- Interview With: Babybeard
- Location: Anime Boston 2024
- Interview Date: 3/29/2024
Anime Herald: Do you want the most important question to be the first one I ask, or the last one I ask?
Mahri: Last.
Anime Herald: Then our first question is from our readers. What are your workout routines?
Mahri and Ladybeard in unison: “Workout routines?!” (Laughs)
Ladybeard: I’ll tell you Mahri’s workout routine. Stay awake until 5 AM. Then, wake up at 6 AM for rehearsal at 7. Show up at 10, without having eaten anything. Spend the first hour of rehearsal eating your 7-Eleven breakfast. Suzu and I have done the who show twice by the time she arrives. Maybe she’ll dance once, then she’ll sit down again.
Mahri: Yes!… no… Objection! … … I don’t do much stretching.
Ladybeard: We stretch. Mahri doesn’t stretch.
Mahri: So I usually get muscle pain the day after practice. That’s my routine.
Ladybeard: Isn’t it something, how she knows exactly what to do to remedy the situation, yet she doesn’t do it?
Mahri: Well, I’ll try my best to come in three hours earlier with you guys.
Babybeard: Good!
(Editor’s note: Mahri is lucky she didn’t write for Your Show of Shows.)
Suzu: I’ll dance to K-pop. I listen to music while I exercise.
Anime Herald: Who is your favorite K-pop favorite?
Suzu: Blackpink.
Anime Herald: And finally, yours? You mentioned the 7-10, but it sounds like it’s more than that.
Ladybeard: I bust my ass every day… and I’m still a big love-handle’y mess. It doesn’t matter how hard I train or diet. It’s a disaster, just from the neck down. It’s horrendous.
(Serious now) I lift weights 3-4 times a week. I’ll do cardio 2-3 times a week. I’ll try to throw in some martial arts training. Then of course, if we’re rehearsing a lot, doing shows a lot, then you have to compensate for that. That is quite challenging in itself. You’re dancing for eight hours, but you still need to do your muscular work. Also, I’ve learned over the years, that doing the show is not preparation for the show. So you have to always be doing your prep for the show, even if you’re doing the show a lot. Doing the show won’t keep you conditioned to do the show, so you have to keep doing your prep.
Anime Herald: Following up on something you said there, “from the neck down”, what went into the decision to set the waistline and length of your skirt?
Ladybeard: Well I’m a big love-handle’y mess. The waistline has to be above the love handles, so it can flare out over those. That’s actually a huge part of how my professional cross-dressing career began in the first place.
Anime Herald: Let’s go back to the beginning then.
Ladybeard: Sure. The strange way my body is shaped. Pants never fit me properly. I’d put them on; first thing, the waist is too low. I’ve got big legs, so I could never move me legs. I have these giant legs, and buttocks like Serena Williams, so they never fit into pants.
But then, my legs are my strongest bit, and I’m trained in taekwondo, so that’s all kicking. If I get into a street fight, I need to be able to kick. And I can’t in pants. So, I realized at age fourteen, that, to put on a skirt, firstly, it’s hilarious. And secondly, when some jock comes and messes with you for being a dude wearing a skirt, you can knock him out with a jumping spinning kick. And that’s quite a thing when a man in a skirt knocks out a jock with a jumping spinning kick.
Anime Herald: That’s wonderful. When did you first realize you’re a reincarnated Scotsman?
Ladybeard: A reincarnated Scotsman?! It’s part of my heritage, Scotland. Scotland and Ireland. It’s nothing but skirt-wearing from day one.
Anime Herald: This question is for Suzu. Following up on your Slope Club interview. What does it mean that “Idoldom is a way of life?”
Suzu: It feels like I’m taking an examination.
Anime Herald: It’s going to get worse.
Ladybeard: These are the easy questions!
Anime Herald: While you’re thinking on that, a question for Mahri: What does it mean that “idols give you power?”
Mahri: I think it gives power to both the fans and us, the idols… this is a very hard question.
Ladybeard: Want me to field it?
Mahri: Yes.
