(ENGLISH TRANSLATION) IGARI SOYA - ANAN MAY 2021 ISSUE.

hello! it's been a while since i haven't released a translation so when this got released i jumped on the occasion! this is a short interview in which soya talks about fence, or how he broke a few bones back then in 2017 and 2019...!!

hope you have fun! :)

TRANSLATOR : rosie twt@igarism
CORRECTOR: noriko twt@yumemimarius

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“Aw, ouch, ouch, ouch…” he pretends to say about the position he was comfortably in when asked to perform a stretching exercise to match the theme of the interview.

“I’m ashamed to say that my body is really stiff… Last year, I used to do stretching and I became able to touch my legs with my head. Last year, we backdanced for Kis-my-ft2 and Kitayama-kun was doing this everyday, so I started imitating him as I thought he looked cool haha. When I was stretching, I felt super good both physically and mentally but I stopped as I got busier…”

Even before this, it seems like he used to properly stretch his body.

“In 2017 and 2019, I broke bones and started doing stretching exercises as I recalled the traumatic pain I went through during my rehabilitations, but of course, in the end I couldn’t stick to this habit. Once it becomes history, we lose our motivation. Without noticing, the pain would disappear so I would loosen up (with the routine) and perhaps end up breaking bones every other year. Because it’s been a year now, I gotta make sure to be extra careful this year!” 

But there are members within HiHi Jets who actively do muscle training, right?

“At the end of our jobs before going home, everyone stops by the gym. Then, I would say “Hey, I’m going too!” but it’s not like I really want to go, though. After all, what the guys want from the training muscle is those holy sick packs hahaha! There’s no part of my body that I actually would like to train so rather than going to the gym, I just want to straight up head up home and sleep early, ahahah.”

When you think about HiHi Jets, you think about roller skates. Skating while singing and even doing acrobatics must require a good physical ability.

“I think roller skating is pretty similar to being on a balance ball, so it’s like your body naturally gets used to it. However, roller skating was originally just a “way to have fun”. Rather than training to increase the level of my technique, I just skate while having fun. It’s not like we are athletes in the first place. We’re not in a system in which we get points if we manage to do difficult tricks and such. To put it the other way around, everything is possible as long as the viewer wants to see it and finds it interesting.”

Speaking about Mr. Igari, what comes into mind is his shining sense of words that he uses perfectly for his raps and blog entries. Sharp, provocative, clear yet profound, his words draw us into his thrilling world.

“I like writing sentences and I do have enough literary talent to play with words to do it, ahaha. I am very fond of the Japanese language to begin with. It’s not only beautiful, but it also has words that perfectly fit your emotions at a given moment. If you want to express “ANGER” (怒り), if you say “RAGE” (憤怒), there is a slight nuance, isn’t it? If there’s something you’d like to do but can’t find the words to convey it, I think there may have been many possibilities that you’ve unknowingly crushed. What a waste. If you have enough vocabulary, you can choose the most suitable words for each situation and convey it dozens of times more efficiently, so this is why I value words a lot.”

The solo song “Fence” written and composed under the name of THE GARRY is a representative song that loudly cries out passion and proclaims his motto that is “I am Me”.

“As I said everything I had wanted to say in this song, amongst all the songs I created so far, this one is my favorite. HiHi Jets usually lets the Johnny’s who came to observe our performances pick the MVP of the day, and in the year that I first performed Fence, I ranked at No.1 a LOT. I perform it thinking of it as cool myself.”

Although he is still a high schooler, he is also active in quiz shows as an educated Johnny’s and receives a lot of individual works as well.

“I believe that individual works could add up to our group as a whole (add up as in increase popularity, etc.). Of course I work hard no matter the job, but more than this I’d like us to grow as a group. The most important thing for me is to be recognized as “5”. I don’t think it’s possible to win alone so  I don’t desire to win it all alone, and it’s like all 5 of us treasure the other 4. As long as the solid home called HiHi Jets exists in which everyone respects each other and values us being “5”, then it should be easier for us to do what we want to do individually too. This is why we move toward the future keeping “it’s us five or nothing” in mind. Ah, please add a laugh emoji after the “it’s us five or nothing”, hahaha.”

How can a group who cherishes only that idea this much can stand out from all the others?

“We might see them as sort of rivals but it doesn’t really matter for us how many juniors there are. I’m not saying that to look cool, it’s just what I really think. Of course, if only one of the groups could do a live show at Tokyo Dome, we will fight the others for it. Because we want to do it too. However, we’re not in the mindset to outperform or sell better than anyone else. So if we had time to work on that, building abs would be useful. That’s not what’s important for us. What’s important is the people in front of us when we’re on stage. What’s important is making something worth our fans’ time.”