I wonder how much further she can go?
You can hear the fanfare as if to drown out the anxiety of jumping into an unknown world.
The sky is opening up — it’s time to go.
She joined the group from the Sakamichi trainees and will start her activities as a 4th gen member in the Spring as “A New Hope”.
We’re bringing you the long-awaited first solo gravure!
Photos: Aoyama Yuki | Interview: Miyata Eiichiro
A bear appears
— Sato-san, you’re from Iwate Prefecture, what’s your hometown like?
Sato: Where I lived, there were many houses in the residential area, but my grandmother’s house was surrounded by mountains and rice paddies. My grandmother is from a farming family, so when I was little I used to get to ride the combine harvester to harvest rice.
— You seem to have grown up in an environment rich with nature.
Sato: When I was in primary school, I was very active and played outside in the snow. You could build a snow-hut or sled down the slope of a mountain.
— It’s snow country, isn’t it? Are you any good at winter sports?
Sato: I can’t ski. My specialty is sledding (laughs).
— Are you more of an indoors person?
Sato: I still like to go outside though. If I stay home all the time I would think, “What’s the matter with my day? I’m not sure what to do.” So I would go shopping with my mother, or walk to the convenience store and back.
— By the way, how long does it take to get to the nearest convenience store?
Sato: It’s a 20 minute walk.
— That’s quite a distance.
Sato: I needed the exercise. I would walk around getting the feeling that I wanted to lose weight.
— Do you often see wild animals around?
Sato: There are deer. I could see the deer from the balcony of my primary school.
— Do the deer come into the schoolyard?
Sato: There is a slope on the grounds on the side of the school and there’s a mountain, so I looked out the window during class and said, “Oh, there’s a deer” (laughs). There was a lot of faeces and stuff on the ground, so the athletic department seemed to have a hard time. Also bears……
— There are bears!?
Sato: When there are bears about, there is a broadcast of “Please be careful” over the public speaker system in the city.
— So there’s a warning.
Sato: When I was in primary school, there were bells at the school entrance that said, “Please put this on when you go home,” to ward off the bears.
— What do the locals do for fun?
Sato: I’d go to karaoke. Then go take purikura and have dinner…… and that’s it. (laughs)
— What if you wanted to go on a little outing?
Sato: People would go to Sendai for outings. But I don’t go there very often.
— Did you have a strong longing for the city?
Sato: Yes. I’ve always wanted to get away from the countryside and see a different world.
— You prepared your favourite book, “Ame no Ariruhi wa Koko ni Naiwa” (“I don’t go to school on rainy days”) as a prop for today’s shoot, and I understand that the main character of the story is a middle school girl who has difficulty with life at school. The book’s paper wrapping says, “To those who were not good at school.”
Sato: I borrowed it from the school library. But maybe it didn’t have the paper wrapping on it at the time.
— Did you go to school on rainy days?
Sato: I did. (laughs)
— Did you dislike going to school?
Sato: Hmmm, I liked studying. I didn’t dislike school though……
— Were you unable to fit in at school?
Sato: There was a time when that was the case. I wasn’t very good at adjusting to the class, so I used to read dictionaries during breaks. It was fun to put the sticker notes in the dictionary.
— Sticker notes in the dictionary?
Sato: There are words with meanings that are unexpected. I thought it would be interesting to find words that were different from what I thought they meant, and I’d put a sticker note on them.
— I’ve heard you’re a “science whiz” who is good at mathematics.
Sato: I did some programming and stuff in class. Making apps.
— That’s amazing! What kind of apps did you make?
Sato: When I was in 11th grade, I made an app to search for new products at convenience stores.
— You wanted to stay on top of what was new?
Sato: Yes (laughs). The app I created is an app where you can select a bread or a snack and the search will bring up a list of new products. Clicking on it will take you to the home page, or something like that. However, you have to register a product name such as “Milk France” in advance. So every time a new product was released, I had to rewrite the program myself, and that was a bit of a challenge. I think it would have been easier if I was a smart person, but I’m not that good, so I’m stuck with new products from circa 2018 (laughs).
— Were there a lot of otaku in your class?
Sato: There were a lot of people who liked animé and games.
— So you like the Sakamichi series. Were there any friends that you could get excited together with and talk about idols?
Sato: There weren’t any girls. But after I auditioned, there was a girl who said, “I’ve fallen in love with the Sakamichi series.” We always had lunch together, and she once gave me a coloured piece of paper. She had written, “The reason I was interested in the Sakamichi series was because I found out that Rika-chan was auditioning for it, so I decided to look into it. I’m sorry I lied to you about why I had fallen in love with Nokizaka46 until now, when I said that it wasn’t because of Rika-chan.” This made me happy.
— That girl is now into the fresh-faced Sato Rika now, isn’t she?
Sato: But now they say “Matsumura Sayuri-san is cute” or “Higashimura Mei-san is cute” (laughs).
