Sato Shiori - Nikkei Entertainment Interview 2017

A pessimistic art college student that transformed into an optimistic one... 

Because of her pessimistic thinking, Sato Shiori always experienced troubles since her debut, but she has been able to start thinking positively since 2017. The main factor of that transformation is the existence of one member.

Thanks to Fuuchan (Saito Fuyuka), I could change myself drastically. When we just started our debut, I was worried with such trivial things like “Why was I not called to magazine interview?” or “Why did I get that senbatsu position?”. Fuuchan ever said that me at that time has “super negative aura” (XD). My home and Fuuchan’s are on the same direction, we often come home together after the lesson ends, she often listens to my troubles. She always listens to it seriously and says “Nothing to be worried”, she always gives me positive words. Slow but sure, being together with her made me become more positive. My 2017 goal is “to live freely”, lately I always feels optimistic, it feels like an achievement to me.

During “National Arena Tour 2017” on August, I often shared a hotel room with Ozeki (Rika), we talked about many things. We shared about each other self-reflection, we also discussed about how to show more unity in the concert, we always discussed things until late. We’re already good friends, we’re close to each other. We’re similar in many things like our thinking and our anxious mind. We talked about many serious things at that time, I thought our friendship got much deeper. Since I was always with members almost everyday, I love Keyakizaka46 members even much more. I never experienced things like club training camp, so it’s my first experience always doing so many things together,  like moving together to one place to another everyday or just having lunch together, it was so fun. It’s often said that “the longer you being together with someone, the more you know their ugly side”, but I can’t find things like that, I just love them even more everyday.

We often say that it’s the busiest summer in our life. In our “National Arena Tour”, there is one act in the last day of Makuhari Messe that is so memorable to me. Before we performed “Fukyouwaon”, we did an act which we tore each other shirt apart. At the last part, I tore Techi’s shirt, it’s really important role. I was really enthusiastic “I’m gonna tear your shirt in cool way!”. We also performed the first song “Eccentric” with that shirt. Since we wore that shirt so many times, we couldn’t tear it on rehearsal, so we tore it as hard as we could on the real act. Then, I tried to tore Techi’s shirt off as hard as I could, but it wasn’t torn at all. “Ah, it’s game over” (XD). That day, I felt nothing but frustration.

Every single day, I myself decide to do anything perfectly until the end. It is called perfectionist, isn’t it? I’m a student of art college, I had so much troubles balancing my college life and Keyakizaka46. I did both things halfway, it feels like I have 2 consciousness. But, both are things that I started myself, I didn’t want to give them up halfway. Lately, I finally got used to that situation, I realized that both of them made good impact to me, so I want to do both things seriously. My magazine photoshoot job has increased, and thanks to that, I got interested in photography, so I recently started learning about camera on the college. Thanks to my major in graphic design, I was entrusted with the task of creating VJ video of “Bokutachi no Sensou” that displayed on the concert. Don’t you think it really fits me?

Also, on May this year, I was given the opportunity to participate in Lotte XYLITOL 20th Anniversary Project and to create the design of its gum bottle. When I asked the reason, they told me that I was chosen because I am active student of art college and my age is also 20 years old. I choosed this major because I want to work in design, so this opportunity gave me so much fresh feeling. I had read Imaizumi (Yui)’s interview on certain magazine, she said “The worth of my existence in this group is nothing but singing”, so I decided that the worth of my existence is art. I want to do more individual works in the future by making the best use of my art, so in the end everything I do will benefit Keyakizaka46.

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*Note: I’m not 100% sure with my translation, since I only found low resolution pictures, some kanji can’t be read (sigh)... and sorry for my bad english.