prettyprettyGANG
The greatest sense of living!
Translation by pretty pretty GANG
original: https://ototoy.jp/feature/2017111007
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3 PARTS INTERVIEW “7 CURRENT MEMBERS LOOK BACK AT GANG PARADE’S PROGRESS 2ND PART” & “Yui Ga Dokuson’s Fueled by Curry” vol.2″
The seven members idol group GANG PARADE (under, GANPARE). Since May 2017, with the indefinite trade with BiS between Kamiya Saki and Aya Eight Prince, the group is continuing activities with Aya as one of the 7 members. With this new formation they released their first album on 11/21. On 11/20 the live at Ebisu LIQUID ROOM had tickets sold out, the girls with promising growth’s past will be visited in this 3 part interview. Along that, the series with lamen’s reviews by Yui Ga Dokuson is renewed to curry in [Yui Ga Dokuson’s Fueled by Curry]!! Dokuson will seriously eat and make curry reports, and if she can’t complete the mission she’ll be immediately stoped!? Check the series along!!
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INTERVIEW: GANG PARADE
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GANG PARADE, idol group in WACK, the same agency as BiS and BiSH. On 11/20 their one man live at Ebisu LIQUID ROOM had tickets sold out quickly, the girls are ridding in the momentum. But so far their path hasn’t been easy. With 2 name changes, member’s withdrawal, Kamiya Saki’s hiatus, rental trades, etc, they surpassed many walls by persevering steadily. At OTOTOY, we’ll look back at the path with the current 7 members, publicizing their story in 3 parts. We don’t want to overlook GANPARE’s promising growth.
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Interview: Nishizawa Hiroo
Photo: Jumpei Yamada
FROM POP TO GANG PARADE (2015/12~2016/07)
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- The day after Kamiya Saki’s return, 12/8, the first POP single “Happy Lucky Kira Kira Lucky” was released. Starting as 5 members again, did the relation between the members changed?
Yamamachi Miki (under, Miki): When Saki-chan returned the mood was “Let’s work hard as 5 of us!” but this feeling didn’t last long… At first the fans were like “Kami Saki is back! Waa!” but from there it was a situation we couldn’t make things more exciting.
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- On 2016/03/14 at Shibuya Cyclone the 2n one man happened, on 03/15 the 2nd single “QUEEN OF POP” was released, the activities themselves were progressing steadily but it was a period you weren’t really riding the wave. With that, on 06/17 there was a second name change to “GANG PARADE”.
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Yumeno Yua (under, Yua): It was a good thing we started again as 5 members, but because we couldn’t ride on the momentum and it continued feeling ordinary, in order to cause an explosion Saki-chan and Watanabe-san talked. At that time we couldn’t build a relation with Watanabe-san, so Saki-chan became like the contact person so it wasn’t really surprising, POP is a hard word to do ego-search so I thought it might be a good thing.
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Furuki Satoshi (under, Furuki): That time we didn’t became news expect for “we’ll do a one man live” or single and album releases. With that we talked about wanting to create a topic, so the name change idea came. There was a talk about wanting to insert an “i” to the name like “BiS” but it didn’t came to that.
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Yua: “Even if we don’t forcibly insert the “i”, isn’t our own “color” is different?” so with that the name change to GANG PARADE was decided. After that when we were deciding on the fans name change one of the options was “kouseiin (members)” but Watanabe-san kept pushing “asobinin (party people)”. Until now we continued making opposition to Watanabe-san so we thought “shouldn’t we try to accept it?” and decided on “asobinin”.
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- By the way on the next month, 07/08, it was announced that BiS would be having new members auditions.
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Terashima Yuuka (under, Yuuka): Finally, we appeared (laughs).
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Aya Eight Prince: (laughs)
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- Among the topic of BiS being born again, on 07/18 you had your 3rd one man live at Shibuya WWW, during the encore the 5 of you appeared in bikinis and it became a topic even in SNS.
Coco Partin Coco (under: Coco): That, I saw it! I magnified the photo and saw it! “The abs are great!”
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Miki: Ah that’s nostalgic (laughs).
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- After thinking that with the success of WWW I thought GANPARE would keep rising, on 07/20 was announced that Shigusawa Ao’s withdrawal. That time how was the atmosphere?
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Yua: It was Saki-chan vs 4 of us.
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Everyone: Eeh!
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Yua: 4 of us were like “There’s no need be captured by Ao quitting, but let’s do the lives we can do as 5”. On the other hand Saki-chan was like “Quitting is quitting”. We kept disagreeing often even before lives…
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Yui Ga Dockson: (under, Dockson): Something like “there’s no need to give the spotlight to the person leaving?”
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Coco: I really understand both views!