Ladybeard: (Fantastical) Idols are a way in which the human experience can be maximized, both for the performer and for the consumer of the idol culture and the idol’s performance. Idols take all of the most pure and beautiful parts of human life and compress them into one remarkable and absolutely unquenchable powerful form of joy, happiness, and expression, expressed by idols from a stage to idol fans, off the stage.
Energy flows back and forth, and a giant energy ball of happy kawaii joy is experienced by everyone, sometimes flowing out from the venue, curing oil slicks, and stopping overturned boats. The idol power will fix the world. Climate change? Idols will solve them.
Anime Herald: What is the difference between an artist and an idol?
Ladybeard: Good question. You want to take it?
Mahri: Sure. Artists are more professional, in terms of skills. Singing, dancing, how they look. Idols, yes, we are being professional, but in addition to that, we need to have some personal connection with the fans. I think that’s the difference.
Ladybeard: I’ll go from being as ridiculous as I was to suddenly being academic and serious. A lot of the time with idols, the fans are there to experience a personal relationship between the idol and the idol fan. That relationship can take on its own life within that fan’s imagination. It’s sort of the idol’s job to maintain that fantasy, for lack of a better word. So this relationship between the idol and the fan is extremely important.
For artists, it’s more the Western sense. Here’s the performance. You get the value from the performance, as opposed to a sense of relationship.
Suzu: With idols, there’s more unity between the idol and the audience. For artists, it’s about the performance. For idols, the idols and the fans form a unit.
Mahri: We’re a little different than the traditional Japanese idol group. We’re more artist-ish than an idol group. In my previous idol group, the otaku came to see me, not the performance itself. Then they pay to talk with me and get the cheki. That’s very different from the artists.
Ladybeard: If you took a standard-issue Japanese idol group, and put them on stage like we just did, it wouldn’t really make sense, right?
Mahri: No.
Ladybeard: They’re used to a community of the same twenty people who show up every time. Now, it’s a thousand strangers. It’s incongruent.
Mahri: Also, if you’re Mahri’s fan, you’re like family. They’re like “Oh, you like Mahri too, we should come back together and support her.”
It goes like that. It’s not like “She’s so good at singing” or “So good at dancing, we love Mahri, the person.”
Anime Herald: When you were first learning the business, was it Shiori who sat you down and taught you everything?
Ladybeard: Sure. There she is. (Points at Shiori)
Anime Herald: Hello. (Waves)
Shiori Tomita: Hello. (Waves back)
Anime Herald: Can you elaborate on what she taught you?
Ladybeard: It was halfway through my time in Japan. I had already been doing this for five years. It’s changing now, because of the internet. When I got there ten years ago we didn’t have TikTok or Instagram the way we have now.
Everything in Japan is different. It’s obvious to everyone, to you, that it’s different. But… they don’t know what you don’t know. Because for them, it’s just normal life. Especially Japanese TV.
I got stuck on these variety TV shows. The whole point of these shows, they’re basically freak shows. Let’s laugh at this ridiculous person. They would have a formula, a set of guests. They would have one beautiful girl. One handsome guy. One old academic person. And at least two kinds of clowns or freaks.
The whole conversation would revolve around “Beautiful girl, tell us what it’s like being a beautiful girl. Handsome guy, tell us about being a handsome guy. Academic, tell us some stuff we don’t know. Now everyone, point and laigh at the freaks!”
When you’re the freak, and no one has told you that’s you’re job… (Pantomimes his face turning red, angry, and scared)
No one had explained to me that’s what was going to happen. I won’t tell you the details of my first time. It was pretty confronting. If I had gone on Australian TV with a Japanese guy in a skirt and treated him like that that to him, (whistles), go straight to prison. But that’s just how I got treated on Japanese TV.
For everyone else, it was “But of course, that’s how you got treated.” For me, it was “What the hell is going on? Why is everyone so racist and homophobic?”
After I had gone through all this… totally bungled all of my original opportunities on Japanese TV, because I didn’t know what I was meant to do, Shiori sat me down and showed me a bunch of variety shows. She explained, “Everyone knows that this guy has his gag. It’s his re-occurring joke. Everyone knows how he sets up that gag, so everyone knows how to react.”
I’m like “Oh…”
“Now, here is the person in the freak position. You see everyone is being nasty to them, but it’s like roasting. It’s a playful nasty.”
