[2022.07] MORE magazine - Naniwa Danshi (Part 1)
In this casual interview with MORE, the members of Naniwa Danshi discuss their memories of summer.
Part 1 | Part 2
Naniwa Danshi reminisces the summers they’ve spent together.
Daigo: Speaking of Naniwa Danshi’s memories of summer…
Micchi: Memories of summer~♪ (starts singing)
Daigo: I guess the first thing that comes to mind is our debut announcement, right? When I look back at the footage of our CD debut announcement during our Yokohama Arena concert last year on July 28th, the memories come rushing back all at once!
Micchi: For me, it feels like I remember it, but yet I don’t. You know how humans go to sleep and all of a sudden it’s already the morning when they wake up? That concert on July 28th feels like that, it went by in seconds.
Ryusei: But that day was a really long one! After our concert, we recorded “Naniwa Danshi’s All Night Nippon” late at night.
Daigo: Didn’t we do that the next day?
Micchi: I’ll check our schedule. (takes out his smartphone) Erm, we started filming our radio show from 3am on the 29th!
Daigo: I remember that we held a celebration party in our hotel room on the night of the 28th! When it comes to summer, I think of the drama “Men’s Kou” that we filmed 2 years ago. I think we were able to build the relationship that we have now, thanks to the summer where we stuck together.
Micchi: The drama filming was tough.
Kyohei: All the members were holed up at a certain place.
Jo: “A certain place”. (laughs) You can just say that it’s Tokushima, you know. Why were you trying to keep that part a secret?
Kyohei: No idea. (laughs)
Ryusei: We would go to the beach during our filming breaks and take photos, or run away from bugs. We did stuff that was typical of a training camp.
Jo: Tokushima equals “Men’s Kou” for me.
Nagao: It’s a place where you can really experience nature, so even now I still occasionally find it interesting.
Ohashi: What else did we do during the summer that we shot “Men’s Kou”?
Daigo: That was 2 years ago, so we did “Johnny’s DREAM IsLAND 2020 à 2025”, I guess.
Ohashi: Only the Kansai Juniors gathered to dance at the Expo ’70 Commemorative Park for Dream IsLAND, that was super fun! We all didn’t know that the performance involved a water element, and we were soaked at the beginning. The hair that we’d carefully styled got drenched, and that in itself was a good memory. (laughs)
Jo: Celebrating the members’ birthdays is a typical summer event for Naniwa Danshi too. After all, we have 4 members who were born in summer.
Ryusei: We were on a nationwide tour last summer, so it was awesome that we got to return triumphantly to Osaka-Jo Hall on my birthday. ♪ Each member gave me a present that had a budget of 1000 yen or less. Kyohei gave me 10 mirrors from the 100 yen store. (laughs)
Kyohei: Are you using them?
Ryusei: I gave them away to my family and the staff. (laughs)
Jo: My memory of summer was singing the theme song to last year’s Netto Koshien!
T/N: Netto Koshien is a television program in Japan providing a digest of the games of the summer National High School Baseball Championship. Naniwa Danshi sang the 2021 theme song, Yume Watashi.
Daigo: Hey~
Jo: When I watched the high school baseball matches on TV, I was so happy to hear that “Yume Watashi” was played as they switched from the top to the bottom of each inning!
We look forward to having our first toast with all 7 members this summer ♪
Micchi: So, what’s going to happen this summer?
Nagao: It has got to be our nationwide tour!
Micchi: Nagao and I turn 20 this summer, so after the final show in our concert tour, I’d like to have a toast with all 7 members.
T/N: The legal drinking age in Japan is 20 years old.
Nagao: ALRIGHT! I can hardly wait!
Micchi: I wonder what I’ll be like when I’m drunk? I think I’ll get drowsy… My parents are like that too.
Nagao: My dad has a high alcohol tolerance but my mom doesn’t, so I don’t know which one I’ll take after.
Ryusei: Based on what we heard about our senpai, they would have a party to celebrate the tour’s final day. I think I heard that Arashi-san ate Genghis Khan barbeque in Sapporo.