Betting one’s life
— Have you always longed to be an idol?
Sato: Part of the reason I auditioned was because I genuinely liked the Sakamichi series, but I didn’t like myself, so I thought it would be a nice change.
— What did you not like about yourself?
Sato: I didn’t like the fact that I was negative, indecisive, lost in thought, and lacked self-confidence.
— Did you ever tell your family about your interest in idols?
Sato: I didn’t tell them at first. Ever since middle school, my parents would tell me, “Become a public servant in the future. Get a stable job.” But if I reached the 2nd stage of auditions, I’d have to go to Sendai so in that case I’d have to tell them. That’s why I would tell them, “It’s not serious,” and “I’m going to see cute people.” The dream was to become a public servant, but the thought of being an idol and the world of entertainment has always been a “dream of dreams.”
— Like a dream that can’t be attained in reality.
Sato: It was being realistic. Stability is important, I think (laughs).
— For such a person, I think it takes a lot of courage to partake in the auditions to become an idol.
Sato: I was hesitant to commit to it until the deadline day. But I thought that it’s really rare to be given such a chance. There will be people who want this chance but can’t. I thought it would be a good idea to give it a go if given the chance. Also, I had the opportunity to talk to a lot of different girls at auditions, and some were like, “I’m betting my life on this audition,” and some were like, “What will I do with my life when it’s gone?”
— They were all prepared for the audition, weren’t they?
Sato: When I saw these girls, I realised that it’s not every day that we are given this chance.
— You spent about a year after the auditions as a Sakamichi Kenshusei (trainee), what were your feelings during that time until you found out where you were being assigned?
Sato: What was going to happen to us now? There was this sense of anxiety and also wonder. There I was at home, and then there was me taking lessons in Tokyo, and it kept on going on like that.
— At that point, you would have felt that you hadn’t become an idol yet.
Sato: Not at all. Also, I felt sorry to many people. I felt sorry if I couldn’t do it even though the people from home were happy with my audition, and the people I was close with had made an album for me. Because it’s such a small world at home, even in a cake shop or in a hospital there would be, “Congratulations!” Because I didn’t know what kind of position I was in, I didn’t know if I should be happy about it……
— Did you ever consider going back to being a regular high school student?
Sato: There were so many people who watched my SHOWROOM, who loved me and who wanted to support me, but I wondered what would happen to them if I gave up my dream here…… so I decided I’d never give up.
— Did you develop a sense of camaraderie with the fellow trainees?
Sato: Yes. We all went to the Nogi Shrine together. I think the bond deepened since the lessons for our trainee concert tour.
— Who did you talk to most?
Sato: I could talk both deeply and otherwise with Masumoto Kira-chan.
— She was assigned to Keyakizaka46, wasn’t she?
Sato: The one and only; we were in the same high school age group. Our personalities are different, but we have a lot in common. Masumoto Kira-chan and I used to call each other often. We still keep in touch.
— How do you view the 11 members of the 4th gen who joined Nogizaka46 before you?
Sato: I didn’t get to see many music programs or magazines that everyone was on. But I would buy it (laughs). I just thought it was amazing to see them in action, but I felt like they were so far ahead of me.
— They’re in the same generation, but they seem like seniors?
Sato: For me, I consider them my seniors. But I thought it was kind of sweet of them to write about us in their blogs saying “I’m looking forward to them joining” or “I’m waiting for them”, even though the members who were assigned ahead of us have their own mixed feelings, of course. So, I thought, we shouldn’t be building walls forever either. It’s a difficult situation though.
— At first, there’d be some reservations.
Sato: During the live concerts, Kaki Haruka-chan came to talk to me though, and Kakehashi Sayaka-chan and Hayakawa Seira-chan came to visit me in my dressing room.
— What kind of activities would you like to do in the future?
Sato: I’d like to try my hand at the “Principal” stage play. Of course, I don’t have the confidence yet, but everyone else has experienced it before. If I can get past that, I think I’ll be able to proudly say “I’m Nogizaka46”. Even now, I feel very uncomfortable, as if I’m not the one saying “I’m Sato Rika from Nogizaka46” in the video. Even when I look at my own magazines, I wonder if it’s really me.
— I’ve heard that you have a “high sense of beauty”.
Sato: I like makeup and fashion. But everyone is beautiful, so I am afraid of that. I think I’m most like a country bumpkin. That’s why I think I need to raise my sense of beauty more in the future. I often lose my mirror and comb (laughs).
(Recorded in Tokyo, March 6th)
Sato Rika
Born on 9th August 2001, Iwate Prefecture. Is skilled at trumpet and has played for 7 years since 5th grade in primary school, is a real Swing Girl raised in the northern country. An honours science student who has also studied programming, has a personal best of 12 seconds for the 50 metre dash, but is a bit poor at physical exercise. Nickname is “Rika-chan”.
halcyon Translations 