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Japanese dancer Maasa Ishihara sat down with Billboard Japan for its Women in Music interview series. The initiative launched last year in the same spirit of Billboard’s annual Women in Music event that began in 2007, and the Japan-based project also aims to celebrate women who continue to break new ground in music through various contents including interviews, live performances, and panel discussions.
Ishihara is a performer based in the U.S. who has shared the stage with some of today’s top artists including Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande. While she has enjoyed success in recent years, she almost gave up on her dancing career at one point and made a fresh start in the U.S. after moving there when she was 21 years old. Here, she shares some personal routines she uses to stay grounded in the highly competitive entertainment industry, and talks about the importance of accepting each other’s differences. 

You’ve built your career outside of Japan, but what was your childhood like? If there were any women you looked up to growing up, could you tell us about them?

I was born in Okayama City, Okayama Prefecture (in southwestern Japan). During my early elementary school years, I saw (J-pop superstar) Namie Amuro on TV and became obsessed with her. I wanted to be like her. There were no dance schools in my neighborhood, so I started singing and dancing by following her example, and that’s how it all began. Back then it was rare to see a female artist performing on stage with backup dancers (in Japan), and I’ll never forget that electrifying feeling when I first saw her.

I always thought I felt that way about Amuro because she represented a kind of tough woman that didn’t exist around me growing up, but recently I’ve come to realize that my mother was also a woman with inner strength. My mom wasn’t a very chatty type of person, but she always quietly watched over me and supported me. The reason why I’ve been able to come this far longing to be like Amuro is probably because strong women felt familiar to me since childhood, thanks to my mom.

So you’ve always admired women with inner strength, from those close to you to stars you saw on TV. Has that feeling been consistent then and now?

Basically, yes. I’ve lived in the U.S., where people with dreams come from all over the world, and have made a living in the entertainment scene where things can change dramatically in a year or two, so it was really important for me to be resolute. In my 20s, though, there were times when I became unsure of myself and struggled to become something I wasn’t. But ultimately, things like magnetism and strength are things you already have, so you just have to look for what you have and hone them. Now that I’m in my 30s, I’ve harked back to my roots and feel a renewed admiration for women like my mom and Namie Amuro.

You went to the U.S. by yourself and won your place in the entertainment industry there. How did you remain consistent? Do you have any tips or tricks you could share with us?

I adopted a lot of different methods until I settled into my own way of doing things. Starting from trivial stuff like, “Do I drink warm water or coffee first thing in the morning?” I eventually found my way to meditation. I think it’s really important to have a morning routine to get yourself into the right frame of mind for the day. When I wake up, I first keep my eyes closed before I pick up my smartphone and try not to think about anything. It’s actually hard not to think about anything. But I make a conscious effort to set aside 10 minutes to do that each day. When I reset myself like this, I can think, “What happened yesterday ended yesterday. I don’t know what today will be like, but I’ll give it my all.”

Therapy is also important. In Japan, the concept of mental care isn’t very familiar, but in the U.S., mental health counseling is common. People go to the gym to become physically fit or to the hairdresser to get their hair styled, right? In the same way, people go to therapy to treat their mental health. It’s important to take care of your mind as well.

So you learned to control your own mental wellness through meditation and therapy?

Yes. Life has its ups and downs, and we all tend to focus on the bad. But you can’t change something that has already happened. So letting it slide for the time being is effective. Even if you feel like you’re still in the midst of a difficult situation, try setting the problem aside and think about what you can do towards the future. And try to “stay ready” instead of “getting ready.” Then once the wave of difficulty passes, you can immediately seize the next opportunity. I try to be in that “staying ready” state both mentally and physically.

Your words are convincing because you’ve really seized those opportunities. Do you think being a woman has affected your career in any way?

Yes, being a woman and a foreigner in the U.S., I’ve felt the effects of various obstacles. It’s a tough industry for a woman to survive as an artist. Sometimes we’re regarded as sexual object in inappropriate situations by undesired people, or we’re underestimated or belittled for being a woman. Even if I was “staying ready,” I wasn’t allowed to stand at the starting line at times. Racial discrimination also persists. For example, no matter how hard I try to speak English, I’m not a native speaker and my pronunciation isn’t great. And because of that, I’m seen as being immature. I can’t count the number of times I felt mortified because people wouldn’t take me as seriously as others no matter how I sincerely I try to communicate. These kinds of things have been going on for a long time in general, but with the #MeToo movement and other reasons, the public has finally become aware of such problems in recent years and moments when minorities have their say are more common now.

Do you feel those influences in the entertainment scene?

I think you can sense the energy of creators trying to break down gender stereotypes in performances. While this is something that’s been done for a while, I get a sense that people are trying to pursue another level of open expression in recent years.

