The second part of this feature is a talk between Ayakaze Sakina, Asazuki Kiwa, and Asami Jun.
Some outake photos from the back of the magazine are also included.
New Snow Troupe Top Star Special – Ayakaze Sakina
Snow Troupe Talk
Starting their Grand Theatre rehearsals
Ayakaze: We were separated for our last performances, so [when rehearsals started] Aasa (Asami) seemed kind of shy (laughs).
Asami: No way!?
Ayakaze: Yeah, totally (laughs).
Asami: Hang on a minute!! Do these four years mean nothing… (laughs) But right now I’m just focused on getting into character.
Ayakaze: We’ve only done the standing readthrough so far, but the director is really high-energy so it feels like we’re just desperately trying to catch up. But it’s a happy story, and I think from now on the rehearsal studio is going to get more and more fun.
Asami: On the first day of rehearsals, I was picturing more of a vibe of ‘Wow! It’s the new Snow Troupe!’, but it felt so natural to have Saki-san (Ayakaze) standing there in the center. Everyone got right into working on the show, so it felt like the start of a production like any other up until now. But there’s a really motivated energy, so I’m thinking ‘I’ve gotta do my best!’
Asazuki: I’m also feeling everyone’s energy towards the show. I think this production is going to take more physical strength than usual, so I want to make sure I do my best.
Asami: Saki-san took the vibe of Saeba Ryou from the comic and made it her own. It’s so cool, and it makes me think ‘so that’s what it likes when a Takarasienne plays him!’
Ayakaze: Thank you so much (laughs). I was thinking, ‘Ah, Asami Jun is just as fun as I thought she would be’.
Asami: What!?
Ayakaze: I think you’ll become even more funny as it goes. I feel like Mick is a role that will really let you show off your appeal. Kaori (Asazuki) might be having the hardest time of it.
Asazuki: No, no.
Ayakaze: You have masculine speech patterns, and you have to wave that heavy prop around the whole time (laughs). But you’ve been wearing pants outfits to rehearsals and fighting hard, so I feel like we’re going to see a totally new Asazuki Kiwa. You already look great with the hammer, you know.
Asazuki: What, really…?
Ayakaze: You look great in the pajamas too (laughs).
Asazuki: (laughs)
Asami: Emblem of Venezia portrayed a really intense romance, so it feels so fresh seeing this new connection and atmosphere between you two.
Ayakaze: We’re in kind of a love triangle, and especially Mick is just like ‘Kaori, Kaori~’.
Asami: For real, just head over heels.
Asazuki: (laughs) You’re both already so gorgeous and funny even at this stage of rehearsals…
Asami: I’d like to get a bit funnier still (laughs).
Ayakaze: Yeah. I still feel like I’m stuck in the labyrinth (laughs).
Asami: Same here. Everybody’s saying the pace of this show is totally different from both Emblem of Venezia and The Man Who Was Magic.
Ayakaze: Right, I still can’t quite keep up with it yet. Until now, in the shows I’ve been in based on shonen manga–Lupin III and Ruroni Kenshin–my character was in a position where he was ‘pulling’ rather than ‘pushing’ if you will. So now I just keep thinking about how hard a position Chigi-san (Sagiri Seina) must have been in playing Lupin III and Kenshin!
Asami: Bruce Grannet (Ayakaze) from On the 20th Century might be close.
Ayakaze: Still, I don’t want this role to turn into Bruce, or the young master from The Sun in the Last Days of the Shogunate. But I’ve really played a lot of flirty guys, though (laughs).
Asami: A lot of genres of flirty guys (laughs).
Ayakaze: If I had to say, Bruce is more of the type that Mick is.
Asami: He totally is. I was just thinking I could learn from him (laughs).
Ayakaze: It’s hard to establish that difference, so right now I’m just in a process of trial and error, I guess.
Ayakaze Sakina is actually…
Asami: When you’re talking normally your voice is high-pitched and cute (laughs). When you start acting it instantly goes low, it’s so amazing that you can flip the switch like that.
