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Interview: S/mileage in the Original Photobook Produce Battle
The 5 groups of Hello!Project are competing in planning digital photobooks for the privilege of a special appearance on Nippon Broadcasting's "All Night Nippon" in "au 'Bookpass' Presents HELLO ! PROJECT Original Photobook Produce Battle! ~Grand Prize is a special appearance on All Night Nippon!?~". S/mileage's photobook theme is "Simple-minded girls." Why did they choose this theme? Also, what is the charm of the current S/mileage? The 6 members talked freely with us.
When we took pictures as our usual selves in the dressing room it was entertaining
──Your photobook theme this time is "Simple-minded girls," right?
Fukuda Kanon In the beginning (just everyone eating together) "Chewing girls" is what we thought about going with, but with "Simple-minded girls" we could see our core aspects, and we thought we could do several different things with it.
──So the S/mileage members are "simple-minded" from the start?
Katsuta Rina I guess it depends on the picture?
Takeuchi Akari That's how we are normally.
Nakanishi Kana We wanted to bring out how we always are as much as possible, and we took photos of us just playing around and yelling.
──How was it for everyone actually taking the photos?
Tamura Meimi It was fun!
Wada Ayaka It's not like we went about it trying to make them particularly funny, but when we took pictures of how we normally are in the dressing room the results were entertaining. Like, "As expected, it's fun to be like S/mileage." It's fun even just to be near and watching, so I'd like to convey that sense of fun to everyone who sees the photos we took.
──Without regard to whether it would be made into a photobook or not, which pictures did everyone like shooting the most this time?
Takeuchi The hoods! Hoods!
Nakanishi Takeuchi-san and Kana put on our hoods and played around.
Takeuchi The ones I like the most were of Kananan (Nakanishi) and I playing around with our jackets.
Tamura That's how they are in their private lives.
Nakanishi I always tuck my coat into my pants so when we had the hoods up, it was really calming. So the jackets saved me, I feel (laughs).
──Was Nakanish-san's appearance okay for everyone around to see?
Takeuchi That's how it always is.
──Does it bother you for other people to see you like that?
Nakanishi I did it in the dressing room of the Hello!Project concerts, too, but I curled up so that no one would see me so nobody noticed it. I was embarrassed.
──The weird things make you feel embarrassed?
Nakanishi I can show whatever to other S/mileage members, but it is a little embarrassing around the members of other groups, I think (laughs).
It's like, "What on earth are those people doing?" objectively speaking (laughs)
──There are pictures of you playing in the snow, too.
Tamura My manager helped me make a huge snowman. I thought I would do it all myself at first, but I guess my manager thought that that would be absolutely impossible (laughs), and I got some help.
──By the way, who was the one to take the initiative and start playing like that?
Katsuta・Takeuchi Meimi?
Tamura It was Meimi (laughs).
Takeuchi Like, she thinks of different ways for us to have fun.
Tamura But whenver I try to start playing nobody comes along (laughs). Still, I say if I go with different people with different timing then everyone with come with.
Nakanishi When the switch flips Wada-san just goes, "Uwaaaaah!" Earlier Take-chan (Takeuchi) and Wada-san and their managers were having a snowball fight, and Wada-san was the most excited of them all (laughs). There was also an incident where I lost my cell phone in the snow! It's a white phone so it got covered up by the snow. Finally my manager found it for me, though.
──Fukuda-san always has an image of being so composed, so how was the shooting for this kind of S/mileage member?
Fukuda It's like, "What on earth are those people doing?" objectively speaking (laughs). But this time there are a lot of faces that I can only make around the other members, so I wonder if this isn't a photobook to show that S/mileage is different from other groups.
Wada Taking pictures of the four 2nd gen members (Nakanishi, Takeuchi, Katsuta, Tamura) frolicking around was a lot of fun. You can't really see this level of merrymaking on stage, so I think this might be the first opportunity we've had to show this much of that. I'm definitely looking forward to everyone seeing it.
For people from Osaka laughter gives us life
──The 4 2nd gen members in particular have an image of being wild and independent, so Wada-san, isn't it hard as leader to put S/mileage together?
Wada No no, it's fun (laughs).
Nakanishi There are things I do with like my school friends or family that they don't get, but when I do them with Wada she always laughs really hard, and that's emotional support. Being told I'm funny is what makes me the happiest.
