The truth is that I am horrible at appearing on TV. I don't think that it's like me at all. I'm really really bad at it. I'm terrible at talking on TV and it makes me so nervous. I've always thought that I don't like the atmosphere of it.

Oftentimes, I'm able to talk with people on TV who have a lot of funny things to say, but when I think of something funny to say, I never say it. Even when I do say it, no one ever laughs.

"What are you talking about? Was that supposed to be funny?"

Everyone always says that.

I'm surely getting worse. Even when I talk to my friends now it's like that.

I want to make people laugh, but I'm probably the kind of person who isn't able to do that.

Though I'm bad at appearing on TV, when I appear on "Hey! Hey! Hey!" [Music Champ] I always have a lot of fun. The two guys in "Downtown" [trans note: the two Heyx3 hosts, Matsumoto Hitoshi and Hamada Masatoshi] are more than just geniuses. They're wizards.

I rarely ever think that anyone is scary when I talk with people, but the two guys in Downtown are scary. They can really read people's souls. They are incredibly smart, and the expression "sharp" fits them perfectly.

For example, a knife that doesn't appear sharp on the surface but when placed on top of a cabbage cuts through it instantly is quite shocking. Very scary. If you place it on a cutting board, it cuts with a ringing noise. It's a feeling of "Whoa…no way!?"

After recording, I fall down in the middle of the recording room. Unlike most other people, I exhaust myself completely. If you were to compare me as a knife to them as a knife, it's very vexing. So I make a great effort to polish my "knife" self to a shining finish. In my heart, while I do that I say "ganbare, Gackt."

I'm not talking about the way they talk on the show. Just the way they hold people in their hands like tools is so incredibly unbelievable.

I would, as soon as possible, like to be released from the grasp of those people who can be thought of as geniuses. That would make me very happy. So I always get out of the way of things that scare me. That's what I always do on "Hey! Hey! Hey!"

However, no matter how I look at it, there are still lives in my world.

On music shows on television, we only get 3 minutes to perform. We performers think about what we want to do and are made to complete just one song in that time because of the circumstances. That is a really horrible thing to do.

However, at a live, in order to make full use of the song, you think about the performance. In my case, lives are a time where I can think about and express each song individually.

I have never once thought in a way as to make the song fit into set boundaries. For example, in order to perform one particular song at a live, if I think that fire is necessary, I will propose that the arena have a pillar of fire on the stage. At that time, if it is said "that's against the rules," then I will say "well, let's think of something that we can do instead."

There are many ways of innovating in the world. That's just one way of utilizing those ways.

Generally, when I am deciding something, I really hate using the words "pretty" and "ugly." I will decide whether to make people do something, but what I don't like is lining up everything that is "pretty" without getting any results.

It is the job of other people to decide what the rules are. Of course, if you break the rules, you will be punished. Trying to think about what we can do without breaking the rules is like a game. In this game, you must choose the best option.

In the case of the pillar of fire, for example, though they kept saying "It can be only 4 meters at the most," then I did not turn around and say "Oh well, there's no way around it. What about 3 meters and 90 centimeters?" Instead, I kept saying "No, no. I want it to go up 15 meters." They thought about it and then they, who at first said it could only be 4 meters, finally said, "Well, 12 meters is ok. But 15 meters is too much."

Of course, in order for this to happen, you have to keep trying and trying. When you don't believe it will happen, keep trying. The people on supervision had to go one by one around the hall, access the safety of it, and we had to conduct practical demonstrations for them before we could get it.

On the "Kagen no Tsuki" and "Jougen no Tsuki" tours, we made it rain inside the hall, and that kind of inside rain had definitely never been seen before at other locations, though it had been seen outside. However, using water, we made it rain inside.

Making that into a reality required us to clear all the pivotal points. We didn't just need to take the equipment into account. The backstage people, the supervision, the staff, other people who had dealings with the hall were all included, and we had to prove to all of them that this rain was absolutely necessary and that it was not dangerous. One by one we cleared those hurdles and had rain inside the hall for the first time.

Commonly, other artists would not be able to do this. I really do think that my staff is superior to others, and I will always think that. I had a meeting with all 20 of us together. There, 10 of them said, "That's impossible." Five of them said "That sounds fun." Four said "I don't get it." And then I said "We can do it!"

And then, if everyone else besides me had then changed their statements to "we can do it!" we would have had an awesome result.

