TV Guide Dan Vol.50, January 2024 Issue
ft. Ohsama Sentai King-Ohger Cast Members
Sakai Taisei x Masato Yano Interview
(translations below)
Publication: January 26, 2024
"Please introduce the character the other is playing in Ohsama Sentai King-Ohger."
Sakai: Yano-san plays Racules Husty, the big brother of Gira Husty, who I play. At first, we were led to believe that he was a bad guy who hurt his citizens, but unknown to Gira, he was carrying a huge burden on his shoulders, and was deliberately behaving in a way that made him look like that. Gira may have lost his childhood memories, but I think he respected Racules in those days, and even now is of great importance to Gira.
Yano: Gira is the younger brother of Racules, but at the same time, he's a mysterious being. Somehow, he can communicate with the Shugods…For the rest of the story, it felt like he was moving forward with innocence, but gradually, he gained leadership, moved the hearts of those around him, and became the driving force for the previously broken up Royal Sentai to become one. Furthermore, he's also been gaining more and more dignity as the new king, and now he and Racules have resolved their differences and are fighting together.
"Outside of your roles as brothers, what's the relationship between you two like?"
Yano: (with a solemn expression) We normally don't get along very well.
Sakai: (with a straight face) We fight alot.
Sakai & Yano: (laughs).
Yano: No, we're just joking. That's not the case at all.
Sakai: Yano-san takes very good care of me. He cares about me, asking, "Are you eating properly?," and also gives me advice on acting.
Yano: I'm not offering anything major. I just say, "Here's what I'm doing."
Sakai: For example, in running scenes, Yano-san breathes loudly with, "Haa, haa" to make the sound easier to pick up. Since Gira has many running scenes, I try to incorporate this in my own way.
Yano: I believe that each actor has their own way of creating emotion, so I often talk about the technical aspects. For example, it's better not to blink during important scenes, as it could distract the viewers. If there's no dialogue in a scene where you're close to a character's face, I'd suggest that you express your feelings by clenching your teeth or swallowing saliva.
Sakai: He teaches me these things in a way that's easy to understand. Furthermore, Yano-san has so many variations to his performance! He's always been a great help.
"Speaking of, what do you usually call each other?"
Sakai: I call him "Aniki."
Yano:…You've never called me that once though.
Sakai: Ahaha! Just now, I got scared~.
Yano: I immediately started thinking about the best way to respond to your joke.
Sakai: Actually, it's "Yano-san."
Yano: For me, it's "Sakai". Sometimes I call him "Taisei." Like when we go out to eat.
Sakai: It makes me happy to be called Taisei by Yano-san. From now on, I want you to call me Taisei!
Yano: You prefer Taisei?
Sakai: Yeah, but Sakai is fine too. I've been called that since I worked together with Yano-san in the drama "Shinyu wa Akujo."
Yano: Everyone called him Taisei, but I intentionally chose Sakai.
Sakai: Eh? Was it to make me feel special?! I'm so happy~!
Yano: Well…that's right! (laughs). What does Ikeda Masashi call you by?
Sakai: You mean by everyone?
Yano: Why'd you respond like that? (laughs). Sakai is like this, and sometimes I can't get through to him. The other day he asked, "What did you eat for dinner?" and when I answered, about 3 minutes later, he asked me the same question again.
Sakai: I wanted him to respond with, "How many times have you asked that?!"
(*he wanted to do a bit with Yano)
Yano: Absolutely not. I could tell by your face. Sakai has a different kind of expression when he's like that.
Sakai: Eh? So you can understand such subtle changes! Yano-san is the mood maker on set. When he's on standby in front of the cameras for a monologue scene, he makes strange faces right up until the actual performance (laughs).
Yano: Hey, hey, that makes it seem like I don't take my job seriously! Well, it is true that I make strange faces (laughs).
"We've heard from your co stars that Yano-kun is lonely, and that he posts the most in the King-Ohger cast's group LINE…"
Yano: It's a misunderstanding. There's a reason for that. It's a common occurrence among actors, but even if you create a group LINE with your co stars, after filming begins or after some time passes, no one says anything. I don't like it, so I post frequently, but no one ever responds…
Sakai: I often have trouble speaking up because I'm too considerate of my seniors.