Ayakaze: But in ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA, even though you were playing a woman your voice was lower than mine (laughs).
Asami: Yeah, I was told I should do that during the script reading. I was planning to go for a high voice so I was like, oh, okay? (laughs). …But enough about me.
Asazuki: (laughs) Maybe this isnt an ‘actually’ thing, but you seem like you normally skip over three steps at a time when you’re climbing up stairs, that’s how ‘full steam ahead’ you seem.
Ayakaze: Ah…I do skip over stairs.
Asazuki: No, I didn’t mean it for real!? (laughs)
Ayakaze: In real life I only skip one step at a time (laughs).
Asami: You do, don’t you!
Ayakaze: But isn’t it so annoying to step on each and every stair? I can go up 30 stairs in 15 steps.
Asazuki: That’s because you have such long legs!
Asami: Imagine how terrible it’d be if she pulled her Achilles tendon! (laughs) ‘Actually’, you work out every day, I guess. And you’re conscious of how you’re sitting even when you’re on a chair in rehearsal room, right.
Ayakaze: Maybe you mean how I always make sure I’m not twisting my legs up. I don’t want to contort my pelvis.
Asazuki: Amazing…
Asami: You always have such beautiful posture that I’ll think ‘I should learn from her’ but one second later I’m all hunched over again (laughs).
First impressions of each other
Ayakaze: My first impression of Asami was a little scary (laughs).
Asami: Oh, of course it’s that! (laughs)
Ayakaze: I talked about this before when we did a GRAPH talk (May 2019, ‘By Chance’), but the first time I talked to you was when you were in Moon Troupe, and I suddenly went up to you with a correction (laughs).
Asami: No~!
Ayakaze: After that, I got worried, so I found Aasa’s classmate in Snow Troupe and asked her ‘I was giving. Asami some corrections, do you think that was okay?’ (laughs). But you had been listening to me so earnestly.
Asami: I was really happy!!
Ayakaze: And then a while after that you asked me ‘How am I doing on those points you told me about?’. She’s so cute, I thought (laughs). And then your first show in Snow Troupe was CAPTAIN NEMO, and I felt like you were the type to push steadily forward on your own. Though I’m sure you were desperate.
Asami: Really desperate…
Ayakaze: In the next show, A Passage Through The Light, our characters had just the worst relationship (laughs), but finally in ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA we were able to open up to each other.
Asami: That was such a short time ago! (laughs) But I think you might be right.
Ayakaze: I think it was around there I got to get closer to the real Asami Jun. In Phantom you had a switch role so it seemed liek you were really desperate again.
Asazuki: As for me, [Asami] was an Upper Student [when I was in the Takarazuka Music School], so my first impression of you was ‘wow, her eyes are so intense’ (laughs).
Asami: We didn’t interact much, did we.
Asazuki: That’s right. So the main thing I remember is Jun having eyes that feel like they were swallowing you up.
Ayakaze: Did she seem scary to you then?
Asazuki: She didn’t really seem like somebody you could talk to…
Asami: Scary, you mean (laughs).
Asazuki: No, no! (laughs)
Ayakaze: So the first impression Aasa gives off is ‘desperate and scary’ (laughs).
Asami: (laughs) Asazuki, when you were a Lower Student or during your debut, I couldn’t imagine you making any kind of big slipups. You felt like the type who had always been very ‘with it’ (laughs).
Asazuki: Not a bit!
Ayakaze: Ah~. I also thought you were perfect on my first impression…
Asazuki: My apologies (ironic laugh).
Ayakaze: In Flower Troupe, my first impression of you was when I went to see you in Sayaka’s (Serika Toa) lead show MY HERO, and you played a rather un-heroine like, unrefined role, but did it very elegantly. You were friends with my classmate Yurina (Mihana Rino), so through that connection I was able to go to the dressing room and talk to you for the first time. And then after that, you came to Snow Troupe, and I started out so impressed, thinking ‘wow, she learned so many wonderful things in Flower Troupe’, but now that image is crumbling more and more (laughs).
Asazuki: Yes… (laughs).
