Sho Sakurai Fact

1.   He is bilingual (Japanese and English).

2.   He loves and cares about children!

3.   He is an alumni of Keio University, one of Japan’s most prestigious university , equivalent to the U.S.’s Ivy League schools such as Stanford, Harvard, Yale, and similar schools. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Economics.

4.   His father is a government official and his mother is a professor at a prestigious women’s college (as well as an heiress to a huge company).   His family is basically a family of scholars and professionals. He is the only one in the entire Sakurai Family to be in the entertainment business, but his philosophies and influences are similar to his family’s philosophies.

5.   Back in his Johnny’s Jr. days, he was also one cute yet short little midget that he even earned the nickname mame (“bean”).

6.   For some odd reason and he doesn’t even know it himself at times, he is known and is in charge of the rhymin’ raps that they always have in their tracks!

7.   The place he would love to visit is New York, which he has visited with his fellow members (minus Nino ;_;) in 2001

8.   He has a little brother in the elementary years and often tutors him with his studies whenever he can..

9.   Back in his days as part of Johnny’s Jr., he was also the only one in Johnny’s Jr. history to show off a bit of his “tush” on Japanese National TV (and it is quite amusing too…). He was around 15 or 16-years-old when he did that. Rebellious, gutsy little guy, isn’t he?

10.   His close friends back in school always called him “SakuSho” since elementary school.

11.   Sho’s secret to success in studies? When there was an exam coming (probably about a month before the actual date of exam), he puts everything related to his career on hold, cancels or postpones his appearances in public, and spends his time at home (or in the library whenever he feels like it) studying. Best time to be free to do any extracurricular activities or resume his career is right after exam period .

12.   His favourite TV channels (or rather the ONLY TV channels that he watches on TV) are MTV and the Discovery Channel.

13.   His favourite magazine is Newsweek.

14.   He cannot go to sleep at night without reading a good book (a (classic?) novel, textbook, reference book, etc.) beforehand.

15.   He doesn’t feel comfortable or confident enough to take his shirt off just for a photo shoot (but if that’s what the director/photographer wants, then so be it…).

16.   His ideal girl? Sweet, simple, smart-dressed (no spaghetti-strapped blouses, no short one-piece dresses, no short-ass, tight-ass daisy duke shorts, etc.), non-smoking, NON-CELEBRITY girl WITH brains and an independent mind of her own.

17.   When he’s got a lot of time in his hands, he surfs in the Internet.

18.   He has a huge interest in history in general and hopes to study the field of History right after he earns his Bachelor’s Degree in.

19.   his days (especially his first days) are quite interesting.  Fans in Japan actually say that it’s easier to find Sho in Keio than in the TV studios, which is why lots of fangirls invaded Keio U. back then just to see Sho.

20.   Sho’s pet peeve is that he loses his cool easily (but he’s been trying to control himself regarding this pet peeve).

21.   There is a known incident among us fans that back when Sho was a Jr. and was on his way to the studios, he caught a fan taking pictures of him.

22.   Instead of acknowledging or ignoring, he actually came up to this girl, grabbed her camera, and threw it right at the subway tracks and started scolding her about Johnny’s rules and why she should follow them (one of the rules is that fans are not allowed to take pictures of idols whether if it’s on the scene or off the scene or even candid shots)

23.   There’s also another scene where Sho was entering Keio U. to take his entrance exams (so he could get in to the university).

24.   There was a mob of fans screaming and gawking at him as he was entering the gates.  Then the screaming got louder that Sho actually turned around to the fans and creamed “URUSAI YO!!” (shut up!) and few seconds later, all the fans fell silent as he entered the campus quietly.

25.   he takes everything seriously.

26.   His childhood is kind of pressuring because of his family background.  If you’re a kid whose parents have high-ranking positions such as a politician and a university professor, everyone would expect you to become someone successful, like a CEO of a corporation or a lawyer or something.

27.   Sho chose the entertainment industry because he always wanted to dance.  When he joined Jrs., of course, his friends and supporters were happy, but his parents are not exactly happy and those in their “social circle” looked down on the entire Sakurai Family (not just Sho, but the ENTIRE family) for having a son who is so incredibly gifted and talented to choose something “low” such as the entertainment biz.

28.   In other words, Sho’s days as Jr. isn’t exactly hunky-dory when it comes to his parents/family.

29.   But he proved everyone that he could still be a prestigious young man despite of him deciding to become an idol. He spent more time studying in school than his career that he even worked with Johnny and staff to work a schedule with him.

30.   There was another known story in which in the middle of the “Heaven Cannot Wait” drama filming that he had to ditch the shooting to get to class.  The director complained of Sho’s disappearance that he called Johnny for it (to get Sho in trouble), but Johnny just said: “He ditched because he had to go to class.  Wait until he returns.”

31.   Sho is truly one of the most hardworking idols in the entertainment biz (and not just Johnny’s).  This is why in Johnny’s, a lot of the younger idols respect him big time, like no one wants to mess w/ him, no one wants to get him mad.

32.   They call him Sakurai-senpai or even Sakurai-sama to the extreme because of that.

33.   A lot of Arashi fans (non-Sho fans) think that Sho is straight out unfriendly (I don’t blame Sho though), but see, that’s because these fans don’t understand what he’s gone through in the past, so much that sometimes he can’t help himself but snap out and lose his cool towards certain things.

