“I've Never Done Anything Like an Idol Before!! lol” What New Side Does Singer miwa Show in an Anime x Immersive Stage?

——However, there are songs in the show where you sing while performing choreography linked to LAYRA (on screen), so I imagine rehearsals must have been very hard. How was it?

miwa: It has been truly tough all the way up to today (the day of the dress rehearsal) lol. Dancing alone is hard enough, and I also have to sync up with the LAYRA visuals.

But because of the relationship between ＜As＞ (the virtual-world self) and Origin (the real-world self), I developed a commitment to the world of the story, thinking, “Shouldn't we sync up properly?” and I approached it with the feeling of “If we're going to do it, let's do it right.”

——Did you practice a lot at home?

miwa: Yes, I kept watching the rehearsal videos over and over. At home by myself, I'd set my iPad by the window, dance, film it and watch it back, and I repeated that steady process. We only had one day to learn the choreography.

——One day!?

miwa: That's right. We learned four songs—later it changed so that for the parts without visuals I was free to interpret them in my own way—in one day. I was like, “I've never done anything like an idol before!!” lol.

——I've seen your concerts a few times, miwa, and you have a classic artist's style lol.

miwa: Maybe a professional idol could learn the choreography for four songs in a day, but I can barely manage to memorize one, so… I built it up bit by bit with daily solo practice after getting home. But I was still anxious, so I asked for one more day when a dance teacher could look at me one-on-one.

——And this time, you can't just dance, you have to match the visuals as well.

miwa: Right, the staging places great importance on the interplay with LAYRA. It wasn't until I came here to MoN Takanawa (the venue) that I actually performed together with LAYRA on screen, and I experienced the scale and the distance between our positions for the first time. I was filled with emotion, thinking, “So this is what it's like.” I felt like saying, “We finally meet!” lol.

——So it was an emotional face-to-face meeting lol. Next, I'd like to ask about the theatrical, acting side of the show. You touched on the difficulty of acting at the press preview group interview, but since you have starred in a film before, it felt very natural to me.

miwa: Acting is so far in the past that it's a distant memory (wry laugh). It's really difficult. Even if I can manage the dancing through solo practice, with acting I need to be coached. When it came to “what is natural and what is appealing,” I felt that it came across as a bit unnatural when I tried it myself, so I had that part reviewed intensively in lessons.

With films and dramas, you can shoot cut by cut and scene by scene, but this is a one-person stage, so each line is really long. In my past acting there were many co-stars, so a cut would basically be called after a line or two.

——That's true.

miwa: It was my first time talking alone the whole way through a live show. Even at my own concerts I don't talk this much in the MC segments lol, so that is really the hardest part.

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