Sakuragawa Megu
Drums – Udagawa Ako
I thought she was a very admirable girl. Whether it’s how she feels about the drums or how she feels about her bandmates, she’s always so earnest. She faces her feelings head-on
———To start things off, could you please tell us how you felt when production of “BanG Dream! Episode of Roselia I: Promise” was announced to you?
Of course. At first, I was surprised and overjoyed, and then after it sunk in, it gradually shifted to feeling like “I’ve found such an incredible place”. I’ve been active in this industry for more than ten years, but this is the kinda thing that happens once in a lifetime.
———These movies cover Roselia’s story starting from the band’s formation. Is there anything you kept in mind as you recorded your lines?
Right now, the 4th anniversary of the game is coming up. It’s had tons of stories depicting how Ako and the rest of the band has grown. But the movies go back to showing Ako in her final year of middle school. Her capabilities are a little more lacking compared to how she is now. In other words, she was a bit more childish. From that point, she starts to depend on her bandmates more. So the vector of those emotions was definitely on my mind.
We can look at Yukina-san and Sayo-san as an example. In the early days, Ako thought they were “cool” and her activities in Roselia started from that sense of admiration. But now, four years later, I portray her like she views them as older sisters, as people she can trust. The vector of her love towards them is pretty different from how it used to be. Plus the other characters also start to treat Ako that same way, based on that same emotional vector I mentioned. I thought a lot of care went into showing that in the movies.
———Did you notice anything new due to playing that younger Ako again?
I had the chance to see the movies a little early. I thought she was a very admirable girl. Whether it’s how she feels about the drums or how she feels about her bandmates, she’s always so earnest. She faces her feelings head-on. When I watched the movies, I did so from a couple different perspectives, like Ako’s and my own. But I finally managed to see her from an outside perspective. It made me think “ah, I want to cheer for her!”.
———Which scenes were particularly memorable from your perspective?
Definitely the scene where Ako argues with Yukina-san. I put more raw emotion into my lines for the movie compared to the ones I did for the game. It’s a pretty heart-breaking scene. Even though Ako was working hard and devoting herself to Roselia – something that should be praised – she got told off by Yukina-san… when I saw the finished scene, I couldn’t help but cry for her. Like “ohh, they’re still just kids in middle- and high-school”. They’re still young and awkward. They’re doing their best but wind up in conflict like this… they can’t see things from other perspectives or fully consider other people yet. So I cried.
———That scene felt like an outburst of uncontrollable emotions.
From a production standpoint, I thought it was a really interesting way of getting the story across. As an adult, I’d want to have a calm discussion and resolve the issue that way. But Ako’s just a middle-schooler. She’s the youngest one in the band. So she shouts, letting out all of her uncontrollable emotions on Yukina-san. Maybe it’s because she’s young, or because of her personality, or because she trusts the others, but the problem comes to the forefront and she vents… I thought a lot about stuff like that and incorporated it into my performance. I’d appreciate if the BanG Dreamers would watch it more then once.
———Depending on what made you love Roselia – the games, the anime, or the live performances – and what your enjoyment is centered around, your impressions of the movies will likely be different.
I think so too. Something I appreciate is how the BanG Dreamers span a wide variety of generations, from teenagers to people my parents’ age. The franchise has been supported by lots of different people. I think people’s perspective depends on their age, so I’d like to learn more about that. Which characters do the students empathize with? What point of view do their parents have? There are so many different angles to approach while watching it. I wonder how I’ll see it five or ten years from now.
———Did you realize anything about Ako-chan’s drumming?
She’s been putting in more practice than I thought (*laughs*). Yukina-san and Sayo-san are trying to reach the pinnacle at extreme speeds. They’re pushing the other members so they can participate in FUTURE WORLD FES. It would take an incredible amount of practice to reach that point. I understand that because I play drums too, but I really realized it because of the movies. And Ako made me realize “I have to do more too!” (*laughs*).
———What did you think about the other characters and how they’re depicted in the movies?
