This interview featuring Moon Troupe’s top couple, Sena Jun and Ayano Kanami, was published in the February 2008 issue of GRAPH.
Some outtake photos from the back of the magazine are included.
With My Partner: Sena Jun and Ayano Kanami (Moon Troupe)
Roles if we could swap otokoyaku/musumeyaku
Sena: I wonder what would be good as an otokoyaku role for Mihoko (Ayano)…
Ayano: For my class’s classmate intro column, I got to wear a uniform, but it didn’t look good on me at all, right. So I feel like if I did an otokoyaku role I’d just be a laughingstock…
Sena: I don’t think anyone would be able to accept Miho in a serious otokoyaku role (laughs).
Ayano: Exactly (laughs). Let’s think about what female role Asako-san (Sena) should do first… It might be nice if Asako-san played a mother and I played her son, something like that (laughs).
Sena: I’d be your mother? (laughs)
Ayano: (laughs). Asako-san playing a mother would be…
Sena: How about Bakabon the Genius1? Mihoko could be Bakabon and I’d be Bakabon’s mother (laughs).
Ayano: No wayyyy (laughs).
Sena: I think it might work surprisingly well. (laughs)
Ayani: (laughs). Do you not have any female roles you want to play, Asako-san? Oh, but then you’ve done quite a few.
Sena: That’s right. Despite appearances I’ve actually performed a lot of female roles. Right, Carmen would be nice.
Ayano: Carmen?
Sena: Yeah. Whoops, that was a serious answer. But I don’t feel like Mihoko should play Jose, though… Why don’t you do Escamilio. He’s a pretty boy bullfighter.
Ayano: Score!
Sena: You scored (laughs).
Ayano: But actually, that doesn’t feel like it would suit me either…
Sena: I see. After all maybe we’d better go with Bakabon and Bakabon’s mother? (laughs)
Fail Tales
Ayano: Once, in the Paris Airport, even though we had to transfer to a different flight, we accidentally went through the exit gate, right.
Sena: We did. That was when we were taking a vacation to Venice (laughs). We were drifting along with the flow of people in the airport and suddenly we had entered France (laughs). So then we were like “Aaah! We have to get back through the departure gate. But we’re running out of time before the next flight leaves!’
Ayano: We were panicking (laughs).
Sena: I can’t speak much English, so it was all body language (laughs). But I was so cool then, right! (laughs)
Ayano: Yes (laughs). All I could think of was, oh no, if we don’t make this flight what are we going to do?
Sena: You were really flustered. I said ‘Let’s go!’ and went to the front of the long line of people waiting for customs checks. I showed the person in charge our tickets and said ‘HELP ME’ [in English]. (laughs). I pled something like ‘let us in!’ using my broken English and body language, so they made a face like ‘Oh, I guess so’ and let us in.
Ayano: Everyone was so kind.
Sena: They were all so warm. I think our panic level must have been something to see, though (laughs).
Ayano: (laughs)
My partner’s surprising side
Ayano: A surprising side to Asako-san is the way you can cook something up in a flash.
Sena: (laughs)
Ayano: Though it’s kind of like ‘guy food’… Is that saying too much (laughs).
Sena: No, no, it’s fine (laughs).
Ayano: It’s so delicious, though.
Sena: It is pretty tasty, right, I say about my own cooking (laughs).
Ayano: Yes. And also, once you made bottle caps covered in beautiful Swarovsky decorations, the kind with a hole for the straw so it’s easy to drink during a performance, since you were like ‘I want to give these to Masa-chan (Haruno Sumire) and Yasucchan (Suzukake Miyuki)’. Junior actresses often make those as presents to give to their seniors, but it sort of feels like, wow, even Asako-san is doing this? (laughs)
Sena: That was the first time I made those, actually. Besides the bottlecaps, I also beautifully decorated a little case for snacks (laughs).
Ayano: It was really pretty. You themed the decorations for the role Osa-san (Haruno) played a while back.
Sena: Right, it was themed around Errol from Immortal Thorns, so I put a cross decoration on it.
Ayano: Somehow I just can’t picture Asako-san sitting at home doing fussy crafts like those decorations (laughs).
Sena: It was fun (laughs).
Ayano: When we went to see a Flower Troupe performance you gave the finished bottlecap to Osa-san, and she said “Did you seriously make this?” (laughs)
Sena: She didn’t believe me (laughs).
Ayano: Toshiko-san (Suzukake) cried, didn’t she. You also gave them to Ritsu Tomomi-san, who was retiring, and Mito-san (Rika Masumi), who was moving to Senka.
Sena: So that was my surprising side (laughs). Mihoko’s surprising side is…
Ayano: Maybe that I used to be able to run really fast (laughs).
Sena: Right! You were so fast (laughs).
Ayano: I don’t think I could run that fast again now, though…
Sena: But if you actually tried running maybe you’d discuver that you’re still surprisingly fast (laughs).
Ayano: (laughs)
Memorable offstage incidents
Sena: Once, when we went to the movies, even before the feature started, you burst into tears while watching the upcoming trailers (laughs).
Ayano: That was when I saw the trailer for that movie based on a true story, about the Chuuetsu Earthquake2.
Sena: It was about a dog, right.
Ayano: I’m so weak when it comes to animal stories. So when I saw the trailer it brought so many images into my head…
Sena: I did tear up a little, but I wasn’t about to cry (laughs). I was so startled when I saw Mihoko crying (laughs).
Ayano: (laughs). One thing I remember is seeing Asako-san searching desperately for corn chips (laughs). A while before, someone had given you some delicious corn chips, so you were saying “I just have to eat those again!”
Sena: I looked around so many places but nobody was selling them. By the end I was operating on pure stubbornness (laughs).
Ayano: You were like “I just want them! I just want to find them!” (laughs). I couldn’t really tell any more if you still wanted to eat the corn chips or if you just wanted to succeed in tracking them down (laughs).
Sena: In the end, we didn’t find any that day, but several days later, Mihoko, you randomly happened to go in a store that was selling those corn chips.
Ayano: That’s right. When I found them I was like, “That’s the stuff!!” (laughs).
Sena: You bought me so much. I was so happy back then that you found it for me. But…
Ayano: Huh!! But I thought you were so happy…
Sena: Of course I was happy! But I was also kind of frustrated that after I’d searched for them so fervently Mihoko was able to find them so easily (laughs).
Ayano: (laughs). Maybe it’s because you were so intensely focused on looking for them that you just couldn’t spot them (laughs).
Words we remember
Sena: I don’t know if this was really memorable or just the way Mihoko says it left an impression, but the way you say ‘I’m so happy!’ with a smile when you’re happy. The way you express your joyful feelings left an impression with me. For example, at the poster photoshoot the first performance where we were paired up, Ernest in Love, you said ‘I’m so happy!!’ or from time to time when you say that ‘I’m so happy!!’ it really sticks with me.
Ayano: It just slips out without my thinking about it, huh. The words I remember from Asako-san are from when I went to consult with you about how I should behave as your partner. After thinking about it for a while you said ‘As long as you can always smile I’m happy’.
Sena: I remember saying something like that.
Ayano: I feel like when you said that to me, you communicated something to me beyond even the basic meaning contained within the words.
Sena: I like looking at a smiling Mihoko. I think the reason I remember you saying ‘I’m so happy!!’ must be because I feel like I want Mihoko to ‘keep smiling.
Ayano: I felt Asako-san’s kindness so strongly from those words, so they’ve been in my heart ever since.
1 – A popular comedy manga from the late 60s-early 90s (when Sena and Ayano would have been children).
2 – The film they are discussing seems to be Mari and the Three Puppies.