More 2018.10 - Nino's 'It'
Thanks for waiting! Was procrastinating because I was utterly uninspired by IT/MORE lately.
...THAT SAID, it's Nino, so!
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It {一途}
Tied down by nothing, he gives off a greater air of freedom than anyone else, but there is definitely a wholehearted belief in the path he walks.
Chapter 118
Type 'A' men
Aside from their date of birth, idols as well as many TV personalities often have their blood-types in their profiles. When I ask why this might be, he says, “It’s because everyone likes that, right? For fortune-telling, that sort of thing,” and then also adds, “Well, I don’t really have any interest in that sort of thing, though. Gaming is more fun,” giving the exact response I’d imagined he would.
Girls like organic things
Guys are good at inorganic things
――Do you think personalities differ according to blood-types?
“Mm. It’s not impossible, right? If not, all that sort of fortune-telling wouldn’t get as popular as it is, right? I don’t really think it’s reliable, though.”
――In Arashi, apart from Aiba Masaki-san who is type AB, all the other members are type A. What differences do you feel from Aiba-san?
“Of course there are some, but I think it’s more Aiba-kun’s personality than from his being type AB. Look, we’re a group that’s mutually considerate of each other, so it’ll still go well whether or not our blood-types are the same or not (laughs).”
――SexyZone, who collaborated with you in this year’s ‘Arashi’s Waku Waku Gakkou’ (‘Arashi’s Exciting School’), has Marius Yo being the only type O while the rest of the members are type A. Previously, Ninomiya-san talked about how “SexyZone looks like us from the past”, and it seems they even resemble Arashi in terms of blood-type composition, huh?
“I guess so. I do think it’s close, for sure. Basically, they’re doing their jobs in the same way. And then if you were to remark on how amazing the blood-type thing was, that’s certainly true, but even if you were to say it’s because we’re mutually similar, it’s not like our interactions would change. It’s only women who would be concerned about that sort of thing, right? (laughs)”
――Why aren’t men interested in it?
“That’s also one of their characteristics, isn’t it? There tend to be more women who are interested in human relationships or organic things, while men are better at inorganic things. For instance, even if they were to cook, men tend to enjoy the cooking process itself, so they’d rarely get angry even if you didn’t say it was delicious. But with women, you often hear that if the other party doesn’t say ‘it’s delicious’, they get angry, right? (laughs) It proves that they value the communication afterwards more than cooking. So I think that’s why they like investigating their partner’s personality via blood-types and star-signs and all that. Of course, it’s not just differences between men and women, it depends on the individual as well.”
――Have you ever been told ‘you’re very type-A-like’?
“I have, but even if they guess it right, I don’t think anything of it. I mean, it’s a one-in-four chance (laughs). Well, the methodical part is right, for sure. Previously, on a show there was this project to guess your potential blood-type. I answered about 100 questions, and the result was type B. But it’s not like a methodical person will become more slapdash based on those results or that your personality type would change. In private, I think both type A and type B are fine, but when it comes to work, I want to be told that I’m type A because I’m methodical. Actually, I think I do my job incredibly diligently. Ever since way back, I’ve never been the adventurous type, plus I could keep eating the same thing forever, I’m good with having the same daily routine, I’m bad at special things... that’s methodical, right?”
――Mm, I wondering if that would be called methodical?
“Of course! It’s the height of being methodical! (laughs) You might call it lack of interest in food or something, there are lots of ways you could refer to it, but to me it’s being methodical, being diligent; that’s my understanding of it. Obviously, I’m not saying that people that eat different things every day aren’t methodical. I think everyone should eat whatever they like. But if you were to make a leap in thinking, compare me eating the same thing daily with a gourmet who eats something different daily, you’d think I was diligent, right? It’s really just a trivial thing, though (laughs).”
Immersing himself in a competition to take notes neatly in his school days
Too unique. Though he explains it as ‘methodical’, that’s something nobody would understand in the least, much less ask others to do the same. Ultimately, he continues to maintain an environment that he finds comfortable with rules that he’s comfortable with, quite unbeknownst to others. Though he continues to say he has ‘no interest in blood-type fortune-telling’, Ninomiya-san naturally admits to being type-A-like, and is secretly interested.
――What is it that the methodical and serious Ninomiya-san dislikes most?
“Hmm, what I dislike... I’m okay with messy rooms. Of course, I’d hate it if it were my own home and I’ve never let my room get really sloppy but I’m totally fine with it if it wasn’t my own place, or rather, I don’t mind.”
