making my best of 2023 kpop gifset and omg the mvs are so bad now. and you know who i blame **. it’s just the blandest face close ups and choreo scenes spliced together like booooooooooooooooooooo

Interview - 2D Star Vol.11

Big thanks to @yukimuzic for the scans. If you were to use and/or repost this page, please ask her first.

Q. It’s Hi!Superb's first appearance in MY★STAR, isn’t it~ First of all, please introduce yourselves.

LEO: Yes, so I’ll go first! I’m Leo! Hi!Superb’s leader, the positive king from Naniwa!

RYO: Wait a minute! Isn’t your rank a bit high?! (lol)

LEO: From now on, instead of positive thinking, I thought I’d go with “positive king“. (lol) Since I’m from Kansai, I’m doing it to make anything look funny! RYO, you’re up next!

RYO: Everyone, it’s a pleasure to meet you! I’m the natural malicious puppy ✰ Hi!Superb’s lively RYO!! There’s no mistake that if you support me, it’ll make you happy forever! I’ll be in your care!!

LEO: That’s a lot of english there! Whatcha say, SION?

SION: (laughs with a gentle smile)

RYO: I thought it’d be okay to say that with feelings (lol). Next! Let’s go, OMI-kun!

OMI: Hello, Hi!Superb’s OMI here.

RYO: .... Eh-, that’s all!?

OMI: Since I’m introducing myself.

LEO: As usual, OMI-chan is so serious~ (lol). But, let's talk a little bit more!

OMI: There are many things that are said to change, but I’m not aware of having any.

RYO: The things I don’t understand are OMI-kun’s good points, I must be a weirdo!

LEO: And now, MAGU-chan!

MAGURA: Yees! Hello, MAGURA here. I’m the youngest, but I’m relied on and depended on a lot.

RYO: Cute MAGU-chan!

MAGURA: I’m not just cute, I also have a manly side, so watch closely, okay? ♪ Next up, SION!

SION: Hello, everyone. I’m SION. I think it was the fans who removed my veil, so take care of me?

Q. About three months have passed since your debut stage, what is the impression you have of each other?

RYO: Hmm. I think OMI-kun’s weirdness has passed the standard definition!

OMI: ......

RYO: OMI-kun, you’re scary, SCARY!

SION: OMI-kun, glaring is no good, haha.

LEO: For example, what kind of things are you referring to?

RYO: Hmm, like, rare moments that make you go “Eh-, at a time like this?!“ For example, recently, after recording, everyone was “Good, let’s go home~“ and as we left the studio he started eating a lunch box (lol). It surprised me, like “Now!? Rirght now!?“

SION: OMI-kun goes at his own pace.

OMI: Well, SION, I think that you have a quite unique personality, though.

SION: Is that so?

LEO: While you talk, you suddenly start yapping in english, give me a break (lol).

SION: So, does having the same strange aura mean that OMI-kun and I are fellows?

OMI: No, it’s totally different. Stop it.

RYO: Here we go again~! The bashful OMI-kun ☆

OMI: Am not. I’m tootally not shy.

Q. You really get along, huh?

LEO: That’s right. Even on stage we talk eagerly. (lol) As you can see from the flow of the conversation just now, OMI-chan has established a unique world.

MAGURA: Even though there are only 10 minutes left until the stand-by, OMI-kun checks the steps by himself.

RYO: Today too, I was wondering where did he run off, but once he came back he was all sweaty (lol). “Huh!? Did you just come back from a sauna!?”, said Leader to poke fun at him. (lol)

MAGURA: Leader’s comedy acts are always running high, haha. 

SION: That’s true!

LEO: Huh? Before I knew it, it’s my turn? (lol)

RYO: Even when Leader is the MC, he sets up his silly booby traps! He’s really  reliable! OMI-kun and Leader have totally different personalities, but when they’re standing together on stage they show a really reliable side of them; it gets us all fired up and make us want to work hard! 

MAGURA: LEO-kun’s leadership is really something. He pulls us together.

RYO: That's not an aggressive sensation, it’s natural. If I were a girl, I would definitely fall for a guy that has Leader’s qualities~!

SION: But if it’s about being natural that we’re talking about, aren’t you also pretty straightforward, RYO-kun?

LEO: His switch is always on after all. Especially the tension when there’s a meal in front of him is remarkable. (lol)

RYO: I like catering, that’s all!!

MAGURA: Indeed, haha. In front of a catering, RYO-kun’s tension is at its MAX. I think it’s really cute when that happens.

RYO: Eh!?

SION: There’s no mistake, since Hi!Superb’s cute one says so.

RYO: ! Ah, thanks!!

LEO: Also, when I’m the MC you take the lead telling me I gotta be lively during our scenes and enhance the mood, so I’m always saved by that.

