It took me an year (literally) to find enough time to complete this translation I started last summer, but I managed :D Even if quite old, it's really interesting (a must read for Kame fans for sure).
Highlights:
-A comment about what it means being 22 years old.
-His love for stars, London and books.
-Many compliments about Kame by the journalist xD
-What he does when he looks back to his past...
-A cute and a heartbreaking behind-the-scenes of the photoshoot.
-...actually there are too many highlights in this interview. Basically: if you like Maquia issues, you'll like this one too. It gave me the same vibes.
Thank you
redina for requesting this translation! It was one of the longest interviews I've translated till now, but it's surely one of my favourites. It's slightly bitter but really honest, I totally enjoyed reading and translating it. I love it. Thanks ♥
MISS 2009.02
Failing at work, suffering for love, worrying for the future… he’s the same as us.
KAMENASHI KAZUYA’S way of proceeding
“I must go forward”
In good and bad, the 22-year-old Kamenashi Kazuya-kun is always in the center of public attention. He has the image of being always cool and never baring his feelings…
Actually he told us he gets angry, he feels lonely, and he suffers. Yet he can’t stand to constantly look back nor he can stand to stay still and stop, therefore “I must go forward” --- This is the Kamenashi-style way of proceeding in his life.
***
“Eh? What kind of age is the age of the 22-year-old me? It’s an impatient age. Unfinished. But there’s no necessity to come to completeness, nor I am complete either… To put it simply, I think it’s the age of “I want to become an adult soon”.
If you don’t know Kamenashi Kazuya-kun well yet, you probably have the image of him being a famous person, cool, who appears on mass media like monthly magazines without expressing his own feelings. On the other side, if you’re his fan, you probably know also that during his elementary school period he was into baseball to the level that he was able to be chosen to be Japan national representative, and that he’s burying and hiding his innocent and refreshing side peculiar of a sport young boy too. But what appears at odd moments during the photoshoot time is once again different that almost takes even us by surprise: a soft, “faraway” sensitivity that radiates from him and a simplicity that’s almost too honest.
“I’m said that I’m serious and a hard worker, but I’m absolutely loose. Like, I spend a whole day in T-shirt and half pants. With messy bed-time hair (laughs)”
He’s an idol yet a normal person; no way he’s always perfect.
“The character I play in this drama is cool and passionate, he’s a bit random and fools around, he has many faces”.
The drama which this character that has many sides similar to Kamenashi-kun appears in has the very popular comic “Kami no Shizuku” as original work. Shizuku, played by Kamenashi-kun, is a sales man employed in a certain beer company that is ordered to transfer to the wine section. That’s because his father is a worldwide known wine estimator, but Shizuku has antipathy for his father and is a complete amateur about wine…. It’s such a character. Then, what’s Kamenashi-kun’s level of wine knowledge?
“The degree of liking the taste. When you go to restaurant you’re given a wine list, right? But bluntly, I don’t understand it so it’s generally ‘Please open an easy to drink one’.
But even if slowly, I’m studying wine. Since the premise [of the drama] is ‘you have sense but you don’t know wine at all’, it would be nice if I could grow together with the character”.
Touching the character, increasing the wine knowledge, he noticed something.
“Probably that ‘wine and people are similar’. There’s that year’s charm, and also until you open the tap and drink it, even simply with which glass you use and how you pour it the taste changes. Human beings are the same. Even if we’re all humans, following the circumstances placed on us we shine in a different way, and also our way to come into contact changes. Both people and wine are deep”.
“I am always in love. Because I consider the feeling of getting close to someone noble and priceless, without limiting to romantic love”
He surely isn’t loquacious, but every time he talks he will answer sincerely, like he’s putting order inside his head and heart. Kamenashi-kun makes you think that he is a person that of course firmly catches the drama he takes part to, but also the human beings and the world around him, and pours love without being timid. So, while thinking we’re a bit too straight, we nonetheless boldly tried to ask.
“Are you in love now?”
“Yes, I’m always in love. Because for me being in love is something absolutely indispensable. For example, even if it’s not an ‘I have a romantic relationship with someone and I go out with her’, I consider the feeling of getting close to the other person noble and priceless.
