Since I haven't seen anyone posting here on Tumblr about KENN's photobook much yet, I thought I'd write up a post to share what's inside and my personal fangirling thoughts and impressions, especially for those who might be thinking about buying it but haven’t just yet! I will be scanning it when I get the time, as well as translating the interviews, but that might have to wait a while because I'm currently drowning in uni work OTL
Anyway, first off the photobook itself is 3132 yen. There are no special tokutens or differences in price for different online stores which takes a lot of confusion out of buying it! If you live outside of Japan you'll need a proxy to buy it (edit: or as someone pointed out, it is available on CDJapan!), and of course the shipping price will depend on where you live (my preferred proxy is FromJapan). It also comes with a DVD which is about 10 minutes long - more on that later. Personally, I think it's a really decent price (minus the shipping orz)! The photobook is A4 size and 112 pages long so it's actually quite thick, and all printed on really nice paper as you'd expect. When I heard there would be a DVD included I thought that that might make it really expensive, but it didn't! ٩( ๑╹ ꇴ╹)۶ If there's one thing which I wish was included I wish it had a tokuten bromide included so I could stick it up on my desk and state at Kenn's pretty face whenever I'm studying lol
More on the different sections and some photos under the cut!
Okay, so the photobook is divided into seven main sections, one of which Kenn did with Toriumi Kousuke. For those who don't know Tori-san released his own photobook 'Tekitou' in May in which Kenn was the guest and so now Tori-san's returning the favour haha. The main theme for this photobook is 'an adult KENN' and a huge part of it is dedicated to Kenn's transformation and diet that he did with Tori-san, and so their section focuses on that.
I love this photo lmao. From what I glanced at the interview, Tori-san was the one who asked Kenn if he wanted to go on a diet with him sometime last year, and so both their photobooks ended up having a ‘before and after’ theme. In Kenn's case I think he says that he used to be really fit and in shape when he was doing musicals and stage plays, but since he stopped doing them he kinda got complacent and so used this chance to shape up and hence why this photobook is so full of half-naked shots of Kenn showing off his new bod (✧≖‿ゝ≖) But they both go into heaps of detail about their diet plans like eating lots of salads and staying away from junk food, and Kenn says that he goes on like 6 to 8km runs Σ（ﾟдﾟll） And man, that is super super impressive to me because my own main form of exercise is jogging/running but there’s no way in hell I can run that far yet OTL
“KENN’s diet meals report”. I SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN THIS SURPRISED THAT KENN’S PHOTOBOOK WOULD INCLUDE SOME PICTURES OF HIS FOOD LMAO
There are three “before and after” sections – the ‘before’ photos were all taken in November of last year, and the ‘after’ in May of this year. These are the ones which really show off just how much Kenn’s physique changed and how hard he really worked at his diet. And he. Looks. Amazing.
The first time I looked through this I was literally stopping after each page to give my heart a chance to recover because seriously, just how the hell can someone look this good?!? (/∇＼*)｡o○♡ The monochrome shots in particular are so asdhfghjklll to look at, and as someone who doesn’t have the most positive self-image, I’m so amazed that Kenn was confident enough to do these photos because like he’s seriously putting his self out there and not everyone has the self-confidence or self-esteem to do that. So I feel like not only is it great eye candy, but this photobook would also be great motivation for anyone wanting to get into shape too LOL. I mean, he went from being 70kg down to 58kg, which means he lost 12kg in LESS THAN A YEAR. Kenn please give me your self-drive to be able to do that????!
The other before and after shots section is less serious, as they’re centred on different clothing themes like denim, rock, etc., but they’re so adorable and fun to look at too haha. My personal favourite is this one!
The other main section which is what the behind the scenes DVD focuses on and is called, “One Night with KENN", which, yknow, interpret that as you will ( ≖‿≖) I absolutely LOVE this section. There are two parts – a night side and a morning side. The night side has photos of Kenn in various suits and I don’t know about everyone else, but I have such a thing for guys in suits, and guys who wear suits well. Kenn wears suits well. There’s a few shots in different locations (like a bathtub ( ≖‿≖) and with different props, and I don’t think I say this enough but Kenn really pulls off photoshoots well. He just looks so natural and effortless in all of them, whereas some other seiyuu I look at their photoshoots and sure they look nice, but you can tell they’re not that natural in them. Kenn just absolutely rocks photoshoots though, and even in these photos you can just feel his charisma and intensity flowing out from them.
The morning side photos are so cute – they’re of Kenn fooling around in bed, brushing his teeth, and IN THE SHOWER _(:3 」∠)_ And also a couple of him wearing glasses which I wish Kenn would do more often (╥ ╥) Hilariously, those megane shots have him reading a French newspaper upside down and I don’t know whether or not that was on purpose but in my head I can totally imagine Kenn being told to look like he was reading the newspaper seriously and him being an idiot and flipping it upside down on purpose ｡ﾟ(*´▽`*)ﾟ｡ Honestly though, can you imagine waking up to Kenn looking like that in the morning right next to you…? (╯≧∀≦)╯︵ ┻━┻
The last two sections are another interview and final message from Kenn! The interview is freaking long, I don’t even want to think about how long it’s going to take me to translate it at this stage TT.TT But Kenn’s message is just so sweet （人´∀`*）
“I am very happy when I’m able to help you become more positive even if it’s by just a little bit. To those who gave me this opportunity, Torumi-san, the staff, and above all, all of my fans, I give my thanks!!!”
Finally, the DVD! As I said before, it’s 10 minutes long, about half of which is behind the scenes of the night/morning side photoshoots, and the other half is an interview with Kenn where he answers some random questions. As always he was just all around being super cute when answering them (≧∀≦) One of them was: Which animal do you think you’re like? Kenn: *immediately* A dog. Next question: Why? Kenn: *pauses* Don’t I seem like a dog? *cue adorable laughter* An interesting one I thought was what word would you use to describe yourself? and Kenn answered ‘めんどくさい (troublesome)’ which has me wondering why he thinks that?? Oh, and when they asked what age he thinks of himself as at heart he went, “Eleven… maybe?!” Well, considering that when he turned 34 this year he said that he doesn’t feel like he’s 34 at all, I think that now answers my question of how old Kenn actually thinks he is (*≧▽≦)ﾉｼ)) Edit: I forgot to mention that if I had one issue with the DVD the background music is ridiculously loud for the first half, and although it's a pretty good bgm, I wish they lowered the volume for the music just a bit :/ But this is just me being super picky lmao
And that’s the end! Is it worth buying? If you’re a huge fan of Kenn like me then yes, I would absolutely say it is. As much as I like looking at photos online and appreciate the scans that other lovely fans do, there’s something about having a physical copy in your hands just like reading a book! In saying that though, normally whenever I buy something new I’ll show it off to my family which is what I did when I bought Kenn’s VAW! issue, but this one… Let’s just say I’m not so keen to let them flick through Kenn’s photobook and then go, “So yeah this is my favourite voice actor that I totally fell in love with for his voice and acting and has absolutely nothing to do with these half-naked photos of him.” Yeahhhh ._____. I really do have to say though that I do think this is the best that Kenn has ever looked. He is absolutely gorgeous in the entire photobook and I’ve never found him to be more physically attractive than ever before ( 。• ω • 。) I’m going to get around to scanning it when I can, but it’s definitely a must buy for any fan of Kenn’s out there!!
