uedanoyome

Hey there!

So, I was able to find the parts of KAT-TUN's latest newsletter in which they comment about their 15th anniversary and also talk about it together, thus I've decided to translate it!
Hope you enjoy reading it!

KAT-TUN Newsletter vol.36

KAT-TUN 15th anniversary

Thank You HYPHEN!

On 2021’s March 22nd, KAT-TUN will approach their 15th anniversary since their debut.

Thanks to many people’s support, they were able to meet their 15th anniversary.

We would like to express all the gratitude to all the Hyphen’s who have supported us at any time, and who kept connecting to us.

KAZUYA KAMENASHI

The best thing is to share enjoyable moments with everyone.

If we could make wonderful things while smiling all together…

To me, the debut date is a date to celebrate the day I could debut, however every year the feeling of it being more like KAT-TUN’s own anniversary is stronger than it being my own anniversary.

During the 5th and 10th anniversaries we couldn’t quite spend those days in a good way with fans and I feel sorry at the thought of this too, so,I think that spending this day in a proper way is the most important thing for me. For this reason, it doesn’t matter what will happen, my target as this 15th anniversary approaches is different than it being as “KAT-TUN’s Kamenashi Kazuya”... however, I don’t know whether it’s a sense of duty or a sense of responsibility, it’s not like it can be cleared in one word, but during all these years we’ve been working holding a strong desire because we “Want to make our 15th anniversary something amazing.”

I feel that it’s because we’ve treated our 15th anniversary as the major biggest theme of this that we were able to get to it like this.

Since it is our anniversary, one of our main targets this year is to be able to share a fun time with our fans. It’s not just about lives, we’re particularly conscious about the fact that we’ll release singles or do as many group activities as possible. When you can feel you are being able to share something with fans during a live, or when you get to see the reactions you get to what you present to them, I think that it's when you get to touch these connections that you are able to feel it as the strongest peak of enjoyment and happiness.

With what kind of feelings will we meet our 15th anniversary, what kind of year will run through, if this will be a year in which we will be able to properly fulfill our wishes, I have a feeling that it’s particularly important to include these things in what’s to come from now on.

I myself can’t picture yet what kind of scenery it was till now nor what kind of scenery will it be from now on, but I want to go towards what's growing inside of me and face it, in order to be able to answer it as I think of it and move forward.

I’m happy to spend this year with you all, while smiling and having fun, being able to make wonderful things, holding this strong desire to keep moving forward as we present to all the fans what we can do as the group called KAT-TUN.

TATSUYA UEDA

I want to spend KAT-TUN’s 15th anniversary making it something special, while also thinking about what we can do for our fans to enjoy it.

Right now, we’re finally being able to shape the live we will be starting this March, right now we’re at a stage in which we are working out things in details while also going on with rehearsals (the interview was in mid-February).

I think that we will get the feeling that we’re approaching our 15th anniversary the moment when we’ll hold the live, after all, and when when we will appear in front of the audience

Somehow, I don’t really recognise March 22nd as our anniversary, of course I remember that it is the day KAT-TUN debuted, though. But the fact that there will be a live on the exact day of our 15th anniversary. probably makes our fans feel even happier than I am, I guess.

The time of our 5th and 10th anniversaries would have been the most exciting ones for everyone, but there were various things going on so in line with this we had to let go and couldn’t celebrate properly, for this I feel really sorry and have always been carrying this feeling.

This 15th anniversary will be a total of these parts, so we hope this will be an enjoyable year.

When we approached our 5th anniversary and such, we tried to think about “Turning to the 10th anniversary”, and, to be honest, I’ve always thought that it was obvious that our group would have kept existing. But it might be a weird talk now, however, to be honest we don’t know whether KAT-TUN will be around for their 20th anniversary year, you never know, right? Especially given the situation we’re in all around the world, and we don’t know what will be of entertainment itself in the first place; anything can happen so it wouldn’t be weird.

For this reason, I really have a strong feeling of wanting to cherish the year of our 15th anniversary.

“Tension” is probably a weird word to use for this, but we’re continuing to prepare ourselves now while having this resolution.

This year it’s going to be a year in which, more than ever, we’ll be thinking of “The things that fans can enjoy”, and, me too, right now I only have KAT-TUN in my mind.

Of course, there still are some parts we don’t know what kind of shape they will move as, but, anyway, I think that we just feel like dashing to our 15th anniversary.

For our 15th anniversary we’re thinking to convey the feeling of gratitude through the entertainment, also including all the things we couldn’t express during our 5th and 10th anniversaries, so we hope that the fans will enjoy it by all means too.

YUICHI NAKAMARU

With the cooperation of many people, we’ve piled up our 15th anniversary.

We hope we can dispatch something everyone will enjoy.

Even though at the very moment we are feeling it a little that we are reaching our 15th anniversary, I think this feeling will come out again the moment when we are actually doing a live in front of everyone.

During our 5th anniversary we couldn’t hold a live, and for our 10th anniversary the group had entered their charging period, so we want to apologise to everyone…

But, I have the feeling that it is because of those experiences we’ve had in the past that we have been able to get to our 15th anniversary and feel a greater joy in being able to share this enjoyable situation and these feelings together with all of our fans.

I think that the fans who have been supporting the group for many years also have the same feelings as we do, I feel like the number of people thinking “I want to celebrate this anniversary” isn’t a small number.