But though they all thought it would be really great if that could be done, the other 19 pragmatically said at first that it couldn't be done, and so couldn't free their minds creatively.

However, to me, one of the important things to think about is if it would be interesting or not. It's not really about if we can do it or not. I'll do it because it is interesting.

If it's easily said fundamentally, it's my duty to say it. Afterwards, with everyone, we will then think about how best to do the task. In that vein of thought, if the other 19 people also had this mindset, then it would have yielded a great result. It is my duty to make my staff aware of this fact.

Doing this, taking the power of each staff member and combining them together, my lives have become very "can do."

In practicality, if you ask "isn't that dangerous?" well, fire is fire. That's a fairly obvious thing, but something only has to start burning, and the stagehands will shout "Ahh!!!" and evacuate everyone and put the fire out in great excitement. Half the time, it's because of something like the costumes burning, because the pillar of fire was right beside me about a meter and a half away.

During rehearsals, it's a little frightening and hot. However, during the actual show, I didn't remember any of that. The costumes, which are made of linen, will burst into flames at the slightest spark. But then, it will only be after the concert is over that I'll discover that the costumes caught fire.

This time, they made the water fall without missing a beat. Everything was soaking wet. We were also prepared for it to be slippery.

Something I don't want you to be mistaken about is that we did not go around saying "It's raining. We're making it rain. That's so cool."

Rather, we say, "To express this song, rain is necessary, and through the rain, what will the audience feel when we express the main character's feelings?"

In order to express the feelings in a song, if you think that acrobats are necessary, before you start rehearsal, you should first practice on a trampoline. That's not because you want to get really good on a trampoline. But I say this because if you yourself can't do something, then you shouldn't talk about doing it. So naturally you should practice.

Once, they brought a trampoline out and I jumped on it, and then had a system for making the trampoline disappear. Because people were jumping over one at a time, they could jump two meters closer. When we jumped, it was on the trampoline, but they landed on a padded mat, so it hurt. We were also wearing hard boots, so that hurt our bones and the hip.

Because the stage ended there lengthwise, if someone made a mistake, they would probably fall off the stage.

Not everyone thought that they could do it by themselves, and those who didn't couldn't jump. Because they were thinking "he's making me do this," they definitely couldn't do it.

I think that something like that is said by people for most everything.

First of all, there are things that you believe you can do yourself. Things that you think you want to do. If you think you can do them, you prepare yourself for it and then you do it.

If you can do everything, then go ahead and do everything.

That is my policy.

TRANSLATOR'S NOTES
I do believe this is the longest chapter in the book. It took up 4 pages on Microsoft Word and is 9 pages in the actual book itself. Of course, taking out all the times Gackt repeats himself, it would probably end up being about 4 pages.

I have been reading Tetsu's "Tetsugaku" and X's Taiji's book (few people know he wrote one, but he came back to the music business after hide died and put out a book on his relationship with X), and wow, what a difference. Tetsu's book is all interview, of course, so it's just straight conversation, and Taiji's book isn't a work of art. But compared to Jihaku, they are SUCH easy reads. I finished about 1/3 of Taiji's in 2 hours with no sweat. In Jihaku, if I were to actually read every word and not skim to get the gist, 2 hours would probaby put me through 2 or 3 chapters.

Gackt needs an editor badly.

In other news, I'd like to address the policy I've created about people asking if they can translate my translations of Jihaku into their own language. I have had mutiple people email asking about this, all with perfectly good intentions and eager to get Gackt out to as many people as possible. It really pains me to say no to them, but I will say right here (and will put it in a separate entry later) No, I will not give you permission to translate my Jihaku translations into your native language.

The reason behind this is that translations of translations lose something. Heck, even just translations lose something most of the time. I know that my translations of Jihaku (terrible as the book is) don't quite capture all of what Gackt is trying to say. It has nothing to do with the fluency of the translator but everything to do with the fact that not everything in every language can be expressed as clearly.

I don't want to do that to Gackt. I don't want anything to be lost. I want, if Jihaku is translated into something other than English, for it to be given a proper translation from Japanese. I think all of you would agree with me that Gackt would want that too. I think he would be happy that so many people want to read his words, but I don't think a translation of a translation is the way to go.

Perhaps someday someone else will translate Jihaku into English, and if that person is fine with letting people translate his or her translations, fine by me. This is just my own policy based on how I feel about Gackt and translating in general. I hope everyone understands.

Next chapter will be the chapter on Gackt's room.

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