Roselia is an all-girls band from Bushiroad’s franchise BanG Dream!. The band consist of the members below and each can play instruments respective to their voice acting role. Their popular J-rock style is recognized by professionals and fans alike and the band is seeking to reach even further beyond.
Roselia:
I am Haruka Kudo voicing the character SayoHikawa in the band Roselia.
I’m Yuki Nakashima playing Lisa Imai from the same band.
I’m Megu Sakuragawa. I play the drums, voicing AkoUdagawa.
I’m Kanon Shizaki. I voice RinkoShirokane, the keyboard.
I’m Aina Aiba voicing Yukina Minato, the vocalist of Roselia.
1．GAME PRESS:
How could you briefly describe the musical style of Roselia?
AinaAiba: At first, Roselia was more focused on cool and dark sound, but now it shifted to a heavier rock sound. In the app game, BanG Dream! Girls Band Party!, the Roselia characters are composing based on the story. We get more different types of songs as the story progresses for Roselia.
MeguSakuragawa: The character setting for Roselia is supposed to be a professional band. For the cast, some of us are actually beginners in our instruments so we weren’t sure if we were doing well. It’s been three years since we started Roselia so we got better at playing the instruments. I feel like we are getting closer to the characters than before.
You recorded the English version of “Legendary” for the English version of BanG Dream! Girls Band Party! (mobile app game). What were some difficulties that you encountered when you were recording that?
AinaAiba: This song, the English version of “Legendary,” starts with “Yes.” The timing of “Yes” was pretty hard because I feel like none of our songs starts with “Yes” in Japan. So it was challenging for us but the ending was the same as the Japanese version because it was already in English so that helped me. We also cared about the pronunciation of the English and the flow of the lyrics, but it was still fun to sing this song in English.
2．GRAND GEEK GATHERING:
Was there a particular funny moment you shared with your band members? Could you share it with your fans?
All: So many…..(laughs)
Haruka Kudo: So we just had our concert in Japan called “Rausch und/and Craziness.” Afterwards, we all went to Megu’s hotel room and had a cup ramen party.
MeguSakuragawa: Right after we perform a concert for 17,500 people, our dinner was cup ramen.
AinaAiba: Even though we had Day 2 the next day, we were having cup ramen at 2 AM because our butts were glued to the ground.
Haruka Kudo: For “PASSIONATE ANTHEM,” there’s a moment Aina smashes her hand to the floor. Sometimes we do the same pose in the background. We called it the “Ark Smasher.” 。
All: Ooooooo. Ark Smasher! (swings hand down)
KanonShizaki: In America, for the pedestrian light, when it turns red, it says “WAIT.” So we try to say it at the same time.
There’s a lot of large variety of J-rock and anisongs so is there any songs or any particular anisongs that you’re currently into?
Haruka Kudo: For the Japanese artist, I would say XJapan.
MeguSakuragawa: Same as her, I’ve been listening to XJapan thanks to my mother’s influence. So I listen to a lot of XJapan songs actually. When I started learning the drums, I thought that if you play the drums, you have to shake your head like XJapan.
Haruka Kudo: I also wanted to add Lunacy as well.
AinaAiba: For me, I would say Gackt. I mean he’s a solo artist but he used to be in a band. And also L’Arc-en-Ciel.
KanonShizaki: I listen to more Western music such as Evanescence and Fall Out Boy.
Yuki Nakashima: For the Japanese band, I usually listen to UNION SQUARE GARDEN.
ANIME TRENDING:
So we run a popularity poll and chart, and we started running a music chart and your song FIRE BIRD did really well. It was #1 for a couple weeks in November especially. How do you guys feel knowing that you’re so popular overseas and seeing that today at CharaExpo?
All: Amazing. Woow…. Oooohhhhh..
AibaAina: So FIRE BIRD, this song is very important for all of us too. I feel like Roselia has improved a lot as a band. Our music producer, Agemastu-san, he even wrote lyrics for this song specifically after seeing our growth as Roselia. I think the lyrics shows the growth of Roselia as a band since we started. So this is such an important song for us. I’m so surprised that it became so popular online from all over the world. I didn’t even know that so it makes me really happy that it got so much attention from all over the world.
MeguSakuragawa: BanG Dream!Girls Band Party! is a multimedia project. Many people might think that we are actually from the anime. They think we started out as anime. It is true we do have anime but we have so much more than anime. It’s been 3 years since Roselia got started and we have our own story, not only for the characters but for the cast and the voice actors as well for the journey. We have the concert Blu-ray disc for the history of Roselia so you can watch the history of Roselia and you can appreciate the meaning of FIRE BIRD more. Thank you.
AinaAiba: Each of us are going to explain one point about FIRE BIRD. After hearing all of our input, you will listen FIRE BIRD from a different perspective.
Haruka Kudo: The guitar solo was very challenging. Thanks to all those 3 years as Roselia, I think it’s thanks to this experience, I can now play the guitar solo.
MeguSakuragawa: I practiced so much for this part. Roselia songs are hard to play in general. I think we’re going to get even more challenging songs in the future. FIRE BIRD was the most difficult song I’ve ever learned.
AinaAiba: Definitely the last part of the song, the super high pitch long tone, I practiced a lot for this part.
KanonShizaki: For this song, this was more focused on the piano. I was trying my best to portray the piano scenes as beautiful as possible. Even when we perform with the rest of the instruments, I have to cut in with super fast craziness. I practiced a lot for those parts as well.
Yuki Nakashima: The song in general is very fast. It’s such a fast tempo. As for the bass, it was really challenging to keep the same rhythm tempo stable.
Do you have any closing remarks for all the fans that came to CharaExpo today and people online who couldn’t attend?
Haruka Kudo: As you know, we are usually performing in Japan but I know our overseas fans listen to our music, play our mobile game app BanG Dream! Girls Band Party!. Since we are the band, we perform. We would like to go see them in the future and if we have any chance to come over to your country or city, please come see us. Even if you couldn’t come visit us, we still appreciate all the support you are giving us online. Thank you so much.
Yuki Nakashima: Thanks to this interview today, we learn that people overseas, all over the world love our music and listen to our music. To spread Roselia, promote our series and our characters, we would like to keep practicing and working hard and we would perform for the world in the future.
MeguSakuragawa: So I was also happy that so many people support Roselia and not only Roselia, there are many other bands for examples, Afterglow, Pastel＊Palettes, Poppin’Party, Hello, Happy World! and also RAISE A SUILEN. We want everyone to learn and love BanG Dream! franchise and all the bands. Thank you.
KanonShizaki: Even if there’s a language barrier and not everyone understands Japanese but all of our fans were so welcoming and we can hear so many cheers and that was really nice. I was so touched that everyone was so nice to us. Last year, I made an appearance at Charaexpo as a surprise guest and even at that time, I remember everyone was so welcoming to us. One year later, we had a full band performance at Charaexpo today and everyone was still very supportive so that was really touching for me. And that made so happy.
AinaAiba: I’m very grateful that there are so many people who met and love the BanG Dream! series. I’m in Japan and I’ve been overseas [to see] artists’ concerts before. Now that I think about it, I feel like it’s the same thing but the other way around because we’re from Japan coming to the US, our fans came to see our concert. It makes me really happy and I also try to not forget that we are always thankful for our fans for their support. We would like to keep growing as a band. Even if we say that “we want to go here or go to that country” we can’t do it without our fans’ support. We want to keep working harder to meet everyone’s expectations and please wait for our return someday. Thank you.
