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TRANSLATOR : rosie twt@igarism
CORRECTOR: noriko twt@yumemimarius
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HiHi Jets’ Ryuto Sakuma, whose movie debut has been decided for this fall, is getting more and more attention. He is very excited about the beginning of his new career as an actor and also about his group’s activities that are going to take a turning point this fall as well.
This spring, Sakuma played a young competing diving athlete in the serial drama named “DIVE!!” in which he showed a fresh and good performance. The movie was shot half a year before “DIVE!!” and as he looks back on it, he says, “What marked my real debut as an actor was this movie”. The movie “Hiraite” will premiere in theaters on September 22nd and is based on the Akutagawa Prize winner Wataya Risa’s novel. Sakuma plays the role of a young high school boy named Nishimura Tatoe. When looking back on the shooting, he first reminisced about the director, Rin Shuto who wrote the script.
As it was such an important scene, I had to express my feelings without over interpreting it.
“The director’s enthusiasm was so great that he came to us and said that everything he had been working on up to this point was for the chance to shoot this piece so the first thing I felt I had to do was live up to his expectations. At first, there were lots of one-on-one meetings with the director. Starting with “what kind of person are you, Sakuma-kun?”, he asked me various types of things, from my background to my outlook about romance.... The director incorporated what he felt about me in his script. Before that, I had a first draft but the whole tone was completely different and without changing the story, he completely rewrote the lines and script for me so it was very easy to act them out… Yeah, it really was…”
Repeating those words, “Yeah… Yeah…”, Sakuma reminisces about the shooting. The movie was shot last year in September and as he heard about the offer, he immediately bought the book and read it twice.
“I couldn’t fully understand it after the first time (laughs). I don’t read novels much… I believe that this would be like the 4th or 5th novel that I’ve read in my whole life (laughs). I’ve read it while worrying that it would be tough. Because it did not contain difficult vocabulary like old literature would and was mostly written straightforwardly, I could understand the meanings of the words, but I couldn’t understand what the author actually wanted to say through her piece of work. And even now that the movie is finished, I still don’t understand what she meant. However, I thought it wouldn’t be right to ask other people for that answer, and felt that there might not have been a single right one at all. So when I acted, I did it without knowing what the correct answer was, I just understood the basic meaning of my lines and said them. That was pretty much it. If the director told me it was off, I would just fix it and redo-it. The director was very passionate about the original piece of work, but he still told me that I didn’t have to be so faithful to the original Tatoe and that he wanted me to do it the way I felt was right. So, the only things that he told me to fix were my intonations and some nuances on the words I used. On the other hand, even though I was thankful for that, I felt as if I was given a huge puzzle to solve as the most difficult thing to perform turned out to be doing it the way I felt was right (laughs). ”
In the latter half of the story, there’s a scene in which Tatoe is with the main character, Ai (played by Yamada Anna), and he acts with a very cold attitude. It’s a scene where the viewer can’t help but remember the dark pain of youth.
“Oh, that~? There was lots going on in terms of switching emotions and it was such an important scene, so I guess I tried to say my lines without over analyzing them. I’m not the type to usually show anger in public like that but…There are quite a few things that I sympathize with having a lot of things left unsaid. Sometimes I do feel angry too so I tried to work by imagining letting go of all the feelings that I had accumulated (laughs). However, I don’t know how to actually “get angry”. So, I worked on multiple patterns with the director’s opinion. It would go like “can you do it again less angrier?” or “More angrier!” on the contrary. But I think we ended up using the first takes.”
Both Yamada and Imou Haruka who played the role of Tatoe’s lover, Miyuki are two young and very talented actresses. Sakuma said that he was greatly helped by the co-stars, including Hagiwara Masato, who played the role of his father.
“I’m really relieved that everyone supported me. Co-starring with Hagiwara Masato was really wild (laughs). This is what made me the most pressured. Tatoe and his father don’t really have a good father-son relationship, so when I witnessed Hagiwara-san giving off a terrifying aura in a scene I wasn’t in, I thought something like “I’m really going to grab this person’s collar?!” and was really tense (laughs). I was really surprised when I noticed that actors can really pull this kind of thing in a moment, and was able to really learn from this. However, once the scene was over, he would talk to me very friendly and soften the atmosphere of the set .”
It’s interesting that he’s changed so much that he cannot control it.
Even after the crank up, there was still work for the movie to do and all the discoveries he made through the shooting drastically increased his interest for acting.
