"Glory Back Home" is a film depicting the life of former professional baseball player Yokota Shintaro, who passed away in 2023 at the age of 28 due to a brain tumor. In the film, Ihara Rikka plays Ogasawara Chisa, Yokota's "love interest." In the film, Ihara, dressed in the cheerleading uniform of the prestigious Kagoshima Commercial High School cheerleading squad, plays a classmate of Yokota, who later joined the Hanshin Tigers. She talks about the rock bottom she experienced in high school and the realizations and lessons she learned from it.
◇The reason why I decided to give up on my "intentions" for a while
Ihara is a former member of the dance club at Osaka Prefectural Tomioka High School, known for the "Bubble Dance," and served as captain while she was a student. However, she also experienced days when she failed auditions to select members to compete in competitions.
"The dance club had a really large number of members, and in order to enter a competition you had to pass an audition every time, but I also failed the auditions several times. Of course, entering competitions wasn't everything, but it was hard to stay motivated during those times."
Ihara recalls that he was at rock bottom, not seeing any rewards and feeling like nothing he did would work, but at that time he thought he should stop trying to achieve anything.
"I wondered if my efforts were really enough to rival those around me. Maybe they weren't enough at all. After I realized that, to put it bluntly, I was like, "I'll die!" (laughs) I started practicing like crazy without caring at all about whether I looked cool or not."
She realized that "the hard work I thought I had done was only my own hard work." As a result, Ihara's hard work bore fruit, and she passed the additional audition.
"The audition at that time was all about dancing, and they were trying to see who could stick to the end, but I thought, 'I'm not going to lose,' and I kept dancing as if I was going to die, and I passed."
It's a phrase we often hear: "There are always people watching you work hard," but it was also a big experience for him to experience this for himself.
"Because I had that experience in high school, even when things didn't go well after that, I was able to persevere and keep trying my best, and I think that's why I'm still able to keep going even now."
◇Current high school students cheerleading as extras
We also asked Ihara about her impressions of playing a high school student in this film. Chisa cheers on the main character from the stands as he aims for Koshien.
"There was no ulterior motive behind any of the lines, and they simply said things like, 'Do your best,' 'Thank you for your hard work,' and 'I was watching.' I thought that the purity of those words, which were pure and unadulterated, was wonderful."
Regarding the cheerleading uniform of the cheerleading squad, she revealed, "I was grateful and wore it."
"I was given a cheerleading video and learned the dance by watching it, but everyone in the video looked so amazing that at first I wondered what to do. But when I actually got to the set, there were some current high school students there as extras. I tried my best to draw on their youthful energy. My manager, who saw the preview, said, 'You looked like a student,' so I think it was all thanks to them."
The film depicts Yokota, who went on to become a professional baseball player after graduating from high school, and his difficult days after developing a brain tumor, but his determination to play baseball again and to never give up on life. Ihara said he was impressed by the film, saying, "It's a film that will deeply resonate with anyone."
"There are many characters in the film, and even though there are things they can't do, they live their lives telling themselves that they must not give up just yet. This is true for Yokota himself, and for the people around him as well. So I think this is a very empowering film that makes people realize that they too must not give up just yet, and I would be happy if this message is conveyed to the people who watch it."
