Inside Story: The making of the MV for Sekai ni wa Ai Shika nai

Translation of a major article from the September issue of Brody magazine. It describes the ideas of the director and choreographer about how to convey the song visually; reports events during the shooting; and conveys some comments from members of Keykizaka46, as well as the choreographer's impressions of members of the group.
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Keyakizaka46 -- Sekai ni wa Ai Shika Nai

Documenting the making of the MV

Our little magazine previously told the inside story of the making of the Silent Majority MV. When we found out that their second single, Sekai ni wa Ai Shika Nai, was going to be made on Hokkaido by the same staff, we flew right there. Based mainly on what we saw of the members and what we heard from the staff, we are now once again documenting the Keyaki revolution. We record the footprints of girls and staff as they conquer the pressure and soar over high hurdles.

With total coverage on the scene and interviews with staff, here is the reality of "the second wave of attack"

From Shibuya to Hokkaido
Wide grasslands and a high-speed drone

Despite being newcomers, Keyakizaka46 had a big hit with their first single, Silent Majority, which sold over 300,000 copies. The music video (MV) has gone over 22 million hits on YouTube (as of August 6th). Following the great success of the first, their second single, Sekai ni wa Ai Shika Nai, was released on August 10th.

The various new aspects of the first MV garnered a strong reaction from the idol world. Expectations for the second single rose irresistibly. There were worries that it might fall below expectations.


But Keyakizaka46 and the staff have easily cleared those high hurdles and have made a great song. It follows Silent Majority with a sound that is somehow plaintive, but it doesn't just have the girls' powerful singing, it also includes "poetry reading," something entirely new for an idol song. With regard to this, the chairman of Keyakizaka46's management committee, Konno Yoshio, explains: "We didn't know how to do the poetry reading. It got to the point that we actually had to go and ask. We went ahead according to direction from Akimoto-sensei himself."

As for the MV of a song into which this much effort had been put, Konno-san says: "The debut work got such good reviews that we were in no doubt about using the same choreographer and the same director." They made offers to world-renowned dancer Takahiro (Ueno Takahiro) and video director Ikeda Kazuma.

Ikeda: "Although I was delighted that the previous work became such a topic of discussion, that also brought pressure. We were going to continue in the direction of showing off the 'cool Keyakizaka46,' but in the preparatory meetings, the idea of wanting to make a 'youth drama' came up. We worried that presenting a drama within five minutes, while at the same time showing off the group's singing and dancing, was quite a high hurdle to clear.

"The most special aspect of this song was the poetry reading. Perhaps we could make that the point around which the MV was constructed, and show the drama without destroying the movement of the music. That was where we saw some light."

The previous work succeeded in establishing Keyakizaka46's stylish image by shooting the MV at a development site at Shibuya, in the heart of the capital. This time, Ikeda chose the broad grasslands at the Tomamaechou wind-generation facility in Hokkaido as their location. At first, Konno was not in favour. But Ikeda declared: "I have confidence in this." Eventually, the visual impact of the power-generation windmills ranged across the grasslands -- civilization coexisting with Nature -- and the symbolic value of the rows of windmills, something that couldn't be seen in the capital, led to the suggestion being accepted.

Ikeda: "For the image of the camera rushing in a whistling wind across the spaces between the members, we used a high-speed drone. We completely avoided any high-angle overview, shooting from a very low angle but at high speed, expressing the speed of the wind. We got the feeling of their skirts spreading out, etc., in that kind of shot.

"An expansive location overflowing with a feeling of freedom was essential. We wanted the girls to be standing in a formation about 100 metres across. When we were looking for that kind of location, the innumerable windmills standing here on the grasslands struck our eye. The scene on the grasslands was an image of a self bent over in depression being released from its shell.

"I wanted it to look like a daydream, in contrast to the realistic scenes in the school. I hoped the sight of the members performing would somehow miraculously combine with the giant inorganic windmills standing in rows in the midst of Nature. I was confident that we could create a wonderful scene that was not just refreshing but mysterious and very Keyakizaka46-like."