RYO: I was praised by Leader! Yaay!

LEO: However, there are also moments when you rush things up, so there’s room for improvement, haha.

RYO: !!

OMI: Because you push your way through as if you’re in a bulfight. I’d be happy if you could calm down a little.

RYO: Uwaaaah~~ I was body-slammed~~ (cries).

SION: I think that having a challenging spirit is amazing.

RYO: Thank you, SION!

A question from Leader that’ll cause the youngest members to be in a pinch.

LEO: To MAGURA and SION in particular, if you were to work with someone from Hi!Superb, who would you choose?

MAGURA: Hmm, let’s see...

LEO: It’s okay if it’s just from your current impressions!

RYO: No, no, I’m scared!

SION: Ehh, It’s troubling because I want to be with everyone.

RYO: Well then! When I went out to eat with SION before, I was told that "I feel so comfortable with RYO-kun!"

SION: I wonder if I really did say that, haha.

LEO: So, is SION saying he’s fine doing things together with RYO?

OMI: Somehow, the pressure here is amazing.

MAGURA: I really want to try being together with everyone, so it's difficult to answer..... But, I'm sure that here “I want to be with you all” is the right answer, right?

RYO: Stop make this look like it’s business! (cries)

LEO: Speaking of MAGU-chan, he has a refined ability to perceive and watch closely his surroundings, haha. Before, during Hi!Superb’s program Hi!SuPunch, I ate something very spicy, but when I was in agony MAGU-chan was the very first that brought me water.

RYO: Although they’re younger than me, I think they’re really reliable. During lives, it’s odd how I often go to the youngers’ (to MAGURA & SION) side, maybe it’s becose I sense safety from them.

LEO: You really love MAGU-chan, RYO!

RYO: True, sometimes I mistake him for a girl! (lol) But when I look at his abdominal muscles, "Ah..... I get it, after all he’s a man" I say, disappointed. (lol)

OMI: That’s obvious.

RYO: Here’s the straight man, OMI-kun getting colder and colder!

OMI: Stop! Don’t stick close to me!

MAGURA: RYO-kun...

SION: Yeah, and a bit of a M.

LEO: SION, what's your impression on MAGURA?

SION: Well... We’re the same age and we get along. It’s kind of like... if you get too close, he’ll disappear, as if there is a hole in one’s heart?

MAGURA: Such a thing, you’re formidable, SION. A natural charisma.

Q. Although the debut single “Turn Into Love” was released on May 30, please tell us about the most important part of the tune title.

LEO: The image and the songs are filled with all the charms that us, Hi!Superb, have now. It's a fascinating song, I think that you can enjoy this single even more if you do it together with us.

MAGURA: The parts of the lyrics, “We’re here now because we could overcome it”, “Shine on our tomorrow“, have this kind of  “We’re keeping an eye on the future so we’ll work hard!” feeling. I'd be glad if you noticed not only the performance, but also the rest.

RYO: It's a song filled with the refreshingness of 5 people working altogether for their dream and giving their 10000% in performances!

OMI: It's the song that symbolizes us. From now on, whenever we show off this song, I think that it will keep evolving rapidly. A fascinating song suitable for a debut, so please pay attention at the live and have fun.

RYO: I think it’s a very exciting song! I will do my utmost for the performance, so I hope you enjoy it when I’ll perform during the live. In the lyrics it says “Let’s believe in a world that we drew together”, but it’s filled with thoughts like “It’ll come true with all those who support you!”. I’ll be very happy if everyone can hear it with such feelings!

SION: “Turn Into Love” means “Come to be Love*”. Those who know us and those who don’t, I hope that if you listen to this song your love for Hi!Superb will deepen. It's our important debut song. I think it became a good beginning. In other words, amazing!

MAGURA: It’s our splendid debut song! I think that more songs will see the light from now on, but I think that this became the iconic song of Hi!Superb.

Q. “Turn Into Love” has a MV, but what are the points worthy of note?

MAGURA: There are a lot of  lip synch scenes, but each personality comes out amazingly. By all means, find out each of our personalities.

LEO: The lightning tone scene at the beginning leaves a strong impression.

RYO: Yep, yep! Me too, my switch turns on when listening to the thunder at the beginning!

MAGURA: RYO-kun’s lively switch?

OMI: It sounds different when it comes to it.

SION: Suddenly comical, haha.

LEO: But, it may be true that that sound surely contains feelings. At that moment, it really feels like from one we become five.

SION: Usually everyone separes this way, but in this MV a lot of sex appeal comes out.

Q. Thank you very much. Is there anything you would like to challenge yourself with in the future?

MAGURA: Since SION can speak english and chinese, it’d be nice to have a place to use that skill.

