Looking back on the beginning and the last year of "Milky Holmes" - Interview with Mirai Sasaki (voice actress) and Taro Okada (producer)

Milky Holmes, a voice actor unit born from the "Detective Opera Milky Holmes" content, reached its goal at the "Milky Holmes Final Live Q.E.D." held at the Nippon Budokan on January 28, 2019. In this "Milky Holmes" Final Interview, we spoke with Mirai Sasaki, a voice actress who was one of the members of Milky Holmes, and Taro Okada, the general producer (Bushiroad Music Inc.).

What was the Milky Holmes voice actor unit? How was the smiling final live performance born? To find out once again, we asked these two to take some time to find out.

Mirai Sasaki was the winner of the nationwide open audition "Find Ellie" held from 2009 to 2010! National Voice Actor Audition," she was only 18 years old when she won the role of Hercule Burton out of over 4,500 applicants. The phrase she uttered at the final Budokan, "You found me in the middle of a blizzard in Iwate," was very memorable. When I was in that very blizzard, I had a dream of becoming a voice actor and singing. But there was no training school in Iwate. That's when I found an announcement on the Internet about a nationwide voice actor audition called "Find Ellie! National Voice Actor Audition. After winning the Sendai audition, she went on to the finals held on February 6, 2010, at Nakano Sun-plaza. There, Sasaki saw Milky Holmes perform for the first time, dressed in pink, yellow, and blue detective uniforms, singing and dancing. At the time, the three members of Milky Holmes were just doing a radio show, so I think this was the first time we had ever shown a performance to an audience," he said.　Actually, I was interviewed by Kitani (Takaaki, then president of Bushiroad). I was asked by Mr. Kitani (Takaaki Takamitsu, president of Bushiroad at the time) during an interview if I had to choose between voice acting and singing, and I was really worried about it.　I was asked, "If you had to choose between voice acting and singing, what would you choose? I was really torn between the two, and I answered, "Voice-over acting! So when I saw the three of them singing and dancing on stage on the day of the finals in Nakano, I said to myself, "No, you're not going to sing! I said to myself, 'No, you're going to sing!

I was really excited when I saw the three of them singing and dancing on stage on the day of the final competition in Nakano! Eight regional winners participated in the "National Voice Actor Audition" finals. Among them was someone who would later become Ms. Sasaki's best friend. She was Aimi, the representative from Osaka. Everyone who made it to the finals was really nice and we became fast friends. It made me cry when everyone congratulated me on winning the role of Ellie. Aimin and I were kind of in different groups (laughs). (laugh) But after the auditions were over, we stayed the night and got together in Aimin's (hotel) room and talked with each other. Although the two would later co-star in various productions, they did not have much in the way of professional contacts when they were newcomers. They both moved to Tokyo at the same time and had no friends, so we were close in age and became friends naturally. We didn't work together much, so we were really just ordinary friends, and that relationship hasn't changed.

Shortly after the audition, Sasaki moved to Tokyo and became a member of the Milky Holmes unit. When asked a slightly teasing question, "Did you get along with your seniors right away? Sasaki nodded with a laugh when asked the slightly teasing question, "Did you immediately fit in with your seniors? I got along with them. All three of them were really kind to me. Looking back, Toku-san (Aozora Tokui) is actually very shy. But I think he talked to me a lot so that I wouldn't feel uneasy as a newcomer. I met Mimolin (Suzuko Mimori) at the office on my first day in Tokyo. She helped me move my belongings to my new apartment. At first I was living in a weekly apartment, so when I told her that my room was cold, she immediately sent me a blanket. When I first started working with Ms. Tachibana, we went to a cat café together. The ladies were really very kind to me," she said.

Taro Okada-san is the second Milky Holmes general producer. He first took the stage in February 2016. However, even before that, he had been leading the team as the core of Milky Holmes-related activities, especially in the area of live performances. Before I joined Bushiroad Group, the first Anisama I was involved in was Milky's first performance (in 2010), and when I was in charge of another stage at One Festival, the stage right before it was "Milky Holmes". We were in the same industry and close to each other. It wasn't until the "Milky Holmes Sisters Member Scout Audition" (I was in charge of counting the votes at the audition) for the anime "Futari wa Milky Holmes" (2013) that I became officially and publicly involved in the business. Therefore, Aimi from Feathers, Ayasa Ito and I are Milky's peers.