Ayakaze: Things like, oh, she’s really quite relaxed, or, oh, she’s picky about a lot of foods.
Asazuki: You have me there (laughs).
Ayakaze: But that you’ve never done any big mistakes [onstage] means that you must have always been dedicating yourself and working hard to doing things perfectly.
Asazuki: Oh no… This might have been after MY HERO; on a day off I ran into you at a company masterclass and you talked to me, you asked ‘Don’t you go on trips or anything when you have time off?”
Asami: Oh…!
Ayakaze: I don’t remember that at all! (laughs)
Asazuki: I was like, wow, Ayakaze-san will talk like this to junior actresses in other troupes~!
Ayakaze: I went up suddenly and talked to Asa, I’m so scary!
Asazuki: I wasn’t scared! It makes people so happy.
Asami: I was really happy, yeah! I had always thought Saki-san was a really reserved person until then. So I was in seventh heaven from happiness and excitement when you actually talked to me. And then when we were in CAPTAIN NEMO together, I realized that though you might look reserved you had a lot of passion inside. And then my impression of you totally changed as I saw that become the kindness and generosity you enveloped the people of Matoka[1] with.
Asazuki: I also performed with you for the first time after moving to Snow Troupe. You always have so many things you can comment on after watching me once. I feel like the expansive way you accept anything from me hasn’t changed at all. And there are a lot of fun things about you too. There’s a lot of humor in the way you select your words.
Asami: Yeah! You know so much. I’m like, wow, you’re using that word here!? all the time. Your Vitality (spoken in English) is amazing. …’Vitality’???
Ayakaze: ‘Vocabulary’ (spoken in English)?
All three: (laugh)
Ayakaze: It’s like Mick messing up his Japanese, right (laughs).
What kind of character relations would you like to play?
Ayakaze: Maybe something where we’re all rivals conning each other?
Asami: That sounds fun!
Ayakaze: Where would be nice for a setting. I want to go to London, so, London (laughs).
Asazuki: Let’s do London (laughs).
Ayakaze: You like London too, right, Aasa?
Asami: Love it!
Ayakaze: It has that mysterious atmosphere, too.
Asami: The cloudy skies and all that. It’s the atmosphere of Sherlock Holmes.
Ayakaze: Kiwa-chan (Asazuki) looks soft but she’s the worst of all of us. She’s the real villain!
Asami: Okay, and how about if I die at the end.
Ayakaze: I’ve played so many characters who die, so maybe I’ll live (laughs).
Asami: And then there can be a sequel! Oh, but I’m gone (laughs).
Asazuki: Maybe something like…’we all thought he was dead, but…’/
Asami: Right!
Ayakaze: (suddenly) Oh!! I love that K-Drama, Goblin, I want to do that!
Asami: So sudden!? (laughs)
Ayakaze: Besides, Aasa would be so perfect as the Grim Reaper1!!
Asami: I want to do it~! You two would be perfect too. Alright, so it’s a three-way con and ‘Goblin’ (laughs).
Thoughts on the new Snow Troupe
Asami: I feel like I’m able to be very natural in the rehearsal space right now. As Saki-san and Hirame are creating that atmosphere, I want to work hard and keep challenging myself, and feel the power that comes from everyone working together to create something.
Asazuki: Everyone has their own clear style, and I think the energy of them all coming together is part of the appeal of Snow Troupe. I want to do my best to stand firm on my own two feet, so that I can display my own style in the midst of everyone else’s.
Ayakaze: Right now it’s so fun to watch everyone in the rehearsals, from the seniors who I’ve been working with for aaaaages down to the juniors who still have so many sides I haven’t seen yet. I love setting out on adventures where I don’t know where I’ll end up, so I keep wondering ‘what will happen when everyone’s energy comes together’, or ‘how much will the audience enjoy this’. There’s a lot I’m worried about because I can’t see the outcome yet, but I’m looking forward to overcoming all of that together with everyone. All I feel is anticipation!
Asami, Asazuki: Yeah!
Outtake photos:
Notes:
1 – One of the main characters in Goblin.