The first half of 2024 was an incredibly exciting time for a group called Ae! group. They celebrated their fifth formation anniversary with a remake of their inaugural stage play, held a full-house fan meeting at Osaka’s Kyocera Dome where they then announced their CD debut, sold 782,835 copies in the first week of the single’s release, and embarked on their first nationwide tour. 

In BORDERLESS, a five-part Netflix documentary released globally on 19 June, we get to find out more about the excitement that started even before all that. The series takes viewers behind the scenes of Ae! group’s journey from formation to debut, through never-before-seen footage and in-depth interviews with members Yoshinori Masakado, Seiya Suezawa, Richard Keita Kusama, Ken Kojima, and Masaya Sano about the milestones and memories that made them who they are today.  

#Aeǃgroup (#Aぇǃgroup) invites you behind the scenes of their debut journey in the @Netflix original docuseries "BORDERLESS," launching May 14 in Japan (overseas to follow) and narrated by #DaigoNishihata of #NaniwaDanshi (#なにわ男子)!@Aegroupofficial #Aぇ_BORDERLESS pic.twitter.com/ewvLjCH5f0

— STARTO ENTERTAINMENT (International) (@STARTO_INT) April 27, 2024

Those who know Ae! group’s contemporaries, Naniwa Danshi and King & Prince, may also be delighted to hear familiar voices featured in the series – Daigo Nishihata provides the narration for all five episodes, while Joichiro Fujiwara and Ren Nagase take turns inviting viewers to tune in further in the previews for each. These, as we learn through the documentary, are only some of the many people who have been with Ae! group through their ups and downs and continue to support and cheer them on, along with thousands and thousands of fans. 

Right before BORDERLESS dropped on Netflix Global, Bandwagon spoke with Ae! group’s Richard Keita Kusama about what to expect from the documentary, as well as his thoughts on debuting and what the group envisions for themselves as they enter a new stage. 

Richard himself has had to face challenges of his own, which were documented in the series, and he touched a bit on one of them in this interview. Displaying calm the whole time and breaking out in warm smiles every once in a while, he spoke with so much sincerity towards his work with his group, as he relayed the determination Ae! group has to make their dreams a reality.

Hi, Richard! To start with, please briefly introduce us to Ae! group. How would you describe the group and its members?

Ae! group is definitely a group of strong personalities. We can perform as a band, and also dance and sing, and we also do comedy. A lot of us have been involved in acting and we’ve been on things like karaoke TV programmes where we’d get 100 points for singing, but aside from that, our humour is one of our biggest things. We have the ability to laugh at ourselves and also make other people laugh, and it’s a combination of all these different things and unique skill sets that makes us really special.

Ae! group is the first artist to debut under STARTO ENTERTAINMENT. What does it feel like to be pioneers in that sense? 

Even though it’s under a new company, there’s still a lot of sense of continuity from everything we’ve grown up on from the previous one. We’re still surrounded by the same senpai (seniors) and looking after the same kohai (juniors) whom we’ve been with for a long time. Though the company has changed, that particular element of the environment has not, so I wouldn’t necessarily say that everything feels like “the first” in that sense. 

But of course, I’m aware that a lot has changed, and being the first under that set of changes is something we take very seriously. In our debut single, part of the lyrics points to a new beginning, and how we’re launching from here, not just for ourselves but everything else we represent about what is to come. So, I’m hoping we can pave a new way of doing things, not so much to change what has gone before us, but to create a new path for everyone who will get here after. 

Your documentary, BORDERLESS, is now out on Netflix. What are you most excited for international viewers to see and learn about Ae! group through this series?

Ae! group is a group that has had a lot of ups and downs since the beginning, and you’ll see this in the documentary. It’s one of the reasons why the show is called BORDERLESS – you should never impose limits on yourself before trying. Rather, just do what you can, and find your way from there; something I even think I say in one of the episodes. Actually, the ability to achieve your dreams is not something that is always certain, but by constantly trying, you increase the probability of that happening. 

So, what I hope people would see through watching the documentary is what that process has been like for us. And for them to see, during the times when we didn’t know what would happen to the future, what we were able to achieve and how we’d been successful in everything we pursued throughout that period.  

Getting to your debut was really quite the journey, wasn’t it? Aside from what you’ve mentioned, are there any other lessons you learned during this time that you’d like to share with your fans?

In Japan, and I guess this is also true elsewhere in the world, we believe in the power of words to affect reality. One thing I learned through our experience working towards debut is you have to express what you want. You can’t just sit around waiting for things to change for you. You have to actually voice things out and act on them yourself. 

Of course, this can often feel very frustrating, but you should never give up and should just keep on going. Like I said earlier, even though your dreams are never 100% certain, not giving up is a significant part of what makes that certainty more feasible. Being bold and assertive with stating what we wanted and never giving up – that’s what has helped us and that’s what I hope people can also take away from our journey so far.

