最高かよ!

[English Translation: Rolling Stone Japan 11/3/2016] Kanji Keyakizaka46/Hiragana Keykizaka46′s kennin member Nagahama Neru walks a path that is different from the others

When she arrived at Keyakizaka46 she was like an out of season transfer student.

Why was she the only one who joined half-way through?

“I was looking at the Nogizaka46 website when, by chance, I found that they were calling for applications for a new group. Without saying anything to my parents, I applied out of my own free will. Until that point, I had never applied for anything like an audition before, so I thought there wasn’t any chance that I’d pass.”

As a girl who was raised in a strict household, obeying her parents and teachers was considered good conduct. In middle school and high school, she chose to devote herself to preparing for university because, she says, “it made my parents happy.” In school she made an effort to act like a normal student by studying and participating in club activities. However, after an incident that served as her motivation, she began to question the life she was living.

“I dreamed of working at an airport as part of a ground crew so I wanted to go to technical school but, because I was in university prep school, it was expected that I’d go to a good university, and I was told that there was no way I could get away with not taking the university entrance exams. At that time, I suddenly started to think, “How long will I have to walk on this path?” The reason I applied for the audition was not because I wanted to be an idol. Rather, it was out of an urge to break down the person I had become up until that point.”

To her, this was the first adventure of her life, and the point from which she can begin to challenge herself.

Over the past week various outlets have posted articles regarding Keyakizaka and their “Nazi-esque” or “Nazi-themed” costumes, or even just “Nazi costumes”. What started fairly low key became overblown quickly as each subsequent article, lacking any form of real evidence, used the existence of other articles as evidence of outrage about the issue and trick readers into thinking there was an issue in the first place.

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