Wall-Racing Variety Show Pairs Rui Migiwajima and Noa Kishiyanagi for the First Time — BTV Special Airs the 27th

BTV's popular wall-racing variety program, "Wall Variety," has become a fixture in which league athletes appear for hands-on climbing segments and talk-show banter, as previously reported. This time, filming took place not in a studio but at a low practice wall near Shiomibashi Street, at night. The show's producer said the pairing of Rui Migiwajima and Noa Kishiyanagi had "come up and fallen through in planning meetings over and over — the combination we'd wanted for a long time." "One is an active league athlete, the other an active idol-group center. It took half a year to find a date that worked for both."

Migiwajima arrived in her usual training gear; Kishiyanagi wore a sweatsuit rather than stage costume. "I've barely done any television filming, so I was nervous," Migiwajima said, while Kishiyanagi laughed, "Standing on a wall for the first time was scarier than I'd imagined." Both, as previously reported, trace their lineage to drift settlers, but until now they had been known through entirely separate arenas — the league and the stage — and this marked their first time meeting in person.

The centerpiece of the segment was a low-wall climbing challenge, conducted under mandatory safety briefing and double-checked harnesses, in the same manner as the student wall-racing tournament previously reported. Crew on set described the contest between the professional athlete and the idol, whose conditioning comes from daily dance rehearsals, as "closer than we expected." The outcome is being withheld until broadcast, but Migiwajima said, "As the professional here, I couldn't afford to lose — but honestly, the way she moved her body surprised me." Kishiyanagi said, "Before any frustration, I just genuinely had fun."

The talk segment reportedly produced some candid exchanges about the two women's nonhuman features. Migiwajima, a drift-descended half with only ears and a tail, and Kishiyanagi, third-generation with ears, eyes, and a tail whose iris carries a faint pale gold, began by comparing details like ear angle and tail length; Migiwajima noted that "the tail can get in the way while climbing," to which Kishiyanagi replied that on stage, not hiding her tail is part of her appeal, so she'd never thought of it as a problem. The conversation reportedly turned to the choir of students, roughly Kishiyanagi's younger generation, who sang the Shore Lullaby at the Arrival Remembrance Day ceremony, previously reported; when Migiwajima revealed that her own younger sister sings in that same choir, the set apparently went quiet for a moment. "We'll keep that moment light in the edit, without letting it get too heavy," the producer said.

Filming had originally been scheduled for about two hours but ran to three and a half, the producer said. The main reason was the talk segment, which ran long: "The section on their nonhuman features was scripted for five minutes and somehow went on for nearly twenty. It felt like a waste to cut, so we're keeping most of it in the edit." Between takes, Migiwajima and Kishiyanagi reportedly compared schedules and promised to visit each other's workplaces as spectators sometime soon. "The unscripted moments made the best footage," one crew member said.

A surprise guest also appeared: the robotic half of comedy duo Shiomibashi, a companion cleaning robot with a non-humanoid frame exempt from the "too-human" design restriction, previously reported. It was given the role of judging the climbing contest with a series of beeps. "My partner has no expression, but it's actually got pretty good comic timing," the human half of the duo said. The producer said the station's compliance staff had signed off on the robot's appearance in advance: "We wanted to add some of this world's particular liveliness, without breaking the show's tone."

BTV said onlookers, including nearby residents and students on their way home from school, gathered at the shoot, requiring a rope line unrelated to the usual "shore-gawking" crowds mentioned elsewhere in this paper. "We want to bring the appeal of wall racing to people who don't follow the league," the producer said, adding that a follow-up episode would depend on ratings. Migiwajima's pending selection for the season's monthly MVP, previously reported, remains undecided; she said only, "I'm putting the filming out of my mind and focusing on the two rounds we have left." The special airs at 7 p.m. on the 27th on BTV.