The team of TAKAHIRO (right) and Ikeda Kazuma (left) continued on from Silent Majority. It was impressive how their quick conferences, started at the word "cut," sublimated into the creation of a better work.

Konno brought up "animetic" as the keyword of this MV: "Director Ikeda skillfully created each image, one by one, using cuts to make it like a drama, producing something very much like contemporary anime."

Ikeda: "I wanted to shoot both the members and the scenery as being at a little distance from reality, to paint them as not too real. Less than as story, I based the approach on anime techniques of imagery and cutting. And overall I wanted there to be a feeling of too much information. Since most viewings would be on YouTube, I thought it would be best if there was too much there for the eye to follow in one viewing -- so that no matter how many times you watched it, there would be meaning there, and many things you suddenly noticed when you watched it again."

With the previous work, Takahiro explained his approach to the choreography by saying that he listened to the music, read the words until he really took them in, and then decided how best to embody the words and music with a high degree of purity. In Sekai ni wa Ai Shika nai, the main point was freeing oneself.

"The situation and vector of Silent Majority were different, but the common feature is 'oppression by adults' and the growth of opposition in a young person: 'creating and establishing a self.' And I think we should treasure what Keyakizaka46 can only show at this moment. The choreography this time concentrates on the feelings and world view of the story's protagonist, 'me.'  We should get some feeling of those from the movements." (Takahiro)

Takahiro speaks of all of the song's themes as being gathered together in the the poetry reading segments: "When I first heard and read the song, I was overwhelmed by the importance of the poetry reading parts and by the dramatic nature of the structure of the lyrics as a whole.

"The first poetry reading is especially important. This first little part, these few words -- when you get to the end of the song you realize that they were 'everything.' This is how it goes: the protagonist, 'me,' rushes headlong up onto a pedestrian overpass and stands there on tiptoe, stretching out her hands with all her might, as if to grasp the sky. This shows the strength of the protagonist's feelings, struggling against a heavy force binding and oppressing her as she wants to make 'something' (i.e., 'you') hers.

"At this point, great thunderclouds loom up before her eyes, and the cicadas all begin to cry. The huge clouds rub against the ground and the atmosphere, and lightning and rain begin to pour down from them. In other words, the clouds coming toward her are a problem for 'me'. But 'me' chooses not to run away. In that instant, it's as if the cicadas all crying together are the cry of his heart. Among the creatures called cicadas, it's only the males that cry. They gamble their lives on the chance of finding love.

"As they cry, it's as if the sun flinches for an instant, flashing in her eyes. Maybe this is just a trick of the summer sunlight. But the strong-willed 'me' crashes straight ahead, with a feeling of being able to shake everything absolutely. And at the same time she says: 'This complicated-seeming world is moved by a simple feeling.' 'Me' has confidence that the keyword for this world is 'love.'

"Like the wind blowing in the opening scene, this connects us to the singing. The thunderclouds, the sound of the cicadas, the poetry reading, etc., were actually the key to the creation of the whole drama. So I thought this part should be choreographed with a feeling like a student play. At the same time, I thought that the moment when love and the straight-ahead confidence of youth were born should be choreographed with a combination of 'beauty' and 'recklessness.'" (Takahiro)

Just as when we interviewed him last time, I was amazed at how Takahiro read the lyrics and just put the feelings from them straight into the choreography.

"I don't know whether this is the correct interpretation, but I'm confident that this is one correct interpretation. When I was conveying this to the members, we also discussed whether they had anything they wanted to convey. The presentation was set based on their understanding of 'me.' The expressions came from that." (Takahiro)


Continuing without a let-up
They practiced independently on many fronts

So the curtain was raised on two days of shooting: June 24th and 25th. Unlike the previous "documentary-like" work, this work began with the dramatic scenes.

Ikeda: "Normally in an MV, there is almost no direct visual reference to the lyrics. But in this case, we actively did that. We thought that the song and the lyrics at the poetry reading part should be presented straight. And the somewhat embarrassing youthful feeling should be shown right up front. It's good that we never went away from that."

