Seo Yuria’s 95th class interview series was published in GRAPH through 2016. Her talk with Moon Troupe Top Star Manaki Reika was published in the January issue.
(Yes, she does use that many exclamation points in the original)
Some outtake shots from the back of the magazine are included.
SEWATCH!! #1 – Manaki Reika
Hello everyone!! I’m 95th class member Seo Yuria, aka Seocchi, of Star Troupe, and starting this month I’ve been assigned to write this column. For the next year I’m going to be living under threat of the deadlines pursuing me. I hope you’ll support me, everyone.
I’ll explain the title first. Seocchi is going to be exposing the secrets of the 95th class! So, from “Seocchi’s Watching”, I shortened it until I decided on SEWATCH!!
Alright!! Now it’s time for what you’ve all been waiting for: our inaugural guest is…Moon Troupe’s Manaki Reika 🌙 I~t’s Chapi 💖 Ah, what an angel 💖 It feels like the light shines through her…Alright, time to turn the SEWATCH on the mysteries of this angel descended from heaven!!!!!!
~About their costume theme~
Seo: I felt like the whole world already knows how beautiful and cute you are, so I was thinking, what about showing them a different kind of Chapi…
Manaki: No, no, since it’s the New Years’ issue, we decided to do something weasonal.
Seo: “It’s the Year of the Monkey? Let’s do monkeys!” was how it went, right!? (laughs)
Manaki: From the moment I was born people keep telling me I look like a little monkey, so I’m honored to finally become one.
Seo: (bursts out laughing)
Manaki: My mom even told me “I thought I’d given birth to a monkey” (laughs).
Seo: So today you returned to your roots. With new feelings (laughs).
Manaki: Right, exactly. My ears stick out so much (laughs). (Chapi pulls on both her ears as she speaks to demonstrate.)
Seo: You’re so cute (laughs).
Chapi’s cuteness knocked me out, but now that I’ve recovered let’s keep going!!
~About the treasured photo~
Seo: This must be the Culture Festival, right?
Manaki: Yes, the Culture Festival!
Seo: This is the only photo we ever took of the two of us together where we’re behaving ourselves.
Manaki: Right, seriously, we’re just goofing off in all the rest.
Seo: Also there’s the photo from our school trip where we were doing our entertainment acts. Chapi was Sailor Moon and I was one of the dwarves from Snow White.
Manaki: Right~ We did that~ (laughs).
Seo: All our photos are unfit for GRAPH reader consumption (laughs).
~At the Takarazuka Music School~
Manaki: We were together a lot, right?
Seo: Weren’t our seating numbers right after each other?
Manaki: Yeah, yeah, it was 5 of us, Minami (Maito), Rei (Makoto), Ai (Sumire), Seo and I.
Seo: We’d goof around calling ourselves “A-row 5″~ (laughs).
Manaki: Misaki (Rion), Hinami (Fuu), Nanao (Maki), and Harune (Aki) were also with us a lot and we just goofed off all the time.
Seo: Yeah, we goofed off with all our might for 2 years straight (laughs). There’s one thing I remember as my first impression of Chapi!!
Manaki: Oh!! What is i~t?
Seo: For the first week after entering the Takarazuka Music School, there were orientations, right? And since we didn’t have a clue when we enrolled, neither of us two brought any food for those.
Manaki: Oh…that’s right.
Seo: And then, when you were starving, a god appeared at your side, right?
Manaki: (bursts out laughing)
Seo: A god named Ai Sumire, bearing cheese flavored Jarico1! And then huge tears suddenly started to flow down your cheeks as you said: “Yuuki (Ai), actually, the cheese Jarico are my favorite.”
Manaki: Gosh…thinking about it now it’s just too funny (laughs).
Seo: When I saw that I thought, what a pure girl she is.
Manaki: (laughs)
Seo: You started as a musumeyaku, but then you switched to otokoyaku, so we ended up in the same voice class, right?
Manaki: And then we gathered our squad of buddies and just had fun the whole time. We’d record Coto’s (Makoto’s) beautiful singing.
Seo: We’d all be like “Coto-chan, you’re so amazing!”
Manaki: “Wish we could use this to learn from…”
Seo: Right, right, we were the no skills team, huh.
Manaki: In the Culture Festival, you, me, Asami (Jun), Nanao, Yuzuka (Rei), and Mirei (Jun) sang “La La Flora” as a group of six (laughs).
Seo: First off, we couldn’t pick up the rhythm (laughs). I got Coto-chan to teach me.
Manaki: We were really terrible.
Seo: I have a message for all the current Music School students!! You really should put in some effort!!
Both: You’ll struggle so much once you get into the company!!
Manaki: But, if there was something we needed to do, we did it.
Seo: Right, but we also played around as hard as we could!! You could say our Work/Life balance was really something (laughs).
~After troupe assignments~
Manaki: After entering the company we haven’t interacted that much, have we…
Seo: Oh, but I remember right after you switched to musumeyaku, during rehearsals for that first junior performance the two of us cried together in the refreshments corner!!
Manaki: Oh…Dangit. I do cry a lot.
Seo: Yeah, I think you must have been under so many different kinds of pressure back then.
Manaki: I was like, “Seocchi~ I don’t know if I can do it any more~ (crying)”.
Seo: And I was like “It’ll turn out okay!! It’ll turn out okay!!”.
Manaki: Ah…And I was so moved when Seocchi got a junior performance lead.
Seo: To everyone who knew me from the Music School, it was totally a “miracle”, huh~. Right before it started, Chapi came rushing into my dressing room, even though I’d thought you were in the middle of rehearsals.
Manaki: I was like “You’ll be okay!! You’ll totally be okay!! You can do it!”
Seo: That made me so happy!
Manaki: I bolted the moment my rehearsals let out for a break. I was so happy and so worried about you (laughs).
Seo: Thank you~ (crying). Even though we’re in different troupes let’s keep doing our best. And if anything happens let me know right away, I’ll come running!!
Manaki: Me too, if anything happens tell me~!
Chapi, thank you so much for coming even though you were so busy with rehearsals!! Everyone, did you get a good WATCH on Chapi? I wonder who will turn up next month? Look forward to it ✨
Seocchi
Instructor Seocchi’s Class Chronicle
I’ll become a homeroom teacher and make my fantasy of “What if she were one of my students… 💖” a reality! In this lovely corner all the guests will be shown through a Seo-filter!
She’s a star student but also a bit of a crybaby. All the other students are wild for Chapi!