Gravure Idol Hotaru Kusakabe, a MENSA Member with an IQ in the Top 2%, Explains Why She Became a Qualification Maniac
When it was just my mother and me, my mother’s mental state deteriorated rapidly after my father’s death. After that, I started doing part-time jobs and eventually began working, but my relationship with my mother never improved, and we became estranged.”
“I never rebelled against my parents, so maybe I bottled it up to the point of getting sick,” she said. Afterward, Kusakabe worked part-time jobs before becoming a gravure idol, but according to her, “I didn’t want to do gravure from the start.” Initially, she was desperate to make a living and reclaim the time she had lost. It all started when she took a job as a tobacco campaign girl, thinking of it as a part-time job until she found permanent employment.
“I was told by the companion agency that they have that kind of project, so they made me come to do it, without knowing anything, but I started and really enjoyed it, and got hooked.
Promotions were fun, and I enjoyed talking to customers a lot. People around me started praising me for being good at promotions, and the sales results were really good. I was chosen as the nationwide best campaign girl for that tobacco company for two consecutive years.
It was fun to be recognized for my hard work, so even though I started as a part-time job, I continued. But if you ask if it was really what I wanted to do. Well, when I get into something, I tend to enjoy it no matter what.
As I continued with that campaign girl job, I started participating in photo shoots. Through those photo shoots, I gradually started doing gravure as well. Really, I’ve just been going with the flow all this time (laughs). But I don’t worry about it anymore.”
The experience of “falling” during high school was such a profound one that now she no longer feels truly painful or depressed. Through that experience, she may have reached a state of being able to objectively observe and enjoy the “drifting” aspect of herself.
