— I’ve heard so much about you from Lily Franky, who helped organize Sharan Q’s concerts.
Tsunku♂: Lily is the first celebrity I met after moving to Tokyo. Well, I don’t know if celebrity is the right word to describe him, but he was the only person I could depend upon. He was like my life coach. Lily Franky was the one person who would listen to whatever was on my mind.
— Lily’s told me you’d force him to watch Minami-Aoyama Shoujo Kagekidan‘s videos with you.
Tsunku♂: That’s right. (laughs) He liked idols, too, but mostly just the older ones. So I’d show him those videos and be all, “you have to get to know some of these newer idols, too!“
— Later on, you had Canary Club and Tokito Ami cover their song “SWEET & TOUGHNESS.” What made you get into that group in the first place?
Tsunku♂: Not to sound like the lyrics of “Single Bed,” but at the time I was really actively trying to resist being exposed to society’s trends. Before we made it big, I never watched TV, never listened to the radio, and whenever I happened to hear a song that was popular those days, it made me so annoyed. Like, “why is crap like this popular?!” Anyway, our record label, BMG Victor, ended up merging with Fun House, Nanshou’s (Minami-Aoyama Shoujo Kagekidan) record label. They had a bunch of samplers laying around so I just grabbed one, not thinking about it. I checked it out without knowing what I was even looking at, and I just got so hooked. It was something even Nanshou themselves were saying back then: “we have cute girls, but we also have ugly girls!” There was something so funny to me about that balance of the group. I thought that was pretty groundbreaking for an idol group. The group had members that made you think they’d be much better off without them!
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