On the bayfm radio program “Tonight, Under Sakura’s Tree” (every Wednesday from 24:00 to 24:30), broadcast on September 16, 2020 (Wednesday).
IZ*ONE’s Miyawaki Sakura talked about her unit with Kwon Eunbi, which she performed at the online concert on the 13th.
Miyawaki Sakura: Well, the recording is on September 6th, so… by the time it airs, the “online concert” will be over, but it’s not over yet. For me now.
So I don’t know how to express my thoughts…
I’ll tell you a little bit, but… it’s a “unit”.
As a unit, I’m going to cover “Monster” with Eunbi.
…Well, I think you all already know because you’ve seen it (laughs).
I haven’t done it yet, so… I can only give a brief impression.
We’re currently in the middle of practicing, but the members decided on this unit among themselves. We discussed it together as a group, so it wasn’t like the staff said “do this,” but rather we all discussed it together and decided on the concept we wanted to go for.
For example, Chaeyoung’s team might have a team that wanted to “show off some amazing dancing,” or Wonyoung and others might have a team that wanted to “show off a cute side.”
So, for me, Eunbi said, “I want to show someone who’s really strong and cool, but also feminine,” and I thought, “That’s a great concept,” so I decided to go with Eunbi.
From there, we decided on various things to do, and the other members might join in or not… but in the end, we decided to “do it just the two of us,” so we both said, “We’d like to try our hand at ‘Monster,'” and we covered “Monster.”
What really got me excited was that the choreographer for “Monster” is actually the same person who created the choreography for IZ*ONE’s songs “Sunflower” and “Step,” and I’ve met her before.
This time, that teacher taught us directly, and even the backup dancers behind us were the same ones who actually did it for “Monster”!
…Isn’t that amazing? I was like, “Huh?” I was so happy, like, “Is it really that good?” But on the other hand, there was a lot of burden and pressure to “really do it right”…well, I guess it was “pressure.”
Because, isn’t it just us who have “changed from the original”?
…That means we have to really do it well. It would really create a “difference in quality” just between us.
So the two of us practiced really hard…I went to Korea for the first time since we started practicing for “Monster”. My body was so sore that I was like, “Oh, I can’t get up anymore…” and it was really tough, but we worked so hard…
I’d be happy if everyone was happy with it and it was well received, so…what do you think?
Everyone. What do you think of future me?