Since the time four months before when the inexperienced members of Keyakizaka46 faced the challenge of their very first MV, they had become much stronger.

Takahiro: "They had grown amazingly. There's the saying: 'When you see a man after three days, observe him carefully.' I guess that goes for women, too. (laughs) There was a wall in front of them that they all simply had to get over, and they had something good that they wanted to express, so they put forth complete effort to get over it and crash forward. Sometimes tears flowed. When they didn't sing as they wanted, or couldn't express something, or didn't dance properly, many of them shed bitter tears. But the image of them getting to grips with things stays in my mind."

On the first day, they used an abandoned school for the shooting. They shot the dramatic parts in the school itself and the dance part in the gymnasium.

Ikeda: "The semi-darkness of the gymnasium and the realism of the classroom express the depressed and bowed-down nature of that world. But there is bright light outside the windows. I wanted to show that contrast."

Besides the dance scene in the gymnasium, they were able to get an unanticipated scene there: Hirate's scream at the beginning of the MV.

Ikeda: "Originally, we planned Hirate's scream to be in the middle of the choreography. There was no scream in the lyrics, but we thought that it would work well just with her expression. But when she did it in reality, with the camera motion and her screaming from the soul, it was an overwhelming performance. We had to get that in somehow. We recorded it with the mic on the guide camera [tr.: ?] and mixed it in. It gives you the shivers, doesn't it."

Takahiro: "While we were practicing the choreography, in order to get 'me's' feelings across more strongly, we had Hirate give us a scream at the beginning, and all the members give us one before the hook. In the MV, in the scene where everyone is running across the grasslands, we actually had a loud scream there. But this is a beautiful song, and the louder the scream, the more a heart-shaking part of the lyrics was covered up. I think this is a very deep part of the song."

There are many parts of the choreography this time that make a big impression. One of those is the movement at the end of the hook toward the word "identity."

Takahiro: "'Identity' is keeping a promise between 'you' and 'me.' And the lovely memory of when the two were joined as one and a rainbow appeared in the sky, although difficult to understand with the senses, gently creates a feeling in the heart."

And the performance with closed umbrellas in the gym made an impression, expressing the lyric "there was a day when I wanted to run without an umbrella." 

Takahiro: "When the thunderclouds approached, an adult would open their umbrella and run from the clouds. But 'me' chooses to throw away herumbrella and head straight for them. When she does that, a rainbow appears in the direction where the rain is ending. I think that in the moment of a human life, like the moment when the cicadas cry, someone of that age who believes in love could, in the heat of the moment, give that kind of dramatic performance with the umbrella. And the scene where they throw the umbrellas aside in the midst of the dance. That expresses the exhilarating purity of the protagonist's feelings.

"From a visual point of view, when they all threw their umbrellas away at the same time, it was a sort of unrealistic action. But later, when the dramatic miracle appears in the lyrics -- 'the moment I met you, a rainbow appeared in the sky' -- I hoped that it would make that easier to accept."

With this detailed plan for the choreography, it surprised me that Takahiro had nothing to say about the key poetry reading part of the song.

Takahiro: "That part, the members thought out themselves. For instance, for the important part where 'the cicadas all started crying,' I asked: 'If it were you, what would your expression be like?' We rehearsed it over and over."

Keyakizaka46's technique had matured in so many ways, and right during shooting, in the corridors and classrooms and dressing rooms, in any space not being used for the shooting, they practiced seriously, over and over again. More than that, there were more and more times when the members came and suggested tings to Takahiro: "Would it be good to do this part this way?"

Takahiro: "Really, for them to be able to produce something strong, they had to think about things themselves, correct themselves, communicate with me themselves, and change from being passive receivers to having active strength themselves. By developing their active strength, they became able produce an outstanding performance under any circumstances. I thought these girls could do it. On television, their performances of Silent Majority got better and better. Even when I wasn't at the recording sessions, the work they produced continued to improve. That was because they polished their own performances. They wanted the group's ability to become a more polished weapon to use."

