8祭
関ジャニ∞ 8周年おめでとう!
Thanks to Kerstin I was able to go to 8祭 yesterday. I was in the first group, so my talk session started at 9:30 and the live session was at 15:20. In between you could wander around the buildings and see things like the history of KanJani (complete with baby pictures of each member, a timeline of events they did pretty much from the moment they joined Johnny's, the outfits they wore in concerts/pvs, signed posters, clips from old Shochikuza shows....), personal rooms they designed themselves (I only went to the Kimi-kun one, with photos he took while traveling), and a room with different interactive experiences - videos of each member kokuhakuing you, the Murakami Tsukkomi Machine, wood cutouts of the members in different poses that you could pose with and take your picture with....
It was wonderful.
The talk session opened with a VTR of Kimi-kun WITH A PLAN. One by one all the members showed up to this meeting he had called (they thought it was for an 打ち合わせ for a special tv program) and were surprised to find him there ordering them to SIT DOWN. Ryo was whiny about it (and surprisingly the first one to show up), Suby just shut the door again and stayed in the hallway for a minute, Shouta very meekly said ok and went to his seat apologizing for being late, Maru was laughing and Tacchon was all YOU GUYS I AM SUPPIN THIS IS NOT OK (he had really bad nikibi) and the others were offering him a hat (THAT IS NOT GOING TO HELP) and a mask to cover up with. And then they all agreed that this was OBVIOUSLY going to be a dokkiri on Hina. Who then showed up shortly after, confusing everyone but Kimi-kun, Evil Genius.
Kimi-kun announced that they were going to have a competition and the winner would get to be center in the next pv they made. (Will it be a single?! No, an album song. Which one? Winner gets to choose. WILL IT BE ON TV?! ROFLMAO NO ARE YOU CRAZY?!) Everyone got excited, and Kimi-kun said the competition would be held each day during the 8祭 talk sessions and the winner at the end of the five days would be the over all winner. Oh, and the bottom two had to do a batz game and go on a date with each other.
Then they came out to do the talk, and it turned out that I got one of the game sessions! Apparently they were doing quizzes too, where they had to guess what members had said in old idol magazine interviews. But my game was an 大声大会 where they drew a topic out of a box and then had to shout their answer, and the one with the highest decibels won.
Hina was up first, and drew: What is your favorite thing about Tacchon? He yelled 合体, Tacchon looked a little uncomfortable, and Hina only got 88dB.
Next was Shouta: What would you take to a deserted island? I couldn't catch what he said because he was yelling, but he still only got 80-something dB.
Kimi-kun: What's something that would make you excited if a girl said it to you? テレビより細いね! and got 124dB.
Maru: I can't remember his question or answer! (T_T)
Suby: Which member would you be ok with kissing? He thought really hard about it, tried to clarify what type of kiss the question meant ("Is it a deep kiss or a french kiss?" and the other members were all.... there's a difference?!) while the camera focused on each of the others in turn and they made kissy faces for him. The girls around me were whispering yasu! it's gonna be yasu! 絶対ヤス! but in the end he yelled MARUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!!
Tacchon: What do you like about Ryo? He said his 照れてる笑顔, which of course made Ryo get all embarrassed and just proved Tacchon's point.
Ryo: What do you think your own charm point is? He thought about it for a while, and Tacchon was all I JUST TOLD YOU ONE, but finally he decided that it was his long eyelashes and fluttered them for us. But he only got like 81dB or something like that.
So Kimi-kun had the loudest voice, and jumped in the rankings to 2nd place after Hina. But then the talk portion was over and we were free to visit the rest of the event until the live in the afternoon.
I went to look around the different areas and saw right away that there was going to be a long wait just to get into the building with the individual rooms the boys had set up. So I went over to the one with the stuff you could actually do, instead.
Right away I got in line for the Murakami Tsukkomi Machine, and pretty soon I ended up talking with the ladies in line behind me. We covered the usual topics of where are you from, how long have you been in Japan, 日本語上手ですね/いや、まだです, and then they asked when I started liking KanJani (right when I came to Japan, right as they debuted)... and apparently I've been a fan longer than they have. They assured me that since I've been a fan so long that the boys must remember me and I edged around it a bit because... well, at this point I'm not really sure. I know they used to remember me, but now they play bigger venues and they don't see me as much and they have more foreign fans.... so who knows. Sometimes it seems like they do, though. Anyway, the Nice Ladies were convinced that they do, and then it was time for the Tsukkomi Machine.
