The Light I Saw That Day (BOYS PLANET/Haruto)

I am writing this blog in English, which I am not familiar with, because there is someone I want you to know. Sorry if it's hard to read.

Are you familiar with Boys Planet?　If you are reading this blog, then you are star creater, Right?  What I want to talk about today is my 1pic, a boy I met 6 years ago.

Maeda Haruto. On November 4, 2017 I saw him from the second floor of the theater.

Have you ever heard of the musical Billy Elliot? In Japan, it attracted 160,000 people in 2017 and ran for four months. It tells the story of a boy who dreams of becoming a ballet dancer. Haruto played the lead role of Billy in that musical. 

He won the lead role out of 1,346 applicants in an audition that lasted more than a year. He played the physically demanding role of Billy for four months without missing a single performance. He was 12 years old at the time. 

I think most 12-year-olds are mediocre children with no sense of responsibility or social skills. They are children who are so focused on one thing that they don't think about sacrificing other pleasures or taking on the responsibilities that come with it. I used to dance and do ballet, but it was just a hobby that I did three or four times a week. 

However, I think the children who played a roll in Billy Elliot were a little different from the other children. A little?　No, very much. They were very special children in my eyes.

I bought a ticket for this show to see the woman playing Billy's teacher. But as it turned out, I was very moved by Maeda Harte.

There were five people who played Billy. Originally, I was not planning to see Haruto. I was going to see Billy played by another boy. But that boy had to leave the show for health reasons, and Haruto filled in for him. That was the performance I saw. 

It was the last day of the show. I remember the atmosphere in the theater was the most heated I had ever experienced. Not only the stage, but also the audience was heated. Even on the second floor, I could feel the passion to witness this exceptional performance. 

I think the last day of a performance is a time when actors feel pressure. On top of that, it was a long-run performance of four months. A year and a half of auditions. There were four Billys besides him. There were many adults in the cast. Among them, he played the leading role in the final performance. Even if he were an adult, he would feel tremendous pressure.

But Haruto was not intimidated at all by the heated audience and played Billy to perfection.

I remember his incredible expressiveness.

There was a dance called Angry Dance. It was a song in which Billy tap danced in anger and sadness because his father was against him doing ballet. This is a press call video, which can be seen starting at 4:40 into the video.

To begin with, tap dancing is a dance that requires more skill than other dances. Haruto studied dance as a child in New York City, but what he learned was hip-hop and breakdancing. In other words, he experienced tap dancing first time. Moreover, as you can see in the video, this dance includes elements of modern dance.

The difficulty of exploding "anger" and "sadness" while dancing an unfamiliar and technical dance. I get chills thinking about it.

But Haruto did it perfectly. When I saw his Angry Dance, I cried as I was caught up in the whirlwind of anger and sadness he exploded into. His dance attracted me on the second floor of the large theater.

At the end of the story, Billy sang and danced to the song Electricity.  At an audition for the Royal Ballet Academy, when asked what he feels like when he is dancing, he responded, "I feel like electricity flowing through me".

When I heard the song and saw the dance, I felt electricity too, because I could see how Hurt, at the age of 12, had devoted his life to dance. His passion for dance came through in his singing and dancing, and it was like a burst of electricity in front of my eyes.

When asked what made him decide to audition for the role of Billy, Hurt replied, "I auditioned because I heard that I could learn many different genres of dance. The passion of this 12-year-old child, who loved to dance and auditioned with the sole intention of learning to dance, shook me to the core.

He was very skilled. But it was not only the technique, but also the power to move people's hearts with his dance. He loved to dance and was full of talent and potential. Haruto, whom I saw from the second floor, was such a boy. 

I was also struck by him during the curtain call after the show.

"There was a lot of pressure to do my best for Kazuki, but I played the role of Billy in my own way, just as Kazuki always told me."

Kazuki is the boy who was originally supposed to play Billy that day.

He was a 12-year-old boy!　He was under pressure to do his best to fill in for his friend who suddenly dropped out of the show, and he felt a sense of responsibility to do his best. On top of that, he had the awareness as a stage performer to play Billy in his own unique way. And the friendship that was formed through the stage, believing that this would carry on his friend's beliefs. And he was smart enough to verbalize it.

