Matsushima Sou about the New Year:

When you are reading this, it will already be 2017. Happy New Year. Please treat me well this year too! I am still in the year of 2016, so I’m excited about “Kohaku” while waiting for it (laughing). I’m thankful for the last continuing 4 years I’ve been able to participate in it but I’m definitely nervous. The first 1-2 minutes you can feel my true nervousness but from the 3rd minute I get used to the stage and my tension decreases. Among all the performers we are always one of the youngest, so with that in mind I think our nervousness gets transferred easily to other people around us. But we celebrated our 5th anniversary and our awareness is becoming higher, so this year we could become a little more mature and show a more composed side of us... I think that’s good (laughing). After “Kohaku” we have the Countdown concert. I am able to properly perform there for the first time and I am very happy to be able to dance to “Andalusia ni akogarete” with my seniors who are amazing dancers. The shuffle alone is fun and it’s amazing to be among all those people with the members. I’m happy when I can dance with many great dancers who are also my seniors, like Goseki (Koichi)-kun and Yamada (Ryosuke)-kun. I don’t know the details yet but I am already excited. I am motivated because I can look forward to a precious performance! And on 1st January I plan to go to Hey! Say! JUMP’s concert. No, I’ll definitely go. As a JUMP fan I cannot miss it (laughing). On 2nd January I went to visit a shrine with my family. We go to that same shrine every year for omikuji to see if we’ll get a scary fortune. I hope that for 2017 I’ll also draw a good omikuji (laughing).

Q1. Does the Matsushima household have any rules? It’s not really a rule but since I live away from my dad and my older sister, we exchange group messages. Me and my older sister use our own stickers, so our dad started using his own stickers too, it’s cute (laughing). We make sure to continue doing it, so it might be an implicit rule of the Matsushima family. I would like to make it a rule to have a family trip once a year.

Q2. Please tell us one secret, anything is okay. I went to have a meal with Chinen (Yuri)-kun and Yabu (Kota)-kun for the first time. Chinen-kun wrote about it on his blog so it’s not really a secret but... he only talked about it a little bit. Chinen-kun recommended me some animes. He told me “You definitely have to watch this!”, so I immediately started watching it! I like anime a lot and in truth I would like to try cosplay too, I think that might be my secret (laughing).

Q3. Did you go somewhere with the members? It wasn’t in private but I went to the Imperial Theatre with Marius (Yo) for a guest appearance in “Johnnys’ All Stars Island”. We invaded (Sato) Shori’s dressing room and made a mess (laughing). But when we went home I cleaned it properly. That’s when I found out that Shori needs a little variety in his dressing room. Next time when I only visit him I think I will take care (of his room)!

Keep in mind I am not a native speaker therefore there might be mistakes in my translations. Also I’m not exactly translating word for word. Feel free to correct me in my ask box any time you want, I’d appreciate it! I apologize if someone already translated something before me and I didn’t notice, I hope you don’t mind.

Credit goes to tkhs_zone @ Twitter for the scans, thank you!