Their voluntary practice in spare moments was not in vain. Watanabe Rika practiced so intensely, over and over again, that her hair was soaked with perspiration and her make-up running.  Next to her, Sugai Yuuka and Suzumoto Miyu went over their part with the umbrellas over and over again to get it just right. Somewhere else, Hirate Yurina and Nagahama Neru were silently dancing.... This kind of thing went on for a full day.

But the one who left the strongest impression was Imaizumi Yui. When Takahiro told her that she had it now, and stopped the music, she kept going, tears brimming from her eyes."The other girls in the front line are ten centimeters taller than I am. So if my movements aren't larger, I won't stand out. Before our debut, I had no dance experience. I felt very badly. I'm aiming to be an idol whose performance everyone will admire, so I have to practice." (Imaizumi)

Once again, Hirate Yurina shows rare talent. But it may be her trust in the members around her
that allows her to perform at this level.

Hirate Yurina is centre here as she was in the previous work, and there are other scenes beside the scream that make an impression. In the "the moment I met you" scene from just before the main hook, the scene where all the members walk randomly in whatever direction they please, Hirate alone starts a beat late, as if thinking about something.

The plan was for Hirate to start at the same time as everyone else, so this was unexpected. Just as the scene started, Takahiro immediately confirmed to Ikeda that "Hirate was a bit late." But Ikeda changed his mind when he saw it played back: "It made for an interesting feeling, so I decided it was 'a small sacrifice for the greater good.'" And they re-shot the scene the new way, but with a closer shot on Hirate. And the MV used the scene as it was re-shot.

Ikeda: "She was standing still, putting on some kind of little act before she moved. 'We're in the middle of shooting. What's Hirate doing?! Get moving!' That's what was in my mind. But with her there, the group's charm was shown to such good advantage. It felt as if she was the group's axis."

Hirate: "Something like that did happen (laughs). I guess this song is about 'me' loving 'you.' But for me, 'me' was myself and 'you' was the other members. I think I was pondering how happy I was to have met them. Maybe the camera communicated this. This is just an 'I think.' Really I don't remember anything that happened while this was being shot. (laughs) I expressed at the time what I felt at the time."

Hearing what she said about the group, Takahiro suddenly said: "It's so good that Hirate became centre!" And he muttered: "And good that these are the members, too."

Takahiro: "Hirate is a hard worker, and someone who wants all the members to shine. I think those feelings are stronger in her than in anyone else. She gives performances that pierce the heart. But to dismiss that with the word 'genius' is a mistake. She's someone who can overcome anything by the dreams and warm feelings she feels within the group: her sense of being responsible, disagreements, anything."

This Hirate is the outward face of the group, but a strong person within it is Saitou Fuyuka, who stands between the members and Takahiro and his staff, checking the dancing. During the actual shooting, Takahiro would check with her how things looked, saying things like: "Is this too difficult here?" Saitou has now become someone that Keyakizaka46 can't do without.

Saitou Fuyuka: "There are girls who have things to say but can't say thm themselves. I can pass those things on for them. I have the foundation of some dance experience, and with myself and Ishimori (Nijika) on either side, when girls on either side can't remember something, we show them. Afterwards, we discuss various things with Hirate. Since Hirate and Imaizumi are the ones who are best at showing the dance, a lot is learned by watching them."

Takahiro: "Saitou-san's good point, besides dancing ability, is the ability to objectively see the whole group. In addition, she has an extremely strong desire to make the work better. Besides herself, she thinks a lot about the team. And at the same time, she is extremely keen on making a good work that gets through to the people watching it. With all these elements together, Saitou-san has been of enormous help."

The shooting seemed to be progressing well, but when they were shooting the dance scene in the gymnasium, there was equipment trouble. So they ended the first day's shooting three hours early. They were able to start the next day's shooting three hours early to make up, and this problem ended by contributing to the success of the result.


Giving birth to their own ideas
Breaking free from SaiMajo

The second day of shooting, June 25th, was Hirate Yurina's 15th birthday.

