I.D Essay Book - First Love

Another essay from Maaya's essay book 'I.D'. This time detailing Maaya's first experience of love and her ordeal on Valentine's day. Part of it was published on Maaya's official website back in the day (2000) but the latter part is newly written for the essay book. Enjoy!

Note: in Japan on Valentine’s Day girls (not the boys) give out ‘giri-choco’ and ‘hon-choco’. ‘Giri’ means duty and you usually give it to everyone equally e.g. friends, classmates, co-workers etc. to be friendly. No special feelings. ‘Honmei-choco’ comes from 本命チョコ ‘honmei’ (real feelings) - thanks Frecklegirl. Bwahaha. So, as you might imagine, it’s special and goes to the one you like for real. Because I couldn’t think of a way to put this into English, I’ve left it as ‘giri-choco’ and put this note here. Bwahahah.

Note 2: White Day is March 14th when the boys return the favour by giving something back to the girls they received something from a month earlier.


“My First Love”


From middle school to around the second year of high school there was a boy I had a crush on. We went to different schools but we were really good friends and I really looked up to him because he was good at both studying and sports. Even though I liked him for five years there was only one time when I gave him chocolates for Valentine’s Day. My second year of middle school.

When I was in middle school I pretty much stopped watching television, I got all my information about the outside world from the radio. Around this time I made a small radio in my technology class and I used it all the time. It was around then that I began to favour Western music more as well. On the day of this Valentine memory it was this small radio that I had in the kitchen with me while I made chocolate. I say ‘making’ but it was only melting down and then hardening which anybody could have done but to me at the time it a massive operation. Even I was surprised that I had gone into the kitchen of my own will.

The plan was this.

To give chocolate not just to him, but to all my other friends too. That way no one would know that he was the real target. Make it look like ‘giri-choco’ when in fact the contents were especially for him only! I hoped that no one would notice. It wasn’t that I was giving him chocolates in order to say ‘I like you’. It was for, what would one say, self-satisfaction.

Love songs flowed one after another from the radio and various people’s Valentine stories were read out which had been faxed in. While listening to this I thought about what kind of message I would write to him. Even if I didn’t want to go as far as to confess to him, I wanted to add a few words to it. So, what I ended up writing was: ‘Thank you for everything. By the way, this isn’t ‘giri’!’ When I think of it now I laugh a lot! I can only pray that he has now thrown this card away. However, at the time, I wonder what a 14 year old boy would have made of this card? He never said anything…

Anyway! I was able to give him the chocolate safely. Remembering it, it was pretty poorly made; the chocolate looked so awful that it makes me think that it maybe it would have been better not to have handed it over at all but right then I thought it was a big success. On White Day I received candy which looked like it could have been brought from any convenience store on the way. It seemed like a waste so I didn’t eat it but put it away for a long time. In my second year of high school I found it again when I moved house and threw it away.

After we graduated middle school we were able to meet less and less and now I don’t even know his address. But in the winter of my first year of high school we met by coincidence on the train. Even though we had been such good friends, even though it had been so long since we’d last met, I got off the train without even greeting him properly. I regretted that for a long time but, it’s strange, as time has passed, I’ve found that I’ve begun to think fondly of myself back then. This chance meeting on the train became material of a song I wrote for my first album ‘Grapefruit’.

When I remember him, it always brings that small radio to mind. For whatever reason, it was lost somewhere. It’s strange that it got lost even though I left it in my house but I cannot find it. For me, a radio is an irreplaceable part of my life. That small hand-made radio was the reason that I fell in love with radio. Even if I never find it again, it is a precious treasure, a symbol of my first true memory of love and music.

What kind of life is he leading now? Has he given up basket ball? Even if there is someone I care about more now, whenever Valentine’s Day comes around, I always remember him.


“Valentine’s Day ~the whole story~”


Actually, one part of the Valentine’s story was different to what actually happened. I wrote that, “I was able to give him the chocolate safely”. In truth it was anything but safely.

On the day I clumsily put the wrapped chocolate into paper bags before heading off to cram school with him. From the outside all of them looked the same but the real thing had a label attached to make it stand out. How should I give it to him? Puffing out white gasps while peddling my bicycle, I was wrapped in the red scarf that I loved most back then.

