Even though she gave out bananas to staff and members as mementos at her graduation, when the press brought up the subject, she asked them to stop and said that she wants to erase her gorilla image as best she can.
And my babble about this: Sayaka’s gorilla image in AKB didn’t come out of nowhere, and it didn’t start when she joined. It was revealed on a TV show that as a kid, a boy she thought liked her wrote “Akimoto is seriously a gorilla” on the swings. It became an ongoing joke during her time in AKB, but even as recently as a couple of years ago, she made it obvious that it was still something hurtful for her. (Sayaka v. Tomochin shoujiki shougi, the very last question, from 18:00 on.)
The fact that she was able to make jokes out of saying things like “uho” and doing gorilla impressions doesn’t mean that it was something she liked or was okay with being called, it means that she was strong enough to turn something painful around and laugh about it as best she could, which is extremely admirable. Even though UHHO UHHOHO is gorilla-themed, the lyrics are about taking sad and painful things and blowing them away, which I think Aki-P very purposefully used for a Sayaka-centered song, having the understanding he did about her. It’s not uncommon for mixed race kids like Sayaka to be bullied growing up in Japan for looking and being different, and she was obviously not exempt from this. Sayaka is how she is now because of what she dealt with growing up. She knows exactly what it’s like to be treated poorly because you’re different, which is why she’s so outspoken in her support for folks who are LGBT, disabled, from other countries, or in any other way different. She’s said that she can’t stand prejudice, and can’t understanding hating someone for something they can’t help.
For people who are different, sometimes it’s all you can do to take words used against you and do their best to reclaim them and laugh about them. I’ve long had the feeling that’s how the “gorilla” thing was for Sayaka, and it’s always made me pretty uncomfy to see people calling her that, especially fans of hers;;; I know not everybody might get the whole history of the gorilla thing, so I hope this post helps explain it a little better.
Even if Sayaka’s gorilla jokes and UHO’s and bananas were funny for the time she was in AKB, let’s do what she’s asking and leave them behind as she moves on in her career, yeah? ♡
source : tumblr
