Johnny's Baseball Match (April 13 2016)
I started writing this in someone's comment field but then it got so long so I thought I would just make an entry about it. And add a little more detail ^^ (feel free to skim away). Anyway, on to the entry! :D
I went to Johnny's Baseball Match yesterday and it was much more fun that I had expected. Mostly because I had quite a good seat.
I applied for the event through the fanclub and miraculously got a ticket. (I think it's probably harder to hit for this and Countdown, than it is to hit for Arashi since pretty much all fanclubs can ballot). When I got the mail I wasn't all that excited to be honest. Mostly because Arashi Japonism results were due the next day and that was all I was concerned about (and no, of course I didn't hit for that).
Then last week my ticket arrived. I had some built up hope it would be a good seat since my winning mail came quite early, and it was indeed good. I got a 3rd row seat! *^* (6th-ish row in reality since there were a few rows in the box on the grass as well (those people were very lucky, we'll get to that later). Since I knew Kame and Nino were participating I called up one of my Japanese friends who came with me to Japonism and got here Nino-uchiwa (since obviously I only had Sho's^^) and made her make time for me so I could have it. Kind friends~
my ticket
The event started at 18.00, but the doors opened at 16.00 already and you could see the participating people warming up (or so I believe). I got there at around 17.30 and then the red team were already practicing (great since my interest was in that particular team) and KAME AND NINO WERE ON THE SAME TEAM (overjoyed!) and Kawai from ABC-Z was interviewing random people. Kame pulled a dark joke saying he was "KAT-TUN's Iriguchi, Deguchi...oh wait that's not right" X'D There was also a junior interviewed who said his admired senpai was Nino, so they zoomed in on Nino who was, not surprisingly, lying on his back with his cap over his head. XD Shortly after that everyone left the pitch and we had to wait for for around 15 minutes before it all started.
The opening was exciting as we only knew some of the people that would be participating (mainly the ones actually playing) but there were a lot of "special guests" appearing too.
I don't remember who came in first but I think Kawai might've been first (not sure if his group members came at the same time) since he was the initial MC. The first surprise guests I remember and that I really shreiked about were Johnny's WEST's Junta and Kamiyama (well Kami-chan only tbh) who joined Shige.
From Hey Say JUMP we knew that Yabu, Yuuto and Takaki were partcipating, but when they entered they were joined by Chinen, Keito and Hikaru as well! :D I was very excited 8)
When Uchi Hiroki entered two of the girls in front of me who were obviously his fans literally fell out of their seats because they were so excited. Fantastic fangirl atmosphere 8'D
Massu from NEWS was another surprise guest too. :)
When it was time for Kame to enter I wasn't surprised to see even Nakamaru and Ueda appearing. It was more like a "I KNEW IT!" :D
At this time I briefly got my hopes up that someone from Arashi would appear (I even had time to think "oh no I should've brought my Sho uchiwa :o"), most likely Aiba. But when it was Nino's turn to enter he entered alone. I think everyone from the older groups came alone.
Many of the younger Johnny's groups came around and threw out signed baseballs that some lucky fans caught *v*
After eveyone had entered there was a small opening ceremony and Matchy and Higashiyama, the captains for Red and White team respectively, said a few words. They mentioned some of the special guests and KAT-TUN were allowed to say some words and it was announced that Nakamaru and Ueda would be special MCs. I'm not sure if anything interesting happened after that, probably not since I can't remember anything, and the game started.
The teams' players and their positions, batting order etc was announced (I'm not sure what exactly since baseball is still somewhat of a mystery to me) and the Red team started batting. I remember that Nino was the 3rd batter and Kame the 4th. The pitcher was a junior and was nervous and didn't do so well, but he managed to strike out Kame XD Takaki got a good hit and red team got 6 points before it was the White teams turn to bat. Nakayama Yuma pitched for the Red team and the White team didn't do great until V6's Sakamoto came out and hit a homerun! :D The first inning ended 6-2.
