q: When Leader said that he wanted to quit, did you detain him, thinking that “you can’t quit”?

S: In that sense, I am not in a position to forcibly detain him. I understood the thoughts of Ohno, if using myself as the subject, I had to spend a lot of time searching for a place where the thoughts of the other four members would land properly, I thought about that at that moment.

M: I always think that a group can continue because first of all there are strong will of members so that the group can continue, therefore, as said just then, we got a lot of blessing during our 10th anniversary, we were allowed to perform live at Kokuritsu Stadium, in our 15th anniversary we went to Hawaii where we debuted, in Hawaii we got blessings from various people, really we have seen a lot of splendid sceneries. Among these years, we really experienced various works, “what we’ll do next”, “what we’ll achieve next”, we have been discussing all the time, but frankly saying, there were times that I thought it difficult. In such circumstance, I actually had thought about ending the group ourselves when we were in good shape, I also had talked about this with members, though I had not talked about the details of when it would have been. Therefore, when I called by Leader and listened to him at the very first beginning, I was not surprised. After that, we had various discussions together, and we had our own views, when we thought about the future, this might be the best form to end one stage of our works at this timing of 2020, this was my point of view.

A: When I heard this from Leader for the first time, I toppled over. “No way”, I think (giggle).
S: You toppled over.
A: I did, didn’t I? (giggle)
S: Yup, you did. He was on my right, and he toppled over on my right side (giggle). I remember that.
A: I did, didn’t I? (giggle)
S: Yup.

A: Right. Though I have not thought even once that such life (of being ARASHI) is for certain, when this issue really came to me as a reality in such a sudden, at first I need to prepare for it, somehow, when Leader and I talked about this, I also discussed with Leader whether there would be ways to continue ARASHI. But when I continued talking to Leader and other members, I thought that it would be wrong to keep matching Leader, who is a bit not facing the same direction, up with me, while indeed it is difficult for ARASHI to continue if one or two members are missing, so I agreed with Leader’s opinion and decided to go for that direction.

S: Therefore it is certain that we spent a lot of time discussing about this. We did not reach the conclusion right away, we five had discussion, and then each of us had discussion with each of other members, from around June 2017 to February the next year, in several months we have been having a lot of discussions all along.

Q: What does Ohno-san feel about the members who accepted your proposal?

O: Frankly saying, I am really strongly sorry, since we five think that ARASHI is not ARASHI if one member is missing, I really did something as I pleased. And we decided a timeline, until 2020, I shall value every day and work to my best while feeling the various feelings of each member.

Q: Did any member oppose to this decision?

N: Rather than opposing, we had discussion on “can it be so (not quit / not suspend)?”. Indeed it would be irresponsible just to say “OK I understand”, because we have been working this group for many years, how to say, in terms of sense of responsibility, I thought that we could not just reply “OK I see” without hesitation and tell the agency next week. Therefore when I dined with Leader I also asked him “Is there any way that we can (continue without suspension)”, Leader also thought about this really until the deadline of making decision.

S: It may be difficult to just split our opinion into two absolute binary opposites “agree” or “oppose”. Because each of us had our own thoughts, if there were people with nuance of “I tried to persuade him”, there were also people like “I understand your feeling, let us work our best together to that direction”, so it is difficult just to summarise it as “opposition” ...

Q: Among the time spent (until this announcement), what did you spend most time on?

S: To let all of our thoughts land properly on the same place. For instance, if we five are a pentagon, what I meant would be to let our thoughts land in the very middle of this pentagon. Because we have been together more than 20 years, we respect each other’s opinion, none of us would turn over the table saying “don’t say such stupid thing”.

Q: Was it quarrel of argument?

M: No there was not (giggle).
A: There was not.
N: (To reporter) You seem want to write an article (that we quarrelled), right? (giggle)
A: I see, should I tell lie about this? (giggle)
All: (giggle)
N: We had no quarrel.

Q: In Aiba-san’s message (in FC), I was concerned that you wrote “there is absolutely no such thing that we are not in good terms”, and you also said it just then, so there was no circumstance at all that there was difference between the opinions of members and there was rift between members little by little?

A: There is no such thing that we are not in good terms. I thought that we might be misunderstood, because there is really no such thing, so I wrote this in my message. We had many discussion, and we have been together for 20 years, really our bonding with each other becomes stronger.

M: On the contrary, we had no such time of having discussion like this. We really lots of talks no matter individually or with all members together.

Q: Among the various discussion, is there any words from members or attitude of member which is very impressive to Ohno-san?

S: Is there any? (giggle)
M: Do you remember?
A: You don’t remember, do you?
O: I remember ... (giggle)
N: I hope that you’d mention all members in this question.
S: Is it also fine to make a ranking for this?
N: Please, please make me on No.2 in the ranking ...
A: That would make things bitter, please don’t (giggle). Please don’t make ranking.
O: Among the many discussions, when at last the timeline was decided to be end 2020, when our opinions and feelings were put together, members said to me “let’s smile until the end” ... I had a feeling at that time.

Q: Did you cry?

O: ... Yes. Frankly, while I felt sorry to them, I simply thought “how good these people are”. I thought “It’s good to be ARASHI”. Such feeling cannot be expressed by words.

Q: Did you discuss this with the senpais of your agency?

O: I did not discuss this with senpais. I think that we five are the same, this time we five made this decision ourselves.

Source:
https://mdpr.jp/news/detail/1818329
https://mdpr.jp/news/detail/1818338
https://mdpr.jp/news/detail/1818370

Full Conference
(I) https://t.co/CGqErzVRt3
(II) http://bit.ly/2VkmgW6
(III) http://bit.ly/2E28BNC
(IV) http://bit.ly/2YqKuzT
(V) http://bit.ly/2Q1TUPu