She showed me several examples and explained everything. I was like, “How would I have ever known this if someone hadn’t sat me down and explained it to me?” Now I can see all the missed opportunities from my first five years in Japan. I messed up so many things from not knowing what I was supposed to do. (Exhales.)
Anime Herald: What was behind the decision to seek out a career in the Japanese entertainment industry?
Ladybeard: I’ll give you the abbreviated version. I went through acting school. I moved to Melbourne, where I got my agent, and to train and be on the team of this Aussie who had spent nine years with Jackie Chan’s stunt team. I was a martial artist too. I trained with him. There was no work in Australia because a year previously, Australia had signed a trade deal. They no longer needed to make Australian content anymore. He said “You should go to Hong Kong. There, you’ll be a minority, so your pool of competition will be much smaller.”
I went to Hong Kong. I found a lot of opportunities there. Then, the 2008 financial crisis wiped out everything I had built. I wondered what I was going to do. I thought, “When I put on a dress like I had been doing since I was 14, everyone in this hyper-conservative society finds it really amusing.”
I did the business exercise where you draw three circles:
- What are you good at?
- What are you passionate about?
- What do people want from you?
Where the circles overlap is what you’re meant to do. I did that exercise:
“What are you good at?” Performing and martial arts.
“What are you passionate about?” Heavy metal, smashing things, performing, and martial arts.
“What do people want from you?” – Everyone seems to find it hilarious when I put on a skirt and party.
I saw where the circles overlapped and created this Ladybeard character. I did what I could in Hong Kong and ran into a glass ceiling. Because I knew that the Japanese are into the bizarre, I went on tour to Japan. The tour went great. I said, “That’s where the future is,” and eventually moved to Japan.
Anime Herald: Speaking of touring, let’s talk about world travel. You have toured Brazil, Mexico, and Thailand. Can you give us a story from each of those places?
Suzu: Two years ago when we first performed in Brazil, I didn’t know what to expect. Once I saw we had fans there, I was very excited. It was a memorable experience.
Ladybeard: Especially for poor Suzu. We started this group in the middle of COVID. The first year, we couldn’t do shows. It was just us in front of a webcam doing press. A lot of press. Again, with Suzu, it’s her first group. We had one interview in Japanese. One day it would be America, or Mexico, or in Portuguese. All of these foreign press. For Suzu, it would be like it was for me. A whole new world was opened for her. But we can’t do any shows! And when we could do shows, everyone was masked, and socially distanced, and completely silent. You’re pouring out all of this energy for a room full of mannequins. It was so strange.
When we finally went to Brazil, it was the ultimate. They were literally screaming before the show had even started.
Suzu: Our first show was for a convention in Australia.
Ladybeard: You’re right! Our first-ever show was for a convention in Australia. Alright, we’re going to Australia.
No, we’re not! The borders are closed! But, they’re still doing to con. So,we did a virtual show. Suzu’s first show was three cameras in a dark room. No feedback in terms of energy. I am very impressed with Suzu. She was very energetic from day one. I have a lot of good things to say about Suzu.
Anime Herald: So that’s Australia and Brazil. Let’s talk about Mexico and Thailand.
Mahri: My hometown is in Thailand. My dad’s job is in Thailand. I lived there for about fifteen years. When I first started, my parents weren’t very convinced. They had a stereotype of idols… just wearing short skirts and dancing. That’s what they thought about idols. But I wanted to experience a Japanese tradition.
My dream was to perform in front of my parents in my hometown. Which happened last year. My parents were really impressed. I was so happy. I vowed to continue being an idol.
Ladybeard: They said we were too professional.
Mahri: Yeah.
Ladybeard: That was Mahri’s parents’ reaction. “We thought it was going to be some rinky-dink, Mickey Mouse operation. Instead, you were really good.”
Ladybeard: A good reaction to get from Mom and Dad.
Mahri: Yes.
Anime Herald: That leaves Mexico.
Ladybeard: Mexico was great. I’ve been to Mexico very many times. It’s my favorite place to perform, to be honest. Latin America in general, because of their culture. Everyone is so warm and so giving. The first time I performed in Mexico I couldn’t hear my track because everyone in the audience was making so much noise.
