Abe Ryohei: QUIZ JAPAN Magazine (Vol 13) Cover Interview (Translation) (PART 1)
Hello it's been A WHILE.
I'm coming back just to put up this translation I did recently - it's the cover interview that Abe Ryohei / Abe-chan from Snow Man had recently for the magazine QUIZ JAPAN!
(Please excuse the horrific font lmao it stayed like this when I copied my translation over from Google Docs and I couldn't figure out how to change it back rip)
Special Interview: Abe Ryohei
Abe Ryohei, the man who has displayed competency in his activities in various fields, in his capacity as a member of the hugely popular group Snow Man, and as the club president of the self-founded Johnnys Quiz Club. As an idol, he entered the Science & Technology Department of Sophia University through the standard entrance exam. He has also obtained the weather forecasters’ qualification which has a passing rate of 4%, and takes part in quizzes, constantly pursuing the path of his “studies”. We investigate what motivates Abe, and what forms the foundation for his desire for knowledge.
==
“Studying”, a weapon for survival as an idol
First, please let us know what got you interested in quizzes.
When I was in high school, I was in a group called Mis Snow Man, which was the predecessor of (the current) Snow Man. You could say that I was constantly following on the heels (of the other members), I was aware that I wasn’t as good at singing, dancing and acrobatics as the other members. At that time, I wondered to myself, ‘I’d like something I can use as a weapon’, and I thought, ‘Ah, it’s my studies’. I wanted to develop my studies, and also around that time because I had always liked the weather since I was young, I also thought ‘Someday I’d like to obtain the weather forecasters’ qualification’ and thus I began to watch quiz shows.
Until that point, you hadn’t really paid attention to quizzes?
Yes. Of course, I’ve seen shows such as “Nep League” and “Quiz! Hexagon”, but I saw them as variety shows. The first show I really paid attention to as a quiz show was “Q-sama”. In the segment titled “Pressure Study”, the first player would suddenly go to answer question number 10, and it was very cool when they got it right.
[T/N: “Pressure Study” is a segment on “Q-sama” where each member of a team takes turns to answer a set of questions, and the harder the question they can answer, the more points they can get. Usually, question number 10 would be the hardest question at the first stage of the game.]
Because question number 10 is the hardest one right?
Yes. Watching that, I began to hold the vague thought that ‘Someday I’d like to appear in a quiz show’. It was also “Q-sama” that made me seriously want to appear on a quiz show. When I was in a rehearsal with my group members, I happened to look over at the TV, and “Q-sama” was airing, and it was showing a question where they had to guess what an idiom, which had been translated to English, was in Japanese. Inadvertently, I said “Oh, the answer’s shimen soka”, and when that turned out to be the right answer, all of the members said “Wow, you’re amazing!” and it made me feel happy. Since then, I made sure to start saying, in various places, that “I’d like to appear in a quiz show”, while thinking, ‘Please let this catch someone’s attention!’ (Laughs)
[T/N 1: The word Abe-chan uses is 四字熟語, which refers to an idiom composed of 4 kanji characters.]
[T/N 2: Shimen soka 四面楚歌 means “to be surrounded by enemies on all sides”].
I see. To say that studies became your weapon, that means you liked studies from the start?
Rather than ‘like’, I hated to lose. That’s why in elementary school I memorised the digits of pi, and competed with my friends for who had better test scores; while trying hard not to lose to the people around me, I studied a lot.
“Reciting the digits of pi” is also listed as your special ability on your official profile.
At the time, in the show “Gakkou e Ikou!” there was a corner called “B-RAP High School”, and our teacher would show it to us every time. There, we saw Co. Keio reciting 20 digits of pi, and we as elementary school kids went “So cool!” “Let’s imitate him!”, and thus the entire class memorised the digits of pi. After we had memorised the 20 digits, we competed to see who could memorise the most digits, and before I realised it I had memorised 100 digits. (Laughs)
[T/N: Co. Keio is a Japanese rapper; he studied in the Science & Technology Department of Keio University when he was on the show “Gakkou e Ikou”.]
You used wordplay to help you memorise the digits?
