Welcome back, WUG-chan! Maasuke Yoshioka, Mimi Tanaka and Kaya Okuno "Wake Up, Girls! A New Chapter" Special Interview & Newly Photographed Photos

A new chapter of "Wake Up, Girls! The new chapter" has finally started and we can see the same seven members as usual in their daily lives and on stage. I am sure that many fans have been waiting to see these "Wake Up, Girls!" members again. At the same time, the film shows the growth of the seven members both as a voice acting unit and as voice actors.

We talked a lot about "Wake Up, Girls! New Chapter" with Maasuke Yoshioka (who plays Mayu Shimada), Mimi Tanaka (who plays Minami Katayama), and Kaya Okuno (who plays Natsuya Kikuma).
⇒2017 Fall Anime

What is WUG?" (Yoshioka)

--In 2014, the movie version "Wake Up, Girls! Seven Idols" and the TV series "Wake Up, Girls!" began, but the characters and performers have the same first names, and the voice acting unit "Wake Up, Girls! (WUG), I feel that there has never been a work in which the connection between the characters and performers is so deep. What do you think is unique to WUG now that three years have passed since the start of the production?

Yoshioka: I have always wondered what WUG is since the first theater version. I think that the fans who have been watching the show have a certain idea of what WUG is. I dare not say clearly what "Wake Up, Girls!" is, but what do you think ...... is (laughs)?

Tanaka Hey~ (laughs). It's really hard to put it into words. But nowadays, there are many cases where cast members sing anime OPs or form a unit there, but WUG started from a general audition, and kids who had no experience at all got together and started their activities together from scratch. The more I learn about this world (the world of voice actors), the more I wonder if we are quite rare (laughs). (Laughs.) Our debut was new, and many things were a challenge for us. So I think WUG is a group that is well suited to challenges.

─ That's right. We started from zero as a voice acting unit, and in the anime as well, we all went through auditions and started from almost zero. It is as if we are living two different lives.

Tanaka That's right. And all the characters have the same name (laughs).

─ How about you, Mr. Okuno?

Okuno: The anime "Wake Up, Girls!" depicts the members of WUG who are sparkling on the outside, but behind the scenes they are living a really ordinary life.

─ ─ The difference between the front and the back may indeed be significant. It seems that it is possible to actually experience the backside portrayed in the anime.

Tanaka As in the first episode of "New Chapter," there are many times when a performer realizes, "I forgot something (just before going on stage)! I forgot something to put on my arm. I forgot something to put on my arm.

Okuno: Or I put on another pair of shoes and leave the stage.

Tanaka I danced with my shoes unzipped (laughs). I also forget things a lot. When we change clothes early in the tour, the entire staff checks to make sure we don't forget. Did you put your arms on?　Did you put your boots on?　Did you put your hair on? And so on.

Yoshioka It's a three-piece set.

─ Even so, do you sometimes forget?

Tanaka Didn't that happen last year?　Misuke and Nanami forgot the gold ring on the arm of their white costumes for "Beyond the Bottom" (laughs). (Laughter) "Oh, it's not there! (Laughs). And when I looked to the side, the costume designer looked very impatient and said, "Nanami!　Misuke-chan! I still remember that to this day (laughs).

Yoshioka I feel that "Wake Up, Girls! On the contrary, I felt that it was okay to show that much (laughs). (Laughs.) Idols seem to be far away from ordinary people, but I think people feel closer to them because they are human beings, and they are no different from ordinary people.

─ ─ That's right. The first episode of the "new chapter" was also quite frank (laughs). Talking about the voice-over unit WUG, I think that 2016-2017 was a year of increased special activities for WUG, such as singing tie-up songs for other productions. Looking back again, what kind of year was it?

Yoshioka First of all, I felt that it was OK to do tie-ups (with other works) (laughs). (Laughs). It feels like breaking the rules, doesn't it? Because even though it is "Wake Up, Girls! We were a little apprehensive about it at first. But when we started working on it, we realized that there were many people who saw WUG as a voice-over unit, and we were very happy about that.

─ You must have been anxious after all.

Yoshioka We were gathered in a large conference room and I wondered what we were going to be told, but when we were told that we were going to do a tie-up, I was like, "What? I was like, "What are they going to say?

Tanaka I was puzzled, "Is it OK to keep the unit name "Wake Up, Girls! I was puzzled. The first tie-up song "Bokura no Frontier" was the ED theme for the TV anime "Shakunetsu no Takkyu Musume" (Burning Table Tennis Girls), and it was a refreshing song that really fit the world of the work. So people got to know us in a different way, like "WUG sings this kind of song, too," and we gradually came to see it as a positive thing.

Okuno: The OP theme of the TV anime "Love Tyrant" "Love? De ai de ai de tyakuun! and it's a tyrant! is especially fun to sing and dance to, as it is a song tone that has never been used in WUG before. The music video was also pretty crazy, so I found a new way to show the same members in such a way.

─ After doing so many different things, this time you seem to be going back to the roots of the "Wake Up, Girls!

Yoshioka It's like we've come full circle.

Tanaka It's like we left it a year and came back here.

I was happy to see that all my hard work must have paid off.

─ Did you know about the production of the "new chapter" for quite some time?

Tanaka: I was told that it would be done next fall, around the same time I heard that we were going to do a tie-up for another work.

───What were you thinking at that time?

Yoshioka Personally, I was more shocked by the tie-up (laughs).

Tanaka Yes. （I didn't really feel it at the time because it was quite a while before the "new chapter" was released, but I was more shocked by the tie-up! I was like, "Oh my God, a tie-up!

Yoshioka: So I finally started to get a sense of the "new chapter" as it got closer to airing.

Tanaka: I was slowly becoming happy, and as I read the script, I began to think, "I'm looking forward to this. But we were also doing a stage production ("Wake Up, Girls! Aoba no Kiroku"), so we didn't feel separated from "Wake Up, Girls!" and we were able to easily turn our attention to the anime.

Okuno: We were also talking about how we should keep Wagner connected to the project (without his works). We were happy to hear that they were going to do a "new chapter" and that their hard work must have paid off.

Yoshioka: That's why the period when nothing was happening was so hard. There was a period of about six months when I had no goals or anything before I heard about the "new chapter," so I wondered what I should aim for. But I felt that if I didn't do my best, there would be no next chapter, and I was very frustrated.

─ ─ During that period, did you take dance and singing lessons individually?

Yoshioka: We decided on some common goal. You set various goals, such as a tour of six prefectures in the Tohoku region, Saitama Super Arena, and a live pilgrimage to sacred places, didn't you?

Tanaka Yes, yes.

Okuno We were talking about touring Tohoku, too.