[OWV] Yozoroo 230101

https://yorozoonews.jp/article/14805366

“There was only 1 train per hour” “My school was almost closed”
Sano Fumiya from the Yoshimoto artist OWV - From a depopulated town to a national artist

Sano Fumiya (25), part of the 4 member boy group OWV signed to Yoshimoto Kyogo, went viral for his Tweets after performing at an event in his home prefecture Yamanashi. “The school I attended was almost closed […] I, who comes from an area where only one train per hour operates, is active as a member of OWV now. I want to embody that everyone can make their dreams come true no matter the environment (in which they grew up).” With us he spoke about his journey from growing up in a depopulated town, where no dance classes existed, to stepping to the entertainment business on a path he had carved out all by himself, as well as of his feelings to the children of his hometown.

He made his CD debut in September 2020 following his appearance on the audition program “PRODUCE 101 JAPAN” (2019) which produced JO1. Now he is performing at concerts, appearing in variety shows and has activities nationwide. Before he participated in the audition, he was a professional dancer who danced in the background of famous singers.

Until his highschool graduation he lived in a rural town of which he said “There were more monkeys than humans.”. Only one train per hour operated there and it took a 1-2 hour journey to the nearest town center. “The kindergarten, the elementary school and the middle school I attended have all closed down by now. In elementary school there were only 9 children in my class and in the year below there were only 3 children.”, he explained.

Due to the small number of students in his middle school, there were only two clubs available: baseball and brass band. “If I wanted to do some sport, baseball was the only option.” After reading the manga ‘SLAM DUNK’ he had started to wish for a basketball club, but his options were limited.

The moment his interest in dance was born, was when he watched the ‘OKAXILE’, a collaboration unit of NINETY-NINE’s Okamura Takashi and EXILE, during his later years of elementary school. He told his parents he wanted to learn dancing, but there were no available dance classes in his hometown, so he went to “some sort of rhythm class” in the neighboring prefecture. His parents took him to and from the school, a distance that was 1-2 hours by car.

Even after his years in middle school, there was still no chance to take real dance lessons and he relied on videos to get information on how to do hip-hop dances or breakdance. “I used to watch a lot of dance videos on YouTube for example on my flip phone. After my parents bought me the DVD box of the dance show ‘Super Chample’, I always watched those in my room and studied the dance moves.”

Back then, so he explained, there was no one among his friends who shared the same interest in dancing as him. He invited them to dance at the school festivals of his middle and high school, but he remembers being told: “‘You won’t find any entertainment culture, such as dancing, in such remote and depopulated places like this one.’ My seniors back then would even say something like ‘You are just a show off.’ or ‘You are just try to look cool?’”
“Now I think that it’s just because they were averse to things that were new to them.” and he explains that while he can understand them now, at that time, he felt like he was given a cold shoulder because he was different from the others.

When it came to deciding his career path after high school, he was in an environment where many people decided to stay in their town and work there, but Sano had the dream “to achieve something big”. At this time, the dance world was “not as major as it is now”, unlike the world of professional baseball for example, hence he could not imagine how it would be to be at the front lines of dancing. “Exactly because I did not know the limits of the world of dancing, I thought I wanted to challenge it.”, and thus he aimed to be active as a dancer.

At the age of 18 years he moved to Tokyo to go to a university. During his second year there, he started to dance seriously,but everyone around him had dance lessons since their childhood. “I couldn’t win a direct battle against people who had been dancing since elementary school.” Instead of taking the common way of improving his skills by taking dance lessons, he developed his own strategy to become a professional dancer as soon as possible: A direct attack on choreographers who had worked with famous artists before by messaging them. He actively participated in events organized by these choreographers and promoted himself there. “It was important to be remembered in the lessons, like to be the first one in front of the mirror, the one on the right. Eventually they remembered me as ‘the guy who is always here’.” Over time, the choreographers began to invite him to the performances.

At the same time, he went to Los Angeles to study dancing for about six months. Thanks to his diligent self-training, he slowly emerged as an outstanding performer and by this third year as an university student, he had made a rapid improvement and was working as a pro by being a back dancer for Japanese singers and world-famous K-POP artists.

During his 4th year in university he participated in the audition and made his debut as a member of OWV. This year in October, the 3rd year (of OWV’s activities), he made his triumphant return during the festival ‘TGC FES YAMANASHI 2022’. He reflected on this: “I left the countryside with the goal of debuting and performing my own songs at a show in my hometown, so I hope that some children will feel the same after seeing my performance.”

Now he has debuted as a member of a dance-vocal group and he cites lack of opportunities to see ‘live’ performances by professionals as a difficulty for someone from his region to pursue a career in the entertainment industry eventually. Back when he was still living in his hometown “I can’t remember even one.” “Because I was never able to see anything ‘live’ in Yamanashi, I really wanted to perform live there.” He is sympathetic to the local children and has set his next goal as a one-man show in Yamanashi.

In March, his group will start the concert tour ‘OWV LIVE TOUR 2023 -CASINO-‘ in which they will visit 4 cities across Japan. There will also be a performance in the prefecture Fukushima, the birthplace of the member Honda Kosuke. He expressed his enthusiasm, saying: “I feel Honda might be someone who carries the same kind of feelings with him. I hope to convey the same feelings I have for the people of Yamanashi to the young children of Fukushima and show our charms.”