As announced previously, FUNKY MONKEY BABYS (aka Fan-mon) who will disband after their live concert at Tokyo Dome on June 1st and 2nd, will be releasing their last single titled "Arigatou" on February 27th. It was recently revealed that the jacket cover and music video for the last single features comedian Akashiya Sanma.

Sanma's appearance on the cover was made possible when Fan-mon first appeared on Sanma's talk show "Sanma no Manma" back in December of 2011. On the show, Sanma told Fan-mon how he wanted to be on their cover, and how he was envious when he saw Ueda Shinya (of comedian duo "Cream Stew") featured on the cover of their single "Soredemo Shinjiteru/Love Letter". Sanma then negotiated with the members to let him appear on the cover on the show. 2 years later, Fan-mon offered Sanma a chance to do so.

Sanma who met again with Fan-mon at the shooting, said, "I regret it now. You don't take anything serious if I say 'Let me be the cover jacket' on the shoot, unless I say it behind the scenes. So I was surprised when I got an offer, since I had little dream that they would take it seriously." To respond the comment, Funky Kato said, "We completely took it seriously! In a sense, we appeared on the show to make a verbal promise with you." Then Sanma said, "I was like 'Oh no~, but I guess it's fine since it would be finished after taking couple of photos,' but a staff member came over for a meeting, and said, 'we will leave Tokyo at 8 am, and the shooting will end at 7 pm.' So I was thinking, 'Why would it take that long to take pictures? How slow do they have to press the shutter button!', but I did not think there would be a�filming�for PV..."



Funky Kato also explained about the last single "Arigatou" saying, "We put so much of our gratitude toward the fans who have supported us until now, as well as the staff members." Sanma agreed him, and said, "I'm sure they just wanted to tell how thankful they are to people, and I guess only the word 'Arigatou' comes to their minds, no matter how much they want to express other messages. It's all about their 'Arigatou' feeling after all. It sure is a great word that hits the hearts of us Japanese."

The PV, which Sanma stars in, is�scheduled�to be released next week.

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Source & Image: natalie