T/N: Popular in Hokkaido, Genghis Khan barbeque is a Japanese grilled mutton dish prepared on a convex metal skillet or other grill.
Jo: The last day of our tour is in Hokkaido! We could get Ohashi to cook for us, since he’s good at cooking.
Ohashi: I have to cook!?
Daigo: That’s rough! (laughs)
Jo: You could come to the tour venue earlier than everyone else on the last day and do the meal prep, then perform for the show after that. Hokkaido’s seafood is delicious, so Kyohei can fillet the fish for us and it’ll be perfect!
Kyohei: Leave it to me. I’ll fillet anything. (laughs)
Daigo: Well, I’d like to eat food that’s prepared by a professional.
Jo: Eh?
Ryusei: That’s true. It would be a dream to have a sushi chef come and make sushi for us.♡
Nagao: Ah~ That sounds fun.
Daigo: It’s kinda unpleasant to have to cook after you’ve finished a concert tour, right?
Ohashi: That’s gotta be tough! I wanna be the guy who eats and drinks at the celebratory party, and if I had that sort of energy, I’d rather hold 2 to 3 encores!
Daigo: And our album “1st Love” will be released before the tour!
Micchi: “1st Love” is an album that’s true to the style of Naniwa Danshi and is packed with love songs from different genres. We hope that the people out there will purchase it.
Ohashi: “Purchase”… (laughs) But it would make us happy if you would get your own copy. We hope couples, husbands and wives would share their earphones in a lovey-dovey manner while listening to it.
Ryusei: It’s an ambitious album with very different songs, so we look forward to listeners telling us which song is their favorite.
Nagao: Having an album means that the MORE readers would start listening to it when they leave the house, and they’d finish around the time they reach their office.
Jo: That depends on the distance between the person’s house and their office, right? (laughs)
Nagao: That’s true though. (laughs) I meant to say that it’s an album that’s nestled within the ordinary moments of our everyday lives!
Scans: momo_nanami @ WB
Read Part 2 here.
Part 1 | Part 2
Naniwa Danshi reminisces the summers they’ve spent together.
Daigo: Speaking of Naniwa Danshi’s memories of summer…
Micchi: Memories of summer~♪ (starts singing)
Daigo: I guess the first thing that comes to mind is our debut announcement, right? When I look back at the footage of our CD debut announcement during our Yokohama Arena concert last year on July 28th, the memories come rushing back all at once!
Micchi: For me, it feels like I remember it, but yet I don’t. You know how humans go to sleep and all of a sudden it’s already the morning when they wake up? That concert on July 28th feels like that, it went by in seconds.
Ryusei: But that day was a really long one! After our concert, we recorded “Naniwa Danshi’s All Night Nippon” late at night.
Daigo: Didn’t we do that the next day?
Micchi: I’ll check our schedule. (takes out his smartphone) Erm, we started filming our radio show from 3am on the 29th!
Daigo: I remember that we held a celebration party in our hotel room on the night of the 28th! When it comes to summer, I think of the drama “Men’s Kou” that we filmed 2 years ago. I think we were able to build the relationship that we have now, thanks to the summer where we stuck together.
Micchi: The drama filming was tough.
Kyohei: All the members were holed up at a certain place.
Jo: “A certain place”. (laughs) You can just say that it’s Tokushima, you know. Why were you trying to keep that part a secret?
Kyohei: No idea. (laughs)
Ryusei: We would go to the beach during our filming breaks and take photos, or run away from bugs. We did stuff that was typical of a training camp.
Jo: Tokushima equals “Men’s Kou” for me.
Nagao: It’s a place where you can really experience nature, so even now I still occasionally find it interesting.
Ohashi: What else did we do during the summer that we shot “Men’s Kou”?
Daigo: That was 2 years ago, so we did “Johnny’s DREAM IsLAND 2020 à 2025”, I guess.
