(Disclaimer: I love Araki to pieces and mean absolutely no disrepect by my commentary).

I’ve been saying for a year now that I need to do a series about Araki’s body language. There are simply too many instances in which I’ve spent the majority of a video determining its content and Araki’s mood simply by watching how he behaves and what gestures he makes. I could probably say a lot about the inner workings of his mind–maybe I would be totally wrong…but maybe not.

I’ll go ahead and say this up front–the content of the videos I use is irrelevant. That I cannot translate them is irrelevant as well. In fact, it’s much better if you don’t know what’s going on.

Exhibit #1: The Karasu 10 Promotional Video

(Embedding for this video was disabled. I have provided the link above so that you may watch the video in live action. You’ll definitely want to do that before you continue reading. Meanwhile, I’ve provided screencaps).

From the beginning of this video, we can already tell that one of two things is true: (1) Araki is very unhappy about needing to be in this video at all, or (2) He got absolutely no sleep the night before and is running on pure autopilot.

It may be a combination of both. Either that, or he really just hates everyone in the room at this particular moment.

How do we know this? Well, for starters, let’s talk about his positioning in the video. Everyone else is pretty cuddly. They’ve got arms over each other’s shoulders, and they’re standing pretty close together. Araki, on the other hand, has separated himself from the other actors. It might not look like a lot, but a few inches is enough to get your point across when you’re supposed to be looking friendly with other people.

Next is the greeting. Araki is absolutely not with it. Everyone else is cheerful, but Araki is clearly saying “D-boys desu” out of requirement only. He offers no enthusiasm whatsoever, and afterward he looks like he would really like to be somewhere else.

In fact, nowhere in this video does Araki smile. He does blink, like he doesn’t quite know why he’s standing there (or else he’s trying to remember whether or not he left the stove on at home), and he staaaarreess like there’s something far, far more interesting off to the side of the camera.

Who knows. Maybe he sees food, and he’s wondering whether or not the filming will be finished before someone else walks by and eats it.

Araki has absolutely no facial expression in this video. Something must be going on (or like I said before…maybe he didn’t get to sleep. The boys DOES have a ridiculously hectic schedule at times) because I know that Araki is more than capable of making all kinds of ridiculous faces when he wants to.

Case in point.

During the fist shaking bit, he lags behind everyone else, and once again he’s not looking at the camera–he’s looking at something off to the side. There’s no way around it–he’s not paying attention. He doesn’t want to be there.

He clearly doesn’t care what anyone thinks about what he’s doing, either, as evidenced by neglecting to put his hand down again for the remainder of the video. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that he might just be imagining someone on the other end of that fist. I’d make a decent bet that someone, at some point during that day, probably pissed him off. Also, I think he might have an issue with the camera man.

He continues to hold the punch-you-cranky-face throughout the rest of the video, and only changes his hand position when everyone starts to wave goodbye. But Araki isn’t waving. Araki is holding his hand still with his fingers splayed in the well-known do-not-want-to-talk-to-you-right-now position. Araki isn’t having this shit. He is above you AND your video, and he wants to go home and have some damn lunch, thanks.