Celebrated Her 20th Birthday, Tomochin Goes Easy Looking Straight At Her Dream

Tommy Kono April 18, 2012

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As you all know, NikkanSport is conducting the special coverage of upcoming AKB’s general election in it’s paper issues. Today they focus on Tomochin (Tomomi Itano), who turned 20 this year.

Tomichin’s popularity is significant especially among young girls. Have you ever read the photobook “TomoSatsu”? The book is full of private look of AKB members, and may give you an idea who in AKB48 has the best taste of fashoin. (For me, Acchan, Mayuyu and Tomochin are the best 3, how about you?)

Ranked 8 in the last general election, this year Tomochin, celebrated her coming age of day ceremony, started walking toward her big dream ‘Produce herself’.

Nikkan wrote “She looked a little lonely when being taken a commemorative photo with all other members on the stage.” She was ranked 4th in the 2nd election, and we expected her further advance since in main-stream media and teen’s fashion magazines, her presence had been bigger than any other members. “She made her solo debut with the single ‘Dear J’, made appearance in numerous TV Dramas such as ‘Mazisuka-Gakuen2’” She was ranked 8th, after all. Tomomi said “I was confident that the result will be good enough before the election. I has Drama, I did Solo, I did AKB. I thought I’ve overcome a lot of though things. It was shocked, wondering if the result means people didn’t recognize what I’ve done.”

But turned 20, she is not what she used to be. She’s become a tough, adult woman. “Until then, I think I’d kind of relied on AKB48. But this year is 20th year of my life, so I was thinking a lot, as I did a lot of works.”

She wrote a lyric for the coupling number of next signle “Zyuunengo no Kimihe (on sale 25th)” by herself. Not only writing the lyric but she was involved in costume styling, music video production, she was involved in everything, all her own will. “Some day the day will come for me to graduate. I want to try my best to achieve my dream ‘Solo Musician’. I love to self-produce.”

During the interview of Nikkan she looked very relaxed and easy. Nikkan wrote “As the 4th general election approaches, she looked rather relaxed.” “I have no set goal. lol I don’t no longer think it a competition or battle, and I just want having fan. But it doesn’t mean I let younger members pass through me. You know, it doesn’t make any sense to hand them over our current position when they haven’t achieved necessary milestones.” she said (Though in her blog she wrote “I hope we can see many new-faces to be selected for Senbatsu in the next election … while many information flies out everyday, sometimes I see stories that I never talked about or decorated what I said to look it funny, but I love I have this place to tell my thoughts directly to my fans”). Nikkan concluded the article with their usual sportsman-ship, “What she is looking for is neither higher-rank nor a number of votes. She just want to show people ‘what she wants to be’ “

It’s like I an listening to Sayaka’s interview, though unlike her Tomochin’ dream is a solo musicion not an actress. It seems after Acchan’s graduation announce, all members have no hesitation to openly talk about their dream ‘After AKB‘. I think she will do pretty fine after leaving AKB48, she can do a model, she can do funny things in TV show, she can sing, I think she may be able to start her business in fashion world (Do you remember? She was ranked No.1 as Most-Sought-After-Face for plastic surgery). But my concern is after she leaves AKB48, the group would become more Otaku-oriented and losing the balance, maybe? Her Gal-style looking is always standing out among the members, which I think is giving diversity look for the group. You know, it’ll cause me headache if the group is dominated by Sashiko-like girls and is totally painted in Otaku-color. But don’t you think this doesn’t sound so unrealistic when think about AKB48 without Tomochin? Share your thought in comments!