Calling it “Love” may sound weird, but I’ve got the same sensation when at work I’m involved in a job. I enjoy and get excited. Having my heart that beats faster when feeling and touching, I think it’s the same in love and work”.
Then, probably love is something that stimulates and awakes something new in him?
“Exactly that! I mean, even if your house is absurdly dirty, if the girl you like comes there you clean it right? (laughs) Normally when I take the jersey pants out I leave them on the sofa, I don’t put them away one by one. But if I know the girl I like has to come home, I clean everything with incredible energy! (laughs)
It’s the same story: if there hadn’t been this drama I wouldn’t have started studying wine; if I go out with someone I get interested in things that before I neither liked nor hated. The world becomes wider”.
Thanks to his work, while piling up many discoveries and meetings, Kamenashi-kun is moving forward one step after the other. We inquire about this situation.
“In many meanings work, more than private life, is fast in shrinking the sense of distance. Like you can face directly both people and things.
For this reason even in private, the man-woman relations, friendship, affection, I don’t put them altogether and reject. Because people that you say “I hate him” from the beginning are very rare, right? Even in the case there are “I’m not so good being with him” people. As first thing [you say it after] normally coming in contact with that person… right?”
We’re curious about Kamenashi-kun’s approach after the “normally coming in contact”.
“Once started it is fast. I don’t calculate or think to this and that. I throw my feelings in a straight way. I don’t know, but maybe I’m a bit off the normal people. Maybe it’s an influence of doing this job. The way I stop people or how I go out with them”.
But Kamenashi-kun who soaks full-body in the world’s gaze, how does he balance work and love?
“I’ve never divided work and love and reflected upon them. But putting aside when some accident happens, when there’s the precious person of my life, I think ‘for me [my point of view], I surely only face the right direction, I’m properly facing the right direction’.
But when the world shocks and makes noise, I have an odd feeling. ‘Why are they doing so much fuss?’. Of course I hate it. The fact that people living in my same world admonish or give advice about me even though they don’t know my real love circumstances, honestly, I feel it’s somewhat out of place. I also think ‘well, it’s a job for those people too’. But you know, it makes me angry that they stick and turn around me from beginning till the end! (laughs)”
Surely there are plenty of moments in which he must control and suppress feelings that we can’t even imagine. In those moments, Kamenashi-kun…
“I want to straight face the other. The feelings that I like her won’t change, nor I plan to give up the love feelings either. On the other hand, it is also a fact that because I am so “go through” I sacrifice a lot. Differently from the normal world, the simple dimension of “like” disappears. But I won’t begin to hate the other one because something happened, neither I give up. But there are also times in which you must change the form of “liking”. That is extremely painful. If there’s nothing [left] it should be peaceful though (laughs).
Sometimes I try to turn back and look at myself until now. The points I was incompetent/negligent really catch my attention. I also torment myself in regret. But since it’s something that’s already passed…, as next thing to do, and it’s not a get back in the game, but I think that what’s important is being a “me” close to that particular moment. But of course I cannot not consider the past.”
Then, how does he overcome such moments?
“I cry (laughs). But luckily works arrive one after the other and disperse [the sadness]. I think ‘at the end, a man is work’. ‘How am I pouring what I possess?’. If I don’t do it, I don’t consider myself cool. Because people I consider cool are people that fulfill their job.”
‘Men are work’, he said such thing. For him, the personality he admires is Johnny Depp.
“When I sometimes read Johnny Depp’s autobiography, I think ‘Ah, he had a mischievous period too’.
What I feel looking at him is that the important thing in humans is how they can change. I think that there aren’t completely failed people; humans surely have periods they fail, and of course I have those moments too. What’s important is how you can change when you have those moments. It’s important to look back too, but there’s no necessity to be captured by it. Because I think that experiencing failures and setbacks turns into strength to proceed forward, both in love and work”.
He possess the toughness to proceed forward gained by getting to know depths and pain, you can’t think he’s 22 years old. He passionately told us that recently there’s something he’s completely absorbed by.