Nope, I used the rhythm. It’s a bit like the multiplication table. I think I was able to do it because I was young then. (Laughs) In middle school too, because my school displayed everybody’s test rankings, I studied really hard to make sure I wouldn’t lose to my friends.
So your motivation is linked to having a visible ranking.
Yeah, it’s connected. I’ve ranked first place in the school once in my life; I think it was in the mid-term examinations of the second term of the first year of middle school. At the time, I was like, “Seriously?!” (laughs), but I felt very happy.
I’d like to go back to your student days again; you said you were interested in the weather from a young age?
I liked Pokemon a lot. It had a rich variety of types such as fire type and water type, it was like magic. The weather is similar to that - rain or snow can begin to fall where there was nothing there before, and you can feel warmth or cold; I was hooked by that magic-like quality about it.
It seems that when you were in elementary school, you did your own research and came up with a “weather diary”.
Yes, when I was in my first year of elementary school. I recorded down the weather map printed in the newspapers for that day, as well as what the weather was like every day. Other than that, I remember once in art class, we had to draw pictures on a kendama, and I drew pictures of the weather, such as the sun and lightning. So when I was younger I really did love the weather, but I only came to know of the weather forecasters’ qualification much later, around the time I was in high school.
You’ve talked about your avid curiosity in various areas, and it seems that every year you would receive some kind of award for your self-led research. Did your parents help to foster an environment conducive to learning, was it an environment where they had you do what they wanted you to do?
They certainly brought me to a lot of places, like museums and camps. I was able to experience many things from that.
You graduated from the Science and Technology Department in university. Were you good at science subjects from a young age?
When I was in elementary school I went to cram school during summer breaks only, but I was always at the advanced level for mathematics, and the 5th level for Japanese language (laughs). I really wasn’t good at Japanese at all. Also, we had many educational toys at home, and I had always liked the science puzzles from the time I was in kindergarten. I often played with the puzzle called “Pythagoras” where you had to put together triangular and quadrilateral magnets, and a toy shaped like an abacus.
==
How far can I go with my own strength? High school, the time when there was no option not to go to university
What else did you like when you were younger?
I really liked this show called “Trivia no Izumi”. I took notes of all the trivia they showed on the show. Not because I wanted to show it to people or anything. I had even marked down which bits of trivia received the “golden brain”, which received the “silver brain”, and wrote down how many “wow, really?” reactions each bit of trivia received. I wonder what I was so crazy about, then. (Laughs) I also enjoyed talking about trivia a lot in school. Up till now, I remember that in the Ghana Football Association there was a president named Nyaho-Nyaho Tamakloe, stuff like that. I don’t really know where that notebook of mine ended up, but I really looked forward to the show every week, and my parents would wake me up to catch it.
[T/N: In the show “Trivia no Izumi”, panelists take turns to present trivia, and the guests on the show can press a “wow, really?” button if they found the trivia interesting. (The Japanese expression used is “へぇ” which doesn’t really have a direct English translation, but it’s used to express interest, wonder, etc.) At the end of the episode, the presenter with the most “wow, really” reactions would receive the “golden brain” prize, and the presenter who the host found the most interesting would receive the “silver brain” prize.]
Because in the first 6 months it was a late-night programme.
Yes, that’s right, it was at a late timing at night. Because I was a kid there were times I’d fall asleep in the middle of the show, and when I woke up the programme would already be over, and I would burst into tears. (Laughs)
Since you were young, from your parents’ point of view they’d surely want you to sleep earlier. You must be thankful that they let you stay up late to watch late-night TV.
Indeed. In the lower years of elementary school they’d say “please go to bed early”, though. (Laughs) They began to say “you can stay up” around the age when I began actively watching “Trivia no Izumi”. They probably thought, ‘Ah, he likes the show’. When I was in high school and university, they’d record quiz shows for me even though I didn’t tell them to.
Speaking of high school, before you decided you were going to use your studies as a weapon, was it difficult to balance your studies and your job?
