Nakamaru: I wonder when we first knew each other.
Koyama: I was aware of Nakamaru-kun in "The Shonen Club". The Shonen Club always starts with a dance number, and when I saw Nakamaru and Ueda-kun (Tatsuya) dancing together, I thought, "This guy is a good dancer!" That was my first impression.
Nakamaru: Thank you very much. What year did you join the Johnny's Office?
Koyama: It was in 2001.
Nakamaru: I see. Same period.
Koyama: I think the team that I auditioned together and still remain are the Kiss My Ft2 team of Yokoo (Wataru), Nikaido (Takashi), and Miyata (Toshiya). Was Ueda always your shinme?
Nakamaru: No, originally it was Fujigaya.
Koyama: Eh? Really?
Nakamaru: It was less than a year in duration. There was a period when Fujigaya, Ueda, and I were doing various dances together, and then Ueda and I became shinme. My impression of Koyama was that you were there all of a sudden.
Koyama: That's what Shige (Shigeaki Kato) tells me, too. Suddenly, I was in a good position.
Nakamaru: Yeah. And you were a bit older, weren't you?
Koyama: I think I was around 17 years old.
Nakamaru: At the time, I was talking with Ueda and Goseki-kun (Koichi), saying "I've never seen this guy before". Also, you were really stylish.
Koyama: I was wearing Harajuku fashion at the time (laughs).
Nakamaru: It was like a strong guy came in, I guess (laughs). Then there was a period when we were hanging out, right?
Koyama: Yes, there was. I was allowed to participate in "SHOCK" right after I joined, and since KAT-TUN were also in the show, we were together a lot.
Nakamaru: Yeah, I remember!
Koyama: At the end, I raised my hand together with you as KAT-TUN. I thought for a moment that I was going to join KAT-TUN.
Nakamaru: It was a long time.You were in KAT-TUN for about a month just for the main event.
Koyama: During that time, I stayed at Kame-chan's house several times and went to a super public bath together. I think I spent a lot of time with senpai. Takizawa-kun took good care of me...
Nakamaru: You naturally fitted in. Your first group was K.K.Kity?
Koyama: At first it was a group called J-Support, then it was renamed to K.K.Kity. Nakamaru-kun, were you a member of any other groups?
Nakamaru: Before KAT-TUN there was B.B.D.
Koyama: B.B.D.?
Nakamaru: We were a gorilla dance team. It was less than a year. At the time, I was taking dance lessons so hard that I felt like I would vomit blood (laughs).
Koyama: I see. In my mind, the image of you and Ueda-kun together is too strong.
Nakamaru: How about Koyama, when did you and Kato become friends?
Koyama: When Shige and I auditioned, Johnny-san told us, "YOU are shinme". Since then, for the past 20 years, we have been shinme.
Nakamaru: So long! That's an unusual case.
Koyama: So I was happy when we were able to debut together. Weren't you a little relieved when it was decided that you and Ueda-kun would debut together?
Nakamaru: Well, of course.
Koyama: I was relieved when I could debut with Shige. I thought it would be tough if we suddenly changed partners. Come to think of it, we had also played instruments before... In the past 20 years, Shige and I had only one fight. The reason was "which one of us should play the guitar?".
Nakamaru: Ahahahaha. You wanted to play guitar, didn't you?
Koyama: It was either guitar or keyboard, and both were cool, but I thought the guitar would look better on TV. In the end, in tears, I gave it to Shige, and I took the keyboard, which I couldn't play at the time...
Nakamaru: You didn't have much motivation (laughs).
Koyama: That's right. It takes me back (laughs). I played the bass guitar at a KAT-TUN concert (Okyakusama wa Kamisama - Concert 55man nin Ai no request ni kotaete!!). I played bass for 11 shows in one day at the Shochikuza Theater in Osaka. During the show, the strap on my shoulder came off, and I was doing it while thinking it was too tight (laughs). (Laughs.) That one day was tough. Fifteen minutes after the performance was over, I was like being told, "It's time to go on stage".
