#kei-kun

I can eat delicious things if I join Johnnys -          Which one of your parents do you look like? I don’t look like either of them.  I’m often told, “you don’t look like either of them ayy?!”  Everyone else in my family is AB blood type, but I’m A, so I also often get told, “maybe you were thrown away (by another family)”. (laughs) -          Hahahahaha.  What kind of child were you? It seems that I was often told by the neighbours, “what a cute, girlish face” before I entered kindergarten.  When I got naked to play in the water, I remember a neighbouring old man was like, “Huh?!  He’s got one!” -          Were you also girlish in terms of personality? In terms of personality, I was a carefree child.  I don’t remember this but, at the sports festival in my kindergarten, even though everyone else was running with all their might, I was the only one waving my hand whilst walking and smiling.  (Superstar material right there.) I heard from my mum and grandma that people were asking, “is that child okay?” -          Did no have no fighting spirit? I’m told that I was random and my-pace, things like that. -          We heard from the members that you’ve been called the “Takada Junji-san of the Heisei generation”.  (An older Japanese TV actor and comedian). But I don’t really think I’m that random myself~  He thinks up heaps of incredible circumstances.  Un, I don’t think I’m all that. (laughs) -          What about when you were in primary school? A truly bright child, the central figure of the class, making everyone else laugh and drawing them in… I totally wasn’t this type.  I wasn’t popular and I sucked at sports.  I think I was a very normal child. -          Did you dislike sports? In kindergarten I didn’t run seriously and I came last but, in primary school I did run seriously and I still came last.  Ah, there was only one time where I came first.  By coincidence, that time the guy I was running against was a chubby person. (laughs) -          Did you have a girl you liked? It was like of like, “This girl is good, oh that girl is also good”. (laughs) -          How did a primary school student who was like that think of wanting to enter Johnnys? When I was in kindergarten I watched a programme on TV where young kids were eating heaps of delicious looking food.  When I asked my mum, “who are those people?”, she replied, “they’re kids from Johnnys”, so I thought, “Ah, if I enter Johnnys, I’ll be able to delicious food too!”  That’s how it all started.  (Maybe this is the secret purpose to Yan Yan JUMP’s shift to gourmet touring >_>) From then on, I started saying to my mum, “I’m going to enter Johnnys!” -          Hahahahahaha. My mum was opposed to that kind of environment.  (The celebrity scene) Because it is a world in which you’re never sure if you’ll succeed, even if you work hard. -          So you defied her opposition and applied anyway? She was always opposed to it, but because I was always talking about it and my parents pretty much let me do anything I wanted, when I was in year 5, they finally sent in my resume. -          So it was like that. So that’s why at first, in regards to Johnnys, there was no other reason to me thinking that appearing on TV is fun, other than being able to eat delicious food. Mum is the one who has been healing my day-to-day wear and tear -          Yabu (Kota)-kun said that when he saw you at the assembly place of auditions, you looked incredibly fashionable. Eh!  That probably wasn’t me.  I get the feeling that I got deformed.  (?!!  He’s not serious lol, just being random as usual.. =__=”) -         Okay, I heard this from Yabu-kun too but, for your self promotion you sang Kinki Kids’ “Flower” and it was terrible, was that also part of being deformed? That’s true. (laughs).  It seems as if I really sucked, even when I became a high school student I still got teased about that. -          Did you think you’d pass the audition? Nah.  I didn’t think that at all.  I took the audition without thinking about anything. -          Then how were the activities as a junior after you actually started? At first there was a lot of watching senpais, such as KAT-TUN and Kanjani8.  I thought they were incredibly kind older brothers.  They’d take me out to eat Chinese food when work was over. -          Things like that happened, huh. I thought everyone looked so cool on stage.  Because I didn’t do any club activities, this was the first time where I admired my senpai.  I thought that I wanted to become like that too.  I didn’t want to just dance at the back, I wanted to go over there (to the front of the stage) too.  I thought I wanted to hold onto the microphone. -          When was the first time you held onto the microphone? It was when I’d just entered junior high school.  I remember being extremely happy at that time.  It was a feeling like, “Eh, is it okay if I hold it too!” -          What was the first song you sang? Ah what was it~  Eh~, oh no I have no memory of it. (laughs) -          Did your junior activities go smoothly? Ah but when I was in years 5 and 6 of primary school, I wasn’t called in to work very often.  It was kind of like I was one of those people who were only called in for summer holiday and winter holiday concerts, where they needed large numbers of people.  Work started increasing a little once I got into my first year of junior high. -          Your colleague Yabu-kun got into Ya-Ya-Yah soon after he entered the company, right? Yabu is amazing.  Somehow I recall this.  When Ya-Ya-Yah was formed, they searched really hard for the first Y and A.  I thought, “I’m I.  It’s not right!”, and I was jealous.  But around this time, I received my first fan letter.  I wondered, even though I was only swaying around in the back, “Why did this letter come?”, “How come they know my name?”  I became happy and encouraged.  I decided to do my best. -          In 2004, you were selected for J.J.Express, right? I was pretty happy.  Even though I’d pretty much only just met Dai-chan (Arioka Daiki) and (Nakajima) Yuto for the first time, we were suddenly doing a magazine photoshoot together.  We were called a group but actually we didn’t match very well. (laughs) -          What were your impressions towards the two of them? Unlike now, both Dai-chan and Yuto gave off a cute type of feeling, it was a completely different kind of atmosphere.  Yuto was pretty tiny and incredibly naughty.  He’d often have fights and grapple with Dai-chan. -          J.J.Express often had members shuffled around, right? Yeah. When Tama (Tamamori Yuta) was removed, I was quite shocked too.   Because we always went home together, it was like “we can’t go home together anymore”.  There were many times when a boy who I was close to suddenly stopped getting called.  Even when I was a child, I felt that, “ah, it’s a tough world”.  There were times when I wouldn’t get called either.  It might be weird to say that it was an regular occurrence but, it was pretty common. -          Were you aware of a debut back then? When I was in primary and junior high, it was like “Today I’m doing this job, tomorrow…”  Not to mention a debut, I had the feeling that today, I can only think about tomorrow. -          Those were busy days. In junior high, I have a strong feeling that I had an awesome time, but now that I think back on it, I was considerably busy.  I would go to school, and then go to work.  And then I would get up early in the morning and go to school again.  On Saturdays there was television filming for [Ya-Ya-Yah]. -          It was tough, ayy I received incredible support from my family.  Dad would always come to pick me up in the car when the time to return home was late, or when I wasn’t feeling so well.  No matter how late I came home, mum would always wait up for me and make me meals on the spot. -          What’s your favourite dish from your mum’s homemade cooking? Anything is delicious, if it’s mum’s cooking.  If I have to pick something, it’d be the curry.  Eating curry at home is more delicious than eating curry at any other place, absolutely.  When somebody says they eat out for curry, I find it a bit unbelievable.  With curry, the flavour of home comes out the most. -          That’s true. But when I come home on a too-empty stomach, I have a bad temper and sometimes I take it out on mum.  Like, “This isn’t what I like to eat!”  There was a time around junior high when I was a piece of crap.  Inoo is so self-deprecating in this piece.. -___-  But humble.  Always humble. -          So there were things that you couldn’t notice because you were so occupied by your own affairs. Yes, that’s it.  With work, things like being removed from good positions and not being picked as a singing member, I have angry outbursts about these things after all.  That’s IT.  JUMP management better give him more solo lines from now on >=( At these times, mum would like hear me out like “yeap, yeap” and make me meals.  Now, I’m really grateful for her.  I realise that mum is the one who has been healing my day-to-day wear and tear.