Whenever I had even just a sliver of time I would study. In particular, I would study during the intermission at stageplays… I was doing it in the dressing-room backstage so of course the other members were around and it was noisy, but I would sit at the side and do homework by myself, or do the materials for my correspondence course. Sometimes the members would ask me “What are you studying?”. Sometimes when I would be listening to English audio tracks they’d pull out my earpiece and ask “What are you listening to?”, but at that time I was listening to “Speed Running”. I was teased a lot for that. (Laughs)
[T/N: “Speed Running” is a series of audio educational materials designed to teach English.]
It seems that when you took a break from your activities to take the university entrance exams, there were members who opposed this.
Ah, yes, there was a time when it was like that. But to me, there was no such option to ‘not go to university’. Of course, I wanted to go to university, and while I had the option to go for recommendation-based admission, I thought, ‘I’ll only be able to undertake this huge studying endeavour once in my life, so I’d like to test how far I can go with my own ability’. So I overcame the doubting voices of my members, and took a break of slightly over 6 months from my Johnnys activities to study for the entrance exams. Although I started out doing self-study in the school library during my free periods, I think the fact that I worked hard in my school studies certainly helped in my studying for the entrance exam.
[T/N: Recommendation-based admission is a stage of university admission that opens in priority to regular admission, where students can apply to university based on recommendations from their alma mater.]
Was Sophia University your first choice?
It wasn’t my first choice. If we’re looking at the number of universities I sat the entrance exams for, I definitely had more losses than wins. But when I think about it now, I really did manage to get into a really good university. It had a good location, and for the co-existence (of university and work) it was the ideal place.
By the way, for high school you went to a regular high school, and not one for people in the entertainment industry, right?
Yes, it was a metropolitan high school. Although I got into the high school based on recommendation, I couldn’t obtain authorised absences from school to go for my entertainment activities. There were lessons that I couldn’t skip, and there was a time where I was told that if I missed lessons one more time, I would have to repeat the academic year. So sometimes I wasn’t able to backdance for the seniors during their shows, and I would feel very bad about that, and that conflict continued into my university days as well. The university was also surprisingly strict about missing lessons, and when I had to miss shows I felt really bad.
Part 2 | Part 3
I'm coming back just to put up this translation I did recently - it's the cover interview that Abe Ryohei / Abe-chan from Snow Man had recently for the magazine QUIZ JAPAN!
(Please excuse the horrific font lmao it stayed like this when I copied my translation over from Google Docs and I couldn't figure out how to change it back rip)
Special Interview: Abe Ryohei
Abe Ryohei, the man who has displayed competency in his activities in various fields, in his capacity as a member of the hugely popular group Snow Man, and as the club president of the self-founded Johnnys Quiz Club. As an idol, he entered the Science & Technology Department of Sophia University through the standard entrance exam. He has also obtained the weather forecasters’ qualification which has a passing rate of 4%, and takes part in quizzes, constantly pursuing the path of his “studies”. We investigate what motivates Abe, and what forms the foundation for his desire for knowledge.
==
“Studying”, a weapon for survival as an idol
First, please let us know what got you interested in quizzes.
When I was in high school, I was in a group called Mis Snow Man, which was the predecessor of (the current) Snow Man. You could say that I was constantly following on the heels (of the other members), I was aware that I wasn’t as good at singing, dancing and acrobatics as the other members. At that time, I wondered to myself, ‘I’d like something I can use as a weapon’, and I thought, ‘Ah, it’s my studies’. I wanted to develop my studies, and also around that time because I had always liked the weather since I was young, I also thought ‘Someday I’d like to obtain the weather forecasters’ qualification’ and thus I began to watch quiz shows.
Until that point, you hadn’t really paid attention to quizzes?
Yes. Of course, I’ve seen shows such as “Nep League” and “Quiz! Hexagon”, but I saw them as variety shows. The first show I really paid attention to as a quiz show was “Q-sama”. In the segment titled “Pressure Study”, the first player would suddenly go to answer question number 10, and it was very cool when they got it right.
[T/N: “Pressure Study” is a segment on “Q-sama” where each member of a team takes turns to answer a set of questions, and the harder the question they can answer, the more points they can get. Usually, question number 10 would be the hardest question at the first stage of the game.]