The Tsukkomi Machine was a cutout of Hina with a rubber cast of his right arm raised up in the air which would come down and hit you on the head while he verbally tsukkomi'd you when you pressed a button. Well, that was the idea, anyway. I stood there and pressed the button and.... I was too short. Hina's voice yelled NANDEYANEN as he failed to hit me in the head. (T_T) roflmao
Then I got in line for Kimi-kun's kokuhaku booths, which I did manage to get video of. The first one was cute, with him yelling 好きだから!。。。。。。。好きだから。 But the second one was WONDERFUL. He looked vaguely annoyed in it, and was all "What? Tch. 好きや。" and I died.
I got photos taken with his cutouts, too, but I don't like how I turned out in them. (T_T) Oh well.
After I finished there, I walked around a bit and saw the line for the rooms building was non-existent, so I went in to check out Kimi-kun's room. I was in line for that for maybe 15-20 minutes, and got to see photos he'd taken on various trips he'd been on. And you could use your camera, so now I have photos of my favorite of his photos. Yay.
Oh yeah, in most areas (the history building didn't have it, I think), there was a screen going that mostly showed the making of 8祭 - setting up their rooms, making molds of their hands and feet, taking the photos for the cutouts, etc. - but would be interrupted with a live feed of the boys going between the talk sessions and live sessions throughout the day. They'd stop and talk to the camera, or do silly things, and just generally be themselves. I got some video of it, but I'm not sure if the sound actually picked up or not. (My favorite one was Kimi-kun walking up close to the camera and pointing out the places on his cheek where he has nikibi and how annoyed he was at that.)
The history building was nice too - it started out with a timeline of baby photos of each member - SanBaka together on one wall, KanJimi and Ryo on the other. I only looked at the SanBaka section because, well, the other wall had too many people. Then that turned into a timeline of everything the members had done since joining Johnny's, which I mostly skipped because I know that already. Also, mad crowded. In the center of the room were some tv screens showing clips of old Shochikuza shows... and watching those actually made me sad because I kept finding KanJu (there's Tatsuki! and Daichi! look at little Marcy!) and that made me think about how much I want them to debut and how much I miss Daichi still. (T_T)
The final section was about the Eight Ranger movie, with their costumes and some of the props on display. Including the laser gun thing. And the different posters with the boys advertising beer/running for office/being wanted criminals.
Finally, it was time for the live! I knew from talking to friends that it was going to be pretty short, but that they managed to cover a lot of area in the building so there were lots of chances for fanservice.
My seat was in D3, which was the second block from the left side and in the first row of blocks in the back half of the arena. I was in the fourth row, the third seat in from the left aisle. So pretty good, actually.
Let's see.... this is what I can remember of the setlist: ER, T.W.L, もんじゃいビート, 渇いた花, 急☆上☆Show!!, Eden, Snow White (acoustic arrangement, with Ryo on keyboard), and.... then they finished with ひとつのうた. I think that's everything.
They did indeed come around on little carts all the time, getting between the front and back stages, but pretty much everytime one of them came down my aisle they were looking over me or had their back turned.
Maru saw me from the far side of the neighboring block and his face lit up and he waved ecstatically, and when we got to the final song I figured that that would be the most fanservice I'd have. Which is awesome, don't get me wrong, but you always want something from your favorite. And Kimi-kun had gone RIGHT NEAR ME TWICE and not paid any attention.
But the final song. They all came through on carts again, and stopped them at the aisle between C and D blocks. And Kimi-kun was right there, in front of me. I had my new Kimi-kun uchiwa out, and he saw that first. Then he actually looked at my face and he got that OH HI YOU I KNOW YOU look and grinned and waved a lot.... and since I still had his attention I switched my uchiwa around to my 今日は誕生日に近いです one and he read it and yelled おめでとう! and blew me a kiss.
Then they switched places on the carts and Kimi-kun went to the other side of things, so I just left my birthday uchiwa in front because I knew he wasn't coming back this way.
Maru ended up in front of me, and was doing an awesome job giving fanservice to everyone he could, and then he saw my uchiwa and yelled HAPPY BIRTHDAY to me. I yelled THANK YOU back to him, and he looked happy I replied, lol. He blew me a kiss too.
And Hina saw me, and pointed right at me and said おめでとう and clapped for me. And at this point I could hear people behind me going NANDEYANEN WHY IS SHE GETTING SO MUCH ATTENTION DO THEY KNOW HER WTF.
When I was leaving the live, I saw that sitting in the front row of my section were the two Nice Ladies from earlier. They stopped me as I walked by and were all WERE THEY POINTING AT YOU? YAPPARI IT WAS YOU! SEE, WE TOLD YOU THEY REMEMBERED YOU!
