Techncally a HSJ in Dome Report
So I somehow ended up going to Hey! Say! Jump's con in the Tokyo Dome on Sunday. I was already mostly leaning towards going before ebi announced they would be there, but after that it was kind of a done deal XD;; I remember because when we were waiting in line to buy goods for ebi's con, Kiri and I were like, "we might as well go" XD but then when they announced they would be there, and singing new songs, I knew I had to go XD (especially since tickets were really easy to get :X) On the one hand, I feel bad that jump couldn't sell out the the dome themselves, but it was nice to have the opportunity to see ebi again X3 (you know it's bad when they're even selling tickets the day of the concert)
Sunday, I met up with Kiri and her friend Thais at the station at around 2:00, and since we had some time to kill before the concert started, we walked around Tokyo Dome City. They both wanted to ride the roller coaster, but unfortunately it was down for maintenance. We walked around the amusement park area for a while, and it was cool to see all the cosplayers all around us. LIke there were so many with their fancy cameras, and even reflectors, doing photo shoots and stuff. We also got some crepes. We seriously had so much time before the concert started that we really didn't know what to do with ourselves XD We even walked into the line and got some goods, I had already gone to the dome the day before to get the goods I had promised to get people, I only ended up getting yabu's photo set for myself. After that we kind of just stood in front of the dome, in the shade and talked and watched all the people. The thing I really don't understand as a trend in Japan is crocs. Like girls will have this really cute outfit on, and then you look down at their feet and they're wearing crocs :/
The gates opened at 4:00 and we went in and found our seats. Unfortunately for me, I had to sit by myself, since they had bought their seats together. My seats weren't too bad, 21st row.
I was also right in front of a screen, which would come in handy during the concert. So after figuring out where seats were, I met back up with them and we got some food, I ended up getting some french fries. I really want to go back to the dome for a baseball game at some point during my stay, it was interesting seeing the things they have for ball park food essentially XD Then, when we had about a half hour to go before the concert, we went our separate ways to our seats. While my seat location wasn't bad visually, it sucked for me because I was surrounded by crazy yamada fans (~~;;; I myself am not a huge yamada fan in general, it really annoys me that he's the center and gets all the attention (and his face really annoys me), so i was kind of like *sigh* >.< There were three girls like two rows in front of me who were ebi fans though, two of them had the ebi penlights and one even had a tottsu uchiwa X3 (I also felt like we had about the same amount of tension throughout the entire concert, so that made me a little happy XD) I also saw a couple of girls to the right of me that had an A.B.C-Z uchiwa that was 4 uchiwas total X3 I also had just brought my ebi penlight, because it's the best penlight ever X3
With somewhere between 5~10 minutes before the show was set to start, all the crazy fan girls started chanting "JUMP" and I was just sitting and waiting for the show to start XD Honestly, it's not that I really dislike jump, i'm just not a huge crazy fan of theirs. I like some of their songs alright (some I even REALLY like, like beat line) but I just can't get into them as much as other groups I guess XD So then the show started, and honestly don't ask me for a set list because I suck at remembering song titles, so the entire time I was like, "ah, this song u_u" plus already the show has kind of turned into a blur, so I'm not sure how much really stuck when I watched it XD XD;;;; I know for sure that they started with Ultra Music Power though XD;;;
The also started by riding around in those giant vehicle thingies that they have all the time at big venues. Theirs was shaped like a train, with character designs on the side, i think the members came up with the concept for the character themselves, but don't hold me to that. That was cool, since within the first song they were RIGHT there :O Next they started singing another song, and then I think it was here they did the other group introductions, and let's just say the kya~ for sexy zone was A LOT louder then ebi's and it made me sad ;A; (I mean, I do get it, since the Sexy Zone/HSJ demographic really overlap, but still, I'm an ebi fan at heart >.<) Ebi came out in those ridiculous gold, sparkly feather outfits and I was like, YOU GUYS you should have worn your twinkle outfits because they look SO much better and are just as sparkly if you want to get noticed >.< Then ebi and SZ wandered around for a little bit, and I'm pretty sure Tsuka-chan came over into my area first, so I turned my penlight to yellow and was waving it at him.