Nakamaru: Each performance was 45 minutes long, 11 performances a day. It was terrible at that time. I really don't remember the last three performances.
Koyama: Of course, KAT-TUN had it the hardest, but it was hard for all of us. That left a great impression on me. Oh yeah, did you know that I was originally called KAT-TUN?
Nakamaru: What do you mean?
Koyama: Once Johnny-san told me that the three of us, including myself and two others, are KAT-TUN.
Nakamaru: Eh? I didn't know (laughs).
Koyama: But then it wasn't me after all (laughs).
Nakamaru: Was it the three of you?
Koyama: Once with three members, and then added someone else to make it KAT-TUN.
Nakamaru: At that time, there were many groups.
Koyama: That's right. There were so many.
Nakamaru: You know, when NEWS were decided...
Koyama: Actually, I wanted to ask that, because KAT-TUN had been active for a long time and had a lot of momentum, and suddenly NEWS' debut was decided. Didn't you think, "Oh, come on!"
Nakamaru: I did, I did. The day NEWS made its debut, I went out to eat sushi (laughs).
Koyama: Right. I'm sure I would do it too (laughs). Because you've worked so hard...
Nakamaru: I thought we would be next in order.
Koyama: Among the members of NEWS, there were people who thought we should debut in order, and I wondered if it was alright for me to debut.
Nakamaru: What kind of process did you hear about before NEWS debuted?
Koyama: I was called by Johnny-san and I was told that he had decided on four members including me. He said that he was not sure if he wanted to go with the four of us.
Nakamaru: Wow!
Koyama: So, then I was asked "what do YOU think?" I said, "what about Yokoo (who was with me at K.K.Kity)?" But he (Johnny-san) had a different idea at that time. After that, I was called into the studio under the mysterious pretext of a photo shoot for a magazine, and there were nine of us.
Nakamaru: I see. That's when you realized it?
Koyama: We were shooting a combination of various patterns, and that was the jacket for 'NEWS Nippon'.
Nakamaru: They didn't say it was a jacket shoot, did they?
Koyama: I wasn't told, but there were a lot of adult people there, and they were making a making-of.
Nakamaru: That's weird (laughs).
Koyama: I thought, "What is this?" But I wondered if a surprise debut was a very Johnny-san thing to do. On the other hand, how was it for KAT-TUN? Did you go up to them and say something about your own debut?
Koyama: After NEWS, Kanjani8 also debuted before you.
Nakamaru: Not only that, the choreographer also told us, "from now onwards you don't have to worry about CDs anymore". I was like "no, no, no, wait a minute" (laughs).
Koyama: I can understand if that happened now, but not back then.
Nakamaru: We went to Johnny-san and asked him "what are you thinking", and he calmed us down by saying "don't be in a hurry, it will be alright". Until then, we were so impatient.
Koyama: I'm sure Johnny-san had a lot on his mind.
Nakamaru: Koyama, you had a good position within NEWS after you debut.
Koyama: I was really surprised. When I was a junior, if I were to describe it in a triangle, Shige and I were the left and right sides of the bottom of the triangle, and then we were able to hold the microphone at the ending of Shokura and so on...
Nakamaru: A little bit at a time.
Koyama: We were going forward little by little, but when we debuted, we suddenly came to the front. Because I had only been a junior for a short time, I had a hard time. I didn't know how I should look on camera. I couldn't even look at the camera at my first Music Station performance.
Nakamaru: It also looks difficult to get around in NEWS. There were so many people, and you all have different backgrounds.
Koyama: Because suddenly we became the same as senpai. We were not sure how to use language, and I was also trying to figure out how to change the way I called them by their names. KAT-TUN has known each other for a long time so...
Nakamaru: We never had any trouble with hierarchical relationships. But there were a lot of fights.
Koyama: You guys had an image of having a lot of fights. Who fought the most?
Nakamaru: Probably Ueda.
Koyama: That's surprising! Was he unexpectedly hot-tempered?
Nakamaru: It's surprising, isn't it? Sometimes he loses his temper.