I remembered that Yukina-san and Sayo-san started out as two really socially awkward people. Their strictness comes from that awkwardness, which is brought to the forefront. I thought that was a big highlight. So much so that I struggle to watch how they were in the first part! Speaking of which, I also remember the scene where Yukina was harsh to Lisa-nee while they were on their way to meet the others. Yukina was like “I will not tolerate failure” and Lisa-nee replied “yeah, I’ll do my best”… that got me teary-eyed and I nearly started bawling. When we were recording, I asked Aiai “how could you say something so heartless!?”. And she replied “Meguchii, that’s perfect” (*laughs*). There’s so much real emotion crammed into these movies. They’re gonna be awesome!
Even if the yakiniku restaurant we’re at runs out of food, we keep on talking. It feels like we naturally take on the roles we do. I think that’ll never change. I hope we’ll be able to grow old together, spending our days with this same sort of fun relationship
———Bandori has many elements that stir emotions like that. What do you think of the franchise?
I feel like I’ve come across an amazing treasure. The treasure is Bandori. And it’s the staff, the fans, and the drums too. Having an instrument that I can express myself through, getting to meet the rest of the band, getting to perform concerts, seeing that there are people cheering for us and supporting us… it’s such a joyous thing. I want to treasure it.
———And what do you think of Roselia as a band?
It truly is a treasure. I consider everyone in the band to be treasures. Rin-rin (Shirokane Rinko) has a line that’s like “if the members of a band don’t understand each other, then they’ll never be able to sound good together”. I think that’s absolutely true in our case.
When we’re playing a new song for the first time, we don’t really have the luxury of listening to each other play since we’re so focused on hearing our own sound. Study the sheet music, play the part, try to match the groove… wash, rinse, and repeat. And during the process, we start to realize “okay, so the bass is doing that at this point”, so we can try to match it more specifically. That process happens with all the instruments, and after repeating those steps over and over again, all of our individual sounds slowly start to come together into a song. It starts to sound like the real thing… at least, that’s how it feels to me.
I think having that kind of relationship is crucial to what we do. We all treat each other with love. It’s like we have a partner called “Roselia”. It’s something completely different from normal work friends, or family, or siblings, or lovers. As things are now, the five of us have the opportunity to get together every single week for rehearsal. But in a sense, it feels like something very momentary. To be honest, there’s part of me that knows the day will come when this stops being the case eventually… which is why I’m doing everything I can to cherish this time we spend together.
———When it comes to the real Roselia, is there anything you feel hasn’t changed over time?
If we’re looking at the characters, then Yukina-san is the leader and Sayo-san is second-in-command. Lisa-nee takes a big-sister position and supports the others. She’s the real leader, working behind-the-scenes. Ako’s like a spark, bursting with brightness. And then I think Rin-rin understands the others the best. That’s what the characters are like… but I think those of us in real Roselia also fill certain roles.
When Aiba-san says something dumb, Kudou Haruka-san keeps picking on her for it. Yukki joins in and makes the conversation even bigger and livelier until everyone gets a little carried away, which is always really funny. Then I butt in as the straight-man of the Roselia comedy club, and Non-chan watches the whole thing unfold, laughing like crazy the entire time. And this goes on endlessly. With how things are now, we can’t go out to eat like we used to. But when we do get together, we talk for a long long time. Even if the yakiniku restaurant we’re at runs out of food, we keep on talking (*laughs*). It feels like we naturally take on the roles we do. I think that’ll never change. I hope we’ll be able to grow old together, spending our days with this same sort of fun relationship.
———What kinds of hurdles, challenges, and fun moments have you experienced while playing drums for Roselia?
My way of thinking is different from how it used to be. When I first started, I was learning how to play drums from square one, so everything felt like a hurdle. I tried not to consider any of the technical stuff “impossible” or “too hard”. I kept pushing myself to my limits so I could be ready for our performances. I’d push through those limits, reach new ones, and then try to do the same again. I did that for the first two years. Around that time, the number of beats I could play started to increase bit by bit. I started to be able to calculate how much time I’d need to learn each song based on their difficulty levels. I began deepening my understanding of the drums instead of just trying to push myself harder. One big change that happened this year is that I’ve been thinking more about little things like the intensity of my sound and the nuances of each cymbal. I’ve started thinking about the expressiveness. Things like “if I hit this cymbal with more force so it makes a ‘BANG!’ instead of a ‘bang’, that should help the other members perform better”.
———Did any song serve as a turning point for you as a drummer?