34.   He finally gained the respect that he deserved from his family and his family’s social circle of intellects and successful individuals right after he graduated with a Bachelor’s in Economics.

35.   Especially w/ a BS (bachelor of science) in Economics at least his family knows that he does somehow plan to go further in to working in an industry based on the field of study that he took.

36.   When he is in Keio, he is there as a student, not as an idol.  He gets annoyed when other students act like psychopathic fangirls and scream and follow him around campus.

37.   In the beginning he was a loner because everyone is intimidated by him and his background, but it wasn’t until his first day of English class that he finally met and became friends w/ some of the guys there and made friends w/ 2 girls in that class (both are actually nerdy geeky girls who actually had no clue who Sho is).

38.   From then on he didn’t like being alone, he always stuck w/ his classmates… it’s like his friends are almost like his bodyguards.

39.   he talked in his sleep during 2002 Summer Concert. Ohno who was in the same room heard it very clearly at around 6am saying “let Aiba sleep!”. But he himself didn’t know anything about it.

40.   he doesn’t eat between meals.

41.   when he went 伊豆 hot spring with Myojo for shooting, it so happened that it was the place he went with his family 10 years ago. He called his mom on the spot just because of this.

42.   Arashi Car usually comes to fetch Sho after getting Ohno, Sho once saw Ohno’s feet on the manager’s head when he opened the car door… (大野くん, 何あってんのよ….)

43.   when he went outdoor shooting with Aiba on ‘Uso! Japan’, they interviewed a pop idol group. Sho said without thinking that he knew their songs, and sang quite awkwardly. But Aiba on the other hand, was singing along rather happily… (やっぱり相葉ちゃんだね~)

44.   「真夜中の岚」card reading prophesized that he’ll have to retain class (we all know it didn’t come true)
45.   his brother calls him ‘Bambi’ after watching ‘Kisarazu Cat’s Eye’

46.   his results are good, so his teachers wrote a recommendation letter for him to take the examination to enter Keio

47.   his father was a student from Keio since young, graduated in Todai, now a politition.His mother’s an English Literature teacher. He has a sister younger than him by 5 years, named 舞 and a brother younger than him by 13 years named Shu,修

48.   Aiba and Ohno influenced him to be less calculative about things.

49.   during the audition part of the Summer Concert, he was super nervous because he can hear fans talking as he sat quite close to them

50.   his ‘girlfriend preferences’ are quite similar to Ohno’s… (oooh, 危ない!)

51.   seem to like Aiba a lot lately, even ‘ex-love’ Nino complained about this in envy. After the photoshooting session for April’s DUET, he left with Nino. Later, he came back alone to the shooting scene to wait for Aiba instead. (wowzers… but then… 本当二遅いな相葉ちゃん… still not done yet after 翔くんreturned)

52.   he joined the Boy’s Brigade before, but he was bullied so he quit after 3 days joining (翔くんbeing bullied?! 信じられない～)

53.   in June, he got to know that they’re debuting with Nino

54.   he’s building up on his muscles (yeah, it’s pretty obvious)

55.   fast-thinker

56.   he was considered a senior in Johnny’s Junior before Arashi was formed.

57.   because he’s the rapper in Arashi, Japanese (who have bad English, really) calls him ‘raper Sho’ (what the?!!! Sho doesn’t go around raping girls!!!)

58.   he’s quite close to Imai Tsubasa. And there’s even a reason for it, because their name has the kanji character 井 and 羽

59.   he was called ‘Piano King’ in Music Jump

60.   he becomes super monstrous when he’s angry

61.   on the first day og entering his university, he asked for Nino’s help because he didn’t know how to fix his tie

62.   he likes to sing songs by female singers in KTV, like  songs by Amuro Namie (0.o)

63.   the short form initial of every male member in the Sakarai family is written as S. S.

64.   he loves ‘Frisk’ peppermint sweets very much, will usually finish up a box a day (まじかよ?!)

65.   he will read some comics before he goes to bed.

66.   once Sho thought it was his fan following him and hit her with his umbrella. it ended up being some random person just walking by him.

67.   Sho was telling the MAD jr’s to “HURRY UP!” because the MAD jr’s were too busy sending out peace signs during the Korea concert

68.   Sho liked tangerines so much so one day he ate so many tangerines that he ended up wetting his bed. From that day on, tangerines were out-lawed at Sho’s house.

69.   Once when Sho went to the convenience store there were girl students going crazy over Yamapi. They were looking at some magazine. Because Sho wanted to show off his kouhai he told the girls, “he’s a really close kouhai of mine!” but the problem is the girls didn’t know who he was.

70.   When Yamapi and Kame were filming Nobuta wo Produce. They fell upon Sho backstage. Sho was on the phone and the first person he was talking, he was talking so respectively. Then the second phone call he was talking down to as if it were a friend. So Yamapi & Kame decided that the first person was Johnny & the second person was probably his manager. After Sho got off the phone they were so curious so they asked Sho whom it was. It so happens the first person was his manager and the second person was Johnny.