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Yua: Surely I understand what Saki-chan was saying but, it was our comrade who was with us for more than 1 year. There was this time Saki-chan called all of us outside the waiting room and we started talking. Because it was a place authorized people could pass, there was this bad atmosphere of “GANPARE is doing something again…”
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- In the middle of that the 1st single after the name change “WE ARE the IDOL” was released.
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Yua: It’s complicated ‘cause when I wrote this lyrics I didn’t knew about Ao’s retirement, I wrote trying to convey the feeling of working hard from now on as 5. I think it was hard because the fans knew about the withdrawal in the same timing as the release.
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Coco: You don’t know where to rely on. I think the asobinin who overcame that are incredible.
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Dockson: It’s sad you so you can’t empathize with the song honestly.
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SAVIOUR CAN MAIKA ADMISSION (2016/08~2016/10)
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- On 08/07 during <TOKYO IDOL FESTIVAL 2016> stage Shigusawa Ao retired, the day after you started as 4. That time, with what feeling did you take action?
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Yua: The audition was decided, a new member were going to join, I think it was a positive feeling of working hard as 4.
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- The one who applied and won the acceptance was (Can) Maika-chan. Why did you think about applying for GANG PARADE audition?
Can Maika (under, Maika): Back then I was a NEET without any activities but, I was cut in the last stage of another idol audition. Until then I didn’t had any activities other than entertainment industry so, as I thought, I want to sing and dance so I talked to my dad, he is a kenkyuuin and had put an immense faith in Watanabe-san, he advised me to apply for GANG PARDE so I did.
- This time there were a lot of complicated happenings, but from the time Maika-chan auditioned until her debut there was the debut and disbandment of BiS official rival unit SiS.
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Coco: That’s amazing!! It was decided we would join GANPARE on 09/28. At first it was supposed to be GANPARE 5 members and former SiS 4 members so I thought it would be a large family of 9 members but, one from each group ended up quitting (bitter smile).
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- 10/01, it was announced Inukai Maaya’s withdrawal. Despite being before Maika-chan’s debut the situation changed, I think it was a hard period.
Maika: In the way back home from my first interview with OTOTOY, I was told to go to the agency, there they told me Inukai-san would quit… Because it was right after I said in the interview “I want to work hard as 5 members” I didn’t know what to think and there was no time to think. I had to learn all the moves until the debut live, I don’t have much memory from that time. In any case I was nervous every day. I practiced until late at night, I was sleepy but I couldn’t say I was sleepy, I couldn’t rest… I spoke using honorifics, like that.
Yua: Because we had activities as 3 members before Maika joined, after events during night practice we would say “we’ll take a 30 minutes break,
Maika can go rest too”, but she would say alone watching videos, her fighting spirit was amazing.
Miki: During the 3 members formation too, Maika would stay in the back dancing. On the other hand we were worried like “is this alright?”.
Maika: When my first recording ended after I went home I had urticaria on my whole body, my face had become swollen I wondered what to do. Really every day I was nervous.
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- That time, Saki-chan, Yua-chan, Miki-chan did lives too but, the live with the feeling of breaking trough was impressive.
Miki: There was no way but do it. If we wasn’t serious one day after another I thought we could be told we would disband.
Yua: On the other hand I was happy we weren’t told we would disband, I thought we could still continue. If even 1 out of 3 had said they wanted to quit it would become a minus feeling and that time the group would be over, because all 3 knew that I think the thought of “Let’s do it!” was strong.
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- I wonder with what feeling did Maika-chan joined GANPARE during this situation.
Maika: I thought I couldn’t destroy this feeling, I thought I had to run after the 3 of them so every day I was desperate. Before the debut live, I knew the former 3 SiS members would join, that too was complicated.
Miki: Us too, we knew about the former 3 SiS members joining on September around 4am when we were taking the new art photo. Yua started to cry aloud, inside the car I sobbed all the time.
Yua: Because I thought that after Maika joined we would start for the last time as 4 members, why did 2 or 3 days later new people would join… I was frustrated, Maika joined after taking the audition but, the other 3 didn’t took GANPARE’s audition. I thought why people who wanted to be in BiS will join GANPARE, it felt like my territory was being invaded. That time I thought why only GANPARE has to be destroyed like that?
Yuuka: The 3 of us too heard Yua-chan was crying but, even if we were sorry, we ourselve were desperate… It was hard…
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-On 10/2, the Nagoya live, during Tokyo/Nagoya/Osaka first one man live tour <Barely Last TOUR>, was Can Maika’s debut live. With intense dancing and despite the formation, all songs were performed, SNS was overflowed with the positive topic of “The savior appeared!”
Miki: That time was incredible. If we did ego-search it was greatly written “it’s the savior!”.
Yuuka: The 3 of us (former SiS members) were rattled.
Coco: It was like “she is cute, can do the Y balance, just wait a second!?”. The reputation among fans were also good.
Yuuka: We took a screenshot and magnified Maika’s face.
Maika: That’s funny (laughs).
