Interview with the Commanders of “Girl Gun Lady”

From left to right: Sakura Ando, Rio Teramoto, Yuno Ohara, Momoka Ishida

Yuno Ohara, Rio Teramoto, Momoka Ishida, and Sakura Ando discuss their characters and the filming of tokusatsu drama Girl Gun Lady.

In the new tokusatsu drama Girl Gun Lady, the “Girl Gun Fight” is led by four commanders: Alice (Yuno Ohara), Bianca (Rio Teramoto), Charlotte (Momoka Ishida), and Daisy (Sakura Ando). In this interview, they discuss the characters they play and the filming of the show.

What do you have in common with your characters?

Ohara: Alice of the most human of the commanders. She cries when her teammates die and is just very kind. I think she’s the easiest of the commanders to play.

Teramoto: Bianca is reserved and doesn’t smile much. She also has a bit of an absent-minded side. I’m the same way, so we really connect on that point. Bianca wears glasses, but they’re just for show so she just seems reserved on the outside. Even when I do things like sports, I judge by appearance, so I think we also have that in common.

Ishida: Charlotte’s distinguishing characteristic is her Kansai dialect, but I’m from Osaka. I already speak with a Kansai dialect, so Charlotte is like an extension of myself. Even while she leads her players, it’s not that she acts without thinking, but she’s strong-willed. I’m also goal-oriented about things, and I think I resemble Charlotte in that way too.

Ando: Daisy loves battle and has an unhinged-seeming side, but for an FPS-style game, I wonder if Daisy isn’t also the most accustomed to battle. (laughs) I’m the type who likes to charge into enemies in games, so I think that’ll come through in Daisy.

Commander Alice (Yuno Ohara)

What were difficult or fun points of filming?

Ohara: I couldn’t use fingerprint verifications on my phone with my gloves on. (laughs) I couldn’t turn pages of the script by myself either, so I relied on Sei (Shiraishi) to help me out. We’ve worked together before, so she made filming more fun for me.

Teramoto: The commanders watch the players fight from another room via monitors, but it’s not actually being shown. This made putting emotion in lines like “Go for it!” really hard.

Ishida: I use two wigs with pigtails, so I have twice as many hairstyles as the others, but it’s more like three. (laughs) Because of the weight of the wigs, they kept slipping at the back, so the bangs were set above my eyebrows towards the end of filming. (laughs) The make-up artists and I worked very hard to keep my hair pinned down.

Ando: Daisy’s right eye is covered, so I’d get really surprised hearing people talking behind me to my right. (laughs) It was my first time experiencing a blind spot like that. But on the other hand, I’m glad for the new experience too, and I cosplay which made it all the more exciting! I kept thinking how great it was to be able to bring my hobbies into my work, so I think I was able to challenge myself in filming.

Commander Bianca (Rio Teramoto)

Tell us about your costumes.

Ohara: I used to really like anime and games and was interested in cosplaying, so my heart soared from getting to play Alice and getting to wear a cool outfit. We only met about three times regarding my costume before filming started, but as I went through the fitting, I felt stronger. Alice is shown as a light-blue, but I used more white foundation than usual to try and give her a paler look. (laughs)

Ando: It really makes me self-conscious! I’m already a self-conscious person, but I think it’s really cool that Daisy’s main colors are black and red. She has a tattoo on her stomach, and… I can already feel it! (laughs) It’s just a fake tattoo I put on every time, but I consider its angle and position, so I hope you notice my efforts.

Commande Daisy (Sakura Ando)

How was the atmosphere during filming, being with people around your age?

Teramoto: There are a lot of shots with my teammates, but when the commanders are together, we have a lot of the same worries or enthusiasm or difficulties, so there are a lot of shared heart-to-hearts. When we can’t take off our costumes yet, someone could say something like “You need to go now too, right?” when we’re all thinking the same thing. (laughs)

Ishida: My biggest sense was that I could meet a lot of people I’ve only seen from various places before, but now that editing has started, I’ve realized that I’ve also been helped a lot. I was really nervous playing a regular character in a drama for the first time, but the other commanders’ smiles really helped me keep my cool. I could calmly tackle filming because of them. I’m so, so grateful for their help.

Commander Charlotte (Momoka Ishida)

What scenes should we look out for?

Ohara: This is the first time I’ve heard of an “adult-oriented tokusatsu drama”, but I hope that we of Girl Gun Lady can open a space for more of this. Please keep an eye on the action scenes. We the commanders normally advise from the command room, but when our teammates are in trouble, we’ll dash out to join the fight, so watch for that too!

Ando: The action scenes are definitely cool. There were lots of times I’d watch the players practicing, and I’d get this tight feeling thinking, “They’re going to make such a cool scene from this!” Definitely give it watch!

Teramoto: We don’t usually get to see the girls’ expressions or gestures very much while they’re fighting, so watch for that. Also look forward to watching the action build as things get more intense leading up to the finale. As for Bianca, she starts off seeming gentle, but she tears away that image when we get to the end. Please look forward to that change too.

Ishida: The scene where the commanders come to life from plastic models is cool. I also hope that you’ll think, “What will happen next?” or “I want to root for this team!” and enjoy the show for yourself.

Plot Summary

Reserved high school student Koharu (Sei Shiraishi) never fit in in the real world. Perpetually alone, she only had one hobby: building plastic models. One day, on the way home from school, she stops by the curious antique shop FFF. There, she buys a plastic model gun and a plastic model named Alice from the shopkeeper (Gaku Hamada). She immerses herself in building the models, but the night that she finishes, she is transported to a parallel world. One where her school is an empty battlefield. Beside her is none other than Alice (Yuno Ohara), the plastic model she just built. But she can talk, just like a human. And, putting the plastic model gun in Koharu’s hand, she announces the beginning of a battle: “Girl Gun Fight.” Still uncertain if she’s dreaming or awake, her teammates, upperclassman Natsuna Usui (Momoka Ito) and underclassman Akiho Inada (Natsuki Deguchi), rush to meet her, and Koharu finds herself in battle. And all of her enemies are from her school. Thus begins her inescapable nightmare… Then, Koharu’s sole childhood friend, Student Counsel President Matsuko Kadowaki (Anna Ishii), appears in the cruel, never-ending Girl Gun Fight, and everything changes. Meanwhile, despite not grasping the meaning behind the battles and refusing to fight, the terrified Koharu displays an unforeseen affinity for battle…

Girl Gun Lady is a tokusatsu drama that started airing April 6. Episodes can be watched with English subtitles through the Bandai Spirits Global Channel on YouTube for one week at a time.

Sources: The TV, Bandai Spirits Global Channel