“I think it was about two months ago? I did some dubbing for a few scenes. And for some reason, the tone and the rhythm of my voice wouldn’t match the scenes. During that time I was also shooting for DIVE!! and whilst Tatoe has a high voice, Youichi on the other hand has a slightly mature and low voice so I couldn’t adjust well between the two and couldn’t make any progress in the dubbing scenes. At that time I realized that as I was only doing those lines I was given honestly at the time, my own mode and tone would change without my realizing, which made me go “Oof” (laughs). Even though it is a problem that I couldn’t control my voice that way, I found it very interesting to see how much I’ve changed drastically in less than a year. Ever since I appeared in “Hiraite” I got to realize how fun acting was and how I wanted to do it more often. I’m not that good at variety shows, so I was always kind of skeptical about receiving individual works, but this made me think to myself that if it was acting, I might be able to continue doing it positively in the future. It takes about a year for a movie to be released, right? During that year, I also experienced other things such as TV dramas and radio dramas, so the more experience I gained the more embarrassed I felt about my appearition in “Hiraite”. I kept thinking stuff like “I was so inexperienced” and “why didn’t I do it more a certain way?”. But on the other hand, I think being able to feel this way means that I am maturing so I’m taking this positively (laughs).”
A determination which can be felt when the 5 of them stand together.
Now let’s move on Sakuma’s profile in his group activities. He is a member of the group HiHi Jets where members are working on multiple individual projects along with plenty of things incoming from this summer to this fall for the group. There is so much to say that there wouldn’t be enough paper to describe them one by one. First of all, “Summer Paradise 2021” which was in on going at the time this interview was being held. There was a performance almost every day from the end of July to the middle of August. It has been about two years since the group has last performed in front of an audience.
“Yes. Even though it was a live show in which the audience couldn’t cheer and had to go through infection control, I was really happy to perform in front of fans as it has been such a long time since we had last had the opportunity to. As far as the members are concerned, I think we became “stronger”, it’s not that anything specific has happened, but I feel like we have decided to move forward and I can feel a sense of determination from each of us when we stand together on the stage. Both Gari-san (Igari Soya) and myself graduated from High School this year and to be realistic, there’s no other path in life for us than this one anymore. And once we’ve decided to keep solely moving forward on this path, it would be useless to not look towards the future and don’t go all in. By the way, I have the feeling that the group's energy has become even bigger than it used to be, so I plan on working hard on my individual projects and cherishing each one with all of my efforts..”
Once the summer live shows end, they will appear on September’s “Shounentachi, kimi ni kono uta wo” for almost one full month. He plays the role of a young thief who has gotten hurt from the expectations and hardships that surround him. And in November, they will hold their first solo concert. The venue is the well-known Yoyogi National Stadium.
“Nah, but that really surprised me. When I first heard it would be at Yoyogi, instead of feeling 100% happy I was more like 50% anxious. I couldn’t imagine the arena venue being filled entirely by our fans only. And we also haven’t performed in two years, so one would normally be scared when hearing “Yoyogi”. I was like “aren’t we rushing?”... But well… It’s a risk-taking that every Johnny’s Jr must have, I guess. … That kind of joke-like crazy flow is Johnny’s-like isn’t it? (laughs). When I thought back of HiHi’s history as a group, even though I wasn’t part of the group as a member yet, I thought about the many members changes and turbulences back then. It must have been very hard for the members at that time, but well, I think it happened because there were also probably issues of members having more of a emotional and ambitious side which clashed. ??? I have the feeling the group has become more stable for better or for worse, and since it was like an issue that needed to be fixed back then, I feel glad that we have gotten to a more stabilized stage somehow…. I want to always be in a stage that isn’t stable though. Because I like looking up at my ambitions from below. Although I’ve been exploring lots of things for our first upcoming arena live shows, I’m also equally excited for it!
Finally, he is going to celebrate his 19th birthday soon, right after this issue is released. We talked about his birthday.
“Wha--?! In “Hiraite” there is a line that says something like “Those who are born in March are a certain type” but I was born in September and in my opinion, people who are born in September have nothing in common (laughs). Like, Gari-san who was also born in September is the exact opposite type from me (laughs). However, I don’t know why but ever since I was young, I’ve always got along well with those born in Autumn, mainly those born in September. Maybe there are lots of people born in the Autumn part of my social circle because we get along well. HiHi Jets’ members are also concentrated in that season.”
Without being asked to, he provided us with a short comment showing the affection he has to his members. We’d love to see HiHi Jets’ breakthrough this season, which also celebrates all the members’ getting older.
