My Arafes Goods finally arrived!
Arafes 2020 was my first Arashi concert so I wanted to get the full concert experience. Naturally, a big part of the concert experience is the goods so I was extremely happy when I found out that you can now buy Johnny's concert goods , theater goods, Arashi's Exhibition Journey goods, and basically all the shop photos, books, CDs/DVDs, and other goods for each artist online on Johnny's Online Store.
My first Arashi goods from my first Arashi concert! plus my first Johnny's shop photos!
I was very very excited cause when I was first in the fandom, I had to have my sister's friend who went to Japan physically go to a store and buy the All the Best 1999-2009 album for me, and thankfully she was also a Johnny's fan and understood what I was looking for. Now that technology is making being in the fandom and supporting all our favorite groups easier, the only problem I have left is getting it shipped to my country. As is the problem for anything related to Johnny's, in order to buy from their online shop, you must register and in order to register, you must have a Japanese address. I searched online for a proxy service that could do it for me, and placed my orders immediately that same morning when I bought my tickets.
Now all that's left is the wait. I ordered Nino's uchiwa, Jun's uchiwa, Clearfile B, and the Arafes Keyholder from the Arafes 2020 Merch Market and I tell you it took all of my willpower not to order everything. I was especially contemplating getting the ID lace with the gold olympic medal pendant, but it was something I knew I wasn't gonna use, as well as the penlight because I don't have one and what Arashi concert would be complete without a penlight! However, at the time there was an announcement that the penlight would not arrive until the middle of November, and I wanted my goods to arrive in time for Arafes, so I let go of that.
I figured since I was having stuff shipped from Japan anyway, I might as well buy more stuff. I was very tempted to buy the V6 acrylic stands as well, even if I knew like 3 songs from Arashi's dramas and know nothing about them apart from their names. After I placed my order for the Arafes goods, I was also tempted to buy the Arashi Exhibition Journey goods (which are still on sale now!!!!) because I loved the visuals and colors there. I especially wanted the snowglobe , because like Sho, I also like snowglobes, but I was afraid that it would break in transit. I also saw that the clearfiles were cheaper than the ones for Arafes which made it very tempting, especially since Nino's visuals are irresistible here and the overall feel of their entire shoot is just very cozy and makes me wanna snuggle up with them with all the knits, but I didn't have anything to put in them. And I decided I wanted the first goods I bought to be really special and to all come as memorabilia from something I really attended. So I settled on buying shop photos instead even if I had nowhere to keep them, and decided to support my other longtime faves, KAT-TUN (I'm sorry but the other 5 in KAT-TUN became my favorite at some point so I never really noticed Ueda until KAT-TUN became 3-nin) and Toma (I love this photo of him it's very inviting and cuddly cute).
My goods took a couple of months to arrive because the service overlooked my order and was unable to place it until a couple of weeks after I placed it. Which of course pissed me off because I didn't get to use it during Arafes like I intended to . But it turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Because the day after Arafes, when I was still on a huge post-concert high, I saw this video of Arashi introducing the Arafes goods on the Johnny's Merch Market Instagram, and oh my gosh when Jun flipped that pamphlet in front of my face, I just had to get it. I bought it right then and there and was glad that it could be shipped together with the rest of my goods.
The photos were shipped to the proxy service before Arafes while the first batch of Arafes goods arrived around the third week of November. I assumed that the photos and Arafes goods would be delivered together because they were both from Johnny's Online Store, but it turns out they are separate and require separate domestic delivery fees (it cost me 660 yen each time), and if I have known that I would have bought more photos because the shipping cost more than I ordered. The pamphlet I ordered the day after Arafes arrived just a few days after that, and finally, all that was left was for it to ship here. (This of course means I paid another separate domestic delivery fee, totalling to 3 + the international shipping fee + consolidation fees, which really add up, so my advice is to make up your mind and try to order everything at once so you don't make the same mistake!)
The washi tape with the Arafes 2020 pattern really made my heart skip a beat! Also the courier being Japan Post made me feel happy for supporting Arashi's CMs with them even if it's a totally different product lol.
Then, yesterday! After days of obsessively tracking my parcel, it finally arrived! I was very careful to open the parcel because I wanted to preserve the washi tape. But when I opened the box all I could see were brown stuffing paper and that really made my heart beat and expect the worst, because there are some horror stories here of customs people stealing items during checking, or otherwise items becoming really damaged because of deliberate poor handling. So in a panic I wove through all the stuffing papers until I could find my goods and breathe a sigh of relief. However, my clearfile was packed underneath the brown paper which they put to line the bottom of the box, which did make me panic a little until I saw it. All my items were there and they were glorious, and I was so glad they made the trip to me scot-free! Everything was packed really carefully so there really was no worry.
I spent hours in different conditions - natural sunset, sunlight, artificial lighting, taking photos of my goods.
First off, Nino's uchiwa is just glorious. Magnificent. No lie. I love that I could see all his moles aka beauty marks so clearly and I just love it. When I received the package it was below the pamphlet and the Johnny's shop photos so the first face I could really see was Nino's right eye peeking at me. Jun's uchiwa was packed behind it and it's my first time to have a jumbo uchiwa so I was so surprised to find that it really was jumbo, huge, bigger than my face HD and it was overwhelming to have these 2 people's faces up close. I chose clearfile B because those were their outfits for the individual clearfile photoshoots which I was also tempted to get. Plus, the words Arafes 2020 were embossed which was a nice touch. Anyway, like everything else it was packed in extremely smooth plastic with a sticker denoting which item it is, and it also came with a piece of paper in between I assume to keep the clearfile's condition? The pamphlet was extremely worth it. For me, a pamphlet is a few pages of random photos and usually given out for free. But this is almost a book. There were pages upon pages of photos for Arafes 2020 and previous Arafes, individual interviews, and a crosstalk. Really perfect souvenir for my first Arashi concert.
The photos came in a really nice protective packaging with a tray, which solves my problem of where to store them.
Because the photos were cheap, I think they were really worth it. They were bigger than my palm which I totally did not expect. As with everything, they were really great quality and resolution, and packed really carefully. I'm not sure why I chose that photo for KAT-TUN aside from that it contained 2 of my favorite people in 1 photo, but now that I have the actual photo Kame looks kinda gloomy there (I know he was aiming for like a bad boy image, but no hate! Kame was my first icon here on LJ 10+ years ago and I still really love him.)
I think the satisfaction of goods is different from the other products, aside from being memorable and meaningful, it's also relatively affordable compared to say CDs, DVDs or books, which can make it really easy to overdo them (especially if you forget to account for shipping fees and such). Now it's time to restrain myself from getting This is Arashi goods. Maybe just a couple mini uchiwas this time?