Because question number 10 is the hardest one right?
Yes. Watching that, I began to hold the vague thought that ‘Someday I’d like to appear in a quiz show’. It was also “Q-sama” that made me seriously want to appear on a quiz show. When I was in a rehearsal with my group members, I happened to look over at the TV, and “Q-sama” was airing, and it was showing a question where they had to guess what an idiom, which had been translated to English, was in Japanese. Inadvertently, I said “Oh, the answer’s shimen soka”, and when that turned out to be the right answer, all of the members said “Wow, you’re amazing!” and it made me feel happy. Since then, I made sure to start saying, in various places, that “I’d like to appear in a quiz show”, while thinking, ‘Please let this catch someone’s attention!’ (Laughs)
[T/N 1: The word Abe-chan uses is 四字熟語, which refers to an idiom composed of 4 kanji characters.]
[T/N 2: Shimen soka 四面楚歌 means “to be surrounded by enemies on all sides”].
I see. To say that studies became your weapon, that means you liked studies from the start?
Rather than ‘like’, I hated to lose. That’s why in elementary school I memorised the digits of pi, and competed with my friends for who had better test scores; while trying hard not to lose to the people around me, I studied a lot.
“Reciting the digits of pi” is also listed as your special ability on your official profile.
At the time, in the show “Gakkou e Ikou!” there was a corner called “B-RAP High School”, and our teacher would show it to us every time. There, we saw Co. Keio reciting 20 digits of pi, and we as elementary school kids went “So cool!” “Let’s imitate him!”, and thus the entire class memorised the digits of pi. After we had memorised the 20 digits, we competed to see who could memorise the most digits, and before I realised it I had memorised 100 digits. (Laughs)
[T/N: Co. Keio is a Japanese rapper; he studied in the Science & Technology Department of Keio University when he was on the show “Gakkou e Ikou”.]
You used wordplay to help you memorise the digits?
Nope, I used the rhythm. It’s a bit like the multiplication table. I think I was able to do it because I was young then. (Laughs) In middle school too, because my school displayed everybody’s test rankings, I studied really hard to make sure I wouldn’t lose to my friends.
So your motivation is linked to having a visible ranking.
Yeah, it’s connected. I’ve ranked first place in the school once in my life; I think it was in the mid-term examinations of the second term of the first year of middle school. At the time, I was like, “Seriously?!” (laughs), but I felt very happy.
I’d like to go back to your student days again; you said you were interested in the weather from a young age?
I liked Pokemon a lot. It had a rich variety of types such as fire type and water type, it was like magic. The weather is similar to that - rain or snow can begin to fall where there was nothing there before, and you can feel warmth or cold; I was hooked by that magic-like quality about it.
It seems that when you were in elementary school, you did your own research and came up with a “weather diary”.
Yes, when I was in my first year of elementary school. I recorded down the weather map printed in the newspapers for that day, as well as what the weather was like every day. Other than that, I remember once in art class, we had to draw pictures on a kendama, and I drew pictures of the weather, such as the sun and lightning. So when I was younger I really did love the weather, but I only came to know of the weather forecasters’ qualification much later, around the time I was in high school.
You’ve talked about your avid curiosity in various areas, and it seems that every year you would receive some kind of award for your self-led research. Did your parents help to foster an environment conducive to learning, was it an environment where they had you do what they wanted you to do?
They certainly brought me to a lot of places, like museums and camps. I was able to experience many things from that.
You graduated from the Science and Technology Department in university. Were you good at science subjects from a young age?
When I was in elementary school I went to cram school during summer breaks only, but I was always at the advanced level for mathematics, and the 5th level for Japanese language (laughs). I really wasn’t good at Japanese at all. Also, we had many educational toys at home, and I had always liked the science puzzles from the time I was in kindergarten. I often played with the puzzle called “Pythagoras” where you had to put together triangular and quadrilateral magnets, and a toy shaped like an abacus.
==
How far can I go with my own strength? High school, the time when there was no option not to go to university
What else did you like when you were younger?
