Whether you are an idol fan or an anime fan (or hopefully both!) you've probably heard of the idol unit i☆Ris. Going beyond the role of idol anime seiyuu, the girls are full-time idols as well, blurring the line between 3D and 2D idols. With exceptional choreography and beautiful harmonies, i☆Ris sets a high standard for idols! To find out more about them and what the future holds for this promising group, we sat down with them before their first overseas performance at Anime Expo 2018.
i☆Ris website: http://iris.dive2ent.com
i☆Ris Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/iris.dive2.official
i☆Ris Twitter: https://twitter.com/iris_official_
Honey-Chan
Azuki Shibuya
(Dorothy West)
(Dorothy West)
Miyu Kobata
(Sophie Hojo)
(Sophie Hojo)
Yuki Wakai
(Leona West)
(Leona West)
Himika Akaneya
(Laala Manaka)
(Laala Manaka)
Yu Serizawa
(Mirei Minami)
(Mirei Minami)
Saki Yamakita
(Shion Todo)
(Shion Todo)
Interview with i☆Ris from PriPara
What is the concept of i☆Ris?
i☆Ris has two meanings. One is the flower, iris, and the meaning in the language of flowers is ‘sending love’. We want to send love to our fans. The other meaning is from Greek, Iris, Goddess of Rainbows, and each of our image colors make up a rainbow.
The double meaning with the name i☆Ris also reflects our double concept as both idols and voice-over actresses
With this being your first performance in America, how are you feeling? Excited? Nervous?
In the 6 years we’ve been performing as i☆Ris, this is our first ever overseas! We’re really excited, and we’ve been really thinking about how we can make our fans fired up for our performance. It’s really exciting to see the reaction of the fans out here!
With this being your first performance in America, how are you feeling? Excited? Nervous?
In the 6 years we’ve been performing as i☆Ris, this is our first ever overseas! We’re really excited, and we’ve been really thinking about how we can make our fans fired up for our performance. It’s really exciting to see the reaction of the fans out here!
How do you shake off nerves before a show?
Basically, we make a circle before the show each time and that’s when we try to shake off the nervousness and that encourages us and gives us power too! It’s a really important ceremony for us.
Compared to Th!s !s i☆Ris!!, Your third album, Wonderful Palette, has a lot of solo songs. What are some differences in recording solo songs versus group songs other than the number of voices?
I think with solo songs, they have strong characters, and in order to express myself, it takes a lot more in a solo recording as opposed to a group recording.
It’s important to do a 6 person recording as a whole unit for a group recording so no one stands out or someone does whatever they want. Solo recordings have a lot more originality and freedom. Recording producers usually say ‘you can do this more freely, you can do it your own way.” Basically, you can show a lot of yourself, and that’s the difference. Both solo and group recordings have their own strengths and merits.
While you’ve been providing voices for PriPara for a few years now, what was it like doing motion acting for your characters for the Idol Time PriPara 50th episode?
It’s actually me who kinda made that happen. I said to the motion capture person “It would be nice to do motion capture!” and they said “Let’s do it!” and then it happened. I’m so grateful for all the support from everyone to make it happen for us. As a character for PriPara, we did a lot of synchronized choreography but motion capture is a whole different world! It felt surreal but I really enjoyed the process and I’m so grateful for it.
What memories or lessons will you take into the future having worked on PriPara from the beginning to the end?
Through PriPara, we had a lot of opportunities to interact with children and the younger generation. It was great preparation for future opportunities where we’ll be interacting with more children, basically the future of anime.
How did you begin your career as performers?
I started aiming to be a professional voice actress thanks to Prince of Tennis. I was shocked that there was an older lady playing the role of the boy. That made me aspire to be a voice actress!
I originally loved anime so much! For example Haruhi, Durarara, but I became a professional thanks to the i☆Ris audition. I passed the audition, became a member of i☆Ris, and that’s how I began my career!
Originally, I wanted to be a singer so I went to school to study singing. During that time I heard about the i☆Ris audition and I became interested in voice-over acting so I participated in the audition and I passed! So I became a voice actress thanks to that audition.
I really enjoyed the world of acting, and at first I wanted to be an actress. I always had a complex about my voice, I didn’t really like it. But through acting activities, I became a voice actress and it helped me change my mind and I decided I wanted to use this voice as my strength. So that’s how I became a professional voice-over actress!
I really, really love and respect Aya Hirano so much! And Haruhi Suzumiya too! She’s really cute, sings well, dances well, acts well, she’s like perfect! All these things she does so well are my interests too so I really wanted to become a voice-over actress mostly because of her.
I really like the presence of idols! I really like anisong too. When I was thinking about becoming an idol professionally, I was already past 20 years old and I felt that if I could become an idol AND a voice-over actress together, I could continue a lot longer than if I was just an idol.
You provide the opening song for Mahou Shoujo Site, “Changing Point”. Given that this anime is much darker than PriPara, do you approach singing and voice acting differently than you did for your PriPara roles?
PriPara is all about kids and idols, it’s sparkling and really cute. Compared to that, this time around is about being me and expressing myself just as I am. At first, I was a little nervous because it was challenging and straightforward and the lyrics are a lot darker than in PriPara. It was a challenge to express myself from deep inside me so that was a big difference.
Do you have any final words for your fans here in the United States?
Music equals America and America equals music. We are expecting the fans to be really energetic and full of passion! Among all those Japanese idols, we recognize ourselves as powerful, loud, energetic idols so we want to give our absolute best performance in order to lead us to the next performance here again! That’s our goal here in Los Angeles!!
Final Thoughts
One thing that makes i☆Ris so special is that they themselves are huge anime fans. They’ve turned their passions into something they share with the world and are continuously inspired by other fans. Their performance at Anime Expo was everything they hoped to be; energetic, amazing, and powerful. Make sure to watch Mahou Shoujo Site for more i☆Ris and look forward to their future endeavors!
Author: May