Koyama: That's an Ueda-kun I don't know.
Nakamaru: Like when we were eating cake, and he would say "Who dropped the whipped cream on the tatami mat?". That kind of reason. Not only that but when things are bothering him a little on the business side.
Koyama: I see. I guess he has his own particular way of doing things. But still, everyone has become grown-ups (laughs).
Nakamaru: A lot. When I look back like this, I can feel it (laughs).
Koyama: That's because we're already close to 40 years old. When I was a junior member, everyone was so tense, and I was always afraid of when they would get angry at me. There were some scary people.
Nakamaru: The senpai were scary, weren't they?
Koyama: The dance team people were also scary (laughs).
Nakamaru: I feel you (laughs).
Koyama: I don't know if I'm angry or just making fun of it, but I think it's great that we can share those memories and talk like this.
Nakamaru: Our generation is probably the ones who saw the excitement of "8-ji da J" with Tackey and the other Johnny's and applied for the job. We have seen the golden generation of the junior members. In those years, there were a lot of auditions, and it was quite common to not be invited to auditions at all, so in that sense, I think it was a competitive society.
Koyama: That's right. Every Friday or so, I would get a call saying, "Tomorrow there's work" but if I didn't get a call, there would be no work. When I was a junior, every Friday I was in a nervous state. I was worried that I might be the only one not invited. When I think about it, I experienced the harsh world at a young age.
Nakamaru: Normally, middle and high school students are all basically treated equally, but they were quickly ranked.
Koyama: They would move closer to the center in an easy-to-understand manner...
Nakamaru: If you lost confidence even a little, you'd quickly be moved to the back of the line.
Koyama: We were very competitive.
Nakamaru: But now that I think about it, I think they were trying to push them up. I think Johnny-san gave instructions to the choreographers to do so. I don't know how it is nowadays.
Koyama: I think they trained us by making us compete and make us regret. I think that training is very much alive now. I have a lot to be thankful for since my debut.
Nakamaru: Yes. But I don't want to experience those days again. I don't want to go back (laughs).
Koyama: That's right. Also, there was "SUMMARY of Johnnys world" (2004) in which NEWS and KAT-TUN performed together. KAT-TUN in black and NEWS in white, like a VS format. In terms of music, we are white in color, while KAT-TUN is aggressive and black in image.
Nakamaru: Johnny-san was into the idea of having two sides compete with each other, wasn't he? Like Tackey and Tsubasa.
Koyama: Thinking back, NEWS and KAT-TUN have quite a lot of contact. It's like SixTONES and Snow Man working together now. I think it was a very interesting experiment at the time.
Nakamaru: "SUMMARY" was funny. Like summer vacation fun.
Koyama: It was very tough, but we were together every day and had fun together. We shared the hardships and difficulties and became good friends again... There was a time when the stage equipment broke during a performance (laughs).
Nakamaru: The flying machine stopped in mid-air.
Koyama: We posed with just our hands in the air, and we spun around while posing, but it stopped halfway up (laughs).
Nakamaru: At that time, we went down in order of who could get off first, right?
Koyama: That's right. We all helped each other get off. We did that in front of the fans. That's when the song "Summary" was born, and when I watched a video of the Shokura a while ago, I saw some of the junior members singing "Summary". That made me happy, too.
Nakamaru: It's been passed down from generation to generation.
Koyama: Yes. They were wearing our costumes, weren't they? The ones from when we were young.
Nakamaru: After the "SUMMARY" performance, Johnny-san took us all to Hawaii as a reward. That was great too.
Koyama: The one where we were free to do whatever we wanted.
Nakamaru: So, although we were in different groups, we have been working together since we were junior members.
Koyama: So many memorable moments.
(T/N: shinme was initially referred to performers dancing symmetrically in the mathematical sense, like a mirror-image. Then it gained a broader sense among idol fans, and it now mainly refers to two idols within a group who often perform together and are considered as a "pair".)
NEWS & KAT-TUN "SUMMARY" (flying scene)
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