Nobuyuki Nakamura, the first general producer and a founding member of the "Milky Holmes" team, has long been a central figure in the team. Nobuyuki Nakamura, the first general producer and a founding member of the "Milky Holmes" team, has long been a central figure in the team. The staff members who assisted him were naturally replaced, so there was never a moment when Mr. Okada said, "I'm joining the Milky Team from today. From the members' point of view, they felt that "before they knew it, she was there, and she had become an indispensable person whom everyone trusted. Mr. Okada, who began directing live performances from Feathers' first live show, was called by Bushiroad's then-president, Mr. Kitani. As Mr. Nakamura was "promoted" to the position of overseeing the entire "Milky" contents, Mr. Okada was given a large portion of the responsibility for the live performance site. The big event of the time, "Milky Holmes Live Adventure☆Milky Road! Okada-san was already at the center of the live team at the event.

It was in February 2016 that Okada-san officially took the stage. The announcement was made at Belle Salle Akihabara, where a cold wind was blowing, that Mr. Nakamura, the first general producer, was stepping down following his departure from the company, and that Mr. Okada would be taking over as general producer. I have to be honest, I was like, "Why now? (laugh). I had been working as a producer before that, and things were going well with Nobu-chan as the face of the content. I was the youngest person in the company and in the team. But when I heard that Nobu-chan was stepping down (and later leaving the company), I felt that I was the only one who could take over and look after Milky to the very end. I felt a greater sense of responsibility.

The room in Bushiroad where this interview took place used to be the "Milky Holmes" project room when Okada and Nobuyuki Nakamura worked together, with their desks and a room full of "Milky Holmes" related luggage, costumes, and props in the back. Among them, there was also a sofa space for Milky's members to relax.

On the occasion of Ms. Nakamura's departure, Mr. Okada spoke with her alone, saying, "I will continue to work with 'Milky Holmes' from here on out. I intend to continue to make "Milky Holmes" exciting in the future, but I think there comes a time when any content comes to an end. When that time comes, I will be responsible for seeing it through to the end, so don't worry." [Laughs.

The promise that "I never wanted that day to come" will be fulfilled after the February 2018 announcement. It was an announcement that Milky Holmes would take the "final road" for a year to prepare for the final live concert to be held a year later. Sasaki recalls the time around the announcement of the breakup. I knew in my head that any content, any unit, would end at some point. But in my mind, I felt as if Milky Holmes would never end, as if it would go on forever. That's why I was honestly sad and surprised at the announcement. It took us a year from the official announcement to the final live performance, but once we actually started, it all happened so fast. We had only a limited amount of time to be Milky, so I wondered how much we could express our gratitude. There may have been other things we could have done, but I think we did everything we could within ourselves over the course of the year. We had never had the opportunity to be so close to the audience and exchange words with them, so it was a very good time. I felt that Milky was loved so much by the audience, and I loved it too. I think I was able to celebrate the last day of the show with a good feeling.

Okada-san has been thinking about what the goal of Milky Holmes as a unit should be since the time she took office, and she has discussed the matter with various people. He said, "It is difficult to choose the right words, but can we do it forever as a unit of four, or can we continue to do that stage based on dancing and singing as a unit even when we are 50 or 60 years old? I felt that would be difficult. Would it end, or would we change the form? I was thinking about all kinds of things. In fact, in December 2017, after the "Dai Milky Holmes December Concert" at Ryogoku Kokugikan was over, I told the four members that the final concert would be held in early 2019. To be honest, I was frustrated at the time. The external announcement was made at Nakano Sunplaza in front of the fan club members who had supported Milky Holmes. At the moment of the announcement, the audience was filled with a whirlwind of frustration, anger, and disappointment. I thought it would be cruel to the four of us and to all the fans, but I thought we should tell the fans directly from the four of us, instead of just posting it on the company website," he said. I thought at the time that when the fans came out of the venue for the last show, we should just let them know that they had a great time. For the next year, that was all I thought about," he said.

I would like to leave the credit for the time spent running through the year after that, doing everything I could, to the Milchians, who actually kept up with the chase. One year later, they arrived at the stage of "Milky Holmes Final Live Q.E.D." at Nippon Budokan. Incidentally, "Q.E.D." is the sign for the completion of the proof of a mathematical formula, and is also used in Milky Holmes' signature song, "There is only one correct answer! Not! It is also a phrase in Milky Holmes' most famous song, "There is no one right answer!

