It does not seem like anybody translated that pink newspaper spread that was handed out in Dir en grey tour pamphlets. It has the format of a Japanese newspaper but it is fictional and promotes Kyo’s and sukekiyo’s activities mostly.

In the September, Tuesday 15, 2015 edition, it has a double-spread interview with Kyo by Yuichi Masuda. It covers the poem collection, Gasou no shi vol. 1. I feel like most of the comments by Kyo are already known, but here are some highlights: 

• When he was younger, before starting bands, he would never really look at songs’ lyrics and he would not necessarily pay attention to what was being said. When came the time for him to start writing poems for songs, he researched others’ lyrics a bit but he really did his own thing. 
• Moreover, it doesn’t sound like he was writing poems on his own before his band activities. 
• He feels really free in his writing. Kyo can even write about not having anything to write. Namely, when that is the case, his negative thoughts quickly devolve into —­> “It’s ridiculous, am I really thinking nothing?” —> “What’s the point of living?”
• My understanding is that his writing was only restricted for Tsumi to Batsu. 
• Kyo could never write about positive or happy things. If he ever wanted to, he would have to do it under a completely different name and keep it a secret. 
• However, as much as he writes about negative thoughts, whether when listening to the songs or attending a live Dir en grey show, he always wants the listener to leave with more power. By achieving this, Kyo feels that it is a double saving: he is saved by the idea that another was saved with his songs. 
• He does not draw more or write novels because he does not have time. Even for sukekiyo’s video production, he had a lot of technical things to learn to do that which he enjoys, but in the end he has to rely on people around to support his objectives. 
• Kyo does not consider that he is at the level of being entitled to give (professional or artistic) advice to anyone. From his perspective, if someone has to come to him for advice, then they better go ask anyone else. There is also nothing to imitate or no way to determine a level to what is he doing, since he just expresses things the way they come out of him. 
• Long ago, apparently he was trying to imitate someone but he hates the way he was then? Or he is saying that people would have this reflection upon looking back at that period, if they tried to imitate him. 
• In fact, Kyo wishes not to be a waste of time for anyone. Even if the only thing that someone gets out of attending one of his shows is “I really don’t want to be like him”, then that’s a good discovery.  
• And a reminder of the MC he gave at the end of one of Dir en grey’s shows, about always trying to give his 120% but that it’s so incredibly hard sometimes. He will keep trying and wishes for everyone to live this way as well. 

Just a few very interesting bits, not up to a full translation of that 100+ page book of course: 

Kyo: 

• At first, when he decided to be in a band, he wanted to play guitar, but he never became a guitar player just because nobody around could teach him. (Sort of contradictory to past interviews where, if I recall correctly, he had said he would have played the bass…)
  
• Kyo knew, or guessed at least, that there would be people both within the fans but also within Dir en grey members who would react to him starting sukekiyo as: “Is he leaving Dir en grey?” “Won’t that reduce the time of Dir en grey tours?” “Won’t that put too much pressure on his throat?” But he is very confident in his throat’s condition at the moment, he basically seems to find that it is doing very well even since sukekiyo’s debut. 
  
• He hates reading books, especially since/most likely due to being forced to read books in front of everyone in school. From this hate, he highlights two very ironic things: 1) he hates Japanese because it is “so deep”(?) and 2) he actually hates standing in public, which he recognises makes no sense considering what he does as a career hahah. That explains the awkward VIP meet&greets in North America and Europe too…
  
• As sort of known/expected, he really dislikes happy things, like happy movies. This is ultimately because he cannot relate to those stories at all, he says that he never experienced that himself so it makes no sense that there would be a happy ending where everything is just normal for the character. 
  
• Very interesting perspective of Dir en grey vs. sukekiyo: Dir en grey’s poetry world view is written as toward or involving the world, whereas sukekiyo’s can be said to target ONE person. And, of course, that man (Dir en grey) vs. woman (sukekiyo) theme too. 
  
• Eh, he feels that fans like DUM SPIRO SPERO and THE MARROW OF A BONE the least…?! He finds that they think the former’s world view is too dark, while THE MARROW OF A BONE is too hardcore. 
• He is ashamed that he has to read his own lyrics during lives, from what I understand. He seems to attribute that to age, or experience?
• The interviewer actually went ahead and dared to ask why Kyo used to cut himself during performances. He answered that with the way the band was and how he was doing “THE STALIN” back then too, they would have appeared as “fake” if he did not do something ike that. He said that it did hurt to sing while cutting his throat, because even if blood did not get expelled by his mouth, it bled elsewhere anyway. He did not seem necessarily proud of that, but did not regret it either, knowing that Dir en grey would not be what it is today without that phase. Apparently his manager at DYNAMITE TOMMY also somewhat jokingly asked him if he could do it at each show, which is a challenge he accepted…? I am not sure on that one.  
• Again, the neverending dilemma of never being satisfied with himself or anything resurfaced. He reiterated that if he got to a point where he was satisfied, then he would have no reason to live anymore. Therefore, he must always change himself too, because he gets bored of what he sees in the mirror after just a few months, which explains why he has a different style in each tour these days. (The interviewer mentioned how Dir en grey’s visuals changed a lot in all those years of existence, but Kyo’s was the one that varied drastically and often.)
• About MCs: apparently he used to do some years ago, but at some point he felt like that was not good for Dir en grey, and even the other members said “No, no MCs” eventually, it seems. However, there has to be a period for guitar tuning anyway, therefore he pondered what could be done during that time and that is why he ended up with INWARD SCREAM, to transition from one song’s atmosphere to the other, without breaking the moment. 

(from the same magazine hah.)

I have not read the other members’ interviews yet, but it will be awesome if they are just as interesting. Do note, however, that I am not fluent in Japanese, so let me know if there are any mistakes and I will correct them as soon as possible. 

Now all that is left to know is how much Kyo works out and what his program is hahah. 

I am trying to make sense of this interview, with extra long questions/situation settings. Here are some key elements so far: 

• Kyo confirmed that The Insulated World is close to the feeling of a Concept Album - told you! Even without knowing the full content of the album, there were clear hints from as early as the second single. 
  
• I think it was Die who was saying that there were a lot of medium songs, at the beginning, so they had to rework some of them. However, at the same time, where they would have previously further worked to complete the songs, they let the songs end. 
• All of the members are talking about how this album is momentum and, paired with Kyo’s recent comment on kyo-official and his saying in this interview that he is already not satisfied with the album, aligns with the fact that they were mainly wondering where to go to after ARCHE and doing all of the [mode of] tours. However, there was a sense that this would be a more aggressive album. 
• Toshiya phrased his addition of arrangements in the bass line this time as “interpreting a story”/the lyrics. 
• If I understand correctly, Kyo mentioned something about wanting to try not to record songs anymore, to produce live only. 
• They also talked about the fact that they had attires that were coser to costumes again and more makeup than during the UROBOROS and even Dum Spiro Spero era, but they said that it was not necessarily a progressive curve, it was just something they felt like doing for this album’s era. Kyo countered by saying that his clothes were different all the time and that the makeup was much simpler/thinner than before, so there is definitely no trend toward more or less of anything. 

By the way, the amount of pictures was disappointing…

From JaME World