@MikuNYAPPY
hey i have that interview in english i found it at some anime site
here it is~
First off, what does your band's name mean? Who thought of it?
KANON: To tell you the truth, we wanted our name to be synonymous with a sort of crazy, anything-goes café. A café that doesn't really abide by the menu.
MIKU: Don't lie. It was just a hunch, wasn't it? [laughs]
KANON: [laughs] No, in reality, we wanted to have a name that could serve up a lot of different things, a unique place with some spice, where you can walk in and get anything, like sushi. And we wanted to have that same feeling with our band by being able to display all sorts of different musical styles. The one who actually came up with the name, though, was Bou.
BOU: I'm a fan of horse racing, and at the time there was one strong horse in Japan that I cheered for called Manhattan Café. But if we just called ourselves that, we thought it wouldn't be enough, so we researched some things and found the word ﾂ"anticﾂ" sort of fit what we wanted to do the best.
MIKU: We had plans to call ourselves ﾂ"Athletic Café,ﾂ" and we went to check the dictionary on precise meanings, and we saw ﾂ"anticﾂ" next to ﾂ"athleticﾂ" and we thought that fit better what we wanted to be.
How and when did you first form the band?
MIKU: I met them through an advertisement on an Internet message board that was looking for a visual kei guitar player. Some of the requirements were also to be like a MC for the band and make jokes. I didn't really want to be part of a hard-core visual kei band anyway, so I thought that this would be perfect.
So Bou and Kanon already knew each before that?
BOU: Once Miku joined us, we saw an advertisement for a recording contest, and Kanon called to enter us in it.
KANON: That was about spring of 2003
And the last to join was Teruki?
BOU: Yeah, that was just a little later. It will remain a mystery [laughs].
How did you come up with your stage names?
MIKU: I found my name from an idol magazine at Kanon's house. First off, let me just say I hate such magazines; they're nothing special to me, really. [laughter] But I was browsing through it, and I really wanted a name using hiragana. Idols usually have cute names, and I found one that I liked.
BOU: My name is from the word ﾂ"akan-bouﾂ" [baby] taken from any common story. I took the kanji ﾂ"Bouﾂ" from that word, because it sounded cute.
KANON: I took mine from a manga. [laughs] Many people think it's from the anime and manga Kanon, but it's actually from Maki Kusumoto's Kiss. The hero of that manga is a cool gothic band leader named Kanon, written in katakana.
MIKU
Real name:
Akiharu Tsukiyama
Born:
January 5, 1984
Position:
Vocalist
Hobbies:
Shopping & walking
Favorite anime:
I don't watch much anime lately, but I was a big fan of Dragonball. I used to read a lot of Shonen Jump when I was a kid.
You often flash the peace sign to fans and shout ﾂ"nyappyﾂ" during concerts. What does this mean?
MIKU: ﾂ"Nyappyﾂ" was something my friend used, and we kind of made a wager as to see who could make it popular first. I just used it in one of our performances and it just naturally took off from there. There's no special meaning behind it, but it's used usually in a positive way. Kind of like, today is a nyappy day. It's sort of interchangeable with happy or hello. But we kept using it and the meaning of it has evolved. How else is it used? Some of our fans say it to us after a show, like the Japanese ﾂ"otsukaresama,ﾂ" which means ﾂ"a job well done.ﾂ" Others say use it in a question to ask how the other person is doing, like, ﾂ"Nyappy?ﾂ" It's hard to define, but it's most often used as a casual greeting, kind of like ﾂ"How are you?ﾂ"
Like ﾂ"What's up?ﾂ"
MIKU: Yes, yes, that's it.ﾂ" What's up? How you doing?ﾂ" Like that.
You have some wicked dance moves. Who gets to come up with them?
MIKU: That's usually just me. I try to come up with whatever is easiest to perform on stage. I watch a lot of performances and just use and twist what I like from each.
Any example bands?
MIKU: Not bands, but Ayumi Hamasaki does a lot of cool things on stage.
On that note, your fans also perform elaborate dances during your concert. Where do they get these crazy dance moves?
MIKU: Ah, that's a sort of new domain of visual kei fandom by ﾂ"bangyaruﾂ" [groupies]. They have many different ways of getting into the music and a little sub-culture has evolved from that according to how they want to express themselves. For instance, some people say, ﾂ"Miku-samaﾂ" and spread their arms when they see us. I haven't seen it with any other visual kei bands. In fact, a lot of fans like to act dorky and do things that don't necessarily fit with the image of visual kei, and supposedly a lot of other bands look at our fans and think, ﾂ"Quit acting stupid.ﾂ" [laughter]
Who designs the choreography in your shows?
MIKU: Usually the staff and members of the band discuss what we want to do.
KANON: Everyone together. If we say we want to do something, the staff will see if it's possible or not.
Do you guys get to give a lot of input on your own clothes' fashion?