Before the 2nd inning started the juniors came out and did some singing and dancing to liven things up. The 2nd inning was rather eventless (I think Kame was striked out again XD) and it ended 0-0. Then there was some more singing and dancing before the 3rd inning started. Here again I don't really recall much (my focus was elsewhere. we'll get to that soon) but Red team didn't get any runs, while White team got 4 before Matchy called a Time-out and replaced Yuma with Kame. Cue Kame showing off his skills, everyone "ooh"-ed impressedly and White team scored no more points.
They then announced that the 4th and next inning would be the last to which everyone went "eeehhh~" of course XD
Red team got 2 runs and then Nino got to pitch the last inning and White team didn't get any runs. The game ended 8-6 in Red teams favour! :D
Then there was another small ceremony. Red team's captain Matchy received a big trophy from a small kid and went "You're doing it? Not some higher-up?" to which he got the reply that there were no higher ups XD Kame, Koichi and a junior I don't know the name of received Fine Play awards, and Sakamoto got the MVP one.
Then it was time for SHOWTIME! Cue the lights going off and everyone scrambling to stand up. Hey Say Jump's six members were joined by Yamada and Arioka (major screaming around the dome) and they sang Weekender which was great, I got really hyped up. :D Then ABC-Z, Kisumai, Sexy Zone, Nakayama Yuma each sang a song and then lastly KAT-TUN sang BRAND NEW STAGE <3
Then everyone did a lap around Tokyo Dome and I could finally see most of them close up which made me very happy <3 *^* I think it ended at around 20.30-40 which meant I had plenty of time to make it back for Ohno's new drama! 8)
It was a lot more fun that I had expected, mostly due to my nice seat. Like I mentioned at the top I got a 3rd row seat (6th since there were a couple of rows right next to the field), but it was quite far the side which meant I couldn't see much of the game. Instead I enjoyed the "supporter show" much more XD I was lucky enough to be on "the red side of Tokyo Dome" where the Red team Johnny's not playing were assigned to be the cheering squad. At first Kami-chan and Senga came around to us and encouraged us to cheer for whoever was batting. I didn't really catch what they wanted us to shout but it sounded a lot like something in lines of "Show us your coolness [name]" but it was probably someting completely different XD It was a tough job too because the audience would go along with it for 2-3 cheers then it'd die out so they had to shout out to us again and Senga was already losing his voice during the 1st inning XD Senga stayed in front of me pretty much all the time, while Kami-chan wandered back and forth a lot more. They were on their own at first, but during the 3rd inning they were joined by Sou and Kento from Sexy Zone (and o.m.g. Kento just radiates self-confidence. I totally get that he's one of the new stars in JE) and eventually even Keito and Hikaru came to our side (but not all the way in front of me unfortunately). Sometime during the 3rd inning Senga and Sou received papers and pens and hunched down and disappeared out of sight for a while, which was more interesting than the game. They were joined by the rest of the cheering squad and eventually they showed us what they had written フレーフレー[名前]! (Hurray Hurray [name]) and asked if we could read it. My row was quite close so we had no problem seeing it, but others said that they couldn't see so they disappeared again and a little later they showed us a new version with thicker letters and everyone was "OKAY WE CAN SEE! :D" and then we did some more hurraying when the red team batted.
My seat was the second one in the stands (behind a net><) and there were 4 rows of seats in the box seats on the grass. The supporter squad (well, mostly Senga and Kento) were quite interactive with the people sitting there which was nice to see. There were a lot of older ladies too, and at some point Senga lost it and (jokingly) shouted at some of them to change seats, to which the old male staff-san guarding the entrance closest to me chuckled merrily ^^
All in all, thanks to my close seat I enjoyed this a lot. I hope they will do something similar with more Johnny's together soon again because while solo things are great, inter-group things are a nice change :D
(okay that got waaaay longer than I'd planned. And probably a bit incoherent at times bc I added things when I remembered them. But I guess I'll be glad I noted it down for the future. I usually never write things down, and I probably won't be making it a habit either. But for concerts we often get DVDs to reminiscence to, this might not get one)