A•RA•SHI’S CONFESSION
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HEAVY。 SERIOUS。

AIBA MASAKI
🔵Even though I may look fine, even I have worries. Recently, the thing worrying me most was Arashi. It was right before we announced our debut in Hawaii. I started thinking about what the future held and the situation I was in, and I got worried. In the end, I couldn’t solve it myself, so I talked to someone about it. It’s nice to talk to someone, isn’t it? But worries don’t feel fully over until you solve them for yourself. It all depends on how you feel.
🔵Lately, I’ve been living life with a strange tension. I’ve noticed that I spontaneously tense up my shoulders. That’s fine when I’m at work, but it happens in my everyday life too. For example, when I take a bath excitedly, or eat my meal in a hurry even though I have plenty of time… I find myself thinking, “Why am I so tense?” and trying to calm myself down. I guess I’m just not used to the change in my environment yet.
🔵Since my debut, I’ve been frequently working much later than I did when I was a Junior. When I was filming “V no Arashi,” I was fine despite getting less sleep, but now I need to get a proper night’s rest. I once caught a cold and got a fever, so since then I’ve been washing my hands, gargling, and making sure I get enough sleep. I’ve been having a lot of dreams lately. There are a lot of fun ones, so it’s nice. The other day I had a dream that was like a game… A god appeared and gave me all sorts of commands that I carried out, and for some reason my younger brother was with me, and we both looked like we did when we were little. I was riding a train and when I got off at the next station I was in a foreign country. It was a strange dream.

NINOMIYA KAZUNARI
🔵Right now, I really want to dye my hair pure white. There are some members with brown hair, but no one with white hair, so I thought it would be okay. My goal is to have a hairstyle like the one Shingo-kun from SMAP used to have. For now, I’ve tried getting a perm… I got this perm when I had about 7 hours free time and Aiba-kun, who was with me, said he was going to get his hair cut. I had plenty of time, so I said, “Just give me a perm or something,” and that’s how I got this hairstyle. The last time I dyed my hair brown, I was so bored that I just colored it with some dye I had at home. It seems like when you’re bored, you want to play with your hair. If I had a month off, I’d totally change my hairstyle and go on a trip!! I’m sure no one would recognize me if I changed my hairstyle, and it would be a nice change of pace. I’d probably go to Hokkaido or touring around America. I have a lot of plans in mind.
🔵 If I changed my hairstyle, the fans would be shocked, right? I know how that feels, too. That’s because I have someone I look up to, too. That person is Cacciatori, a player on the Italian women’s volleyball team. I’ve been a fan for quite some time, and when she cut her super long hair last year, I wondered what she was up to. I met her at the World Cup Volleyball venue the other day and shook her hand, which made me really happy. I now understand how fans feel. Seeing how happy the fans were at our handshake event made me realize once again that we need to create more opportunities like that.

MATSUMOTO JUN
🔵The other day, when I went to Nagoya for work, I shared a hotel room with Ohno. We had nothing to do, so we just talked the whole time. We seriously talked about things like, “This is what I think about Arashi.” We both have vague ideas, though. We both agreed that we really want to do a concert. Ohno wants to do ballads, but I just want to have a lively time with all the fans. We rambled on about things like that for about three hours.
🔵No matter how busy I am with work, I always try to go to school for at least an extra hour. Juggling both is harder than I thought, but chatting with my classmates during breaks helps me blow away all my fatigue. When I hear my friends tell me stories about what they did on their days off, it makes me feel like I was there, and it’s fun. But I have tests coming up soon, so I need to study properly.
🔵 I’m really busy right now. It’s great, but on the other hand, it worries me that I don’t have a fulfilling private life. So, no matter how tired I am, I make sure to have some time for myself when I get back to my room. For example, I might read a book or listen to music, even if it’s just a little before I go to sleep. Lately, I’ve been hooked on the trivia book “Reading Medicine.” I even read it on the train on my way to school. If I’m not reading, I get sleepy. Once while filming “V no Arashi,” I fell asleep on the train. I woke up and realized I’d missed my stop in the middle of nowhere, and I was totally surprised (laughs).

SAKURAI SHO
🔵I’m thinking about taking up photography now. When I borrowed a camera to take pictures of the members during an interview, I realized that the world is different when you see it through the lens of a camera than when you see it directly. By looking at things from a different angle, I made new discoveries. I personally don’t like having my picture taken. It’s embarrassing, so I don’t want to be the subject of a photo. I’m more interested in being the one taking the photos. My friend’s grandmother is a photographer. When I go to her house, her work is displayed in the elevator. It changes with the seasons, but the other day when I went there, there was a photo of a black sign standing against a bright red sunset sky. It was really cool, and it has sparked my interest in photography even more. I’m thinking of buying a camera soon and starting to take up photography seriously.
🔵 Balancing school and work…this is the biggest problem for me right now. I’m really struggling with whether what I’m doing is balancing the two or not. Sometimes I can’t go to school because of work, and sometimes I have to take time off work for school. How can I balance them better? I’ve been thinking about it in my own way, but I haven’t come to a conclusion yet. Right now, I’m doing my best to do both to the best of my ability. Both work and school are important to me, so even if what I’m doing now seems like it’s not balancing the two, I intend to do my best. This problem will probably continue, and I’m thinking about what to do.

OHNO SATOSHI
🔵Something I’m seriously thinking about doing in the future…Of course, I dream of performing in a musical. But there’s something else I want to do. That’s painting. I still paint as a hobby, but people find my paintings creepy (laughs). Next time, I want to try something more than just a simple, ordinary painting, but something incredibly detailed. There are paintings that require painstaking work to be completed one by one. I want to learn that seriously. I’m busy now, but when I get older, I’m sure I’ll have a lot of free time. I probably won’t be able to dance by then, so I thought it would be fun to paint as a pastime in my retirement. I can hang up the paintings I make as decoration, so it’s a good hobby.
🔵Recently, I’ve been gaining weight, and that’s my biggest concern right now. When I was performing in Kyoto, I lost weight naturally, so I didn’t notice, but it turns out I have a body type that gains weight easily. So, even though I’m super busy now, I’m gaining weight, probably because I’m not sweating. I have to dance. My costumes are getting tighter, and I’m starting to think, “This is serious.” Yuki-kun and I are both saying, “We have to lose weight” (laughs). So when I’m choosing a meal, I ask the people around me how many calories there are, and I think about how many times I’ve eaten that day, so I’m careful not to overeat. When I enter the studio for an interview, there are sweets lined up on the table as gifts. When I see them in front of me, I want to eat them, they’re so it’s pretty hard to resist. But, in reality I’m a pretty average size. The other members are so skinny that I look even fatter. How about everyone else just gains weight?