First Impression - Wink Up May '09 (A.B.C-Z)
scans can be found here by joey4100
k's attempt at pretending that she's actually doing something and not just sitting on her scripts-in-progress. the boys share their memories of the people they met at their audition and when they first joined the jimusho.
"When I first met him, he was like this"
Tell us about your first impression!
Ryosuke Hashimoto
JUMP's Yamada (Ryosuke) joined about the same time I did. We were both nervous, and I spoke first in polite language, "Erm, excuse me, but..." (laughs) “Your name is Ryosuke? I’m Ryosuke too! Eh, your blood type is B? Really?! So’s mine!” With that, we became less nervous and made friends with each other. For Totsu, when I first met him, I thought, “He’s a really caring person!” I wanted to be friends with him, but because I’m his junior, I felt too shy to talk to him. So, when I got to talk to him, I would feel really happy. From there, I also started to get to talk to the other members of A.B.C. I would often get teased, but it’s worse if they didn’t treat me as a friend because I’m younger, right? Because I wanted to be friends with everyone, I launched my own attack (laughs). We became a unit recently, so they hit harder when they tsukkomi me, and there are times when they have strange behaviour (laughs), but I’m really happy to be together with seniors that I really like.
Ryoichi Tsukada
Fuijigaya, Massu, Takeuchi (Kotaro, MAD), (Kato) Yukihiro (MAD) were from my batch, after us came Akanishi, Kamenashi, Nakamaru! I hadn’t turned 11 yet then. I remember Fujigaya really well. He was also about 10 or 11, and we appeared on the same page in a magazine. Then I was in the musical “Big” with Kawai, and we became friends then. We stayed in the same room, so we were often together. The first performer I ever watched was Takizawa-kun. He was wearing a tanktop with black jeans and black boots, and I remember his aura was so amazing that I was really moved. The first time I knew Hasshi was probably the time when he joined J.J.Express. He was quieter then than now, and gave a cool impression. The tiny juniors about his age would be playing noisily, but he already looked like an adult from then, so I really thought he was cool. Afterwards, I found out that that was a wrong perception (laughs). So he’s a high school student at last. But compared to me when I was his age, he’s really working much more seriously.
Shota Totsuka
I remember thinking “Is that fellow Takizawa-kun?” about Akanishi at the audition. That time, I wasn’t really interested in Johnnys, so I only knew about Kinki Kids and TakiTsuba. After that, everyone moved to a big rehearsal room, and the real Takizawa-kun was there. “Yes, yes, it’s the real person!” I felt that for sure (laughs). Subaru-kun was in the room too, all dressed up cosplaying a high school girl with loose socks. I still remember that strongly (laughs). Toma-kun was there too. I knew about Toma-kun from an NHK program. Since there was someone there whom I’ve watched on TV before, I got more excited. If we talk about someone who is completely different from my first impression, it has to be Hashimoto. When Hashimoto first joined the group, I thought that a really cute boy had joined us. But he seemed really really quiet. Not long after that, we became friends. At that time, the other members of A.B.C. would tease him, “Hashimoto, don’t slip when you talk”, and before we knew it, he became that kind of character (laughs).
Koichi Goseki
I joined the same time as KAT-TUN’s Koki. From when I first met him at the audition, he has a very strong character (laughs). I used to be shy and unable to talk to people I’m meeting for the first time easily. But Koki is the kind of kid who can talk about anything. Like how many people would be chosen from the audition, how long we’ve been waiting. Then Koki started to talk about what each person there resembled. When it came to my turn, he told me, “You…hmmm…just look like a giraffe.” I felt that I had to reply and retorted, “Then, you look like a rhinoceros beetle.” That’s because for some reason, his haircut then looked like a rhinoceros beetle (laughs). Koki back then was cute and looked like an idol. I watched him become stern over the years up close (smiles). If we’re talking about someone who has changed from when they were young, it would be Nikaido. When he first joined, he was this tiny cheeky boy. He has been growing up recently…now he has become a big cheeky boy (laughs). But I like that mischievous character of his.
Fumito Kawai
When I became a Junior, Goseki-kun was the person dancing in front. Actually, I knew about Goseki-kun before joining (the jimusho). That’s because I liked Juniors from really early on (laughs). The first person to talk to me was Fujigaya. That fellow, he joined as a Junior when he was really small, so he was my senior. Maybe because he’s the eldest son at home, he would take care of his juniors, and often talked to those who joined after he did. I remember that at that time I didn’t know who Fujigaya was, and I wondered, “Who was that?” So I checked the list of Juniors that I had with me and, “There it is! Ah, so he’s Fujigaya-kun~” I was really happy that I had joined the company then. That’s why I decided to talk to the younger juniors as much as possible. I’ll be bothered if they thought of me as a scary senior (laughs). But for the elementary kids and the junior high kids, I don’t know what kind of topics would make them happy (laughs). Eh, they are about the same age as Hashimoto? Is that so…but that’s because he has a mental age of about 3 (laughs). Strangely, I understand that age better (laughs).