From Takarazuka Graph, May 2017
NOTE: The title is a cute pun in Japanese… not so much in English. This feature is accompanied by adorable pictures of the two of them in silly costumes. Please buy Graph to see them!
—ABOUT THE TWO OF US…—
SAKIHI: Thanks for having meeeee!
KAZUKI: Of cooouurse! (haha)
SAKIHI: About the two of us… there’s just so much!
KAZUKI: There really is.
SAKIHI: Really.
KAZUKI: When we were in our first year of music school we shared a dorm room!
SAKIHI: We did! On move-in day, you arrived a little before me, and when I got to the room you were already there!
KAZUKI: Not only that, but our student ID numbers were consecutive, so we’d sit next to each other in class and stuff too.
SAKIHI: That’s right!
KAZUKI: Of course since you spend so much time in the dorms as a student, your roommate gets to see more different facets of your true self than anyone else, so… (haha).
SAKIHI: One after the other they’re exposed (haha). Because you’re just trying to survive (haha).
KAZUKI: We were acting on instinct (haha).
SAKIHI: Even though I’m the one who’s slightly older, you were pretty mature!
KAZUKI: WHAT?! No way! (haha)
SAKIHI: Ah, but, even though there were times when I thought things like, “she seems to have her act together, but actually she’s a bit of a spoiled child,” there were others when I thought, “She was really feeling incredibly sad, but despite that she persevered.” Sometimes you’d suddenly burst into tears, and then try to put on a smile, but I thought you were truly just doing your best with a lot of things on your mind.
KAZUKI: Whaaaaaa (haha). I didn’t really get you at first (haha).
SAKIHI: (Laughs)
KAZUKI: The reason was, just as everyone can see now, you were sooooooo sweet and girly, and at first I thought, “Eh?! How is she like this?! Hang on, what is she really like?” and I kept trying to figure you out, but you’re really like that through and through. Up until that point in my life I’d never met anyone like you, so I was surprised, like whaaaaa this type of person really exists?! (haha). And on top of all that, you’re hilarious (haha).
SAKIHI: But despite the fact that you thought I was so eccentric and had no idea what kind of girl I was, you never rejected me and you treated me so well (haha)
KAZUKI: We were pretty straightforward with each other (haha).
—2308—
KAZUKI: When we were in our first year of music school didn’t I tell you, “Yuumi, when you become a top star, don’t forget that in the beginning we were roommates!” (haha)
SAKIHI: You aaaaalways said that (haha). Even though I never thought for a fraction of a second that I’d become a top star.
KAZUKI: I knew you would, seriously. I mean, you were SO cute!! Exactly like in the costume photo shoot we did for this. You were like a determined little bird!! (haha).
SAKIHI: I was an alien (haha).
KAZUKI: Ooh, and then! In our second year, our dorm rooms…
SAKIHI: Aaaaah, right!!
KAZUKI: We had to move! You were crying at the end, weren’t you (haha).
SAKIHI: I was, for some reason I couldn’t bring my self to leave the room before you, so I saw you off (haha).
KAZUKI: Like my wife! (haha).
SAKIHI: (Haha). After I watched you go, I cried while I finished packing up (haha).
KAZUKI: This is what Yuumi is like!
SAKIHI: Ahhhh, how nostalgic!
KAZUKI: I still remember what that was like so clearly.
SAKIHI: Everyone had already finished moving, it was so quiet you could hear a pin drop (haha).
KAZUKI: Yeah, essentially we are pretty slow (haha). On top of that, we’re both terrible at waking up early, so we’d do our hair at night and go to bed in our school uniforms.
SAKIHI: Rather than just doing our hair and going to bed, since we couldn’t stand the thought of messing it up we’d wrap our heads and go to sleep (haha).
KAZUKI: (Haha). And then one time we overslept so badly (haha).
SAKIHI: Right before going to school a whole bunch of our classmates came to our room, and before we knew it about 5 people descended on each of us, one person doing the front of our hair, another doing the back, another changing our clothes… and they had us ready in a flash (haha). Yelling things like “you can put your contacts in yourself!” (haha).
KAZUKI: We were in such a hurry my hands were shaking (haha). I’d accidentally put my outer jacket on before my dress, and they got mad and yelled “stop wasting more time!” (haha).
