Author Archives: Henkka

Sayu talks about their recent Hawaii fan club tour (she just got back home two or three days before the recording of this show). She begins by saying that she had a lot of fun doing all sorts of things, and lists the many activities they did there. She was especially happy seeing so many pink T-shirts there even though it wasn’t even her solo event or that sort of thing. Sayu says she doesn’t usually see such a large number of fans wearing pink T-shirts aside from concerts held in her hometown, or her own birthday events. It really moved her.

In the early days when they’d go to Hawaii, Sayu remembers thinking to herself how she had almost no fans at all and trying to figure out how she could make herself more appealing and attract more fans.

Thinking back to how it was ten years ago made her feel all the more happier seeing how she now has so many people who support her and the current 10-member lineup, especially as this was Sayu’s last Hawaii visit as a member of Morning Musume.

Song: Morning Musume – Mikan

Sayu no Kobeya
Letters from listeners

Fan mail #1: The listener assumes that Sayu didn’t have the chance to eat any Japanese food while in Hawaii, so he asks what the first thing Sayu ate when she got back to Japan was, as well as what the most memorable meal she had in Hawaii was.

Since the members knew they’d feel like eating a lot in Hawaii, they tried to hold back from eating too much in Japan in the days leading up to the trip. And sure enough, the members were all eating so much at every dinner, they even became worried about having to wear their swimsuits later — although that still didn’t stop them from eating more.

Sayu reports eating all kinds of things in their time there, including Chinese food at a restaurant the group always visits when they’re in Hawaii. But the number one most memorable, delicious meal for her was the meat — “meat is the best!“, she exclaims. In Japan, Sayu likes to add lots of wasabi on her steak, and lots of tare sauce on her yakiniku, etc, but the meat she had in Hawaii was just so good and juicy, she thought adding anything on it would only disturb its natural, delicious flavors.

Sayu talks about how the portions in Hawaii are so big, she was full after just three slices of meat. Meanwhile, Oda, sitting next to her, just kept on eating and eating until she finally said she was full after eating over twice as much as Sayu. That apparently still wasn’t enough in Oda’s mind, though, and she was disappointed she couldn’t eat more.

The first thing Sayu ate after coming back to Japan was natto which she wanted to have immediately after getting back home.

Listener requested pose: “Sayu when she finds the new 12th gen members cuter than her”

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One of the things Sayu says she found really remarkable about the summer Hello!Con was the growth of the Kenshuusei. She loves seeing how they’ve all gotten taller and how their faces have become more adult-like in the six months or so since she last saw them.

Sayu names Kenshuusei Makino Maria as an example. She says Maria-chan has grown really tall and cute, and that she’s always dancing intensely while keeping a huge smile on her face. She’s really friendly with people and says she likes Sayu, so one time she even asked if it was okay to hug her. Sayu being Sayu, she naturally didn’t object to physical contact with a girl in her low teens.

Maria-chan is from Aichi prefecture, so when they had a Hello!Con there, Maria-chan brought everyone some manjuu buns from her hometown. Sayu set one aside for herself to eat later and went to thank Maria-chan for the gift. Maria-chan said it was no problem and asked her if she’d had some yet. When Sayu said she hadn’t but that she’d try some later, Maria-chan said something that would change Sayu’s life for several days to come: “it keeps for a long time, so please enjoy it whenever you would like.“

Sayu says she was so moved hearing her say this, thinking she was such a good girl. Suddenly receiving such a grown-up statement from such a cute, child-like girl really got to her. She can’t even quite explain why this is; saying something will keep for a long time is obviously a normal thing to say among adults, but hearing it coming from Maria-chan just left a huge impression on her.

There was no time to share this story with anyone right away since it happened right before the concert, so Sayu didn’t know what to do with herself while she was still trying to process this explosion of cuteness. Some days later she finally got to relay the episode to Oda-chan, and Sayu says it felt really good to get it off her chest at last. Oda-chan, too, was touched by how cute Maria-chan is, and she revelead that Maria-chan often talks about how she likes Sayu even when she isn’t present. Hearing this obviously made Sayu even happier.

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Sayu begins by talking about Morning Musume’s recent Mezamashi Live performance.

During the event, they performed her debut song “Shabondama,” exactly 11 years to the day after it was first released. Sayu says she felt really nervous about it — so much so, in fact, that she says the nervousness mixed with the heat nearly made her feel physically ill.

It’s customary at Mezamashi Live for the audience to get to watch the artists doing their rehearsals, too, and although it was originally their plan to do Shabondama without rehearsing it just to have it be more of a surprise for the audience, Sayu insisted on rehearsing it because she didn’t want to mess up the spoken word intro. But even though the audience knew they were going to perform the song, everyone still acted surprised during the actual performance and this made Sayu really happy — not to even mention everyone chanting the modified lyrics: “aisuru hito wa Sayumi dake.“

Song: Berryz Koubou – Tomodachi wa Tomodachi nan da!

Sayu no Kobeya
Letters from listeners

Fan mail #1: As is the trend lately, the listener asks how Sayu reacted to the news of Berryz Koubou’s upcoming indefinite hiatus.

Sayu was of course surprised when she heard the news. She says that while some might think that the members of Berryz might not really be all that close behind the scenes due to their varied personalities and characters, she assures the listeners that that is not at all the case: even after ten-plus years together, they’re always seen hanging out together, and Sayu suggests that they must have really deep connections with each other.

Sayu says she feels a mix of surprise as well as loneliness — Berryz Koubou has existed for nearly the entire time Sayu has been a member of Morning Musume, so them being there has always felt like an unchanging constant for her. To think that they won’t be there anymore after next spring feels really strange and unimaginable to Sayu. “What will Hello!Con without Berryz look like?“, she wonders aloud.

Lately, Sayu says she has especially felt the power of the group when listening to their song “Ai wa Itsumo Kimi no Naka ni.” She says that it’s such a cool, powerful song that it could only have been released by Berryz — and not Berryz two or five years from now, but the Berryz of right now. Sayu calls the song just amazing. Berryz have often been called “intense” or the “scary senpai” of H!P, but Sayu says this song takes it to a whole new dimension. She says she has been feeling this way ever since seeing them do the song in rehearsal, and looking back, she speculates that it may have been the result of them having talked about their hiatus and thus strengthening their unity.

Berryz has lots of songs that Sayu loves just as much as this one, and while it’s not like the songs themselves will disappear as you can still listen to them on CD and probably hear others perform them in H!P concerts, she does feel lonely that there probably won’t be many opportunities to hear the songs sung by Berryz themselves after next spring. Sayu says she’s looking forward to the remainder of Berryz’ activities together as a group.

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