On the bayfm radio program “Tonight, Under Sakura’s Tree” (every Wednesday from 24:00 to 24:30), broadcast on Wednesday, March 4, 2020.
IZ*ONE’s Miyawaki Sakura shared her thoughts after “ONEIRIC DIARY DIGITAL SHOWCASE IN JAPAN”.
About the MC at “DIGITAL SHOWCASE IN JAPAN”
Miyawaki Sakura: Since it was “DIGITAL SHOWCASE IN JAPAN”, the MC was entirely in Japanese. Nako and Yena were the MCs… but, well, this was decided by the staff. Yena was really saying “This is bad, what should I do?” (laughs). And she was like that all the time. Even in the dressing room, I saw her reading the script together with Nako and practicing, and I thought “She’s so cute.” She really worked really hard.
…But wasn’t she good? I thought she was really good.
Also, I thought Chaewon’s Japanese has improved a lot. Of course, that’s true for the members who were already good at Japanese, but I thought Chaewon has really improved this time, including her Japanese intonation and vocabulary. Also, this time, there was no MC to translate, right? So the Japanese members managed to proceed while following each other.
Thoughts after this event
Miyawaki Sakura: It’s been a while since we’ve had an event for “Japanese fans”… I myself can’t go back to Japan very often, and I haven’t seen my fans for about 9 or 10 months… I think the high-five in Nagoya was probably the last time we’ve seen each other in person. When you think about it, we haven’t really seen each other. Wow. What are you going to do? I miss you…
It’s been almost a year, isn’t it? Without meeting in person.
I’ve never met my fans in person for this long. Hmm…
Of course, even though we did the DIGITAL SHOWCASE… it was a lot of fun, and I was really happy to be able to show our current appearance to our Japanese fans, but I can’t help but feel that I wish we could be there in person.
I do feel lonely, and I’m worried that if we can’t meet in person, people will stop liking us… and I have a lot of thoughts.
So, WIZONE… we’ve been going through a lot of days where we can’t meet. If we didn’t have WIZONE… we wouldn’t have anyone. We can’t do without WIZ*ONE…
So, no matter how far apart we are… we’ve been going through a lot of days where we can’t meet at all, but we want to show WIZONE lots of images and lots of love through performances, radio, private emails, and so on. I would be happy if WIZONE continues to support us in return.
What Miyawaki Sakura wants to say as an idol and an otaku
Miyawaki Sakura: …Also, really. I feel like “how many times do I have to say this”, but we can’t meet in person… right now. But who would have predicted something like this?
Well, we are a group with a set “time”, aren’t we? You thought it was natural that we would be able to meet until that time. But I never imagined that we wouldn’t be able to meet… I think the fans probably thought they would be able to see each other for that period too, right?
So, I don’t know who said this… well, it’s a phrase you hear often, but “Don’t think that parents and idols will be there forever”, really.
You never know when your parents will… you know. You can’t rely on them forever, but you really don’t know how long idols will be around either. So “support them when you can” and “see them when you can”. These are words that I can truly say from the bottom of my heart as an otaku. As an idol… and I live as an otaku myself, I really think that “see them when you can” and “support them when you can” are things that can be truly said from the bottom of my heart when it comes to idols. I wanted to convey this again, especially in this situation.
So, fans, please repeat that.
“Support them when you can. Meet them when you can. Don’t think that parents and idols will be there forever.”
This is really it. This is really it. So meet them when you really can. If you think “Well… I’ll see you next time anyway,” you can’t see them now.
So as for concerts… if it’s really impossible, then there’s nothing we can do, but I definitely want to see them when we can, and I’d be happy if you could come when you can. This is what I really wanted to say.
This is what I’ve been trying to say on today’s radio up until now (laughs).