Upon opening the door to the classroom, there was a girl I had never seen before. Long hair, pink sweater, a pleated skirt, she gave an impression of being somehow high class. The teacher introduced her to everyone, ‘Maki will be in our class from now on’.

Something felt wrong. I didn’t like the fact someone had joined our class. On top of that she was cute. I was worried. My rivals had increased by one. I was worried. She looks clever too. Worried, worried, worried…

Then the main event of the day.

“Let’s end class here.” With the teacher’s words the battle plan was put into operation. I plucked up my courage and began to call out “Um…”, at that moment:

“Um, I’ve brought some chocolate cake that I made with me. It’s Valentine’s Day after all ♥” said Maki.

Crashing and clattering. This was the sound of all the simulations that my head had produced for today of this moment and my carefully planned Valentine’s Day operation being obliterated. Ca-, cake? Not only was she was cute, not only had she appeared on Valentine’s day, but a hand made cake?!

The boys began to eat big mouthfuls with a ‘Thank you!’ right there on the spot. I also tried a mouthful. Flavourless. No, it had been made very well but I couldn’t taste it from the shock. My head was busy coping with the failure of my plan. Wh-wh-what should I do? If I gave out my chocolate now it would surely get compared. My poor chocolate which I had only melted and reformed and this delicious, veteran bakery-like cake. I had lost. A complete failure. Maybe I should just take it all home and throw it away…

As I was about to do this my target finished up with a ‘Thanks!’ and left the class room. And then.

“Maaya, is that chocolate by any chance? Did you make it?”

Said my friend, looking in the bag I was holding.

“Er….well, yes…”

“You should have said so earlier! Hey! Maaya’s brought home made chocolate too!” and with this, which although it was helped was an annoyance, stopped my target from leaving. I went outside nervously outside, now unable to withdraw. I ending up giving him his chocolate by the bike shed.

However. Here lay another catastrophe.

The label that I had carefully prepared so as to be able to tell which one was the ‘real thing’ had somehow come off! I didn’t know which one was the real chocolate!! With a pale face I said “Just wait a minute!”, holding each bag up to the light one by one I tried to see the contents. I had no idea…it’s so dark I couldn’t tell. I say this but of course you can’t see the contents by holding a bag up to a street lamp.

Ummm, ummm, I probably looked pretty fishy like that, holding each bag up to the light over and over again. After making him wait for so long I gave him the real chocolate on a hunch ‘I think it’s this one’. Whether that was truly the right one or not will remain a mystery forever. When I think that the hinting message card saying ‘It’s not ‘giri’!’ probably got given to someone else, even now it makes me curl up.


“Memories of the Sunset’s Colours.”


In the end, it was a first love with true feelings left unsaid.

His seat was always right in front of me. During class sometimes he would turn round to look at my notes or something like that and I would be insanely happy, heart beating wildly. Even though we were paying expensive tuition fees my grades didn’t improve at all, I spent my days concentrating on staring at his back wishing: turn around, turn around.

It was very ordinary and quite modest, but that was definitely my first love. I thought that all the time we spent together, I want to remember every bit of it without leaving anything out; his voice, his height, his way of writing the characters on his notes. Now, like watered down paints they are indistinct, only pale colours that have become more and more mixed up.

I’m still good friends and talk regularly with that girl Maki who I had appointed my love rival. I lost to that cake on that day – I haven’t told her this even now because it still smarts.

For some reason the scenes appear especially vivid in the memories of the days when I loved him.

Following his back with my eyes from the top of a hill, watching as he rode his bicycle home at sunset. His expression as he turned back that one time when he reached the bottom of the hill, one that couldn’t be seen clearly in the backlight of the sunset, but how I knew with certainty that he would be smiling at me. It is a memory that makes my heart warm painfully from longing. I can’t remember when memory occurred, but out of all of them surprisingly this is the memory which is most vivid, striking for its unfading beauty.

Sometimes when I go through my memories, I remember the feeling, a mix of respect and longing, how I felt for him and begin to feel like I’m searching for him even now. However, now that I am an adult, I know that this is only an illusion. It is not his existence that makes my chest tighten now, but my own, myself at 14 who was in that desperate one-sided love. The ‘me’ of those days is pretty cute.

If, someday, we run into each other somewhere there is one thing I want to ask him. Was the Valentine chocolate that I gave him that day really the real ‘hon’ chocolate or not!!