Katsuta An entertainer! (laughs)
Nakanishi I want to be told that I'm funny more than I want to be told that I'm cute. It's a victory for people from Osaka to think I'm funny or that I've changed or something. Laughter gives us life.
Fukuda Really, though, Ayacho (Wada) has the easiest sense of humor, even things you'd think, "Is that something you laugh at?" she's so quick to laugh at them. So Kananan (Nakanishi) is always getting carried away and doing weird things.
Nakanishi I have never actually made Fukuda-san laugh.
Fukuda Because you're not funny (laughs).
All Ahahahaha! (laughs)
"Watashi, Choito Kawaii Urabanchou" gave us confidence
──Continuing on, let's talk about your live performances. At the start of this year, all of the Hello!Project groups assembled for the "Hello! Project 2014 WINTER" shows (from here "Hello!Con"), and in the midst of all that how do you show off you S/mileage-ness?
Katsuta Juice=Juice are our juniors, but they have a lot of mature songs, don't they? Compared to that S/mileage has a lot of cheerful and amusing songs like "Ee ka!?" so we decided to go forth as a bright group with plenty of smiles.
──"Ee ka!?" is a Kansai-dialect title, do you, Nakanishi-san, Osaka native, have anything that you are particularly conscious of?
Nakanishi There are these lyrics, "I love this town," so I sing as though I'm talking about Osaka. Also, I had an Osaka-dialect monologue in the song "Yattaruchan" so whenever we have an Osaka live I go over my intonation before appearing before the people who are there to hear it, and I sing thinking that I want to get more people from Osaka to like that song.
──Speaking of which, S/mileage is presently right in the middle of a tour.
Tamura Yes. They're all small venues, so we can clearly see even the faces and bodies of the people in the very back. We can see everyone's expressions and it's easy to tell when they're getting excited.
──What sorts of songs make you feel like, "Ah, they're getting pumped"?
Wada "Watashi, Choito Kawaii Urabanchou," I guess. We sang this song at the Hello!Con, and everyone got super excited. We haven't had many opportunities to perform in large venues like halls lately, so it gave me a ton of confidence when I could make everyone that energetic with this song.
Katsuta If they can learn "Watashi, Choito Kawaii Urabanchou" and "Sukichan," I think even first-timers can enjoy a S/mileage live!
Now it's a restart, we can only go up from here
──For the last Hello!Cons the S/mileage catchphrase changed from "The idols with the shortest skirts in Japan" to "The kind of bad girls," didn't it?
Takeuchi We've gotten bad, haven't we?
Katsuta I still don't know what about us is bad!
Wada Tsunku♂san said something like "Bad!" when he gave a word for S/mileage.
Tamura Is that Tsunku♂san's aspiration for us? S/mileage is a group of good little girls, but does he want us to move in that bad girl direction?
Wada But it's "kind of bad," so it's just a little.
Takeuchi So we're not that bad, so it's okay? I think (laughs).
Nakanishi Well Juice=Juice got the 'fresh' phrase.
Wada The miniskirts...... do we not have them anymore? (laughs)
──What is something you want people to pay attention to in that "kind of bad" S/mileage?
Katsuta Our lives are fierce in any case, they'll definitely pump you up. I think S/mileage is good at getting everyone excited, fans included.
Takeuchi I think the other groups have a lot of cool songs or dance-intensive songs and such, but S/mileage has not only that but also fun songs and cheerful songs and cute songs and yeah, we have a lot of different types, so if you see a S/mileage live you can enjoy many kinds of music, I think.
Nakanishi Also, for Wada-san there's Buddha and art, and for Take-chan there's sports and each individual member has some special characteristic, so I want people to take a step into new territory and like each of the members.
Fukuda I think S/mileage can have a greater affinity with people than other idol groups. Our lives have stages that are close to the audience, and I think we're all pretty easy to talk to and handshakes.
Wada We're like a family, the members and the fans. As a family, we have that aspect of being able to be noisy with each other, don't we? So I think our fans have a strong feeling of "Let's take S/mileage to a big venue!" That kind of family warmth is what makes S/mileage S/mileage, I think.
Tamura Our lives venues are now live houses, and I feel like now it's a restart, but we can only go up from here. I think people who become our fans will be able to enjoy us now, and I want everyone to think "We made it this far together!" when we do a solo live at Nippon Budokan someday. I think that right now S/mileage is the most fun group to support out of all of Hello!Project!
http://natalie.mu/mu...okpass_smileage
For more information about the Original Photobook Produce Challenge, see the official site. If you are in Japan and have au, you can download S/mileage's original photobook with BookPass and vote for them to appear on All Night Nippon.
