Yamamoto Sayaka and Watanabe Miyuki portray the characters“Antonio” and “Kobii.” How do the Top 2 of Majijo’s rival school, Gekioko HighSchool, view each other?
- Watanabe Miyuki’s LOVE Shape -
“Sayaka-chan is a bit like Antonio, but I mean it in a good way. She never loses her head and is always cooland composed, and that’s why she’s very dependable. Just like how Antonio unifies all of the very different Gekioko members in the drama, the real Sayaka-chan is the tie that firmly holds NMB48 together. She’s so cool!”
- Yamamoto Sayaka’s LOVE Shape -
“Back when I first heard about the drama’s cast, I wondered if it was really all right to have a yankee with Milky’s cute character. But now I’m really into the way she hits people with a smile. I mean, attacking despite the delicate atmosphere...that kind of gap is pretty moe.”
(Translation continued beneath the cut)
Yamamoto At first I expected that Antonio would bemade fun of for her chin. I thought I’d be hearing things like “shakure” (crookedchin) and “furansupan” (French baguette).
Watanabe My character is called Kobii (derived from kobiru[v. to kiss up, flatter])! According to Akimoto-sensei, it’s because I “havethe eyes of a kiss-up.” Isn’t that kind of rude? (laughs)
Yamamoto Doesn’t really sound yankee-like, does it?
Watanabe Even“Antonio” has kind of a cute ring to it. The real Antonio is scary, though.
Yamamoto I wonder how people perceive Antonio. Since she’s the president, she has to seem dignified. Staff members tell me to be a little more adult-like than a typical yankee to show that she’s a truly scary person.
Watanabe No problem. That’s pretty close to how you usually are anyway (laughs).
Yamamoto What’s that supposed to mean? (laughs)
Watanabe You give off the air of a boss, I guess.
Yamamoto But even you can be scary sometimes, too.
Watanabe No way! Like when?
Yamamoto Whenever you really get into a song during a live, the way your eyes convey your emotions is unbelievably powerful. Like, “Hey, is she glaring at the audience?”(laughs)
Watanabe I guess I don’t realize when that happens. Up until now I’ve played a lot of roles that help me make the most of my usual character, so now that I’m playing a strong vice-president, I’ve been thinking that I need to bring out my inner scariness.
Yamamoto And you are. When I see Kobii attack people while wearing that smile of hers I think to myself, “It would be scary to get on her bad side!” (laughs)
Watanabe I guess that’s a good thing (laughs). Ideally, I’d like to portray Kobii in such a fearsome way that when fans see me at lives and handshake events they think things like, “There’s that whole other side to her hidden behind that smile! ?”
Yamamoto The members who played in the prior seasons were all really cool and there was such a wide variety of characters. We’ve got to try our best so we don’t lose to them.
Watanabe We won’t lose...if it’s you and me we’re not going to lose to those two Majijo girls (Sakura and Salt). Sakura-tan even said, “Your Kansai dialect is really scary.” (laughs)