Ohashi: Only the Kansai Juniors gathered to dance at the Expo ’70 Commemorative Park for Dream IsLAND, that was super fun! We all didn’t know that the performance involved a water element, and we were soaked at the beginning. The hair that we’d carefully styled got drenched, and that in itself was a good memory. (laughs)
Jo: Celebrating the members’ birthdays is a typical summer event for Naniwa Danshi too. After all, we have 4 members who were born in summer.
Ryusei: We were on a nationwide tour last summer, so it was awesome that we got to return triumphantly to Osaka-Jo Hall on my birthday. ♪ Each member gave me a present that had a budget of 1000 yen or less. Kyohei gave me 10 mirrors from the 100 yen store. (laughs)
Kyohei: Are you using them?
Ryusei: I gave them away to my family and the staff. (laughs)
Jo: My memory of summer was singing the theme song to last year’s Netto Koshien!
T/N: Netto Koshien is a television program in Japan providing a digest of the games of the summer National High School Baseball Championship. Naniwa Danshi sang the 2021 theme song, Yume Watashi.
Daigo: Hey~
Jo: When I watched the high school baseball matches on TV, I was so happy to hear that “Yume Watashi” was played as they switched from the top to the bottom of each inning!
We look forward to having our first toast with all 7 members this summer ♪
Micchi: So, what’s going to happen this summer?
Nagao: It has got to be our nationwide tour!
Micchi: Nagao and I turn 20 this summer, so after the final show in our concert tour, I’d like to have a toast with all 7 members.
T/N: The legal drinking age in Japan is 20 years old.
Nagao: ALRIGHT! I can hardly wait!
Micchi: I wonder what I’ll be like when I’m drunk? I think I’ll get drowsy… My parents are like that too.
Nagao: My dad has a high alcohol tolerance but my mom doesn’t, so I don’t know which one I’ll take after.
Ryusei: Based on what we heard about our senpai, they would have a party to celebrate the tour’s final day. I think I heard that Arashi-san ate Genghis Khan barbeque in Sapporo.
T/N: Popular in Hokkaido, Genghis Khan barbeque is a Japanese grilled mutton dish prepared on a convex metal skillet or other grill.
Jo: The last day of our tour is in Hokkaido! We could get Ohashi to cook for us, since he’s good at cooking.
Ohashi: I have to cook!?
Daigo: That’s rough! (laughs)
Jo: You could come to the tour venue earlier than everyone else on the last day and do the meal prep, then perform for the show after that. Hokkaido’s seafood is delicious, so Kyohei can fillet the fish for us and it’ll be perfect!
Kyohei: Leave it to me. I’ll fillet anything. (laughs)
Daigo: Well, I’d like to eat food that’s prepared by a professional.
Jo: Eh?
Ryusei: That’s true. It would be a dream to have a sushi chef come and make sushi for us.♡
Nagao: Ah~ That sounds fun.
Daigo: It’s kinda unpleasant to have to cook after you’ve finished a concert tour, right?
Ohashi: That’s gotta be tough! I wanna be the guy who eats and drinks at the celebratory party, and if I had that sort of energy, I’d rather hold 2 to 3 encores!
Daigo: And our album “1st Love” will be released before the tour!
Micchi: “1st Love” is an album that’s true to the style of Naniwa Danshi and is packed with love songs from different genres. We hope that the people out there will purchase it.
Ohashi: “Purchase”… (laughs) But it would make us happy if you would get your own copy. We hope couples, husbands and wives would share their earphones in a lovey-dovey manner while listening to it.
Ryusei: It’s an ambitious album with very different songs, so we look forward to listeners telling us which song is their favorite.
Nagao: Having an album means that the MORE readers would start listening to it when they leave the house, and they’d finish around the time they reach their office.
Jo: That depends on the distance between the person’s house and their office, right? (laughs)
Nagao: That’s true though. (laughs) I meant to say that it’s an album that’s nestled within the ordinary moments of our everyday lives!
Scans: momo_nanami @ WB
Read Part 2 here.