When we took pictures as our usual selves in the dressing room it was entertaining
──Your photobook theme this time is "Simple-minded girls," right?
Fukuda Kanon In the beginning (just everyone eating together) "Chewing girls" is what we thought about going with, but with "Simple-minded girls" we could see our core aspects, and we thought we could do several different things with it.
──So the S/mileage members are "simple-minded" from the start?
Katsuta Rina I guess it depends on the picture?
Takeuchi Akari That's how we are normally.
Nakanishi Kana We wanted to bring out how we always are as much as possible, and we took photos of us just playing around and yelling.
──How was it for everyone actually taking the photos?
Tamura Meimi It was fun!
Wada Ayaka It's not like we went about it trying to make them particularly funny, but when we took pictures of how we normally are in the dressing room the results were entertaining. Like, "As expected, it's fun to be like S/mileage." It's fun even just to be near and watching, so I'd like to convey that sense of fun to everyone who sees the photos we took.
──Without regard to whether it would be made into a photobook or not, which pictures did everyone like shooting the most this time?
Takeuchi The hoods! Hoods!
Nakanishi Takeuchi-san and Kana put on our hoods and played around.
Takeuchi The ones I like the most were of Kananan (Nakanishi) and I playing around with our jackets.
Tamura That's how they are in their private lives.
Nakanishi I always tuck my coat into my pants so when we had the hoods up, it was really calming. So the jackets saved me, I feel (laughs).
──Was Nakanish-san's appearance okay for everyone around to see?
Takeuchi That's how it always is.
──Does it bother you for other people to see you like that?
Nakanishi I did it in the dressing room of the Hello!Project concerts, too, but I curled up so that no one would see me so nobody noticed it. I was embarrassed.
──The weird things make you feel embarrassed?
Nakanishi I can show whatever to other S/mileage members, but it is a little embarrassing around the members of other groups, I think (laughs).
It's like, "What on earth are those people doing?" objectively speaking (laughs)
──There are pictures of you playing in the snow, too.
Tamura My manager helped me make a huge snowman. I thought I would do it all myself at first, but I guess my manager thought that that would be absolutely impossible (laughs), and I got some help.
──By the way, who was the one to take the initiative and start playing like that?
Katsuta・Takeuchi Meimi?
Tamura It was Meimi (laughs).
Takeuchi Like, she thinks of different ways for us to have fun.
Tamura But whenver I try to start playing nobody comes along (laughs). Still, I say if I go with different people with different timing then everyone with come with.
Nakanishi When the switch flips Wada-san just goes, "Uwaaaaah!" Earlier Take-chan (Takeuchi) and Wada-san and their managers were having a snowball fight, and Wada-san was the most excited of them all (laughs). There was also an incident where I lost my cell phone in the snow! It's a white phone so it got covered up by the snow. Finally my manager found it for me, though.
──Fukuda-san always has an image of being so composed, so how was the shooting for this kind of S/mileage member?
Fukuda It's like, "What on earth are those people doing?" objectively speaking (laughs). But this time there are a lot of faces that I can only make around the other members, so I wonder if this isn't a photobook to show that S/mileage is different from other groups.
Wada Taking pictures of the four 2nd gen members (Nakanishi, Takeuchi, Katsuta, Tamura) frolicking around was a lot of fun. You can't really see this level of merrymaking on stage, so I think this might be the first opportunity we've had to show this much of that. I'm definitely looking forward to everyone seeing it.
For people from Osaka laughter gives us life
──The 4 2nd gen members in particular have an image of being wild and independent, so Wada-san, isn't it hard as leader to put S/mileage together?
Wada No no, it's fun (laughs).
Nakanishi There are things I do with like my school friends or family that they don't get, but when I do them with Wada she always laughs really hard, and that's emotional support. Being told I'm funny is what makes me the happiest.
Katsuta An entertainer! (laughs)
Nakanishi I want to be told that I'm funny more than I want to be told that I'm cute. It's a victory for people from Osaka to think I'm funny or that I've changed or something. Laughter gives us life.
