#ankobi

Yamamoto   At first I expected that Antonio would bemade fun of for her chin. I thought I’d be hearing things like “shakure” (crookedchin) and “furansupan” (French baguette).

Watanabe   My character is called Kobii (derived from kobiru[v. to kiss up, flatter])! According to Akimoto-sensei, it’s because I “havethe eyes of a kiss-up.” Isn’t that kind of rude? (laughs)

Yamamoto   Doesn’t really sound yankee-like, does it?

Watanabe   Even“Antonio” has kind of a cute ring to it. The real Antonio is scary, though.

Yamamoto   I wonder how people perceive Antonio. Since she’s the president, she has to seem dignified. Staff members tell me to be a little more adult-like than a typical yankee to show that she’s a truly scary person.

Watanabe   No problem. That’s pretty close to how you usually are anyway (laughs).

Yamamoto   What’s that supposed to mean? (laughs)

Watanabe   You give off the air of a boss, I guess.

Yamamoto   But even you can be scary sometimes, too.

Watanabe   No way! Like when?

Yamamoto   Whenever you really get into a song during a live, the way your eyes convey your emotions is unbelievably powerful. Like, “Hey, is she glaring at the audience?”(laughs)

Watanabe   I guess I don’t realize when that happens. Up until now I’ve played a lot of roles that help me make the most of my usual character, so now that I’m playing a strong vice-president, I’ve been thinking that I need to bring out my inner scariness.

Yamamoto   And you are. When I see Kobii attack people while wearing that smile of hers I think to myself, “It would be scary to get on her bad side!” (laughs)

Watanabe   I guess that’s a good thing (laughs). Ideally, I’d like to portray Kobii in such a fearsome way that when fans see me at lives and handshake events they think things like, “There’s that whole other side to her hidden behind that smile! ?”

Yamamoto   The members who played in the prior seasons were all really cool and there was such a wide variety of characters. We’ve got to try our best so we don’t lose to them.