MIKU: We have a stylist who helps us. If we say we want to wear something, similarly the stylist will tell us if it's possible or not. For this interview, though, we just picked it out ourselves. [laughter]
Where do you usually go shopping?
MIKU: For clothes, usually Harajuku.
KANON
Real name:
Shinya Sano
Born:
July 5, 1984
Position:
Bass guitarist
Hobbies:
Shopping, playing games, watching anime
Favorite anime:
I really got into The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. Also, Higurashi no nakukoro ni. It's really very mysterious and complex.
Moving on to your music, you're popularly known as a ﾂ"visual-keiﾂ" band. Do you guys see yourselves as such?
MIKU: I think we're totally a visual kei band. But at the same time, we do a lot of different things that no other visual kei bands do. For example, visual kei bands are often really hard-core, or difficult to get close to, or have music that is extremely violent. But we've never thought that we have to be like that. We dance and have fun with our music, and if we want to have a kind of light and happy pop sound, we won't be boxed in by people's expectations of who we are.
What are some of your primary musical influences, both Japanese and foreign?
MIKU: I really like the group Kagerou. That was the first visual kei band I saw live, and I thought they were really cool.
KANON: I actually don't really have one.
MIKU: Eh? You wrote it on the website! [laughter]
KANON: [laughs] But I don't really have one now.
MIKU: Not now, he means when you were first starting out.
KANON: Hmmﾂ…Glay.
MIKU: You're lying! You used to be into that hard-core visual kei! [laughs]
KANON: Glay. L'Arc~en~Ciel. Plastic Tree. I started with those three.
MIKU: And [nu metal visual kei band] Baroque!
BOU: For me, it was Luna Sea. I saw them and thought, ﾂ"Wow, these guys are coolﾂ" and wanted to start my own band after that.
Is there a song you've heard that really left an impression with you?
KANON: I think Mr. Children's ﾂ"Innocent Workﾂ" stays with me to this day. I heard it when I was a kid, but I still remember it left a big impression with me.
MIKU: I'm loyal to Kagerou-san's ﾂ"Idol kurui no shinrigakuﾂ" [ﾂ"Crazy idol subconsciousnessﾂ"] I had no idea what visual kei was at the time, and I saw his promotional video from one of his performances, and there was such a strange mixture of sounds and dancing. It's really nasty and I felt kind of dirty after watching it. His dancing is really bizarre, almost grotesque, but I thought he was damn cool, and from that I really wanted to become a visual kei musician myself.
BOU: For me, it's B'z ﾂ"Yasei no Energy.ﾂ" When I first heard that song, by the end of it I was in tears. That was the first time I had ever cried when listening to a song. It's because of that, of course, that I remember it so fondly.
You mentioned in your concert that when you first started out, your true fans supported you. Since starting the band, when was a time that each of you felt that support the strongest?
MIKU: For our band, the fans are all quite different, and we've said that we have a strong bond with each fan that is more like a kind of friendship, rather than support. The letters we get or the fans we meet in stores are what gives me courage to go on stage. So when I'm down, just to think of these fans or to hear their words of support are enough to encourage me.
KANON: In the beginning, we actually had a lot of fans pretty quickly. But as we went on, we lost a lot of fans, and there was one point where we were performing at this little live house and there weren't very many people at all, and this was a real low point. But we thought, well, we'll just have to try this again one little step at a time. So when the time came for us to finally get back to a big arena and perform in front a big audience, I was pretty enthused.
BOU: Well, it's kind of like what Miku said at the concert and Kanon right now, but at the time we had to sort of realign our priorities and tell ourselves we've got to overcome this hurdle to get where we want to be. And it's this point right now where I feel very happy about how far we've come.
Miku, most of your songs are about love and modern life. Are these songs autobiographical or products of your imagination?
MIKU: A bit of both, really. There are experiences which I haven't really gone through but which still make up the content of our music. Those experiences might not necessarily be my own, but the thoughts involved in those situations are. I try to imagine how I would react in a certain situation, and make it clear for others to understand what I'm thinking. A lot of it has to do with expressing in words what I'm feeling at the moment.
Where do you see your music going, thematically?
MIKU: I'm always looking for new themes to write about. For this next year, I'm trying to find something to express about what I've experienced to people who might not be familiar with it. My area of expertise, so to speak. I don't know myself, so it's hard to describe right now.
Your band also shows a lot of musical range: rock, pop, heavy metal. Is there anything you want to experiment with in the future?
KANON: To be frank, I'd like to try out my hand at something like techno-pop.
MIKU: Oh, that sounds good. I like that.
KANON: That's the challenge I'd like to take on next. Lately, I've been listening to the Polysics and thought they were pretty interesting.
Is there a song of yours that is your favorite,?
MIKU: ﾂ"Tekesuta kousen.ﾂ" In that song, I felt we had finally found the dance-rock sound we were looking for. We often use the craziness of Harajuku as a theme or concept for our songs, and ﾂ"Tekesuta kousenﾂ" was the first song that really got us going in that direction. Also, in regards to lyrics, I always had freedom when it came to writing whatever I wanted, but it was that song which enabled me to express really what I meant to express so that fans could easily understand. It's a song that has a lot of weight for me, personally.