Yano: Sakai doesn't really say anything. Rather, he doesn't return private LINE messages.
Sakai: That's not true. I reply as soon as I see them!
Yano: You didn't reply the other day.
Sakai: I might've been working.
Yano: Let's just leave it at that (laughs).
"Since you play brothers in this work, we'd like to ask what kind of household chores you'd share if the two of you were to live together."
Sakai: Leave the toilet and bathtub cleaning to me!
Yano: Are you good at it?
Sakai: I'm the type of person who makes things beautiful when my "switch" is turned on. However, folding clothes and vacuuming…I don't feel like doing that.
Yano: Well then, guess I'll do it.
Sakai: Please also take care of the cooking!
Yano: How strange! (laughs). Because, Sakai, you have a rice cooker at your house, and yet you eat precooked rice packs, right?
Sakai: Cooking rice is a pain…
Yano: I really don't understand that feeling.
Sakai: Everything depends on my mood (laughs). If I feel like cooking rice, I'll cook it.
Yano: So, on days when Sakai feels like it and cooks rice for me, I'll have to say "Thank you~!" out of consideration. How annoying~ (laughs).
"(laughs). In the future, if you were to work together again as actors, what kind of production would you like to work on?"
Sakai: I'd like to play a yakuza role.
Yano: I see. Your role would be something like, "Even though his face is cute, his face is calm when he kills," does that sound good?
Sakai: That's good!
Yano: Well then, I'll play the role of the detective who hunts him down. There was a drama like that, right? It was…"Informa," featuring Morita Go-san and Kiritani Kenta-san!
Sakai: Ah!
Yano: Sakai would be in Kiritani-san's position in that drama. Or, I'll be in Kiritani-san's position and Sakai will be in Yokohama Ryusei-san's position.
Sakai: That's really good!
Yano: Personally, I'm looking forward to it. What kind of work will Sakai first appear in after he graduates from King-Ohger? I think it's really important to make that first step. What kind of production do you want to be in?
Sakai: I have almost no experience in acting, so I'd like to play any kind of role.
Yano: Then, if you had to choose between comedy, romance, or serious, which one would you prefer?
Sakai: Are they genres I can do? In that case, I'll do it.
Yano: No, don't just say "I'll do it." I just gave you choices.
Sakai: I see, my bad (laughs). If I had to pick, I'd like to do a serious one. Also, comedy.
Yano: You chose two (laughs). And they're completely opposite genres.
Sakai: I'm greedy (laughs).
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Eating Jausn with König
A Brettljausn is just about the best thing out there. I wrote this back in November when my classmates decided to talk about Easter and Osterjausn, so the formatting is different. However, I thought it would work well with the Easter post, so I decided to post it now.
“Honey, what is that?” You looked at the wrinkly, dark colored thing in front of you. It might have been a sausage, on closer inspection. The plate was well filled with all kinds of meat and cheese. On the side were horseradish, eggs and pepper of all colors. On a small plate in front of you were small, sliced cherry tomatoes, the basket next to it held bread.
“It’s a Brettljause, it’s what we eat on special occasions, such as easter. But you don’t always need one to eat it. Just enjoy the meat, dear. It’s all from regional farmers as well.” König seemed rather content while looking at the food. You knew that Austrians loved their meats and sausages, he had told you about that before and you made fun of him for it, but you didn’t think he’d take it upon himself to prepare something like that. It seemed like that must have taken a lot of work. Must have been fairly costly as well. There was bacon there, it looked fairly good.
You took a piece of bread and picked up some meat with a fork. “And what’s this?”
“That’s Geselchtes. I call it Gsöchts, though. It’s meat that you put in salt water before smoking for a few hours. Before eating, you normally cook it. Don’t worry, this one doesn’t have too much fat on it, you can just cut those pieces off.” He put some gray-ish meat on a slice of bread, adding some egg slices and topping it off with some of the grated horseradish. Its scent wafted through the air, stinging your nose a bit. You watch him take a bite out of the bread, he locks his eyes with yours once he notices. “Is something the matter?”