RYO: Sounds nice! I want to go overseas!!

OMI: How simple-minded, but I sure want to challenge myself and perform overseas as soon as possible.

LEO: Since our motto is to challenge anything, I'd also like the 5 of us to star in play someday.

RYO: Ah--!! That’s nice too! I wanna do that too! And I'd like to be on the cover page of a magazine! MY★STAR stuff, I’ll be in your care!!

SION: OMI-kun and MAGU-chan already said it earlier, but we shouldn’t stop in Japan; we’ll start up activities overseas and live the american dream (※Editorial note: It was a very good pronunciation....!)

OMI: There’s a part in Turn Into Love that says “To a world we have yet to see”, but I think that the future we can't even imagine is waiting down the road. A play, activities overseas too, precisely because we’re not known I want to challenge myself to see what I can do.

RYO: How nice! Like, basketball!? 

OMI: .... What?

MAGURA: Ah, I’ll make the teams.

RYO: As expected, I think that it’s good for the 5 of us to sweat over one spor...

OMI: Leader, the final words to you.

LEO: Eh-!! (lol)

Q. By all means, please give us a final message!

LEO: Understood (lol). Hi!Superb is a group of which charm lies in performances and team work. Said charm can be seen in lives, no matter how many times I say it!! So, anyway, come see us first. If you think you were deceived, I’ll say it one more time! There’s also the MV attached to the special edition CD released in May, so I think you can enjoy it more if you see the images and listen to the songs, that’ll make us happier than anything. But even without preparations, since we’re making a stage that you can enjoy, I’ll say it again, please do come and see us Hi!Superb.

ALL:  By all means~!

_________________________________________________

*Sion actually says “Turn Into Loveの意味は愛に変わるです”. “愛に変わる” means “Turn Into Love”, but in order not to sound redundant, it was changed to something with a similar meaning.

