Sakurai Sho used to be full of himself

Just like the other article about MatsuJun’s, the first part of this article will be a rough translation of the article from Johnny’s Watcher.

Last year, a tell-all book was released by a former staff for Arashi, a second installment “Arashi, Break Zenya” was released. The title was 「”Arashi, Break Zenya” Gaiden, Arashi Seishun Playback」. It seems like in the previous book, they left out a part of the book that talked about Sakurai Sho’s bad personality.

With the previous publication talking about how Nino and Matsujun wouldn’t talk to each other for several years outside of work; in the second publication,they are saying that Sakurai used to look down on Ohno and Aiba. According to them, when they were supposed to take a commemorative picture for a movie, the staff noticed that Aiba and Ohno were missing. Upon learning that, they claimed that Sakurai said, “The 3 who sells are right here, so let’s take it now.” It seems that Sakurai would blame those two for the reason why Arashi wouldn’t blow up.

In the first book, they mentioned Sakurai acting like an elite, keeping his nose held high since his father was a Tokyo University graduate, and himself is a Keio University graduate. In the second book, the former staff continues to talk about Sakurai’s attitude in which he “is somewhere higher” than others.

An example of it would be when KAT-TUN appeared in one of the Arashi concert. While the other members were poking fun at their kouhai, only Sakurai’s attitude was different.

“Your group’s name is weird right? Its “KAT-TUN”, but by spelling its “Katsun” right? ‘Katsun’ is cause you guys are barely [making it], that’s what it means right?”

Sakurai’s words might have hit right on the spot since Akanish Jin, Tanaka Koki and Taguchi Junnosuke ended up leaving the group, the former staff thinks of this episode as a proof as to“Sakurai taking advantage of his intelligence to diss others”

Another memorable episode, was when Aiba finished first a job he was doing with Sakurai. The staff then asked Aiba if he needed a ride home, to which Aiba replied “Its okay, its okay, I’ll walk back home”. Upon hearing that, Sakurai reportedly said: “Its fine, isn’t it? He’s alone so there wouldn’t be much fuss anyways.”

(Litera)

Witnessing the whole conversation, the former staff felt that Sakurai was implying that Aiba wasn’t as popular as he was. The staff also added that “Aiba looked sad, and didn’t reply anything back”. These episodes were probably from ten years ago, when they were all very young, they’re more mature nowadays. It also seems like the author had a soft spot for Aiba too.

Speaking of which, the other day when TOKIO’s Yamaguchi and Ninomiya went out to eat, Yamaguchi revealed that they ended up talking about a lot things, including troubles they had in their own groups, and that Arashi also had their fair share of things to think about.

If we try to guess the problems Arashi and TOKIO were talking about, we can say that people worry a lot about their relationship. Taking out all the things we have heard from them on TV, radio, etc, there are actually a lot of other problems that the group members must have faced.

By the way, the first book sold about 80 000 copies, and even reached 6^th place in the ranking for the first half of 2015’s books about talents.

via Johnny’s Watcher

To start off, I really want to get the book so I can get more whatever they were saying. But I’m still pretty bad at reading Japanese so even if I get the book, its not gonna do anything different.

So… I actually think that this might be pretty real. I always got the impression that Sakurai was a bit of a douche. Most elite kids in Asia are like that, I hang out quite often with people like that. They are really nice people, but they tend to keep their standards rather high. And that’s why most people misunderstand them.

But I have to comment on the episode where the staff talked about how Sakurai would speak of Aiba as if he was in a lower class than he is. Since it was back when they were still teenagers, I can understand why Sakurai would be acting like that. He might be really stressed out about his career… At that point, Arashi wasn’t selling as much as they do now, and Sakurai also had to prove himself to his parents. Of course, that’s not an excuse to be a douche to everyone, but let’s just say that we can see where he comes from.

I just hope that they all came to a point where all the members see each other as equal and just respect one another. I hope Aiba-chan forgave Sho, and they talked about it, and worked it out, because Aiba-chan is the type to bottle everything up, and just move on in order to not drag anyone down.

They always say that Arashi members get along really well with each other, so It would be nice if it stays like that.

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