7 comments on “Morning Musume 20th Anniversary Official Book Interviews: Yasuda Kei

  1. “Even at the auditions when he saw me come in with blond highlights, colored contacts, and in full, aggressive gyaru fashion, he told me: “oh, you’re the type that people like to use as their stepping stone.” I still don’t know what he meant by that, but he’s someone who excels in seeing through people. I’m sure he saw something deep inside of me.”

    It must be that she was desperate to please and had very apparent self-esteem issues that she was unable to conceal as well as the others (if they had them at all: Nacchi…).

    Looking at that last solo pic in the article with the headphones, she is a real knockout and yet, next to all the other members she somehow looked the ugly duckling; must’ve been her personality distorting the features or something. She was always game to be knocked down a peg or two.

    Some of the strongest people seem to be the most self-flagellating, like having all that armor means they just wanna throw themselves onto the battering ram for the hell of it.

    thanks henkka

    • Well, maybe her features were “distorted” by her personality but Kei’s face has also physically changed a bit since those days, and now she takes better hairstyle decisions so that helps.

  2. I have mad respect for Kei-chan, you could see in her face that she was always trying very hard. She’s was also the butt of many jokes and always took it like a champ.

    *flying sweat*

  3. Yasuda was the first girl I noticed when I got into Morning Musume. She drew me in and I’ve been a fan ever since. There isn’t much interview material out there about her so this was fun to read.

    Thanks for translating this henkka!

  4. Kei is one of my all-time favorite members, because even though she was never the best at any one thing, she did everything better than average. Her appearances on Utaban were legendary.

  5. Yasuda never gets credit for being the ‘gross’, bullied character. Back then NOBODY wanted that role, no idol wanted to be called disgusting or gross or have people scream when she tried to act cute. The only other mainstream idol to perfect it was Sasshi before her election win and that’s because Yasuda paved the way.

    Also: I absolutely respect 1st-4th gen MM for working so damn hard. Not only on their performance skills but their variety skills and their characters, that gets glossed over. Sure, they had the advantage of being brought up in the golden age of comedy when Downtown, Tunnels and Shimura Ken were dominating the airwaves but they were *pushed* to be better on TV. Having a hit song wasn’t enough, they had to be a hit on TV too so they’d be asked again. That’s why they were on Utaban virtually every week. That’s something current H!P can work on. If you can’t beat them on the music charts, do it through TV.

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