It feels like the number of artists who defy the boundaries of gender is gradually increasing in Japan as well. Likewise, the number of women who speak out and those who support them are increasing as well, but there still seems to be a lot of resistance.

Since moving to the States when I was 21, the biggest change from my days in Japan has been the daily contact with people of various races, backgrounds, faiths and genders. Being born in Japan and growing up in an environment where most of the people around me were Japanese, it took me some time to accept, understand, and coexist with those various differences. I realized that the things I thought were normal up till then were only a fraction of the many ways thinking and values that exist in the world, and felt the need to completely reset the things I thought were a given. I needed to understand, learn, and acknowledge those things that are different from me. When I shifted my way of thinking to “everyone is different and everyone is good,” my perspective broadened. Not only did I learn to accept differences, but I also began to spend time looking into myself, which led to a new awareness of my own identity and the beauty of Japan.

It’s not easy for anyone to accept people and things that are different from themselves and the unknown that they’ve never experienced. It’s scary. But taking that first step and experiencing a 180-degree change in the way I see things was an extremely valuable life lesson. I feel that if people around the world could accept and respect each other’s differences, we’ll be that much closer to world peace.

Check out an exclusive playlist of empowerment songs curated by Maas Ishihara below.

—This interview by Rio Hirai (SOW SOWEET PUBLISHING) first appeared on Billboard Japan

ASIAN KUNG-FU GENERATION recently released their 30th single, “Karma.” The band wrote the song as the opening theme for the latest season of the TV Tokyo-produced animated series BORUTO – NARUTO NEXT GENERATIONS, which began last month. The theme of the song is how the two protagonists are buffeted by fate, but the lyrical world of the song is also a reflection of how we all feel in this age of uncertainty and confusion. The heavy but constrained melody and the sound production are new territory for the band.

Shortly after their major-label debut in 2003, their song “Haruka Kanata” was chosen as the opening theme for the second season of NARUTO. “Karma” marks their fourth musical tie-in with the NARUTO series. NARUTO has been inextricably intertwined with the fate of AKFG. Billboard Japan spoke with the band about the song’s appeal, the highlights of their new single’s B-sides and more.

Gotoh: NARUTO really means a lot to us. In particular, our 2002 release “Haruka Kanata” was a major turning point in our careers. At the time, there wasn’t really an established culture of using music from rock bands as the theme songs of animes. I’m sure it must have seemed strange to some rock fans. However, Japan was producing high quality animation that was gaining attention around the world. We thought that when NARUTO was put out on the world stage, we’d be able to go right along with it. I remember feeling “this is a wonderful opportunity” when we got the offer.

Kita: Yeah, now that you mention, I feel like we approached it really carefully. Like, we set aside time for all of us members to discuss it. At the time, we didn’t know what kind of image this would create for the band.

Yamada: When we’ve played “Haruka Kanata” or any of our other NARUTO songs overseas, the reaction has just been immense. Everyone sings along so loud it feels like they’re going to drown our our actual performance. It’s made us realize how well our music has been received overseas. In a sense, it’s like NARUTO has been our partner through the years.

What is the appeal of NARUTO and BORUTO?

Ijichi: I’ve been a long-time reader of the two series, and they’ve been consistently good the whole time. One of the things I like about them is that there are elements that are fun for kids and elements that adults can enjoy.

Gotoh: With BORUTO, Masashi Kishimoto has passed on the baton of illustrating the comic to Mikio Ikemoto, but the characters still have the same appeal, and the comic is packed with ideas. BORUTO starts with a heartbreaking scene, and through the story it’s hard to find any signs of hope. NARUTO was also a pretty hardboiled comic, but I feel like BORUTO draws you in even more. Either way, the story is far more complicated than when we first started reading NARUTO in Weekly Shonen Jump (laughs).

When you’re asked to write a song for a show, how do you reflect the show’s world in the song?

Gotoh: For any show, not just NARUTO, I always do a ton of research. That’s because I want to read the original comic and write a song that’s truly inspired by it. As for our latest song, “Karma,” the comic isn’t finished yet, so we had to write the song without knowing what would happen next in the story. My hope is that the main characters can overcome these obstacles being thrown at them by “fate,” as it were. As I touched on a second ago, in the first episode, Boruto and Kawaki face off and fight each other as enemies. The story is going to circle back to that at some point. I racked my brains about what kind of story would lie beyond that face-off between the characters that the comic opens with.

Do you think there’s a message in there for modern society?