“No, no, everything’s alright.” You looked at the pink meat on your fork, a bit hesitant to give it a try. König seemed to like this sort of food, he likely wouldn’t have prepared it otherwise. Besides, it was classic Austrian cuisine, apparently, it was only polite of you to try it, at the very least. Taking a bite out of the meat, you ran your tongue across it to give it a taste. You could definitely taste the salt, but it wasn’t too bad. It simply added to the flavor. The meat wasn’t very chewy, but you wouldn’t exactly call it the most tender meat either. It was actually surprisingly good. Instead of putting it on your bread, you simply ate the piece whole before picking up the same thing König had. “And what’s this?”
“Schweinsbratn.” He didn’t even hesitate to gobble up his bread, already on his second one. This time he put some bacon on it with cheese. Eggs and horseradish weren’t missing this time either. One of the tomato slices was lifted off the plate and put on his instead.
You followed his example and put two slices of the meat on your bread, topping it off the same way as him. That meat wasn’t too bad actually either, it was obvious that it was made of pork. With the horseradish being very fresh it was only natural for it to be spicy still. It didn’t disappoint, the taste somewhat reminding you of wasabi, even if your eyes started watering a bit. Your bread was gone soon enough and you opted for another one. There was no telling if König’s next one was his third or fourth one already.
“So, Schatzi.” He prepared another one. “Is it good? Do you like it?”
“Oh, it actually is. It’s pretty good.” Taking some of the red pepper, you put it on your bread with Geselchtem, gulping down a few of the tomatoes. You were sort of surprised this stuff didn’t come with a salad as well.
By the time you were on your third bread, the plate was already pretty empty, with König having eaten quite a lot. He’s always had a rather big appetite, and for that you were grateful, there was no way you could have eaten all of that on your own. You hadn’t tried the dark, cut up sausage yet. Of course, you had no idea what that was either. “What’s this? Sausage?”
König quickly chewed the food in his mouth before swallowing it down. “Yes, that’s Hoatwiastl. Hartwürstel, I suppose. As the name suggests, it’s a hard sausage. It’s very good, though, you have to try it.”
It was rather hard indeed, you were glad it was cut up into smaller slices. Biting into it whole would be another other ordeal. It was too small to put on bread, so you ate it along with it. Once done, you were completely full, incapable of eating another bite. There were still pieces of meat and cheese left on the plate, it was unbelievable. König didn’t seem affected at all, he simply got up and started putting everything away before returning with a bottle. If you had to take an educated guess then there’s a chance “Wein” might have been the German word for “wine”. “Would you like a Spritzer? It’s essentially wine mixed with soda.”
“Is that really necessary? Do we really need to drink too?”
He chuckled a bit. “It’s a big part of our culture. Alternatively, I can offer you some Gösser or Puntigamer.” With an amused expression, he watched you weigh your options. You didn’t know what either of those things were, probably some sort of beer, thus making you better off with the wine, probably. König even got the two of you some wine glasses. They were fancy looking, but you weren’t sure if you could actually take a sip of that.
He really just put mineral water into some wine, drinking it slowly. With a watchful eye, he almost expected you to take after him, which you did eventually. It tasted exactly the way you’d imagine, sparkly wine with a bit less flavor. Not the worst you’ve ever had. The things you did to make your man happy.
You continued to eat for another few minutes, this time in silence, for the most part. The plate was certainly full at the beginning, you couldn’t believe your eyes when most of it was gone. Still, despite the culture being rather meat heavy, you had to admit, it was pretty good. However, it was very filling. You couldn’t eat another slice of bread, opting for the meat and sausage instead, eating some slices of cheese along with them. Maybe some mayonnaise would have been good with it as well, but you didn’t want to make the suggestion in case König didn’t like it.
After wiping his mouth with a paper towel, he sat back, letting out a content sigh while holding his tummy. Even he seemed to be rather full after the copious amounts of meat he had eaten. Not like you weren’t, however. He took another sip of his Spritzer before putting the plates away, with you helping him out a bit, naturally.
“Thank you for trying some of my food, I do appreciate it. Did you like it?” Cleaning the plates with a sponge, his focus was on getting the last few crumbs off it so he could put it in the dishwasher. You popped one last cherry tomato in your mouth before handing him another plate, giving him a hum of approval.
“Yeah, it was pretty good, but could we maybe eat something less meaty next time? This was quite a lot.”
“Don’t worry, Schatzi, next time we can eat Kasnudeln. They’re also very delicious!”
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