In need of an answer.

[chela-ela.livejournal.com]

 Hello Everyone,

I was looking back at my Arashi stuff, and I remembered that Sho went to NYC. That feels like a long time ago. 

Well, my question was, did Sho say anything about his American fans on any of the shows, like when Nino went to Paris and talked about having a huge fanbase there?
I was really interested in trying to see if Sho had made any reference or acknowledgement to the fans that he has here in the states.

Thank you for your time in reading my post, and I am sorry in advance to the moderators if this post was excessive and not appropiate.

Comments

[yuliflor.livejournal.com]

The only thing I saw was when he was talking about the fans, well peoples reaction during the movie. He said that he heard ppl saying "Oh my god" n "Oh Jesus" while watching the movie lol.
Other than that I don't think he did. It would have been nice tho.
I would have love to hear him talk to the boys in either HnA or AnS about how everyone started singing A.RA.SHI. N how everyone did the hand movements n everything.
Oh well...

[chela-ela.livejournal.com]

thank you for the response, I agree too, i watched all the possible subbed episodes of all the shows they have to see if they had asked about Sho's trip to the US, but no luck. At times I feel that Johnny has a vendetta set out for us hahaha.

[zomboid.livejournal.com]

He spoke a lot about it on his H interview. I read it ages ago and I don't think anyone has translated it yet. Basically he's amazed that Arashi (and Japanese culture in general) has gained such popularity overseas. He also talked about all the random fans that he met/saw during the trip, like the girls at Times Square who spotted him, the bookstore girl who could sing Arashi songs better than him... and well I don't remember much anymore.

And on Vanilla Kibun, he says that Americans enjoy the movies in a very different way than Japanese. They get very into the movie and when he was watching Yatterman with the rest of the crowd, he said that he could over hear people going "OH MY GOD!" and "JESUS!" (I don't know how true that is but I was in the audience and I did say OMG a lot during the movie.)

[chela-ela.livejournal.com]

Ahhh, dope! He must have been really confused and shocked when he was in NYC and girls actually recognized who he was, I'm really happy that he was able to see a glimpse of the love that we have for Arashi and Japanese culture. Too bad I can't read the H interview of Vanilla Kibun, but thank you very much for giving me this info and for replying to my post!

[zomboid.livejournal.com]

Vanilla Kibun is the show he was on. H is a magazine he was on the cover of that did a special on the movement of "COOL JAPAN."

[mint-and-mocha.livejournal.com]

Oh wow, I didn't know about the contents of the H interview!

Thanks so much!!

[zomboid.livejournal.com]

Hopefully someone will translate it? It's kind of hard to translate though. The first part is just a break down of Sho's itinerary while he was in NYC (and it was jammed packed. He basically only had 8hrs of sleep time?) The second part is a one-on-one interview with Sho and he said some interesting things about the boom of Japanese popular culture in the west and how Arashi factored into it and how he was surprised that so many recognized him while he was in NYC.

It's a really insightful interview? At least from a sociological perspective... and he told funny stories about the different people that recognized him and how he reacted at the time. XD

[mint-and-mocha.livejournal.com]

It didn't really seem like he discussed his experiences with fans in NYC much, so I'm especially interested reading about it.

Also, because I was one of the girls who ran into him in Times Square, I'd love to know what his impression of being recognized in America was XP.

So, I hope someone translates it eventually!! But again thank you! I had actually already dled the article (because of the photoshoot) but I had no idea what the article contained until you mentioned it. I really appreciate it. XD

[yossiehitomi.livejournal.com]

It's been a while, but as far as I remember from being at the theater, Sho really didn't want to talk about Arashi. One girl asked if Arashi would ever perform in the US and he said something like that he was here for Yatterman, please focus on that and went on to the next question. Sho seemed to really want to be seen as an actor, not just as an idol and Arashi member. He did mention that he was going to talk to the other Arashi members about his experiences here, but that was about it.

I've only seen s few clips of him talking about the premier so I don't know for sure if he mentioned the American fans then, but he definitely saw the huge line of fans waiting to get into the theater and the enormous crowd he drew at Comic Con when the staff only expected probably 30 or so people to show. He knows that he has an amazingly huge fanbase here, which hopefully will prompt more appearances ^^

[chela-ela.livejournal.com]

Yeah I know that happened in NYC :/
He must have been ticked off a bit, but as a fan I can understand how some went crazy to ask that. Well hopefully he did talk to the members about his trip here. thank you for replying to my post :D

[pandagirl939.livejournal.com]

yeah i was in NYC too, and its not just one fan who asked about Arashi.
it was 2 or 3 and he was starting to get angry...
and the girl from Peru (who was really nice, i was in line next to her xD)
actually tried to give a gift to him in front of everyone.
and... it JE policy not to receive gifts.