Gotoh: Yes, I do. In the modern world, it isn’t easy to set down your burdens and try to shoulder new burdens. I feel like you can really see the growing disparity in wealth, and that wealth disparity is becoming even more entrenched. Parents’ economic situations are being passed on to their children. The “winners” keep on winning and the “losers” keep on losing. There’s a feeling of disgust with the state of the world, and at the same time a desire to break through these barriers and overcome these problems. I think the feeling of entrapment in the world of NARUTO and BORUTO shares a lot in common with the sense of entrapment I feel in our own modern world. We’re living in a society with that same antagonism and division as in that first episode of BORUTO.

I feel like that sense of “entrapment” is also reflected in the heavy but constrained melody and sound of “Karma.” The part that really sticks out to me is the four lines of the bridge: “The reason we’re alive/Must be part of that modest dream/If it gets crushed underfoot/It plays right into the hands of those that have cursed our world.” What are you trying to express through these lyrics?

Gotoh: Right now, everybody is just all looking down on each other and ridiculing each other. When I see that, I just think, “Is this really enriching our lives?” The people that held the World Cup made more than the athletes that played in it. Over 6,000 people lost their lives in Qatar in the construction of the stadium and surrounding infrastructure. I just keep thinking, “Can’t we make a world a better place?” I’m not blaming anyone. I just wonder why we can’t praise each other and encourage each other. If we don’t, we’re just “playing into the hands of those who have cursed our world.” One of the things that’s incredibly reassuring is that I have people who stand with me. It’s wonderful that I’m in a band. From my position as a member of a band, I feel like if everyone could just get together on weekends and enjoy each other’s music, we could make it in this world without losing hope. I want everyone to realize and appreciate the value of the relationships they have with each other. That’s what I was thinking about when I wrote the lyrics.

The B-side of “Karma” is “Weather Report,” which was written and sung by you, Kita. It’s a refreshing song, but the lyrics are quite serious. It’s about interpersonal relationships that never progress.

Gotoh: “Karma” is a song about the relationships between us, no matter where life may take us, so in “Weather Report” we wanted to sing about relationships that are in a rut, never coming together. When I wrote the lyrics, I was thinking about how tire tracks never cross unless you make a U-turn. Ken (Kita) would be singing, not me, so I thought it might be good to have a sweet love song, which is different than the kinds of songs I sing. We’ve had other songs like that, too. When I’m not the one singing, we can be a bit more free in deciding what the theme of the song will be.

“Nissaka Down Hill” feels like a followup to your 2008 album Surf Bungaku Kamakura. What led you to go back to that approach?

Gotoh: It’s a power-pop song with power chords, octaves, and unison, but there are also some unusual chord progressions here and there. It’s a really fun song to play with the band. I wanted the feel to be like Weezer’s “El Scorcho.” With Surf Bungaku Kamakura, we were thinking about Weezer’s first album. The title, after all, came from “Surf Wax America.” This time, we want an album that has that Pinkerton sound. It’s like half parody of the 1990s, but half sincere. That’s what pop music should be like, right? We’ve basically applied that style, but matched it up our own sensibilities and made changes to update it for our times.

What were you all trying to set out to do with your sound design approach?

Ijichi: We recorded all of “Weather Report” in a single take. Lately we’ve been trying to finish our songs in as few takes as possible. Up until the day before the recording, we spend a lot of time thinking about it. But then, on the actual day of the recording, we want to get takes that are as fresh as possible. Our goal when we recorded this song was to get it in three takes or less.

Yamada: “Karma” is a tie-up that we wrote on request, so we wanted to make a song that had the AKFG feel we’ve established over the years, but the B-side songs were all very challenging. “Nissaka Down Hill” is a power-pop song, but it has a different feel than any of our past songs. There are only three songs on the single, but I think there’s really a lot there.

Kita: Going back to the “Karma” lyrics for a second, Gotch had already pretty much nailed down those four lines from the demo stage. The bridge evolved over the course of a jam session by the four of us, and Gotch changed up the melody along the way, but that core remained all the way through the finished song.

Gotoh: You said the song had a “constrained” melody, and, you’re right, we tried to avoid having a really soaring chorus. If it had that kind of chorus, we wouldn’t want to perform it live. It would just be too hard (laughs). With “Karma,” we were traying to create a “sustainable emo sound” that simmers and builds up, not one that really takes a physical toll. We’re almost in our 50s, after all (laughs).

A lot of people passed away in 2022, the pandemic continued unabated, and every time you thought the world situation couldn’t get any worse, it did. Hopefully 2023 is a good year.

Gotoh: I really hope so. So many terrible things happened in 2022. For example, if the World Cup had been a less corrupt event, Messi’s win would have been so much easier to celebrate wholeheartedly, but the information that came to light made that impossible. I just want to always try to live a better life. Every time I meet someone, I remember that, and we try to create a better mood wherever we go. We’ve got a lot of concerts coming up, so we’ll keep trying to do our best in 2023.

—This interview by Takanori Kuroda first appeared on Billboard Japan