“I’m really absorbed by astronomical telescopes. The opportunity came from an acquaintance that has a big astronomical telescope and let me look at the Moon with it. I looked for a telescope in countless recycle shops, bought a small one, and I struggled ‘How can I see with this~!!’ while reading the explanatory pamphlet (laughs). Looking at the Moon is really something.
When you look at the Moon with naked eye, you get that after some hours it has moved quite a lot, right? But if you use an astronomical telescope you see it magnified by many hundred times, so you can see craters, and even if it’s a crescent Moon you can see the outline as a faint full Moon! Like, ‘wah, now the light is shining just on this side!’. And then it disappears from the lens after 5 seconds. You think ‘The Moon moves so wonderfully’.”
Kamenashi-kun keeps talking with shining eyes.
“So I get to think that the world is spinning around. Considering this, I also think ‘I am really nothing, right’. That I’m inefficient. The Moon is moving so much, so ‘I must go forward too’. Words are useless, I was really touched.
Now I want to try to go to a place where the stars are beautiful and look into the astronomical telescope. If you lay down under a whole starry sky, your eyes slightly get used to it and you begin to see a lot of stuff, everything, even small stars, right? And when you go past it, you don’t understand anything anymore.
I really like the sensation which you see everything blurred to the point you think ‘What, did my eyesight worsen?’. Not to the point to be in the space though…
The night view is the same. Even if I’m tormented by a lot of stuff, ‘there are so many people, so many buildings are standing there, it’s so beautiful’, I think this too; but it’s not that I feel littleness, it’s more that ‘my personal ideas and torments are so small! Then I must go forward, otherwise it has no meaning’.”
“In order to challenge I want to be reassuring. For that aim I stock power and confidence”
He’s rich of sensitivity, gazing at the sky through the astronomical telescope and gazing at himself. One of Kamenashi-kun’s dreams is…
“I want to go to London. I have looked up to London fashion and art since the past. I have a friend that often goes to London and every time he comes back to Japan he creates for me a photo book with London pictures. In those handmade photo books there are 20 empty pages and he said ‘Stick the photos you’ll take when you go yourself’. I’ll surely stick mine in the near future (laughs)”.
Kamenashi-kun thinks about London. He’s not just a top idol, he’s also a member of KAT-TUN.
“These are ordinary words, but KAT-TUN members are both comrades and rivals. Like people change due to their environment, there are many sides of me that came to existence exactly because we are KAT-TUN, like for example the “me” I’m today or “my own nature”. In such a meaning, the existence called KAT-TUN that occupies a huge part of me is, as expected, precious.
We don’t forcibly contact each other or meet in private, but on work place we enjoy and are playful, it’s fun. The place I exist in is KAT-TUN. It’s sure fact that KAT-TUN is my stimulus.”
After talking about his feelings towards the members, he told us a memory of his.
“Recently I’ve watched ‘Rain Man’ DVD. I had it at home for a long time but I had no chance to watch it. There is something I remembered watching it. When I went to Las Vegas with the members for some work, we stopped at a hotel that appears in ‘Rain Man’ too, ‘Rain Man suite’. That time the president [Johnny] who brought us there said ‘This place has great rooms!’. It had spiral staircases, under the bed there was a Jacuzzi! We were extremely excited!!”
He has such an innocent side too. He also likes reading; moreover, slightly surreal books that satirize and make sarcastic remarks about the society. He talked about the books he likes in a detailed and easy to understand way.
“Recently I’ve read books that collect shorts stories, like ‘Indeed strange stories’ [T/N: yonimo kimyou na monogatari]. There’s the ‘I got to know the real emotions of adults~!’ fear, or irrationality. Another good book is ‘LOVE & FREE’: a guy called Takahashi Ayumu-san published his essays and pictures taken during a travel all around the world. Ah, but ‘SLUM DUNK’ too, I re-read it very often (laughs)”. [1]
Kamenashi-kun possesses curiosity, spirit of inquiry and power to absorb that they almost overflow. We tried to ask this as last thing.