KANON: ﾂ"Maple Gunman.ﾂ" Through that song, I felt that my range of music, my limits, had expanded as a musician. I felt like I had found something new in my own music.
BOU: ﾂ"Maple Gunmanﾂ" for me, too. The guitar phrases from that point on totally changed for me as a guitarist. There's a sort of sound that's necessary for dance-rock, what we might call ﾂ"rhythm guitar,ﾂ" and I think we came very close to that sort of sound in that song. It was from that song I was able to really understand what phrases I wanted to do, sort of giving me more control over our music.
BOU
Real name:
Kazuhiro Saito
Born:
September 16, 1983
Position:
Guitarist
Hobbies:
Sleeping
Favorite anime:
Favorite anime: Recently, I've been watching Death Note late at night. I saw the movies, too.
Most of your fans are female. Any ideas as to why you're so popular with the ladies?
MIKU: [laughs] Again, this all comes with the visual kei territory. There aren't many male fans of visual kei music, so most of the people who go to concerts are naturally women. When I first got into visual kei music, I thought to myself, ﾂ"How is such a wonderful world possible?ﾂ" [laughter] If you grow out your hair and trim your eyebrows, you too will become popular. [laughter] There are ﾂ"bangyaruﾂ" who are into that style.
Have you had any memorable adventures while on tour?
MIKU: One of our first tours, ﾂ"Nyappy-go-Around,ﾂ" was very memorable for me because we performed at the Shibuya O-East [concert hall] and there was a DVD of it. I thought we were pretty pathetic at the performance, to be honest, and after watching the DVD I felt we had to change a lot of things. So on the ﾂ"Nyappy-go-Aroundﾂ" tour, we changed things little by little while watching the DVD. A tour is, after all, kind of like a club or team you're a part of and you work together to improve at it. I think from that tour we improved and corrected a lot of our weaknesses and discovered who we really were as a band.
KANON: When we went to
Kyoto, I visited Kiyomizu Temple. It was very nice. [laughter] I know it's just regular sightseeing, but sightseeing and getting to travel to many different places is a lot of fun, isn't it?
BOU: When on tour, there are places we go to for the first time, like Kagoshima in
Kyushu. In those cities or areas, the fans are waiting for us and it makes me really happy to meet many of them. That feeling of a ﾂ"touchdown,ﾂ" so to speak, is the best feeling on any tour.
Do you hope to have a U.S. tour one day?
ALL: Yes, definitely.
Where would you most like to play a concert?
MIKU: Finland. [laughter] No, I'm serious. The cosplayers in Finland are great. Very interesting. They got the poses for us all down, and the detail in their costumes is really dedicated. Kanon always does the same pose [becomes very serious and sits up straight] and in all the pictures the fans are doing that pose perfectly. I have a lot of photos of them.
KANON: Wasn't that Spain?
MIKU: Oh, right, it was. Never mind. Spain. [laughter]
KANON: For me, I'd really like to perform in my hometown on ﾂ"hatsuhinodeﾂ" [the sunrise of New Year's Day].
MIKU: But we can't this year since the cities we're heading to have already been decided.
BOU: My dream is to some day perform at the Japan Budoukan [concert hall]. It's a great privilege to rock out there.
Do you find the time for girlfriends?
ALL: No.
MIKU: We're pretty busy, so even if we have free time, that time is spent in practice.
TERUKI
Real name:
Teruki Nagata
Born:
December 8, 1980
Position:
Drummer
Hobbies:
Liquor and nature appreciation
Favorite anime:
Unknown
Didn't think so. How about pets?
MIKU: I used to have a hamster [named Milk], but [in English] ﾂ"hamster go to Heaven. Milkﾂ…is dead.ﾂ"
Did you get a new hamster?
MIKU: There is no replacement for Milk.
How about you two?
KANON: I don't have a pet, but a stray cat comes to my door a lot. I started feeding him one day when I saw him outside, and he just kept coming. He's both white and brown, so I named him Shirocha [ﾂ"shiroﾂ" meaning white and ﾂ"chairo,ﾂ" brown].
BOU: I have one pet [in English] ﾂ"Doguﾂ" in my house. He's a maltese, about six months old.
Lastly, since this interview will be viewed largely by English-speaking audiences, is there anything you'd like to say to your future U.S. fans?
KANON: I think Antic Café's music is really easy to listen to. Try and listen to it even as background music because I feel it's music that you can really chill to.
MIKU: I think foreign fashion is probably a little different from An Café's fashion, so if you think it might be fun to imitate and cosplay our style, by all means go right ahead because I think it'd be really cool and interesting.
BOU: Even if you can't understand Japanese, music is a medium that can communicate across language barriers, so please check us out. You might be surprised by what you find you understand about our music without words.