I think that even the content of the live will also have a special feeling for the 15th anniversary. so I want to absolutely enjoy our 15th anniversary with all the people who think “I want to celebrate the anniversary.”

The debut day is not only my own anniversary, but it’s also the anniversary of our group, KAT-TUN.

Even though I perceive it as something which is mine, after all, there’s also about a half part of me feeling this part is objective.

In terms of feeling, it is the closest thing to a birthday, it’s like a second birthday kind of day.

When we reached our 5th anniversary, we didn’t really think much about “What will it be like when we will reach our 10th anniversary?” However, in regards to this 15th anniversary, it is the result of the cooperation of various people and the support of all the fans which piled up in order to steadily build a year at time.

In the first place, I feel that I have to be grateful on top of all to have been able to have activities as a KAT-TUN like this for such a long time.

Also, probably, I think that among our fans there are also people who enjoy supporting us as a part of their life.

It’s not much, but I hope that I can make use of the experience I’ve acquired so far and the knowledge while keeping on delivering something that the people who have been supporting the group can feel as “Fun”, so I will be happy if you could continue supporting KAT-TUN for a long time.

TALKING OF KAT-TUN

(The crosstalk has been done in mid-February)

The “roundtable discussion” starts from March 20th.

A talk about “15th ANNIVERSARY LIVE KAT-TUN”.

What feelings have you put into the tour’s logo, and what kind of 15th anniversary live do you want to have…?

“By all means, we want to have fun with everyone!” These are the thoughts spoken by the member’s talking.

As the anniversay’s year is starting, each of them has 15 years of time to think about.

N: This year is our 15th anniversary, so we have various things to look forward to, isn’t it so?

K: I think it’s good we have been able to present something as “Roar”, in the form of a single in order to share it with our fans.

U: Yeah, this year our biggest principle is to do something that will make our fans happy, so we want to properly carry out our words for this. Up until now we haven’t been able to properly celebrate our anniversaries, so even us don’t really know what is the right way…

K: If it’s the 10th anniversary or the 20th, still, but we haven’t really celebrated anniversaries with a 5-year-notch. But I hope everyone can enjoy this year’s anniversary and that we can be able to share this with everyone.

N: I feel that we have been able to continue over and over like this, as a group, because of all the people who have been really supporting us.

K: It’s really like this. It’s our 15th anniversary because we’ve been able to build it up year by year. I really feel that being able to continue as a group is not really something that obvious.

U: Especially in the situation we’re in right now, where anything can happen. At the same time, I really think it’s like a miracle that we have been able to keep working as KAT-TUN now and that we could be able to express our gratitude towards our fans for our 15th anniversary, and I’m relieved we could celebrate it.

N: It’s so emotional in various ways… I don’t think it all happened in a blink of an eye, but I have the impression that I’m realising that we’ve reached our 15th anniversary.

U: Me too, I feel like “Has it already been this long?!”

K: I’ve been so absorbed in it that I think I feel both things, like “It’s already our 15th year?!” but also feel like “So it’s finally our 15th year, huh…”

U: It’s that kind of feeling, this time’s logo for our 15th anniversary’s live is packed up with the things we’ve gone through during these 15 years, right?

N: It’s all in these 15 years of history, during which various things changed their shape; we wanted to express that the group is “something we’ve built together”, so we came up with that design.

K: I think it’s not something we can put into words, and I think that fans will understand that, but we want to convey this as a message to say that it’s because of the existence of our fans and also because of the connections of the parts of our various eras that “KAT-TUN” are able to keep moving. I hope everyone will be able to feel this also during our live.

“March 22nd” will be a special day to enjoy for the members, as well as the fans and anyone

N: Nevertheless, we are really grateful to be able to have a live distribution on the very day of our debut day. If it happened to slip even off one day, it would have had a total different meaning. I feel like this day, somehow, it’s going to be a really special day.

U: First of all, there’s the feeling of wanting to be seen by a lot of fans, and if it’s broadcasted, people who have been following us 15 years ago as well can be at ease and be able to watch it. There’s a limited number of people who can come to see it at the venue, so I think that coming up with a broadcast was a good plan.

K: Really, thinking about the situation the world has been in since last year, I’m really glad that we could have a live on the day of our debut. The past 2-3 years have always been about our 15th anniversary, we’ve all been thinking about it with a shared consciousness about it, but even so, there was a time where, honestly, we were wondering “What will it be like…” Nonetheless, we haven’t done any lives yet, and we don’t know what the future holds, but I think we have come this far because we have made it our goal to be able to do things properly.

N: Anyway, we just want to have fun during our live. We want to convey all the various emotions we have been feeling so far this year.

U: Yeah, I want to make our 15th anniversary a satisfying one for our fans. First of all, I have the strong feeling of wanting to make it so our fans will enjoy it.

N: I want to enjoy myself /laughs/

U: /laughs/ Of course, that’s important too.

K: Well, somehow, it’s not really about who’s having more fun, if it’s us or the fans /laughs/

N: So it’s not like something that can be compared?

K: Somehow, personally I don’t really feel like there’s such a boundary line between “members” and “hyphens”. Of course we are in a position in which we have to let the audience have fun, but since we all share this thing called KAT-TUN, we all want to enjoy our 15th anniversary all together.

N: I see.

K: At any rate, this is a turning point year for us, so we want to use all our strength so that our fans can have fun, and we also want to enjoy our 15th anniversary while we give it our all.