The Sakurai Special Interview
Talk About Love
To satisfy oneself with love is not through ordinary words.
Sho Sakurai carefully chooses his words one by one, and tells them to us. One can see that he truly means what he said in his bashful and shy smile. Currently, for Sho Sakurai, what is love?
What is love for Sho Sakurai?
"For us, that is everything."
Honestly, I haven't really thought about love so I don't really know.
Most of the time, it's "the fan's support motivates us."
"That's why we love all the fans."
But there was also a time when I was thinking that something like that is unrealistic, and that's how one should pretend to think like when you're young.
However, I gradually came to understand it as the careers pile up. That's how it is now.
Most likely for us, that is probably everything.
I think it's nice that love has all sorts of shapes.
The love we have for our fans, the love fans have for us.
The love for the people close to us.
This time, Ichi, who I acted as in "Kamisama no Karute", is also a person who was shown various kinds of love.
Rather than a person with a thin wall against anyone else, he is the type of person who creates a shell around him.
The face he shows in the hospital, the face he shows to the patients, and the face he shows to his coworkers are all a little bit different.
Among them, the one hole in Ichi's wall is the existense of a lady named Haru (Miyazaki Aoi).
Well, acting in this piece was difficult, and I was really worried (laughs).
However, now that I've seen the completed piece, I thought, "That's probably how unexpected people are."
"Doesn't everyone have a face that you can't show to anyone else, but the person who can forgive your heart?"
Moreover the so-called Haru was the ideal wife for him.
I thought that being able to chat with his wife in keigo (honorific language) is really this nice. (laughs)
In exchange, I had to use keigo from the time we started to go out in making this "path", so.....
The hurdle's terribly high, right?
There aren't a lot of people who say those amount of words like Ichi and Haru.
However, I am really jealous in their understanding of one another.
Looking at both of them, the word "love" can honestly be accepted,
and it makes you think that "This is love".
What is love for work?
"Living itself."
Unexpectedly, there aren't a lot of moments in our work when we can truly feel the people cheering for us.
Even when we are filming our regular shows, what's in front of us are the lens of the cameras.
The place we can truly feel them is in concerts.
There, we really feel that these many people are cheering for us.
Comparing from the time when we are 16-17 years old and didn't know left from right, that really grew bigger year by year.
I think it was when we had just debuted.
There was a time when we sent a message to a girl who was bedridden in a hospital.
She was unconscious, but when Arashi's songs are played she would react.
What I thought back then was something that can't really be felt everyday, but there was certainly a moment when it became our support.
We don't know if that relieves the pain, if that is able to give courage to make one step forward, or if that can be wrapped upped with kindness.
However it's certain that we are becoming that something.
If we're talking about whether I am truly feeling love for the members,
I can't really feel it.
However the other day, Aiba-kun was hospitalized, and if Aiba-kun were to die because of this......
When I thought that, it was absolutely, terribly frightening.
We met when I was 13 years old, and a friend that I meet up with even now since there's always something on every week isn't ordinary, right? That's why he's already like family to me.
It may be no different from love for family.
What that kind of meaning said, working for me is living itself.
I don't know whether or not that's my love for work but,
I think that at the very least, for the Sho Sakurai that's here right now, the love for work is great.
The people I've met up until now, the pieces I've done, the fans I've had, the joy I had with the members.
The reason I am able to be myself might be all thanks to work after all.
What is love for a special person?
"Something you can't demand"
During our 10th anniversary, I went together with my parents on a trip.
After entering the office, I kept on running. When I glanced back, I realized that there was a gap between me and my parents.
Ever since I started working, I was the only one who didn't join the family trips that always happened during summer vacation.
That gap isn't a feeling of loneliness, but I did wonder if it might be better to together even a little more time together.
I think that that is probably my love for my family.
Now then, what would be good to say about love for a person you like? (laughs)
Well, well, the "Aishiteru" (I love you) for the person you like has a high hurdle~
I can say "Suki da yo!" (I like you!). But "Aishiteru" in Japanese is impossible!
Appropriately, it's not to the point of using the help of the power of alcohol.
It's to the point that you surprisingly feel like you're still a teenager.
Because it was certainly embarrassing, you'd feel uncool right?
Every year, the resistance (to saying it) becomes smaller, and I want around 5 more years until I can say that.
Then, I might be able to say it.
Even if I was asked by my girlfriend, "Say "Aishiteru"!", I think I'll just end up saying it really, really monotonously.(laughs) (T.N. To be honest, I'm not sure how I was supposed to translate this hahaha. Original word is Oni Bouyomi (鬼棒読み),which separately means "demon" and "speaking in a monotone". XD I guess he's saying that he'll say it without really meaning it or sth. XD) Thanks for the help,
andiepiano! ♥ )
It's just that even if I really came to like a girl, there's not really anything like "I wish there was something like this" or "I want to become something like this".
Since I'd probably come to like everything about her, something like "It has to be like this or I won't like it" won't exist right?
That's why I think that love for a precious person is something you can't demand.
If you demand for it, that person might turn into someone different......
You'd end up thinking that maybe I don't really like that person.
That's just fitting the girl in the frame of one's own ideal.
No matter what one does, no matter what someone else does, no matter what kind of words one will be told, isn't accepting of them love for that person?
Scans from
here.
I can't say that the translation is perfect, but I tried. ^_^'
Comments are appreciated. :)