I feel like three songs were really big turning points: FIRE BIRD, Avant-garde HISTORY, and ZEAL of proud. FIRE BIRD gets a lot of mileage out of the double-bass setup I use. At the time, it was the first song in a while that felt like a challenge, so I practiced really hard. Next came Avant-garde HISTORY, which is a very technical song. It’s the kind of song that I can’t play properly unless I use my head during the performance. And last is ZEAL of proud. We played it for the first time back in February. It feels like a culmination of all the skills I’ve built up over the last few years. It’s a combination of needing to “learn through muscle-memory” and “learn through normal memorization”. The tempo is crazy fast, and it’s packed full of technical parts. But if I try to get through it by relying on power and momentum alone, it feels like I’ll struggle to match the rhythm of the rest of the band….
———Then that’s when you became more aware of the intensity of your sound, like you mentioned earlier?
I think so. When that happened, it became easier for me to play and I really enjoyed getting to perform with such a full width of expression. I thought it was something that only I would notice, but Aiba-san came up to me not too long ago and said “did you make that decrescendo more subtle? Or were you just playing louder in the first place?”. When I said “I’ve been thinking more about the intensity of my sound in ZEAL of proud”, the other members all chimed in at once like “oh, that’s something new”. That moment felt like I was checking my work, seeing that my methods and way of thinking were right. It awakened something in me. I shouldn’t just do it for that specific song. I should try to perform every single song with the same state of mind that I had when working on ZEAL of proud. I’m testing out different methods for that.
I hope everyone will be able to understand how we as performers take on our roles, take on their lives, take on their relationships, and bring all of that on stage when we play
———Out of Roselia’s entire discography, did any song leave a particularly strong impression on you?
For me, it’s Our Path. The drums are completely absent in the first half of the song. My performance starts from the second verse. But since it’s a ballad, the drum part is very sparse. When we were practicing the song for “Rasuch und/and Craziness II”, I realized that the bass drum sound during the bridge transitions into sounding like a heartbeat. After that realization, I started playing the song while thinking about how great it would be if my bass drum could fall in sync with the heartbeats of every fan who came to watch us. Actually, during the concert, I tried to link it to my own heartbeat. Scenes of every past performance of Our Path came flooding back to me, all flashing before my eyes…. The first time we played Our Path was a very memorable concert after all. That debut performance was one where my heart felt overcome with emotion. It’s been a few years since then. When I play the song, I do so with a different state of mind than I used to. I think I’ve grown to the point where I can really feel what the song is about, really feel how much I appreciate the others.
———If you had to call a specific moment in one of your concerts “the most memorable”, which would it be?
The time we performed BLACK SHOUT at our debut as surprise guests at Poppin’Party’s concert. That time made me wonder if there really are moments where people think “what’s done is done. Whatever happens, happens”. We were all so fully focused on our performances. We say it to each other all the time: “the vitality we had back then was incredible”. Afterwards, my whole body was so sore. I’m not kidding. I couldn’t even get up (*laughs*). I felt like I surpassed what humans are naturally capable of doing. I think that performance has led me to where I am now. I bet I’ll always be able to say I have enough “self-confidence” to last me my entire life thanks to that concert.
———Situations like those happen very rarely in everyday life. It sounds like a precious experience.
I started out with no experience playing drums in front of other people. As a total beginner, playing for the very first time on a big stage with 3000 people staring at me made me feel nervous and anxious. I had never experienced fear like that before. But I had come so far with the others that all we could say was “let’s do it!”. We were all acting on the same vector, and I could really feel the depth of everyone’s feelings and goals. It was a really great experience. When I try to watch the video of that performance, I remember how awful I was from a technical standpoint and struggle to get through it. But I remember the way I felt during it. I can’t keep playing the way I used to. I’d end up destroying my body if I did (*laughs*).
———But now you can play drums alongside your character.
I can. Our band debuted just a little while before the game was released, so I spent all of that time practicing my drumming nonstop…. Without a doubt, that’s what early Roselia was like. We all worked crazy hard to show everyone how we could be the coolest, most skilled band in the world.
———To wrap things up, could you please tell the BanG Dreamers a highlight of your movies?
After you watch the movies, I think your perspective of our real Roselia will definitely change. I hope everyone – people who have only ever seen us live and people who have seen the anime – will be able to understand how we as performers take on our roles, take on their lives, take on their relationships, and bring all of that on stage when we play. Bandori and Roselia aren’t just having performances that’ll make everyone happy. I think you’ll be able to see how much work goes into making our concerts a blast for everyone!