So i hope we didn't make him tooo angry! >.<
but when Jun came here twice, he was really kind a polite to us. :D

[zomboid.livejournal.com]

It was also kind of rude to Takeshi Miike? Because he is a very well-known, big director in Japan and to waste questions like that just screams of immaturity and inability to follow the rules, especially when they told us over and over again not to ask questions like that. I know people really want Arashi to go to America (and I do too) but that just wasn't the place or the time for it.

As for Jun, I was there for his USC premiere, and the girls weren't much better either, but it was a more relaxed atmosphere because Yatterman was kind of a very huge production by Japanese standard and Jun's movie wasn't as big?

[iemkhaye.livejournal.com]

haha thanks for this answer.....it's like seeing the used-to-be grumpy Sho in that reply to whoever asked if they plan to have a concert here...

but hey he's really in NYC for Yattaman......and we all know how serious Sho looks at things =p.....such an adorkable person.

[rininjapan.livejournal.com]

I think Sho believes in "right place, right time". He's just...polite? Is that the right word? If everyone follows the rules of the moment then no one misses out and everyone has fun. Perhaps he felt happy for the Arashi fans but also felt bad because Miike was at his side and there were Miike fans in the audience too. When the situation gets like that, he can get annoyed, or so the infamous "Umbrella Reports" say. Good thing they weren't selling Yatter-Umbrellas.

[(Anonymous)]

i saw an interview of him with THE LUCKIEST GIRL ON PLANET EARTH at NYC Bookstore (BORDERS?) and he was really delighted to know she's a fan. The girl sang Arashi and then Truth (but it was not included, she wrote it in her sho!report). He was really charming with that girl. I was really jealous watching that clip XP but happy that Sho met a nice fan like that. The girl was calm and sweet too. I would've died XP

Can't remember when the interview was.. I found it at youtube but it has been deleted unfortunately. I don't remember the girl's lj username also... LUCKY GIRL

[shelketuesti.livejournal.com]

I guess that was from the NEWS ZERO NYCC Special? I remember this part of the interview was included there... Very lucky fangirl indeed, I liked her, she seemed to be nice (if YOU are reading this, hello there! XD)...

[dogangel22.livejournal.com]

loll you can send her a msg or something her lj is yuniesan

[shelketuesti.livejournal.com]

Hehe, thanks for pointing out, I already knew ^^

[godsgirl7.livejournal.com]

I heard nothing about it, and I was really paying attention. :/ I don't think he did, other than talking about how enthusiastic people were at the Yatterman premiere...

[live-amazin.livejournal.com]

I do think fans in general need to learn to respect idols as humans. We wouldn't like it if someone we are completely strangers to start being overly passionate? Sorry,I would really think its scary if you ask me. Based on the fan reports, I felt Sho was being put in a spot during his job. I mean who wouldn't feel angry with all the shouts etc? And we are all adults.

[rininjapan.livejournal.com]

Agreed. :D

Unfortunately it comes with the territory when you're an idol.

I agree with rininjapan!

[(Anonymous)]

It comes with the territory whenever you're someone who's popular and famous!

[musosuru.livejournal.com]

although i wanted to go to NYC to see Sho....i think that it was extremely rude to bring his other work into something completely different >< and i heard there was such a big crowd that a few people almost got hurt and crap...i mean, i dont want to diss anyone but it was rude to sho and miike >< they were there for the movie and not arashi, although the whole singing arashi and doing the actions let him know there was a fan base, so there was no need to keep asking whetehr they were coming or not as arashi and not as theselves...<<

and as much as id LOVE for them to have a concert here or in the US its a dim possibility, what with the tenetive fanbase in both countries...they can't know for certain whether it would be successful as they don't know the amount of fans here compared to Japan (or the rest of Asia)...theres no way they would risk it here or anywhere other then asia and, as much as im sure they appreciate overseas fans, they are definetly concentrating on their asian fans now >

[banana-babe-qt.livejournal.com]

As for the fans almost getting hurt in the crowds, that is totally true, HOWEVER, I am being 100% honest when saying the "crazy" fans who were pushing, shoving etc, were almost ALL Japanese fans that had come from Japan.. so yea, American fans were not as crazy as people are trying to make them out to be. Yea, they were excited and asked some questions that maybe could have been left out but can you blame them, they were excited! And I think Sho understood that ya know?

[annacamillex3.livejournal.com]

omg wut?! There were Japanese fans from Japan that came over?! And I agree, I think it's natural for Arashi fans to be really excited for Sho's visit and ask about Arashi (I would be surprised if there weren't any) But were the fans informed beforehand that they were not allowed to ask about Arashi? I wish I had been there :(