At the final live, the four members went on stage with a fairly calm tension. This may have been partly due to the fact that they performed a circle formation on stage during the show, which they usually do in their dressing rooms before a live performance. Mr. Sasaki was in charge of the circle call. It was interesting that before he called out in a heroic voice, Mr. Sasaki refused to say, "I'm going to speak louder. When I called out in a rather oraganic manner, everyone was surprisingly taken aback. When we formed a circle like that before each performance on the final road, Mr. Tachibana was really surprised by my loud voice. He told me to say something before I shouted. That was what he told me to say before speaking out loud, and it continued on stage at the Budokan (laughs).

At the end of the Budokan performance, the four members left their detective hats on the stage, then ran back to the stage and closed the show in a fun and messy way. The members suggested that they really wanted to do that. That scene really got to me. Of course we had rehearsals before the live performance, but that scene was something no one wanted to do. It was heart-wrenching. The hat dropping performance was the same as in the "Detective Opera Milky Holmes SS: Sayonara, Koyi-chan. The hat-placing scene is a parody of the scene in "Detective Opera Milky Holmes SS: Sayonara, Kori-chan, Long Goodbye Forever..." in which Koyi Akechi leaves a golden mask on stage at the Nippon Budokan and walks away, and is connected to the episode in which Momoe Yamaguchi left a microphone on stage at the Nippon Budokan. According to Okada, "We were talking about how the parody was based on Yamaguchi Momoe, and how it could be connected to the anime Koyo. Actually, the idea of placing the hat on stage had been proposed by Saito Pie (Animelo Summer Live General Producer Koji Saito) the year before as a direction for the final scene of Anisama. But we decided that we wanted to do this at the end of Milky.

I wanted to ask him about the balance between the wet and sentimental feelings of the final live and the underlying idea that Milky Holmes should always be cheerful, fun, and interesting. (Sasaki-san clapped his hands.) "That's really it. That's it!　When we decided on the final set list, we started from the back and had a lot of trouble deciding on the last song. If we were going to go wet, we had to choose between "Hinukoe nakano arigato (Thank you even if you can't hear me)" (a coupling from the first single and a big last song of the live) and "Dondou gunsei ni totsuketeru (Melting away into the blue)" (the final single). First, we had a hard time deciding which of these songs to sing, or whether to sing both, and we decided that "Thank you even if you can't hear me" would be fine since we were able to sing it properly at the last Anisama".

In the actual live performance, "Thank You Even If You Can't Hear Me" was used as the background music for a surprise VTR, which was not even told to the members. Producer Okada, who had heard the song up to this point, chuckled. When we started talking about it, we decided to use 'Thank you even if you can't hear' for the surprise video from among several candidates," he said. So when the conversation turned to that, I quickly moved on to the next story. As a result, it became "Thank you" from everyone at Milkyan, and I was actually singing it out loud with Mr. Okumura (Okumura Echigoya, one of the producers who has supported Milkyan from the beginning). Sasaki-san couldn't help but laugh in exclamation at the surprise that had been in the works since that time. The moving surprise was kept mostly to Okada-san's heart, and proceeded as a top-secret project. I definitely wanted to include an element of emotion in the final live performance," he said. Nobu-chan's idea and teaching was that tears were not allowed on the Milky stage. Nobu's idea was correct, and we have been following her teachings and trying to create a stage where everyone is smiling and cheering up. But when I thought about what to do for the last and final stage, I thought that I wanted to make it such a place where Milky, Milkyan, and the staff could expose all their emotions, cry with all their might, and laugh with all their might. When the letter was read and the hat was put down, Milky Holmes had reached a point of closure. From that point on, the audience, the members themselves, and we all sang together as friends who loved the work "Milky Holmes" and the unit.

After the concert, the members went out for yakiniku as usual and ordered a plate of beef tongue for each of them. Okada-san told Nakamura-san, who had promised to see the show through to the end, "I kept my promise. Mr. Okada told Ms. Nakamura that he had promised to see her through to the end. Mr. Sasaki said, "Later, we had a viewing party at Ms. Tachibana's house to watch the final live performance, and I watched the members read their letters and cry while laughing. I felt refreshed and thought the future was bright because we ended with such a good live performance," she said with a smile.

The final show was a live performance where we could proudly say that we had put everything into Milky Holmes and our time together, and that we had brought it all out. I can say that there was nothing better than that and that it was the best. I think that is something that I, the members, and the people who came to the concert can be proud of. Whenever you are going through a difficult time, I hope you will look back on that concert and feel better. We are now preparing to look back on that year in a video as well.

It's been a year that I haven't had time to be sad, and because of that live performance at the end of the year, I can look forward to the future with a smile on my face. Milky Holmes will continue to be in me, and I believe it will continue to be in all Milkyans. I hope we can continue to walk together.

(Reporting by Kiri Nakazato)