Also, on like the outer main stage thing (basically main stage was really far away, and then there was the center main stage where they had fans, and then they had the outer main stages, but the one that was in the center and they used the most is what I would call the outer main stage) they had juniors. I first noticed them on the outer stage in front of me, but it wasn't any juniors I recognized, then when I turned to look at the main stage, I noticed bigger juniors, which must of been the main backing juniors. The lesson I learned that day was: I need to bring binoculars to larger venues so I can properly look at people >.< Anyway, after staring at the outer main stage for a while, i was suddenly like, "Wait a minute, is that the Keigo kid?!" and it TOTALLY was, NGL that really got my tension up XD;;; Then I noticed Yasui Kentaro, but that was all I could really pick our from my vantage point.
As soon as fumi came over into my area, I was really happy, he was so hyper throughout the show, and that made me happy and sad, because I knew none of the Jump fans really cared. But fumi was super super cute and that made me more happy then anything else X3 Oh! and then like by third or 4th song, the juniors came back and were walking on the floor around the arena AND THE KEIGO KID WAS ON MY SIDE AND I JUST gjkdagueawguieawogfewaileighaw Yasui Kentaro also was with him and I was just like X3 They were waving and being all cute!!!
The first song ebi sang was 'Walking on Clouds' which is a cute song, and I know I will love it eventually, but I just meh at hearing it. It probably mostly had to do with how echo-y the dome is, so it was difficult to hear it properly. But the suits they were wearing were cute, like it had a.b.c-z written all over them and the lapels of their jackets had their colors on them in a pastel shade. The dance was also super super cute, as expected of them. There was this really awesome part where fumi and tottsu suspended themselves using the shoulders of the other members and were walking around. It's hard to describe, but it looked really cool!!!
Then Jump sang a bunch more songs, and sz did too, they even wheeled out a cake for them for the start of their fan club, then they did a MC, but I mostly just zoned out because it was too echo-y to catch much/didn't care enough to strain. The only thing I really caught was that they would be releasing a new single in June. After the MC yamada sang his solos, Ai no Katamari and whatever the actual a-side to that is (I did have to wonder how many of the fangirls actually realize that ai no katamari is a kinki kids song :/a) and it was here I got really excited, not really for yamada, but because it was here I realized that MORITA MYUTO was there gkhdawgreugisjfleghoriehgor Yeah, I got to see him at ebi's con, but I hadn't really gotten to see him dance yet (and I was kicking myself a little bit that me and rebecca didn't get tickets for yuma's crea) I was so happy! He was really visible throughout most of Yamada's solo!!!! And I just watched the big screen and was like MORITA MYUTO!!!!! gfguiefagoagfjwaoigher Keigo kid was also really visible, so it made me doubly happy X3 I don't think I watched yamada at all, unless he was the only one you could see, I mean what?
What else can I say? When they sang beat line, they all went to the individual side stages, and I had Hikaru right in front of me, and I was watching him properly, until I saw morita myuto to the right of him and just gkrughesfghawughrai Morita Myuto dancing beat line was so very amusing because he's so tall and gangly and spastic enough as it is >w< Yasui Kentaro was right next to him, but really I just watched Morita Myuto the whole time. Then they all ran to the center outer stage and finished the song, but I didn't really watch them >.>
Ebi's second song, My Life, is really good. LIke REALLY good! The dance is super cool and the outfits they were wearing looked fantastic. I got really excited and was waving my penlight up and down with vigor, and I almost whacked the girl in front of me in the head, not that I would have cared because she was sitting down, and only sat down for ebi, so if she got whacked, she got whacked u_u That was the other thing that really turned me off, lots of the jump fans around me sat down /just/ for ebi, like were fine and energetic for SZ but were meh for ebi. Again, I understand why, but some common courtesy for other groups would have been nice >:/ It's not my fault your groups couldn't sell out the dome by themselves, and had to reel in my group to help out >.>
What else? Oh yeah! Masuda Ryo and Sanada!Shoki were there watching as guests!!! (koya was there too) Not that JUMP introduced the guests properly or anything, but I saw them again and that was X3 Morita Myuto came by my area a couple of times when they were wandering around at the end, and I would always wave frantically at him, not that he noticed or anything, but X3 then for the encore, they sang Summary, and I would have watched ebi, but from my vantage point the lights reflected perfectly off the floor of the main outer stage and it would blind me, (also SZ were over there and a Keigo Kid was in front of me dancing ridiculously, so Keigo kid won out in the end). Yes, keigo kid's dancing in real life is just as spastic and ridiculous as on my computer X3 Also, when it was time to head to the main stage way in the back, he was like dancing to the inner ring and i literally said out loud, "OMG KEIGO KID STOP IT X3" Also, at some point, both Morita Myuto and Yamada were on the stage in front of me, and I was waving frantically at Morita Myuto, while everyone around me was waving at Yamada.
