They don't actually say anything much about it, but c'mon, megane Nino with dinosaurs.
This was very relevant to my interests XDD
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It {一途}
It is said that every day, Ninomiya Kazunari keeps up a multitude of jobs without straying off course. That’s because he simply believes whole-heartedly in the path he has walked so far.
Chapter 103
Where did you come from?
There’s not a soul in sight in the museum on its off day. While quietly gazing up at the giant dinosaur fossils crammed in the prehistoric section, he murmurs, “I wonder how dinosaurs came about? What modern living creatures did they evolve into?”. Although there’s a chorus of “wasn’t it birds?”, “it’s reptiles” and so on from several staff members, he says, “Well, nobody knows the truth. I mean, there’s none alive today that have ever seen the real thing” with a chuckle. Could it be that he has an unexpected interest in dinosaurs? When asked, he quickly denies it.
“I’ve never had an interest in dinosaurs or space as a kid. I never thought about the past or future. I guess I’m the sort of person who has no interest in things unless they’re directly related to me or my life now (laughs).”
What he’s always considered important is what’s currently before him. Same goes for work. He doesn’t doesn’t turn an eye to media except for those directly concerning him.
“There’s more types of media today than ever and times are changing. You often hear about how the Internet and social media have a huge influence. There are increasingly more media personalities zealously using social media for the sake of their jobs, right? I can understand that, I’m not denying that at all. Personally, though, I’ve no interest in that. From now on my works or interviews may be found on the ’net but ultimately, it’s just in the sense of ‘borrowing space’. I wouldn’t be transmitting anything from the net and social media.”
Does that stem from the fact that Arashi and Nino have both gained an extraordinary level of popularity?
“I wonder. Somewhat, I guess. First off, I’ve got to value my own home. Home to Ninomiya Kazunari... the main battlefield would be television. To Arashi, it’d be concerts. If we don’t value those above all else, it means we’ve got our priorities backwards.”
Why is it that you unhesitatingly think that your place is in television?
“First off, quite simply, I like television. Above all, I like variety shows, I guess. Besides, television is where I first got noticed and where I think I’m most sought after, even now... So I have my obligations. In the past, (the company president) Johnny-san also often said so. Like, ‘You, where did you come from?’. Johnny’s is a company that allows you to do a variety of work, but each person has one root. I can’t forget where I began, where I’m working right now. It’s really exactly just that. I was born from television, and television is where I’m getting the most work right now. As long as I’m in this world, I’ll prioritise television. I’ll match changes in television but I won’t match changes in the times or public opinion.”
The reason he doesn’t match the times or public opinion is because he knows those are beyond his control.
“There are a lot of people who adapt to the times or public opinion in order to win jobs, I guess? But personally I believe that things that you can never capture no matter how you pursue them are the times and people’s feelings. I mean, for Arashi, nearly ten years ago we suddenly got more popular, but as for why that was, we still don’t know. We can search and discuss plausible reasons for it, but in truth we just don’t know.”
He doesn’t seek the unanswerable. He just believes in where he belongs.
To begin with, he has no illusions about ‘popularity’.
“Even when those around us had told us Arashi had made our break, we didn’t actually feel that at all in the slightest. Whether our popularity was hot or not, it made absolutely no difference to the work we were doing (laughs). We were happy to be assessed and given new work, but there wasn’t anything above and beyond that. Not to mention there are people who changed their attitudes to those around them or their stance to their job once their popularity took off and then found it hard to survive in show business... You can’t predict when or how, so you’re better off not being tempted by constantly changing things like popularity or the times.
Even so, being prone to temptation is called being human...
“But you know, history repeats itself. So even if the media or the times change, ‘new people’ and ‘special things’ aren’t really that, in the truest sense. It’s just what we call people or things that we think look fun at the time. Myself included, if I believe that there aren’t such things as new or special people, then I can rest easy, right? There’s no point overdoing the search for things that I can’t answer. I think the most important thing is to believe in where I currently belong.”
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Kazunari Ninomiya
Born 17th June 1983 in Tokyo. Arashi’s concert DVD and Blu-Ray ‘ARASHI LIVE TOUR 2016-2017 Are you Happy?’ goes on sale 31st May. This interview coincided with the airing date of the first episode of Aiba-kun’s drama, ‘Kizoku Tantei’ (‘Aristocrat Detective’). “Of course I’m going to watch it tonight,” Nino says. “It seems like he’s working really hard with early starts every day, after all. I’ve got to watch the first episode live, not recorded, right?”
|| Words / Yoshi Rei ||| Photography / Emori Yasuyuki ||
|| Hair & Makeup / Hattori Yukio ||| Stylist / Iga Daisuke (band) ||
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