I could not believe it. He was 12 years old, but I felt he was a professional and responsible. Before seeing him on stage in person, I had seen him on his official Twitter and Instagram and I thought he was a cute kid.

But actually seeing Haruto with my own eyes, he was so cool, shining and special. He was a light of hope to me who had quit dancing, had no dreams, and no passion. I could not help but wish him nothing but glory on his path.

Since then, I have taken an interest in Haruto, and when I heard that he came to Korea in 2018 and that he was going to appear on an audition show in 2021, I really hoped and believed that this boy's dream would come true.

Now, at the age of 18, Halt appeared before me again, shining as brightly as he did then.

If you are reading this blog, you have probably seen BOYS PLANET. do you remember in episode 1 when Haruto performed 30 turns?　This is a ballet technique.

Haruto did not practice any dance other than hip-hop and break dancing until he was 12 years old.  So he must have learned ballet for the first time at Billy's audition, and 12 is honestly a pretty late age to start learning ballet.

Besides, Billy Elliot never had a scene in which he performed 30 turns. Therefore, the 30 turns are proof that he continued to take ballet lessons after Billy Elliot.

I thought that was really amazing.

That his experience as Billy is still alive in him. That he continued to learn afterwards. That he recognizes it as one of his weapons. That he is a person who moves forward without wasting any of his past experiences.

When I saw his 30 turns, I knew he had learned the basics well. To begin with, it is a difficult technique even for those who have studied ballet well to do 30 turns in a row.

Ballet is not a skill a K-pop idol needs. Nevertheless, he took what he learned as Billy and incorporated it into himself as one weapon. I really admire his earnestness.

He is a very earnest person. His Korean and Chinese are good because he studies a lot. His body is flexible because he always does stretches. He was accepted to Korea University because he is serious about his future. He goes to bed at 22:00 and gets up at 8:00 to grow taller. He keeps his surroundings neat and tidy. If you get to know him, you will understand how earnest and diligent he is.

It is not only earnest. As I watched Boys Planet, I was once again fascinated by Haruto's charms.

He is a cute guy. When he gets compliments on his rap of LOVE ME RIGHT, his ears turn red and he tries to hide it with embarrassment. When he cries, he is like a little boy. When he is happy, he expresses his joy with his whole body.

And he is a very kind person. When Umuti asked Jay to be the main vocal in LOVE ME RIGHT, he quickly said, "But Jay does the killing part well, too." At the announcement of the first ranking, he said to Takuto, "Let's keep up the good work, for everyone."

He watches people very closely. A video of him praising each of sopa's classmates recently went viral. It is very difficult to praise dozens of classmates one by one, but he did it one after another. 

While he is kind, he is hard on himself and very serious about his performance. Regarding his ZOOM performance, which everyone thought was perfect, he stated, "I have regrets." When he failed in the Supercharger self-assessment, he cried tears of regret, saying he wanted to disappear.

He always acts cheerful but has a sensitive heart. He stated in a comment on LOVE ME RIGHT's fancam that he is scared because he doesn't know how popular he is now. In the first ranking announcement, he was in 16th place and shed tears when his name was called. in the comment on ZOOM's fancam, he said that he was worried that he was losing to other talented people.

And above all, he has determination and passion. He came to Korea at the age of 14, learned Korean and enrolled in a Korean high school. I consider that determination. He has devoted his life to K-pop idols.

If he had stayed in Japan, I am sure he would have made it big in the musical world. He had a track record of starring in musicals. He had a contract with a major Japanese agency. But he quit the agency and went to Korea with nothing to rely on. For a dream.

At 12 years old, Haruto was shining in terms of technique and other aspects, and he was still shining at 18 years old. I believe this is because he never gave up and continued to work hard for the past six years. Effort, determination, determination, talent, and ability. I think Haruto has it all.

Haruto said Boys Planet might be his last chance. I want him to fulfill his dream at all costs.

For me, Haruto is still Billy. Billy overcame many obstacles and made his dream come true. I believe that Hurt will be able to make his dream come true. I believe that his path will be full of glory.

The light I saw that day in the theater bursting like electricity. That is Haruto for me.