Skidmarks: Universal Truth? Lead photo by: Cesar Godoy Love of beauty is taste. The creation of beauty is art. —Ralph Waldo Emerson Here’s a sure way to get six conflicting opinions: put three motorcyclists in a room together and show them a photo of a bike. Some will love it, some will hate it, and then they start tearfully remembering all the bikes they used to have. Why did I ever sell my ’79 CB750K? That was the best bike ever! (No, it wasn’t.) I recently posted a photo of a particularly tasty Triumph TT custom on a local forum of a bike I loved from the moment I saw it. The builder, Spain’s Pepo Rosell, took the tough, brutal form of the blocky ’90s-vintage Triumph Legend TT and its three-cylinder motor, modernized it with Daytona 675 suspension and wheels and topped it off with a modified Suzuki Bandit gas tank (with old Laverda gas cap). The fairing and tailsection are vintage-racing bits, but I really like the custom monotube subframe that matches Triumph’s hulking monotube backbone frame. Rosell put “Rocket III” livery on it because… well, maybe just because F-you is why. Pepo likes it, and I like it too. Pepo Rosell’s clean-yet-brutish Triumph Legend TT-cum-BSA Rocket doesn’t have the universal appeal I thought it would have. Photos (top image and above): Cesar Godoy Not so the general public, though. The peanut gallery acknowledged it was sorta cool…but didn’t like it as much as I did. The seat was too stubby and looked uncomfortable, and the bike just lacked visual balance. But maybe the big sin for many was that it just didn’t look rideable. They missed the point, I thought! This is about aesthetics. For some more perspective, I headed down to Todd Chamberlin’s shop, Naked Moto in Hayward, California. Todd’s hardly some ordinary moto-shop owner – he worked for Polaris Industries’ Victory division, and though he lacks formal design training, he was closely involved in every phase of bringing Victory products to market, from clay mockup to manufacturing. He worked for four years alongside Michael Song on the Victory Vision and built a V92C roadracer (yes, for real), but most importantly, put a Ducati 900 mill into a DR-Z400 chassis, because somebody had to. That bike was stolen, and I wonder if the bike thief made it home unharmed and sane. Todd’s customizing skills are bona fide. His specialty is taking sportbikes – his favorites are SV650s and Honda CBR600F2s – and stripping them down to the essentials. When I asked him what he thought made a bike visually appealing, he wouldn’t talk about line or form or shapes – instead, he said it had to look like it would “run 20,000 miles before you have to do a major service.” Many in the general motorcycling public agree; a trained eye and brain, honed by many hours wasted towing, pushing or dragging stricken bikes to dealerships just knows if a bike looks tough and rideable, and you can spot the customs and factory designs that hew to that ethic. Back at the discussion forum, a rider named Russ wrote that “lightly modified bikes… add improvements to increase performance and usually the bike is well sorted.” That’s the only sort of “custom” he’s interested in: ones that look like you can ride them. Naked Moto’s Todd Chamberlin worked with designer David Song on the Victory CORE concept. That monocoque chassis is underneath the sculpted bodywork of the Victory Vision and Crossroads tourers, which do not have carved hardwood seats, don’t worry. When pressed, Todd told me that there “are no right choices” when it came to making bikes appealing. “You can’t build a universal bike – I’ve been trying for years – but if I did build one, it would be a naked supersport of some kind.” His perfect bike would be “cleaner: no fairings, no subframes, the seat just kind of floating out there.” And of course, it would run well, with long service intervals so you could ride and ride. Todd, like most customizers, can’t start with a totally clean sheet of paper, so I decided to talk to someone who had. Marc Fenigstein is the CEO of Alta motors, and if you haven’t heard of Alta, you will: it’s an American manufacturer, based near San Francisco International Airport, that builds competition-ready battery-electric motocrossers and supermotos that are also street legal. The company’s been around for a few years, like most automotive startups, but this is its first year of production. Alta Motors will unveil this Redshift ST concept at the One Moto show in February 2017. Again, I’d like to say I cornered Marc for a rare, exclusive interview as part of my relentless pursuit of world-class motojournalism. The truth is Marc lives a block from a restaurant that serves a hamburger with a doughnut for a bun, and I was hungry, so I invited him to join me. As we munched, I asked what made motorcycles appealing – and got a real education about some basic principles of moto-design. I told Marc how much I liked his company’s latest project, the Redshift ST. It’s a minimalist take on a street-tracker, with abbreviated bodywork and dirt-track style 19-inch wheels. Created by Alta co-founder and designer Jeff Sand, it’s a styling exercise showing what Alta could do with the basic platform. Like Rosell’s Triumph, the shape of the bike instantly grabbed me. That’s primarily because of something Marc and Jeff call “massing.” That refers to the basic proportion of the shapes, and Marc says “it’s the most important [element], and manufacturers get it wrong the most.” Compare the Ducati 916 superbike to Japanese superbikes of the same era – where the 916’s proportions look light and balanced, a Honda CBR900RR or Yamaha YZF1000R look bulky, hulking, “like a guy with short legs and a big torso.” They’re more like bulldogs than cheetahs, and bulldogs are cool, “but nobody associates them with going fast.” It’s the same for cruisers; the Japanese manufacturers as well as European ones seem to struggle with getting proportions just right, and even someone with limited motorcycle knowledge can spot a non-Harley cruiser from a block away. It just looks wrong. Fenigstein picked these two bikes – Yamaha’s new R1 (top) and MV Agusta’s F3 to illustrate the difference in Japanese and European motorcycle design. Also telling the story is “gesture,” the flowing lines that tell a visual story and give a sense of motion. Marc shows me an MV Agusta F3 as he makes his point. “Well done, it makes a bike look fast when it’s standing still and when done poorly, makes a bike look like it’s standing still when it’s going fast.” Gesturing guides the eye along the motorcycle without it getting lost or offended, and many American consumers have a tough time with modern Anime-inspired Japanese designs that shock the sensibilities with clanging Cubist features and distractions. Rounding out a motorcycle’s visual style is “detailing,” and that is where Alta has an edge, according to Marc. “Function comes first,” he tells me as we eye several doughnut-burgers headed to their doom. “There’s no room for flourish or excess for the sake of design.” Sand has a rare quality in a designer, as he knows manufacturing as well as design, specifying materials that he knows can be translated into practical, cost-effective end products. Japanese OEMs often use plastic covers and baubles to hide ugly parts or mimic the look of aluminum or steel. If you have to use plastic, says Marc, “design forms that are beautiful in plastic.” By manufacturing the part in the designer’s material, “Jeff’s final result is true, authentic. There isn’t a single part that’s trying to look like something it isn’t.” Oh boy. There’s that word: “authentic.” Hipsters have commoditized authenticity just for authenticity’s sake – my $400 Redwing boots and $250 Pendleton shirt show you I’m a real outdoor guy, even though I’m a marketing associate from Brooklyn – but motorcyclists actually need authenticity. A trained eye knows a thin seat will be uncomfortable for rides over 20 minutes, that you need fenders to avoid getting a skunk-like strip of mud down your back, and lights, turnsignals, mirrors and horns are more than just legalities – they keep you alive. So a bike doesn’t just have to look right: it has to look right to ride. After chatting with Marc and Todd, I understand that the naysayers didn’t like my pick because it simply didn’t look good to ride. And that may be the most important aesthetic of them all. Gabe Ets-Hokin is one of the principal deities of Hinduism, and the Supreme Being in its Vaishnavism tradition. He enjoys shattering worlds and plays jazz accordion. Skidmarks: Universal Truth? appeared first on Motorcycle.com.