I love going to Mexico. The fans are wonderful. There was this big convention… I think it’s the biggest convention in the country. Lots of cosplayers. There’s something very beautiful about that. You’re on stage and you have a full-bodied Pikachu over here; there’s five Power Rangers watching.
Mahri: I got distracted.
Ladybeard: It’s something. You’ll be on stage and get distracted when All Might pops up. I love performing in Mexico and Latin America in general.
My first ever show there, there was a man cosplaying me. And he had done a great job. He nailed it. I brought him on stage. He looked so similar to me. Our manager was like, “Wow, he really pulled it off.”
It turned out he’s awesome. He and I are now great friends. He took us sightseeing around Mexico City. We went to the local stuff that you can’t do if you’re not with a local. He took us to a lake where you’d ride these boats. You’d go to an island and a mariachi band would get on your boat and play for you until you got to the next island. It was so much fun. It was awesome.
He’s my friend Cesar, and he’s a cosplayer in Mexico called Kora Vash. He and I have been really good friends ever since.
He started cosplaying as me and translating my streams in Spanish and Portuguese in real-time. He’s awesome. Last time we were in Mexico we went to his shop and did his podcast.
Mahri: Tell them about the audience misunderstanding.
Ladybeard: A lot of the time, people think he’s me. He’d be out on the floor taking photos with people. We’d see people post photos later on. “Ladybeard is so friendly! He’s out on the floor taking photos all day!”
Anime Herald: And he speaks Spanish and Portuguese.
Ladybeard: Exactly right! “We didn’t know he had these skills!”
I love Cesar so much. What a legend.
Anime Herald: Let’s talk about cosplay competitions. Cesar’s wife won the Ladybeard competition.
Suzu: She was a very good Ladybeard.
Ladybeard: She came on stage with a full beard. Chest bursting with hair. She nailed it.
In the same contest, there was a really jacked dude, six pack, natural beard, wore a full bikini, and yet a buxom female wearing fake hair on her chest defeated him. Says a lot about what I look like without a shirt on.
Anime Herald: It came down to who won the hips competition.
Ladybeard: That was Cesar’s wife who won that competition (Laughing). We all love Cesar. He was very very nice to us.
Anime Herald: Now the question we’ve been saving for later.
Ladybeard: (Dead serious face) The important question.
Anime Herald: How do you differentiate yourself from all the other cross-dressing, former wrestler, metal idol trios?
Ladybeard: Holy moley!
Anime Herald: What makes Babybeard special?
Ladybeard: It’s a real problem. There’s too many groups that look the same as us.
Mahri: What?
Ladybeard: I’m being sarcastic.
Mahri: Oh.
Anime Herald: In America, this question is known as “a softball.”
Mahri: Okay.
Ladybeard: Clearly, we’re screwed. We just can’t compete.
Anime Herald: If there were other ones, what would…
Ladybeard: (Laughs)
Anime Herald: Let me ask a follow-up question to elaborate on this. If Ladybeard were to lose his voice, the show must go on.
Ladybeard: It must.
Anime Herald: Who would sing his parts?
Mahri: I think me. Her voice is a little higher.
Anime Herald: So you’re the bass.
Mahri: Yes.
Anime Herald: Have you ever tried singing his vocals before?
Ladybeard: DON’T! Don’t, before the show! I’ll teach you afterward.
Mahri: I’ll be in the center.
Ladybeard: My position has been usurped.
Anime Herald: That can happen in an idol group. It’s very competitive. If she sells more chekis than you, she’s the boss now.
Ladybeard: Don’t get me started on those chekis.
Mahri: That’s the actual Japanese idoldom.
Ladybeard: That won’t cause a problem between a group of females. That won’t cause a problem at all.
Anime Herald: It could be a regional thing. One person sells more chekis in one region. Another sells more in another.
Ladybeard: That happens a lot.
Mahri: But, the thing is, we don’t sell chekis with just one individual. We take photos with the three of us. That’s kind of different. I was very stressed in my previous group. I had to sell more than other girls in order to get into the center. That was a nightmare.
