the garden

Atsushi Sakurai: Well, I guess I want to transcend gender. It's part of the job. The moment I get embarrassed about this kind of thing, I'm finished...But I think it's only recently that I've really become able to get pumped up about it like I do now. It's become more fun for me, too. I feel like I'm transforming into something else.

Interviewer: I suppose your image is similar to David Bowie's bisexuality. Or maybe it's a more Japanese image of femininity.

AS: Yeah. ...I think it's more Japanese style. Bowie's calculated androgyny was certainly surprising as a work of art, but when I act a role for myself, it's the refined femininity of ancient Japan, but with power. That's what I become. In fact, I have a number of friends and acquaintances like that. Men, but with women's souls, something like that. When I look at people like them, I think… “it suits them so naturally,” or “I quite like this.” They also seem very gentle to me…I suppose I have a bit of that element or quality myself. When I was a child, I felt more comfortable playing with girls. Even now I sometimes get told that I'm “feminine.”

Interviewer: If you went down that path, do you think you could love a man?

AS: Yes.

Rowland S. Howard in a Leeds hotel room, 1981