By the time the concert was over, I was seriously ready to go. I'm not going to do the disservice of trying to compare the HSJ con to Ebi's (because Ebi would win out on principle alone) but I don't know if I would go to a HSJ concert again, unless they had juniors I REALLY needed to see and the tickets were cheap enough (and maybe if it were in a smaller venue). On the one hand, you really can see their inexperience pre-debut. None of those kids really back danced for sempai that much, especially 7, so they really don't know how to work a crowd, and it makes sense that they couldn't see out the dome. The same goes for SZ. Like, I'm obviously biased, but ebi were really trying to interact with a crowd that could care less they were there. They were constantly waving, and trying to get the audience to do stuff, whereas, when I think about it, the most crowd interact jump themselves had was when they were like, "everyone say JUMP" or "bounce" for like the one part of the show right before they sang bounce (which I actually REALLY enjoy as a song, and the dance is really cool). They did wave at people, and at one point I think BEST went and sat on some of the fans in the first row.
Plus, they did a lot of things that I'm not sure how well it really worked. Like, obviously they really have no control over stage design, but let's just say, that stage wasn't built to satisfy most of the fans most of the time. In face, it seemed to me that there really wasn't a decent seat in the house >.< Also, they went up to the third floor and walked around, which I guess is cool, but only like 1/8 of the audience can actually see you. Plus up there is where they sang boku wa vampire, which is like, hey I'd like to actually be able to watch this dance and stuff >.> Plus they did the first enore up there, which sucked cuz that's when ebi sang 5 stars >.< Plus, because I couldn't see what was happening like half the time, I had to rely on the big screens, which would be awesome if I liked yamada, since it seemed like whenever they were all singing together, they would immediately just show yamada, and I was really tired of looking at his face by the end, plus all the yamada fan girls would kya~ SUPER loudly every time he did anything >.> (so it ended up being like every 5 minutes or so, they even skipped over whoever is in front of yamada in boku wa vampire, and showed yamada instead >:/). I felt bad for the Keito and Inoo fans, since I'm pretty sure they were put up on the big screens the least. The only perk to being a yabu fan is he gets solo lines in most songs, so he would get put up there Plus, this is just a personal opinion, but they really don't have that much chemistry as a group. LIke some members have great chemistry, ilke Yabu/hikaru/Yuto, but as a whole, I really didn't feel it that much.
On the plus side, Yabu, Yuto and Hikaru came to the stage in front of me A LOT and that made me super happy X3 Yabu's hair was so fluffy and I just wanted to pet him XD Yuto was super energetic and was like jumping around all over the place. I also REALLY enjoyed BEST's new song, the dance was really cool and the song itself is really cool!!! I hope that's on the new single or ends up on something eventually.
As much as I hate to say this, at the end of the day, I wished I had gone to see the last show of enbujou because all my snow man feels ;A; Have you all read the letter snow man wrote to tackey? ;A; I cried reading it, and throughout the day, I kept remembering it (while I was out in public no less) and was like, "YOU KIDS ;A;" I really hope snow man get a proper debut some time in the near future because I really like them and they have so much talent that it would be a waste. Plus I just love them, and this is pretty much exactly how I felt right before ebi announced their debut. They're the group I want to see debut the most X3 Oh, and on that note, I've caught up with both ebi's j'j and BBJ, and I did so back-to-back, which was such a mistake as my FEELS were totally out of control, so much so, that it took me a while to get to sleep XD;;; I am enjoying BBJ A LOT more then I thought I would. it probably helps that snow man are basically the main characters X3 Plus, Morita Myuto is surprisingly really awesome :O it took me a while to figure out it was him though XD;;; Ebi's j'j is basically the cutest thing ever, and it really reaffirms why I love them so much as a group X3
Anyway, I guess that's it. Hope everyone is having a nice day/morning/evening!!! :D