Hirate: "With the great praise for our first single, Silent Majority, I felt great pressure. No, rather than pressure, what I felt was fear. When we arrived at the place where we were going to be shooting the MV, I could hardly leave the bus. In that sense, this may have been the most difficult birthday I have ever had. But from the moment I turned 15, I was thinking about Keyakizaka46. I want to make this group even bigger."

And eventually the shooting of the MV's heart began: the dance scene on the grasslands. The members' sense of each other had to be felt from several metres away. And the staff who had to bring the whole group together with their directions had to moved back to a quite distant spot.

Ikeda: "The grassland scene makes the contrast between the enclosed space of the gymnasium and a wide-open space. The instant the members entered the scene, it confirmed to me that this would work. With the windmills, it was just as I had wanted to shoot it. The girls coming and creating that scene was just what I had wanted to see."

And in that scene, for every shot, Takahiro ran in among the members, giving them detailed directions and checking things. This happened time and again. Seeing this adult's enthusiasm right before their eyes, time and again the members gave performances with serious expressions on their faces.

Takahiro: "It wasn't me forcing them to do it, saying, 'Do this!' It was them, each of them, saying: 'Let's do it again!' Their desire to practice was extremely welcome. We got shining performances from every single member, and I was so happy to see the world-view of the lyrics spreading out in front of me. The girls sweated many times more than we staff members did."

That day, the wind was strong, and as the shooting progressed, the weather worsened. Because of the trouble the day before, they had to finish shooting this key scene before it started to rain, no matter what -- and they did. And fate was their friend. They returned to the abandoned school, shot the scenes they had not been able to shoot the day before, and finished shooting the MV in two days.

Keyakizaka46, which has a strong image of fighting against oppression, working together with the adults. Tastes may differ, but Silent Majority and Sekai ni wa Ai Shika nai at root have the same theme. Takahiro expressed his own feelings about the girls: "What I myself feel is that Silent Majority may be Keyakizaka46's own story. At first, they were like created beings. They didn't know right or left and just did what they were told. But gradually they began to feel what their own consciousness was. And with knowledge of who they themselves were, they grew enormously. Maturing as idols, these girls are becoming people with their own things to transmit. I believe that these girls, holding on to their basis of "humility, kindness, the ties among us" (Keyakizaka46 always gather in a circle and say these words before they go on stage), will definitely succeed."

By working together with two professional creators, they also are honing themselves as pros. Gaining independence, these girls are gradually taking themselves out of the hands of adults. And someday they will be able to walk on their own feet. In the true sense, they will be able to free themselves from the silent majority. As the days rush by and the girls continue to grow, that day may come soon.

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Translator's note: I value this piece particularly for giving us some insight into how the director and the choreographer thought about the process aesthetically. It also gives us a bit of insight into the ideas of the chairman of Keyakizaka46's management committee, Konno Yoshio, and the big boss himself, Aki-P.

It confirms that Hirate has the confidence and determination to act according to her own feelings -- and that she forgets later what she did, lol. It also gives me added respect for Imaizumi Yui. Although she is still motivated by her own success more than the group's, the intensity of her determination is hard not to admire. And it's good to see such direct statements about the skills and value of Saitou Fuyuka in the process. There may be more reasons than popularity to keep people in a senbatsu, particularly in a serious group like Keyakizaka46.

Brody is not your average fan mag. This is the longest and most difficult piece I've translated. Clauses pile up one after the other, in the Japanese way, with their relationships only becoming clearer at the end of the long sentence. I may have tripped up in a couple of places, but I am confident this is a good representation of the meaning of the original piece. It was a great exercise. Next I'll work on making things more enjoyable to read, lol.

I couldn't resist leaving in two scientific words that apparently are more common in Japanese than in English: "sublimated" and "vector." Sorry.

The protagonist "me" (boku) is probably meant to be male. Hirate has said she was told to act as if she were male (she found it difficult) and Takahiro talks about male cicadas. But in the end I couldn't bring myself to use male pronouns, so its she/her wherever I mention the protagonist of the lyrics.

Thanks to "HIRATEalmighty" for providing scans of the article for me to work from.