– The world of musicians, professional ones, and who on top of that have attained such immense success, is a world open only to a handful of people. Professional actors are in that same kind of world, aren’t they?
[Eeh! Is that so? So, actors make good money, do they?]

– For example, if it was America, after being in just a single movie, they could live as mega celebs, but the Japanese movies don’t seem to have that sort of system in place. Actors think they can get by appearing only in movies, but it’s not like America. They need to be in CMs, TV dramas and things like that too.
[Is that how it is? I only knew musicians, and you’re telling me actors don’t make all that much profit either…… Like I thought, the Japanese system is strange. It’s like this for soccer players, too.]

– For soccer players, their lifespan as pro athletes is quite short, which makes it all the more terrible. What’s more, after they retire, for instance, there really aren’t many people who can make a living based on soccer. The ones who can’t end up needing to start a second life, and so a lot of those people end up making a living with a delivery service or something.
[Oh, really~? That’s so painful.]

– Baseball players at least have a longer active lifespan than soccer players do. In that area, how are things for pro musicians?
[I think we need to put more money into the system, or else some good people won’t be able to survive.]

– It’s a realistic problem, since you can’t live off dreams alone. It’s a harsh story.
[I only know about the music world, but the right to declare someone a musician is really restricted. Since only the record companies have it. Like for putting up buildings (laughs). Compared to Europe and America, Japan doesn’t put much money into supporting its musicians. Relative to the past, we did catch up pretty fast but we’re still behind the west. Among musicians, I think there are also people who say “Just becoming a pro would make me happy” or “I’ll be happy if I can just release a CD”. But it’s not just that, it’s more, as far as the music world goes, and sports figures, and actors…… It’s just that, if there isn’t more money put into the system for these people, there won’t be anything good happening, no one will be able to produce anything good.]

– Following that, people with talent might give up on Japan, and then they’ll quickly go overseas. We should make the system better, so that we can defend the worth of our own social aspirations.
[What would be the best way to make a system that makes sure Japan’s professionals get money? (laughs)]

– Hmmm…… Make sure the people we call pros are in a position worth aspiring to, much as I said. It’s not enough to tell them to do their best (laughs).
[But, if you think about the salarymen, one person could work for their entire lifetime, and they still probably won’t make a high enough salary to affort to build their own house, right? So how about that? That’s just madly maddening. The system is. Because, you have people saying “Our loan has a 35 year repayment plan,” so you’ll be paying for that loan until you’re how old? Or something. I absolutely can’t stand that. It means those people are already gamblers. ‘Cause, you have no clue what your income’s going to be thirty years from now (laughs). But even so, they take out those loans. That must be quite the sensation. Knowing that you’re going to be working for the same company for your entire life, I mean.]

– How is the social rank of a musician in Japan?
[I think I’d like kids to want to be musicians, chart toppers when they grow up. A friend of mine told me that in places like England, lots of kids say they want to be soccer players or musicians when they grow up. Most parents will even tell them to go for it if that’s what they want. In Japan, that doesn’t really happen, does it?]

– If a kid were to say “I want to be a musician when I grow up,” even these days, most parents would be opposed to it, after all.
[But in England, everyone has the idea that if they become soccer players or musicians, then they’ll be rich. That’s why I want Japan to be that way, too.]

– You want to give kids the dream of becoming a musician, then. Since the J-League(1) was formed, there’s been a sudden increase in the number of kids saying “I want to be a soccer player when I grow up.” But, there doesn’t seem to be many kids saying they want to become ranking musicians. That must mean it still isn’t seen as a major occupation.
[Yeah, there’s still that image of how awful it is to be at the lowest rank(2), isn’t there? And then, it seems like only a handful of people ever succeed at it. Wonder how come?]

– Perhaps if, like Nakata Hidetoshi did for soccer(3), there were to appear a musician who could compete equally at an international level, that point of view would change?
[A musician like that doesn’t exist, and I think that can’t be helped. It’s the words, after all. In Japan, Japanese is the main language. Some people can sing in English, but really, hardly a handful have good pronunciation, right? Singing with badly pronounced English, I don’t think that’s going to make people overseas listen and pay you for it. So, as much as Japanese people might think “This sounds like Western music,” “I bet this could be a hit overseas,” it won’t be successful there. That’s because they already have plenty of that kind of music overseas. They won’t go out of their way to buy a Japanese musician’s products. I think if any Japanese music has a chance to be successful overseas, it’s Japan-like stuff. Asiatic, exotic stuff. Besides, getting something Japanese to be a success overseas is mainly hard, isn’t it? A softer success is something like animation right? But, when that animation goes overseas, they can dub over the dialogue. When athletes go overseas, the language they speak doesn’t really matter. Since it’s a world where you advance by applying a practical skill. Talking through music doesn’t work the same way. Within Asia, Japan is the subject of admiration, so to an extent, people are more willing to listen to something that’s in Japanese. Japanese is only used in Japan. In comparison, English is used in countries all over the world. It’s the official second language in even more places. That means the market is worldwide. That isn’t the case for Japanese. That means you have to focus on the Japanese population, don’t you? And so, it means there’s no possibility to broaden your market. I think if Japan had won the Second World War, history would have been changed. The Japanese language’s sphere of influence would have grown. Also, the way I see it, it would have been better if Japan had adopted English after losing the war. Wouldn’t it be easier that way? We’d all have been speaking English since we were born (laughs). We could have kept Japanese for historical, cultural things. It would be easier. The market would be bigger.]

– Interviewer : Toujou Sachie
Translated by Natalie Arnold

1. The J. League is Japan’s professional soccer league. It was officially opened in 1993, which is recent by global professional sport standards.Go back.

2. In feudal Japan, social ranking was very strictly organised by occupation, and artists fell near the bottom. They were usually very poor and did not own land, instead having to pay high taxes to live on someone else’s land. Part of this perception of artists as low ranking persons seems to have persisted into modern times.Go back.

3. Nakata Hidetoshi is undoubtedly the most famous Japanese soccer player active, if not the most famous player of all Asia. He has been playing in European teams for many years, and has been acclaimed for his great prowess while on Italy’s team. Go back.