New Year Special! Magazines: Rock and Read feat. Aoi from the GazettE

もう一度の皆様、
あけましておめでとうございます♪
(*´∀｀)o∠☆ﾟ+。*ﾟPAN!!★ﾟ+。*ﾟ
やった、2011年が来たぜッ！

Dear everyone at Mou Ichido,

Happy New Year! Finally year 2011 has arrived! Yay!

Hope everyone's enjoying the festive season, good food, parties and all that good stuff!

As a little something for everyone, I decided to translate the Rock & Read issue 04 featuring the great Aoi-sama (laughs). Um...I'm sorry was that too enthusiastic of me? Sorry-sorry ( ﾟ┌・・ ﾟ)

It's an older interview and I originally started translating it last year but lost the motivation to finish it. I was cleaning out my files when found it, and I was really disgusted at how poorly I had translated it. Therefore I'm giving it another go!

This interview is a personal favourite of mine and it really tells you a lot about Aoi and what kind of kid he was back then. It's quite a long interview, so I'm splitting it in parts, this will be the first part of many other parts to come.

Alright I won't bore you with my babble any longer, I bet you all are dying to read it ( ＾∀＾ )

On with the interview!

Enjoy♪


Part I

(A) for Aoi
(I) for Interviewer

Hating to lose

Baseball, kendo, soccer, bike racing, surfing…

Based on Aoi’s calm present appearance, it’s hard to imagine that he was a very active teenager.

Not wanting to lose to others, he put his whole heart into striving to be the top of what he did.

The kinds of things that Aoi wanted to do was play guitar and to meet a band that he will follow for half a life time.


But nothing much has changed. Aoi still hates it if he's not good at the things he wants to be good at and still doesn't want to lose to other people. On a personal level, there's the impression of Aoi being the most sensitive person in the GazettE.

I think that it could be the influence of the environment that Aoi was raised in.

To start off, let's ask how many people are in his family.

A: Dad, mom, older sister, older brother and then me.

I: You're the youngest? Oh~I wasn't expecting that!

A: Yup, and everyone in the band is the youngest child in their family. We're like the “baby” of the family group (laughs)

I: I didn't know that! What does kind of job does your dad do?

A: He's just a typical salary-man and my mom also worked part time...so we're a typical ordinary family.

I: What's the age gap between your older sister and older brother?

A: There's quite a gap between us. My sister is 10 years older and my brother is 6 years older. It was like by the time I was a kid they were already much older.

I: With siblings of an age gap that big, don't you get more attention and babied more by everyone?

A: It depends, kind of like a day-to-day basis type of situation. When they weren't nice to me, then they absolutely weren't, but when they were, they were really nice to me--that sort of a situation.

I: Since you and your sister are 10 years apart, didn't it feel like she was your second mom?

A: She does! I mean, even until today she still talks about changing my diapers. Also, I used to tag along when she went out on dates. Since she was still a high school student during that time, the grannies in her boyfriend's neighbourhood said things like “Oh my god! She has a kid already!?”. I guess I've left that kind of impression.

I: Did you tag along intentionally?

A: Yup

I: You really liked your sister didn’t you?

A: No, not really, it was more like I wanted to go to her boyfriend’s house. Since it wasn’t my own home, I was really curious and there were a lot of things there.

I: Well speaking of that, where were you born and raised?

A: That would be a town along the coastlines of Mie Prefecture. A fishing village! Yup, that's the kind of place I'm from.  I wanted to leave my hometown from early on, but the timing was never right...and so I lived there till I was about 20 years old.

I: How did you spend your time in your hometown as a kid?

A: I played a lot outside when I was little, I started swimming around April.

I: It seems quite cold during April in Mie.

A: It was pretty cold but it didn't matter (laughs)

I: You had a lot of energy then (laughs)

A: Yes, I did (laughs). Anyways, I played a lot at the sea and also went fishing. Actually you're not supposed to hang around the tetra pods but I did it anyways...up to middle school I kept hanging out by the sea (laughs). That's why for afternoon snacks I inevitably had seafood. After coming back home from school, I'd change into my swimming trunks and would go swimming in the sea with everyone. We also did things like catch turban shells and sea urchins then climbed onto the tetra pods and opened them for our afternoon snacks.

I: What about sashimi!?

A: Ah, we ate sashimi as it was. (laughs)

Manager: No way! You're lying!

A: I'm not! It's the truth!

Manager: But afternoon snacks are things that your mom prepares for you right?

A: No~snacks are hard to come by! That's why if there were snacks like cakes in my house the immediate reaction would be “There are cakes in the house!?”, yeah that sort of thing would only happen in the world of Doraemon. I'm serious here!

I: Your afternoon snacks are the seafood you caught yourself then (laughs)

A: Yes! And so that makes me the best skin diver[*] in the visual kei industry, don't you think?

[*] Skin diving! I guess this is how Aoi might look like? (●´艸｀)

(Bursts out laughing)

A: Seriously! I'm confident in my skin diving! You have to get in through the gaps of the rocks when collecting turban shells, and then you have to push out through the seaweed after that to get out of the gaps!
I tried to compete with everyone. I brought those orange nets with me, and put the turban shells and sea urchins I collected into the net. The old gramps and grannies there used leftover nets fishermen used to make their bags. I was envious because theirs was in the shape of a hand pouch (laughs). I remember saying things like “I want something like that!” (laughs)

[End Part I]

That's it for part 1! I hope you guys liked it!

So all you Aoi fans out there, what do you think of Aoi as a kid?

Please share your thoughts with us in the comment section! Stay tuned for more!

Posted in: 2011,Magazines,rock,RockandRead,the GazettE