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FORMER SiS 3 MEMBERS ADMISSION, 7 MEMBERS FORMATION (2016/11~2016/12)
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- (laughs) The activities with 4 members after the brilliant debut of Maika-chan started, on 11/9 the 2nd album “Barely Last” was released, on 11/13 at Shinjuku BLAZE the debut live of the 7 member formation took place. In order to the scattered sentiments to become one, how did you face it the one man live?
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Dockson: We did nothing but practice.
Yuuka: We were desperate at practice, there wasn’t any time to properly talk.
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Miki: Yua and I knew how hard it was because we also started from 0 but, I thought it was really bad 'cause they had 1 month to get to a state they could show the fans. The 3 of them would watch reference videos and remember the dance but, because they didn’t know how to remember they were justsomehow doing it.
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Coco: Maika did dance since she was little so just by seeing the videos she could grasp the essential points but, none of us had ever done it so we did movements in a vague way. But that time the schedule was nothing but practice.
Miki: Practice at night, sleep in the morning, go to practice again… it was a repetition of that.
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Maika: Honestly, one of the good things about GANPARE is the all together dance, so I was reluctant and worried they would break that (laughs).
Yua: Because Maika could remember, she thought too much about that.
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Maika: Because it’s now I can say it but, honestly I thought “don’t take it lightly” (laughs).
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Yuuka: We ourselves thought “Aren’t we dancing?”. But it wasn’t anything like that (laughs).
- Nonetheless, the debut live you desperate practiced for, it felt like the asobinin really accepted you.
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Dockson: Like Maika said, inside WACK GANPARE is the group with the highest dance quality, because there are a lot of people who watch because of that, it’s really terrible to watch that time video footage. That time I was happy the asobinin accepted us but, I thought we had to work even more and more.
- On 12/3~4 a marathon showdown between the members was hold. Between Tokyo~Atami, around 200km, Kamiya Saki alone 200km, everyone but Kamiya would share 200km, it was an opposition battle but, in the end, the returning path happened with all 7 members reaching the goal, accomplishing the race.
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Yua: We also performed with all our might at Shinjuku BLAZE as a 3 members, it turned into a positive feeling of from now on we will go as 7 members but, specially me I’m shy, before the marathon I didn’t knew the distance between myself and the 3 of them. At the marathon it was the first time I properly talked to everyone. It was a situation in which even if 1 member was running there was another one running along filming it so it as a 2 members system, I was really happy I could learn about the partner during that, I think it was good.
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Dockson: It was a marathon in which bonds were born.
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Coco: Can I say one thing? During the marathon, I thought it would be a time in which would be 1 vs 6. It’s really frankly but, for a moment Saki-chan was overdoing it (laughs). There was a live on the next day but, because we returned in the morning of the live, everyone’s body condition was completely done. Saki-chan is someone who already completed a marathon and performed a live so her power could do it but, at that it felt like 1 vs 6. Surely because we reached the goal as 7 of us our relation was deepened but, we didn’t become one. We were told by Watanabe-san it wasn’t actually really good. But, I think our feelings changed after the marathon. Saki-chan herself said that, after the marathon the member’s relation became better.
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- Saki-chan too could think about a lot of things doing the marathon.
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Yua: Until now I think it was like running in front of everyone but, even during practice she would check on everyone’s condition, it increased the number of things that felt that changed.
- On 12/27, GANG PARADE single “Plastic 2 Mercy” was released. At this timing releasing “Plastic 2 Mercy” as 7 members had a deep meaning, right?
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Coco: In such a meaning, it felt like we became one during the end of the year.
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Yuuka: Which reminds me, I had a fight with Dockson… (lauhgs).
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Dockson: Ahh, at the new years.
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- Fight?
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Miki: The 2 of them fought in Yokohama (lauhgs).
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Dockson: During the week of “Plastic 2 Mercy” release, from 12/23 until 1/3 we always did lives. Until then from Yuyu to me and from me to Yuyu, it didn’t felt like we understood each other, so we kept a distance in order to avoid fights.
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Yuuka: Until then even if we disagreed I thought I couldn’t talk about it but, one time I ended up flipping out. It was the first time I said everything I disliked to someone.
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Coco: In the backstage, in a waiting room with one parting curtain Yuyu started talking like “Buwaa”. Watanabe-san entered like “What!?” For the first time I saw someone who wouldn’t stop talking like that (laughs). Until then Yuyu feared confronting others, because we are new members we mustn’t disturb anything but, at that it felt like 2017 finally started.
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Yuuka: Even if I hated being bullied, because she hit a point I disliked, I crossed my limit (laughs).
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Dockson: We fought between the 1st and 2nd live but, I remember the 2nd part being a really good live.
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Yua: I clearly remember Watanabe-san saying “You, from the 1st day of 2017, what will you do like that!?” (laughs).