――Did you keep neat notes in elementary school, perhaps?
“That’s right, they were neat. I had a competition with myself to copy my notes down so neatly you could see just how much they resembled what was on the blackboard. I’ve no idea why I did that, there wasn’t any real reason (laughs). Probably because I wasn’t fond of studying, I guess? Just because you’d written everything down in your notebook didn’t mean that it all went into your head, after all. I didn’t rewrite it in my own words or make it easier to understand afterwards, after all. Ultimately, my goal was just to see how close I could copy my notes so they resembled what was on the blackboard (laughs). Thanks to that, I’ve never once fallen asleep in class from elementary all the way to high school.”
――Where are those notebooks now?
“Probably thrown out, I guess. I mean, to me it was merely a duty or a sense of purpose, after all. I’ve never shown them to anyone, so my teachers didn’t know, either, and of course I’ve never been praised for them. It was just the satisfaction of knowing, ‘they’re beautifully copied today as well’, it’s not like I leveraged that experience to do anything else in the future (laughs).”
“But from that I grew to like studying, so it was killing two birds with a stone,” he laughs masochistically as he holds his beloved game console in his hands. Actually, in the breaks of the interview he was cleaning the controller with a specialised cloth.
Once the process of cleaning ends, he says, “Ahh, all better!” and looks satisfied. “This changes the accuracy. People who don’t value their tools make their tools weep,” he murmurs with an oddly serious look, and with this, the thoroughly methodical Ninomiya-san heads off to his next location.
- - - - -
Kazunari Ninomiya
Born 17th June 1983 in Tokyo. In the photo shoot with the horse, he seems surprised. “It’s bigger than I thought! It looks strong!” Curiosity piqued, he fires off a rapid succession of questions about how much it understands, how its fur grows and so on to the instructor. After the photo shoot, Ninomiya-san says to the horse, “You’re smart. You’re beautiful. Thank you,” and as if his feelings have been conveyed, there’s a moment where the horse gently brings its head closer to Ninomiya-san!
|| Words / Matsuyama Kozue ||| Photography / Emori Yasuyuki ||
|| Hair & Makeup / Hattori Yukio ||| Stylist / Iga Daisuke (band) ||
- - - - -
...THAT SAID, it's Nino, so!
- - - - -
It {一途}
Tied down by nothing, he gives off a greater air of freedom than anyone else, but there is definitely a wholehearted belief in the path he walks.
Chapter 118
Type 'A' men
Aside from their date of birth, idols as well as many TV personalities often have their blood-types in their profiles. When I ask why this might be, he says, “It’s because everyone likes that, right? For fortune-telling, that sort of thing,” and then also adds, “Well, I don’t really have any interest in that sort of thing, though. Gaming is more fun,” giving the exact response I’d imagined he would.
Girls like organic things
Guys are good at inorganic things
――Do you think personalities differ according to blood-types?
“Mm. It’s not impossible, right? If not, all that sort of fortune-telling wouldn’t get as popular as it is, right? I don’t really think it’s reliable, though.”
――In Arashi, apart from Aiba Masaki-san who is type AB, all the other members are type A. What differences do you feel from Aiba-san?
“Of course there are some, but I think it’s more Aiba-kun’s personality than from his being type AB. Look, we’re a group that’s mutually considerate of each other, so it’ll still go well whether or not our blood-types are the same or not (laughs).”
――SexyZone, who collaborated with you in this year’s ‘Arashi’s Waku Waku Gakkou’ (‘Arashi’s Exciting School’), has Marius Yo being the only type O while the rest of the members are type A. Previously, Ninomiya-san talked about how “SexyZone looks like us from the past”, and it seems they even resemble Arashi in terms of blood-type composition, huh?
“I guess so. I do think it’s close, for sure. Basically, they’re doing their jobs in the same way. And then if you were to remark on how amazing the blood-type thing was, that’s certainly true, but even if you were to say it’s because we’re mutually similar, it’s not like our interactions would change. It’s only women who would be concerned about that sort of thing, right? (laughs)”
――Why aren’t men interested in it?
“That’s also one of their characteristics, isn’t it? There tend to be more women who are interested in human relationships or organic things, while men are better at inorganic things. For instance, even if they were to cook, men tend to enjoy the cooking process itself, so they’d rarely get angry even if you didn’t say it was delicious. But with women, you often hear that if the other party doesn’t say ‘it’s delicious’, they get angry, right? (laughs) It proves that they value the communication afterwards more than cooking. So I think that’s why they like investigating their partner’s personality via blood-types and star-signs and all that. Of course, it’s not just differences between men and women, it depends on the individual as well.”