Fukuda Really, though, Ayacho (Wada) has the easiest sense of humor, even things you'd think, "Is that something you laugh at?" she's so quick to laugh at them. So Kananan (Nakanishi) is always getting carried away and doing weird things.
Nakanishi I have never actually made Fukuda-san laugh.
Fukuda Because you're not funny (laughs).
All Ahahahaha! (laughs)
"Watashi, Choito Kawaii Urabanchou" gave us confidence
──Continuing on, let's talk about your live performances. At the start of this year, all of the Hello!Project groups assembled for the "Hello! Project 2014 WINTER" shows (from here "Hello!Con"), and in the midst of all that how do you show off you S/mileage-ness?
Katsuta Juice=Juice are our juniors, but they have a lot of mature songs, don't they? Compared to that S/mileage has a lot of cheerful and amusing songs like "Ee ka!?" so we decided to go forth as a bright group with plenty of smiles.
──"Ee ka!?" is a Kansai-dialect title, do you, Nakanishi-san, Osaka native, have anything that you are particularly conscious of?
Nakanishi There are these lyrics, "I love this town," so I sing as though I'm talking about Osaka. Also, I had an Osaka-dialect monologue in the song "Yattaruchan" so whenever we have an Osaka live I go over my intonation before appearing before the people who are there to hear it, and I sing thinking that I want to get more people from Osaka to like that song.
──Speaking of which, S/mileage is presently right in the middle of a tour.
Tamura Yes. They're all small venues, so we can clearly see even the faces and bodies of the people in the very back. We can see everyone's expressions and it's easy to tell when they're getting excited.
──What sorts of songs make you feel like, "Ah, they're getting pumped"?
Wada "Watashi, Choito Kawaii Urabanchou," I guess. We sang this song at the Hello!Con, and everyone got super excited. We haven't had many opportunities to perform in large venues like halls lately, so it gave me a ton of confidence when I could make everyone that energetic with this song.
Katsuta If they can learn "Watashi, Choito Kawaii Urabanchou" and "Sukichan," I think even first-timers can enjoy a S/mileage live!
Now it's a restart, we can only go up from here
──For the last Hello!Cons the S/mileage catchphrase changed from "The idols with the shortest skirts in Japan" to "The kind of bad girls," didn't it?
Takeuchi We've gotten bad, haven't we?
Katsuta I still don't know what about us is bad!
Wada Tsunku♂san said something like "Bad!" when he gave a word for S/mileage.
Tamura Is that Tsunku♂san's aspiration for us? S/mileage is a group of good little girls, but does he want us to move in that bad girl direction?
Wada But it's "kind of bad," so it's just a little.
Takeuchi So we're not that bad, so it's okay? I think (laughs).
Nakanishi Well Juice=Juice got the 'fresh' phrase.
Wada The miniskirts...... do we not have them anymore? (laughs)
──What is something you want people to pay attention to in that "kind of bad" S/mileage?
Katsuta Our lives are fierce in any case, they'll definitely pump you up. I think S/mileage is good at getting everyone excited, fans included.
Takeuchi I think the other groups have a lot of cool songs or dance-intensive songs and such, but S/mileage has not only that but also fun songs and cheerful songs and cute songs and yeah, we have a lot of different types, so if you see a S/mileage live you can enjoy many kinds of music, I think.
Nakanishi Also, for Wada-san there's Buddha and art, and for Take-chan there's sports and each individual member has some special characteristic, so I want people to take a step into new territory and like each of the members.
Fukuda I think S/mileage can have a greater affinity with people than other idol groups. Our lives have stages that are close to the audience, and I think we're all pretty easy to talk to and handshakes.
Wada We're like a family, the members and the fans. As a family, we have that aspect of being able to be noisy with each other, don't we? So I think our fans have a strong feeling of "Let's take S/mileage to a big venue!" That kind of family warmth is what makes S/mileage S/mileage, I think.
Tamura Our lives venues are now live houses, and I feel like now it's a restart, but we can only go up from here. I think people who become our fans will be able to enjoy us now, and I want everyone to think "We made it this far together!" when we do a solo live at Nippon Budokan someday. I think that right now S/mileage is the most fun group to support out of all of Hello!Project!
http://natalie.mu/mu...okpass_smileage
For more information about the Original Photobook Produce Challenge, see the official site. If you are in Japan and have au, you can download S/mileage's original photobook with BookPass and vote for them to appear on All Night Nippon.
Thanks for the translation