I really liked this show called “Trivia no Izumi”. I took notes of all the trivia they showed on the show. Not because I wanted to show it to people or anything. I had even marked down which bits of trivia received the “golden brain”, which received the “silver brain”, and wrote down how many “wow, really?” reactions each bit of trivia received. I wonder what I was so crazy about, then. (Laughs) I also enjoyed talking about trivia a lot in school. Up till now, I remember that in the Ghana Football Association there was a president named Nyaho-Nyaho Tamakloe, stuff like that. I don’t really know where that notebook of mine ended up, but I really looked forward to the show every week, and my parents would wake me up to catch it.
[T/N: In the show “Trivia no Izumi”, panelists take turns to present trivia, and the guests on the show can press a “wow, really?” button if they found the trivia interesting. (The Japanese expression used is “へぇ” which doesn’t really have a direct English translation, but it’s used to express interest, wonder, etc.) At the end of the episode, the presenter with the most “wow, really” reactions would receive the “golden brain” prize, and the presenter who the host found the most interesting would receive the “silver brain” prize.]
Because in the first 6 months it was a late-night programme.
Yes, that’s right, it was at a late timing at night. Because I was a kid there were times I’d fall asleep in the middle of the show, and when I woke up the programme would already be over, and I would burst into tears. (Laughs)
Since you were young, from your parents’ point of view they’d surely want you to sleep earlier. You must be thankful that they let you stay up late to watch late-night TV.
Indeed. In the lower years of elementary school they’d say “please go to bed early”, though. (Laughs) They began to say “you can stay up” around the age when I began actively watching “Trivia no Izumi”. They probably thought, ‘Ah, he likes the show’. When I was in high school and university, they’d record quiz shows for me even though I didn’t tell them to.
Speaking of high school, before you decided you were going to use your studies as a weapon, was it difficult to balance your studies and your job?
Whenever I had even just a sliver of time I would study. In particular, I would study during the intermission at stageplays… I was doing it in the dressing-room backstage so of course the other members were around and it was noisy, but I would sit at the side and do homework by myself, or do the materials for my correspondence course. Sometimes the members would ask me “What are you studying?”. Sometimes when I would be listening to English audio tracks they’d pull out my earpiece and ask “What are you listening to?”, but at that time I was listening to “Speed Running”. I was teased a lot for that. (Laughs)
[T/N: “Speed Running” is a series of audio educational materials designed to teach English.]
It seems that when you took a break from your activities to take the university entrance exams, there were members who opposed this.
Ah, yes, there was a time when it was like that. But to me, there was no such option to ‘not go to university’. Of course, I wanted to go to university, and while I had the option to go for recommendation-based admission, I thought, ‘I’ll only be able to undertake this huge studying endeavour once in my life, so I’d like to test how far I can go with my own ability’. So I overcame the doubting voices of my members, and took a break of slightly over 6 months from my Johnnys activities to study for the entrance exams. Although I started out doing self-study in the school library during my free periods, I think the fact that I worked hard in my school studies certainly helped in my studying for the entrance exam.
[T/N: Recommendation-based admission is a stage of university admission that opens in priority to regular admission, where students can apply to university based on recommendations from their alma mater.]
Was Sophia University your first choice?
It wasn’t my first choice. If we’re looking at the number of universities I sat the entrance exams for, I definitely had more losses than wins. But when I think about it now, I really did manage to get into a really good university. It had a good location, and for the co-existence (of university and work) it was the ideal place.
By the way, for high school you went to a regular high school, and not one for people in the entertainment industry, right?
Yes, it was a metropolitan high school. Although I got into the high school based on recommendation, I couldn’t obtain authorised absences from school to go for my entertainment activities. There were lessons that I couldn’t skip, and there was a time where I was told that if I missed lessons one more time, I would have to repeat the academic year. So sometimes I wasn’t able to backdance for the seniors during their shows, and I would feel very bad about that, and that conflict continued into my university days as well. The university was also surprisingly strict about missing lessons, and when I had to miss shows I felt really bad.
Part 2 | Part 3