I.D Essay Book - A Thrilling Weakness! A Life of Lost Property

In Japan currently and got my hands on Maaya's essay book/photo book 'I.D' when I went to her concert in Osaka. It's really good. I had no idea she wrote such interesting essays. Her I.D entries are one thing (some of them are in the book) but she's just genuinely good at writing. The essays are all really interesting. I'll try to translate them as I can but some are pretty long. Anyway, here's one from the book for you:

“A Thrilling Weakness! A Life of Lost Property”

If I were to describe the amount of things I have lost it would be extraordinary. From childhood right up until the present, I have lost something somewhere everyday. Every time it happens it is at the time a bitter experience and very regretful but why can’t I remedy this habit.

It was completely normal to lose textbooks and homework. Forgetting my gym kit on the day of the school sports festival, forgetting my camera on class trips, the loss of the remote control to a stereo I just bought (I still haven’t found it): this power is displayed upon the moment of ‘Oh, it was here!’.

Even since becoming an adult, after many incidents of forgetting things when going home, finally the staff began to make sure that when it was time to go that ‘Have you forgotten anything?’ How shameful. Once after I had appeared on a TV talk show I went home with the pin microphone still attached to me.

After living this life where I have just about forgotten more or less everything, my nerves have thickened to the point where it doesn’t bother me anymore. When I became an adult I learnt the art of being able to get over losing things by buying them again as soon as I lost them, the power of money. Although I have somehow avoided any huge disasters up until now, there have been many instances of forgetting things that couldn’t be made better with money.

One thing was something that happened when I was a university student.

I was tired from work being particularly busy and being in the middle of my midterm exams. Unexpectedly receiving a day off from all this I went out to a department store. It was right in the middle of the winter sale season. Get rid of stress by buying lots of things! I shopped until my legs were stiff. Then, when I was tired I went into a café and drank tea by myself. As I was doing this a friend rang me.

“Maaya, what are you doing?!” this seemed very serious.

“Huh? Right now? Shopping.”

“Today’s our Chai exam, stupid!”

I felt myself going pale. Hmm, now that you say that…it feels a bit like there was something like that today…

By the way, the ‘Chai’ exam she was talking about was the Chinese language module that I was taking. It was compulsory. If I failed ‘Chai’ it would be really bad. And if I didn’t turn up for the test my overall grade would drop considerably. On top of that the teacher in charge was pretty scary and I wasn’t that good at it anyway…

Without saying more than that I rushed home and phoned my teacher. I don’t remember the exact excuse I gave to her but probably that I was so sick that I couldn’t stand to leave the house even one step, I hadn’t even gotten to the phone before I had fallen over etc. I think it was something like that. A blatant lie but there was nothing for it. I knew it was pretty obvious that she’d seen through it but I couldn’t take it back after I’d said it. There was no way in hell that she’d be willing to let it go if I’d just said ‘I just forgot’.

Although she made a face about it, I somehow was given a chance to retake the test. However, she’d only recognise more than a 50% score on the make up test so I was in hot water if I didn’t get a near perfect mark. This was probably the most I ever studied in all my 4 years at university.

I also often forget people’s names. At least once a day.

For some reason, whenever I forget someone’s name I have a habit of thinking ‘I’m sure it was Yoshida-san.’ It doesn’t matter who they are, it will come out as ‘Yoshida-san’. Of course, it will always be that they actually have a completely different name.

Once this happened. At work one of my fellow actors greeted me with an ‘It’s nice to meet you’ and I replied with ‘What are you talking about, we’ve met before!’. The person responded with the negative ‘No, this is the first time…’. However many times I said that we’d met before the other person replied ‘we definitely have not’. In the end my dogged persistence was eventually met with a doubtful look.

Months after I had thought “But I was sure…” I was flipping idly through a magazine when I saw a picture of that person on one of the pages. That was when it finally came to me that she was an advertising model that often appeared in magazines. I had one-sidedly decided that I knew her but we hadn’t ever met…I was really embarrassed after that.

Within all this, the Maaya Sakamoto Lost Item Episode which is the biggest mistake I ever made in history…I can’t say it. It makes me feel faint, come out in a cold sweat and all the hair on my body stand on end, to the point where I can’t tell anyone about the most frightful mistake of my life. ‘Ahh, that time was awful…’.

I’ll save that for another time.