Can we focus a bit more on you? All this time, you’ve been in charge of rap and saxophone for many of Ae! group’s performances; but in the few months leading to your debut, you suddenly had to learn to play the bass guitar as well. Could you tell us about how you dealt with this additional responsibility? 

Up until that point, I didn’t actually know how to read music. Everything that I did before didn’t really require me to do that, so I had to basically teach myself to learn to read score from scratch. So, I watched a lot of YouTube videos, and I tried to learn it any way that I could, by listening and with the help of studying it by ear, and bit by bit practising every single day. Whenever I got back home from work, I’d hold the bass right away. I would just do that every day. 

So, yeah. Where I used to just play the sax within the band, these days I can play both the sax and the bass. Right now, though, bass is the priority. And it’s like… back then, I was working with mostly melody, but now I have to be in charge of the rhythm. So, to be able to do that, I had to just get my hands used to it by practising every day. Honestly, it was quite tough (laughs). 

When I watched the music video and saw you with the bass, I thought you looked really good playing it! Speaking of which, now I’d like to touch on your debut single, ‘《A》BEGINNING ’ – by the way, I bought a copy. 

Ah, thank you! 

This is a fantastic song that I think really captures your strengths as a group. How did you feel when you first heard it and what, for you, does this song say about who Ae! group are as artists?  

We heard the demo first and of course, it wasn’t our voices that were singing it yet, but even back then we were already struck by how cool it sounded. We felt it was really interesting and something we really we wanted to do. We also were surprised about it being rock, since it’s not a sound we have had much in our catalogue before, and it wasn’t the type of song we’ve heard much from the others around us as well – it sounded very fresh and we felt very excited to present ourselves with it. Then, after we managed to finish recording the song and finally got to listen to our voices singing it in its entirety, we felt very happy with how we did and thought it sounded even better than we imagined.   

The lyrics also really spoke to us. You know, like I said earlier, how it’s all about beginnings and pushing on. It feels really apt to where we are at this moment, and what we want to do from here now that we’ve debuted. We feel a really deep connection with it – probably deeper than what a debut single typically brings. 

We think that since it has dance and band elements, it leverages our experience as performers and relays what we can do and where we can go, and that just puts it in a great position as a debut single, since it captures our momentum as a group right now. So, this is a song that we really want to take seriously and keep as a part of our identity going forward.

You’re currently in the midst of your nationwide debut tour. How has the experience been so far, especially in comparison to the shows you’ve done in your Junior days? Are there any particularly memorable moments you can already share?

We had never done anything as big as an arena tour when we were Juniors, so the biggest difference is the number of people who are present at our concerts now. So, things like the view we see and the way fans cheer and chant – for example, that moment before the concert starts where they call out “Ae! Ae!” – the energy we receive from them, it’s all so much bigger than before. Also, I’ve noticed a lot of fans from overseas. They’d have it written on their uchiwa (Japanese hand fans): ‘I’m from Peking’, ‘I’m from Taiwan’, and the like. Things like that give me the feeling that Ae! group has the potential to really grow. 

The group is busy with the tour right now, but is there anything else you or the other guys have been up to lately that fans can look forward to soon?

Something I’m personally really looking forward to is the musical, Tick… Tick... BOOM! It’s my first time starring in a three-hander play and the first time I’ll be part of a foreign stage adaptation, so I’m quite excited. Rehearsals haven’t started yet, but I’m looking forward to working with my senior from the agency, Kota Yabu (Hey! Say! JUMP) for the first time as well. 

This play is very interesting to me because it’s based on the real life of this amazing person whose work has left such a lasting mark. As part of my preparation, I watched the movie adaptation on Netflix, and it’s helped me get a good feel for the story, like, oh, this is what it’s about and this is what I have to portray. It spoke to me in a lot of ways that made me even more hyped up about taking it on. I’m eager to show our fans and also the people who like Tick, Tick… Boom! our version of the work.  

Finally, as you’ve said in your debut song, this time is just the trigger to a beginning for you guys. What other milestones do you want to achieve as Ae! group in the future?

Of course, we want to become well-known both domestically and internationally. We’ve just debuted and are currently still doing a lot of things domestically, but we really want to be able to grow in terms of the capacity of what we can do. Even within Japan, we want to go bigger and bigger, you know, starting with arena tours, then dome tours, then stadium… It’d be great if we could play more and more venues to attract more and more people. And whether we do it here or maybe elsewhere, we’d love it if we can increase the number of fans who get to see us live, including those from overseas. What’s important to us is to continue to advance based on our current momentum, and then grow our audience and build more awareness, not just in Japan but everywhere else around the world, too. 

Thank you so much for your time today, Richard! It was really nice talking to you. 

Thank you.

And I hope we can see you guys in concert in the future, too.

Yes, please, definitely come!

(Interpretation was provided during the conversation. This interview has been edited for brevity.)