Ladybeard: Hang on. Your cheki sales determined where you were on the stage?
Mahri: Yes. And also how many lyrics you’d get in that song.
Ladybeard: Your fate is totally in someone else’s hands.
Mahri: Or, if you were the producer’s favorite girl.
Anime Herald: That’s true in America too.
Ladybeard: Yeah, that’s a favorite way to get ahead.
Anime Herald: What were the idols and music that attracted you to the entertainment industry?
Suzu: I really liked AKB48. Also, Nogizaka46. Growing up, I loved watching those singers perform. Even now, I still like watching idols. Now that I’m also an idol, I love performing and I love watching them as much as I love performing.
Mahri: I didn’t know about idols before I started doing it, because I wasn’t living in Japan. Suzu said she likes both watching idols and being an idol. But, I love myself, so I only watch myself, so I only like being an idol.
Ladybeard: That is the greatest answer to that question I’ve ever heard.
Anime Herald: It’s amazing how different all three of you are.
Mahri: Yeah.
Ladybeard: That’s why the dynamic works.
Here are the pop idols I grew up listening to: Slipknot, The Murder Dolls, Sevendust, El Nino. All of them popular in Japan. All extremely cute. We’re all about the cuteness. Black Funeral. They just get cuter and cuter, don’t they?
Mahri: Do you think you’re cute?
Ladybeard: … … … … … … …
Anime Herald: Kawaii.
Later today, Hizaki and Kaya will be performing. They focus on the beauty of cross-dressing. Kaya has spoken about how his cross-dressing came from his desire to express the freedom of sex in fashion.
Ladybeard: Dear me!
Mahri: Wow!
Anime Herald: Is this something you connect with?
Ladybeard: I have no idea! I feel confronted!
I think the answer’s no. Look, my cross-dressing is a case of “I was younger, wearing pants, and people were horrible to me.” I put on a skirt and everyone went “Ah, look at this crazy guy.”
I was just more successful at life wearing a skirt than wearing a pair of pants. And now that has continued into my adult life and it is now my profession. All of my cross-dressing choices have been very practical.
Anime Herald: Who are the metal groups you listen to now to keep your metal listening fresh so you keep in tune with the scene?
Ladybeard: That’s a very interesting question. Intrinsically, you feel nostalgia for the bands you’ve always loved. If you want to rock out by yourself, often you’ll put on music you’ve loved for the past twenty years. But if all you do, you’ll become a sad old man who’s not up-to-date with the trends. You have to listen to new metal as well.
At the moment it’s Within Destruction, from Slovenia. Big fan of them. Emmure. They’ve been around for a long time. They just toured Japan. It was a really great time. Paledusk, from Japan. They are kind of the new ones at the moment.
Then, there’s “go to” tracks that I like. YouTube knows me better than I know myself. If I put in one, it’ll bring up all the other ones. I’ll start with Dig by Mudvayne. We’ll go through People = **** by Slipknot. Some Marilyn Manson, and some old classics.
Anime Herald: You may or may not be familiar with this image. It is one of the most famous metal posters of all time.
Ladybeard: You are a well-researched journalist. Party Cannon! That would be great.
We almost went to play this famous metal festival in Australia called Blacken. It’s in the middle of the desert, for three days. Everyone is in tents. It’s a camping festival. One of my mates sings in a deathcore band. He said, “The problem with Blacken is that it’s awesome, but by the end of three days of black shirts and deathcore, Babybeard is what everyone would need to take a breath.” So we’re trying to get into Blacken at the moment.
Anime Herald: Finally, is there anything you’d like to say to our readers?
Ladybeard: Beautiful people of Anime Herald, thank you for paying attention to Babybeard. Please go on the internet and watch our music videos. We’re very grateful. If you’re at the show, we hope you have a wonderful time. If not, I hope you catch us the next time we’re in America.
Please contact your favorite anime producer and harass them and let them know that Babybeard needs to sing the theme song to their next hit anime.
Suzu: Online you can find anime versions of us. If you’re an anime fan, please check them out.
Mahri: I will study more about anime.
Thanks to Anime Boston for making this interview possible. Special thanks to Babybeard for going all out in this interview.