――Have you ever been told ‘you’re very type-A-like’?
“I have, but even if they guess it right, I don’t think anything of it. I mean, it’s a one-in-four chance (laughs). Well, the methodical part is right, for sure. Previously, on a show there was this project to guess your potential blood-type. I answered about 100 questions, and the result was type B. But it’s not like a methodical person will become more slapdash based on those results or that your personality type would change. In private, I think both type A and type B are fine, but when it comes to work, I want to be told that I’m type A because I’m methodical. Actually, I think I do my job incredibly diligently. Ever since way back, I’ve never been the adventurous type, plus I could keep eating the same thing forever, I’m good with having the same daily routine, I’m bad at special things... that’s methodical, right?”
――Mm, I wondering if that would be called methodical?
“Of course! It’s the height of being methodical! (laughs) You might call it lack of interest in food or something, there are lots of ways you could refer to it, but to me it’s being methodical, being diligent; that’s my understanding of it. Obviously, I’m not saying that people that eat different things every day aren’t methodical. I think everyone should eat whatever they like. But if you were to make a leap in thinking, compare me eating the same thing daily with a gourmet who eats something different daily, you’d think I was diligent, right? It’s really just a trivial thing, though (laughs).”
Immersing himself in a competition to take notes neatly in his school days
Too unique. Though he explains it as ‘methodical’, that’s something nobody would understand in the least, much less ask others to do the same. Ultimately, he continues to maintain an environment that he finds comfortable with rules that he’s comfortable with, quite unbeknownst to others. Though he continues to say he has ‘no interest in blood-type fortune-telling’, Ninomiya-san naturally admits to being type-A-like, and is secretly interested.
――What is it that the methodical and serious Ninomiya-san dislikes most?
“Hmm, what I dislike... I’m okay with messy rooms. Of course, I’d hate it if it were my own home and I’ve never let my room get really sloppy but I’m totally fine with it if it wasn’t my own place, or rather, I don’t mind.”
――Did you keep neat notes in elementary school, perhaps?
“That’s right, they were neat. I had a competition with myself to copy my notes down so neatly you could see just how much they resembled what was on the blackboard. I’ve no idea why I did that, there wasn’t any real reason (laughs). Probably because I wasn’t fond of studying, I guess? Just because you’d written everything down in your notebook didn’t mean that it all went into your head, after all. I didn’t rewrite it in my own words or make it easier to understand afterwards, after all. Ultimately, my goal was just to see how close I could copy my notes so they resembled what was on the blackboard (laughs). Thanks to that, I’ve never once fallen asleep in class from elementary all the way to high school.”
――Where are those notebooks now?
“Probably thrown out, I guess. I mean, to me it was merely a duty or a sense of purpose, after all. I’ve never shown them to anyone, so my teachers didn’t know, either, and of course I’ve never been praised for them. It was just the satisfaction of knowing, ‘they’re beautifully copied today as well’, it’s not like I leveraged that experience to do anything else in the future (laughs).”
“But from that I grew to like studying, so it was killing two birds with a stone,” he laughs masochistically as he holds his beloved game console in his hands. Actually, in the breaks of the interview he was cleaning the controller with a specialised cloth.
Once the process of cleaning ends, he says, “Ahh, all better!” and looks satisfied. “This changes the accuracy. People who don’t value their tools make their tools weep,” he murmurs with an oddly serious look, and with this, the thoroughly methodical Ninomiya-san heads off to his next location.
- - - - -
Kazunari Ninomiya
Born 17th June 1983 in Tokyo. In the photo shoot with the horse, he seems surprised. “It’s bigger than I thought! It looks strong!” Curiosity piqued, he fires off a rapid succession of questions about how much it understands, how its fur grows and so on to the instructor. After the photo shoot, Ninomiya-san says to the horse, “You’re smart. You’re beautiful. Thank you,” and as if his feelings have been conveyed, there’s a moment where the horse gently brings its head closer to Ninomiya-san!
|| Words / Matsuyama Kozue ||| Photography / Emori Yasuyuki ||
|| Hair & Makeup / Hattori Yukio ||| Stylist / Iga Daisuke (band) ||
- - - - -