SAKIHI: (Haha). And then, since we both tend to get hot easily, in the summer we’d set our air conditioning to 16°C at full blast!
KAZUKI: (Haha) We’ve gotten more eco-friendly since then!
SAKIHI: Since the hallways were hot, people said they could actually see the cold air through the cracks in our door (haha).
KAZUKI: (Bursts out laughing) When anyone came to our room, they’d bring a sweater even though it was summer (haha).
SAKIHI: Then there was that time I went to the store on an off day and bought a carpet!
KAZUKI: Ah, the one that felt so good!
SAKIHI: When you got back and I told you I’d bought a carpet, you were like aaahhh this feels so goooood! and got down on it like you were swimming the breaststroke, and I left the room for a second and when I got back you had just fallen asleep in that position (haha). There are way too many stories! (haha).
KAZUKI: (Haha). This is what room #2308 was like 10 years ago!
—PERFORMING—
SAKIHI: My first impression of you was that you might be the type who thinks quite a lot about your performing and incorporates things very cautiously.
KAZUKI: Around our first year of school that was true. It was because I hated acting (haha). But once we officially entered the company, I started to feel and understand that rather than doing minute little things this way or that way, it was more about putting together a performance in the larger atmosphere shared with your fellow cast members, and I think it was from then on that I started to enjoy acting too. I’d only been going through the motions, that’s why I didn’t like it (haha). Ah, but every time you and I did something together I had fun (haha).
SAKIHI: In Shime-san’s (Shion Yuu’s) class we were grouped together for acting lessons. That time… (haha).
KAZUKI: Oh yeah, normally we’d make this weird face with our eyes fixed at each other so frequently that when I watched you acting my eyes just unconsciously glazed over (haha).
SAKIHI: That happened! (haha). But really, I had so much fun when I got to act with you too! My heart would race!
KAZUKI: Even though I was such an amateur… (haha). Speaking of Shime-san’s class, before we’d get into our acting, the musumeyaku would all recite lines from Rose of Versailles in unison and the otokoyaku would do Elisabeth, and even though we’d all start together on cue, your pauses and delivery were always different from everyone else’s. The rest were doing everything they could to soak in what was going on around them and try to blend together, but… watching you I thought this girl has a totally different sense, her world is amazing (haha).
SAKIHI: (Haha). Sora, don’t people often tell you that your voice leaves an impression on them?
KAZUKI: Maybe? (haha).
SAKIHI: I’ve thought so since music school, and after we joined the company even when I got to watch you from the audience…
KAZUKI: (Laughs)
SAKIHI: Huh? What was that laugh for (haha).
KAZUKI: Nothing, please continue (haha).
SAKIHI: I’ve always thought that you have such a great personality and set of talents, and that if you can go forward cooking with all kinds of different flavors so to speak, you’ll probably have even more fun from here on out.
KAZUKI: (Haha). Got it!! I’ll cook up something good!
SAKIHI: I’m not very good at talking about people, so I’m doing my best but…
KAZUKI: Not at all, I’m learning a lot from this conversation.
SAKIHI: You just keep laughing! (haha) And looking at me like I’m an alien (haha).
KAZUKI: No no no, it’s just that so far no one who’s come to do this column has had such a serious conversation with me (haha).
—SAKIHI MIYU—
KAZUKI: That reminds me! When you were rehearsing for your top debut our rehearsal rooms were next to each other, and you’d just started the choreography for the prologue when you came into the corridor and said, “Sora, do you have a minute?”
SAKIHI: That’s right! We went into a dark classroom and you helped me with my dancing.
KAZUKI: We did!! So nostalgic! Ever since music school I’ve thought of you as such a hard working girl, but your attitude toward theater hasn’t changed a bit, it’s still just like it was back then, and watching you always feels so good!
SAKIHI: Because we started from 0… But now, with my graduation right before my eyes, if I look back it hits me all over again what a wonderful place Takarazuka is, and it’s not like I haven’t thought that all along, but now I’m able to realize it even more clearly and vividly than before! So thank you so much for this opportunity! Let’s always stay close even when I graduate!
KAZUKI: Yes please!!!