Keyword Q&A
Q1 — How would you describe your personality?
I’m cheerful and talkative. When I first entered the industry, I didn’t have any confidence in myself or my acting, so there were times when I’d go home without talking to anyone at work. I felt depressed, like “oh, what’s the point…?”. But now that I’ve developed a stronger interest in performing, I’ve become more confident in my ability to play the drums. When I’m at events with the rest of the Bandori cast, they’re really frank and open towards me. I want to be like a bright ray of sunshine for them, so end up getting chatty.
Q2 — What kind of year do you want 2021 to be?
I want to see the BanG Dreamers! Especially since we couldn’t really do that last year. I’ve spent a lot of time with the band trying to figure out what we can do to encourage people to check out the movies and how we can make our concerts more entertaining for people who have already watched them.
Q3 — April is the month when students graduate and go on to higher education or employment. When you enter a new environment or face new circumstances, what do you pay attention to?
In my case, cleaning up and getting some flowers helps improve my mood. The day before our concert, I somehow made up my mind that it wouldn’t go well if my kitchen was dirty. Like I decided it was a bad omen, so I cleaned. And I buy flowers and put them in places where I’ll see them. I water them every morning and that affects my mood.
Q4 — What kind of fashion has caught your eye this Spring?
Ever since we formed Roselia, all of us have developed a habit of intentionally seeking out black clothes or outfits with rose patterns. I kinda want some colorful dresses this year… but even though I say that, I’ll most likely still end up buying Spring clothes that match Roselia’s vibe (*laughs*).
Q5 — Where and when do you feel the most relaxed?
The bath! Mine are always around two hours long. Baths are a time to relax, a time to reflect on yourself, and a ritual to end one day and start anew tomorrow.
Q6 — If you could meet Udagawa Ako, what would you want to talk about?
I’d probably end up depending on her. She’s so much younger than me, but I’d tell that kiddo “I’ve done my best to be more like you” (*laughs*). Ako’s not the kind of girl who holds back, so if she said something like “yeah, I know you’re working hard~”… I’d break into tears (*cries*).
Q7 — If you could be a character from Bandori for one day, who would you chose and what would you do during that time?
Michelle, without a doubt! I bet I could get along with everyone if I put on that bear costume. I’d get closer to everyone and enjoy living in the Bandori world for a while, then I’d wind up joining Hello, Happy World!… then I’d absolutely live it up, drinking up the sweet honey of the Tsurumaki family!
Q8 — When you’re on stage during a performance, what routines or items are essential to you?
My ice packs. Playing a song that lasts five minutes uses a lot of strength, so being able to cool off my fingers and my head quickly is super important. I’ve found that the best way to cool down is to place an ice pack on my hair part, right in-between my pigtails.
Q9 — Send a message to the Roselia members!
Dear Aiba Aina: I want you to get angry at me again this year. I’m gonna mess around a whole bunch. So get mad please.
Dear Kudou Haruka: Thanks for letting me talk up a storm every week on Radio Shout. I love hearing what you have to say and all the nice ideas you come up with.
Dear Nakashima Yuki: I’ll probably ask you for a ton of advice again this year, but the vast majority will probably be about stupid and meaningless stuff. But please lend an ear, okay?
Dear Shizaki Kanon: We’ve been out to eat together – just the two of us – once before. I want to do that more this year, I want to chat with you so much more. But I can’t really handle your spicy stuff.
Q10 — And please leave a message for all the BanG Dreamers!
To all the BanG Dreamers out there, thanks for always supporting us! Four years have passed since our debut. I think the whole reason these movies finally get to exist is because all of you found us and kept on supporting us. All of us in Roselia have always and will always love and appreciate you, way more than you could possibly imagine. Every day is a blast because you’re here with us. I really hope we’ll be able to spend many more exciting days together. So please watch the movies a thousand times, alright!? (*laughs*).
More from this book:
I. Aiba Aina – II. Kudou Haruka – III. Nakashima Yuki – IV. Sakuragawa Megu – V. Shizaki Kanon
Home – Movie Information – Creator Interviews – Behind the Scenes – Discography
Rosenland 