“What kind of adult do you want to be?”
“I want to be reassuring [2]. To be like that it is necessary quite a lot of power and self-confidence , right. Because I guess that if I were weak, I wouldn’t probably be able to challenge.”
He used the word “reassuring”, that is typical of a delicate person who properly experienced pain and failure, who isn’t strong nor tough. It was a refreshing word from a person that put altogether many facts, properly faced them, accepted them, reflected upon everything, and decides to proceed forward.
***
Kame-chan Back Stage 1
“A sincere adult”
Kamenashi-kun began to appear in MISS two years ago. His polite way of talking looking his opponent straightly in the eyes didn’t change from that time. But in 2 years he has experienced many emotions and the depth and warmth in the words he says has increased. Talking about his vision of love, sad memories, naïve dreams… while smoking a cigarette time to time, also this interview is sincere. This Kamenashi-kun, looking at the photos taken wearing a red jacked, said “I somehow became an adult (laughs)”.
Kame-chan Back Stage 2
“Like a mudskipper”
The one who filmed at the closest distance with Kamenashi-kun was the Doberman Sakura (♂). His master says that he isn’t friendly with males and even more, he doesn’t sit still next to you. “I am taking care of a small-size dog, Ran, so I really like dogs. But as expected, a Doberman is really big!”, he said, and the mudskipper Kame-chan won over Sakura incredibly easily. Sakura too was full of love licking Kamenashi-kun’s face and getting on his thighs.
It’s said that animals are friendly with very kind people. Kamenashi-kun, you’re surely… ♥
Kame-chan Back Stage 3
“War and child soldiers”
The place we had the photo shoot today is an ex-bank building that has come through the flames of war of Tokyo Great Air Raid.
When we said this to Kamenashi-kun, he said “War…? Isn’t amazing thinking that this place is still here since the war time? I wonder if there were people who rushed inside this building to escape the war flames…”. He looks up at the ceiling, touches the walls, lies down on the floor, he totally starts to feel the life-and-death situation of more than 60 years ago. “In other countries war is still going on even now. For example child soldiers… are fighting.”
After those words, we sadly saw Kamenashi-kun’s painful expression, to the point his words didn’t go further.
Kame-chan Back Stage 4
“The ‘Chii-sanpo’ he longs for”
“Ah, you can see Kaminarimon! I’ve never been there!”. In the free time between the shooting breaks, he said just this sentence regarding the scenery he could see leaning over the window.
“I grew up not far from here. Ah~ I want to go out for a stroll. Wandering around is fun. I want to take part to ‘Chii-sanpo’ (TV Asahi) [3]. Working while having a stroll is the best, isn’t it?”. Here the staff said “What about ‘Kame-sanpo’?”. “Good!! (laughs) But it will take over the program, won’t it be bad!?”
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NOTES:
[1] The interview writes “SLUM DUNK” in romaji like this. I can’t find info about it on the web so I don’t know if there’s a novel called like this or if it’s just a mistyping of SLAM DUNK (he’s talking about books and the other 2 titles are novels, so it’d be weird for him to switch to manga so suddenly, but it might be). Also, “yonimo kimyou na monogatari” has a drama adaptation.
[2] The term he uses (that the journalist elegantly explains himself later) could be translated with a normal “powerful”, but I chose “reassuring”, even though it slightly limits its implications, because the term Kame uses implies being strong at heart, not just “strong”: it’s an inner strength that can reassure, encourage, support people around oneself, not only himself.
[3] It is a TV program that was broadcasted from 2006 to 2012.05 (so it was on air when this interview was published). As the title says (Chii stroll/walk), it was focused on doing stroll around cities and showing city’s landscapes. The Chii in the title is the surname of the program MC.
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I'm sure many of you noticed the bitter reply about gossip. And I guess many of you can guess which of his relationships he was referring to. His cute relation with Sakura made me smile xD As much as the sad comment (or... sad no comment?) about child soldiers hit me :( *cuddles*
I find this interview very honest, slightly bitter in some parts, but also positive. I hope it can be for you of some inspiration as much as it was for me :)
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