Thanks to Kerstin I was able to go to 8祭 yesterday. I was in the first group, so my talk session started at 9:30 and the live session was at 15:20. In between you could wander around the buildings and see things like the history of KanJani (complete with baby pictures of each member, a timeline of events they did pretty much from the moment they joined Johnny's, the outfits they wore in concerts/pvs, signed posters, clips from old Shochikuza shows....), personal rooms they designed themselves (I only went to the Kimi-kun one, with photos he took while traveling), and a room with different interactive experiences - videos of each member kokuhakuing you, the Murakami Tsukkomi Machine, wood cutouts of the members in different poses that you could pose with and take your picture with....
It was wonderful.
The talk session opened with a VTR of Kimi-kun WITH A PLAN. One by one all the members showed up to this meeting he had called (they thought it was for an 打ち合わせ for a special tv program) and were surprised to find him there ordering them to SIT DOWN. Ryo was whiny about it (and surprisingly the first one to show up), Suby just shut the door again and stayed in the hallway for a minute, Shouta very meekly said ok and went to his seat apologizing for being late, Maru was laughing and Tacchon was all YOU GUYS I AM SUPPIN THIS IS NOT OK (he had really bad nikibi) and the others were offering him a hat (THAT IS NOT GOING TO HELP) and a mask to cover up with. And then they all agreed that this was OBVIOUSLY going to be a dokkiri on Hina. Who then showed up shortly after, confusing everyone but Kimi-kun, Evil Genius.
Kimi-kun announced that they were going to have a competition and the winner would get to be center in the next pv they made. (Will it be a single?! No, an album song. Which one? Winner gets to choose. WILL IT BE ON TV?! ROFLMAO NO ARE YOU CRAZY?!) Everyone got excited, and Kimi-kun said the competition would be held each day during the 8祭 talk sessions and the winner at the end of the five days would be the over all winner. Oh, and the bottom two had to do a batz game and go on a date with each other.
Then they came out to do the talk, and it turned out that I got one of the game sessions! Apparently they were doing quizzes too, where they had to guess what members had said in old idol magazine interviews. But my game was an 大声大会 where they drew a topic out of a box and then had to shout their answer, and the one with the highest decibels won.
Hina was up first, and drew: What is your favorite thing about Tacchon? He yelled 合体, Tacchon looked a little uncomfortable, and Hina only got 88dB.
Next was Shouta: What would you take to a deserted island? I couldn't catch what he said because he was yelling, but he still only got 80-something dB.
Kimi-kun: What's something that would make you excited if a girl said it to you? テレビより細いね! and got 124dB.
Maru: I can't remember his question or answer! (T_T)
Suby: Which member would you be ok with kissing? He thought really hard about it, tried to clarify what type of kiss the question meant ("Is it a deep kiss or a french kiss?" and the other members were all.... there's a difference?!) while the camera focused on each of the others in turn and they made kissy faces for him. The girls around me were whispering yasu! it's gonna be yasu! 絶対ヤス! but in the end he yelled MARUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!!
Tacchon: What do you like about Ryo? He said his 照れてる笑顔, which of course made Ryo get all embarrassed and just proved Tacchon's point.
Ryo: What do you think your own charm point is? He thought about it for a while, and Tacchon was all I JUST TOLD YOU ONE, but finally he decided that it was his long eyelashes and fluttered them for us. But he only got like 81dB or something like that.
So Kimi-kun had the loudest voice, and jumped in the rankings to 2nd place after Hina. But then the talk portion was over and we were free to visit the rest of the event until the live in the afternoon.
I went to look around the different areas and saw right away that there was going to be a long wait just to get into the building with the individual rooms the boys had set up. So I went over to the one with the stuff you could actually do, instead.
Right away I got in line for the Murakami Tsukkomi Machine, and pretty soon I ended up talking with the ladies in line behind me. We covered the usual topics of where are you from, how long have you been in Japan, 日本語上手ですね/いや、まだです, and then they asked when I started liking KanJani (right when I came to Japan, right as they debuted)... and apparently I've been a fan longer than they have. They assured me that since I've been a fan so long that the boys must remember me and I edged around it a bit because... well, at this point I'm not really sure. I know they used to remember me, but now they play bigger venues and they don't see me as much and they have more foreign fans.... so who knows. Sometimes it seems like they do, though. Anyway, the Nice Ladies were convinced that they do, and then it was time for the Tsukkomi Machine.
The Tsukkomi Machine was a cutout of Hina with a rubber cast of his right arm raised up in the air which would come down and hit you on the head while he verbally tsukkomi'd you when you pressed a button. Well, that was the idea, anyway. I stood there and pressed the button and.... I was too short. Hina's voice yelled NANDEYANEN as he failed to hit me in the head. (T_T) roflmao
Then I got in line for Kimi-kun's kokuhaku booths, which I did manage to get video of. The first one was cute, with him yelling 好きだから!。。。。。。。好きだから。 But the second one was WONDERFUL. He looked vaguely annoyed in it, and was all "What? Tch. 好きや。" and I died.
I got photos taken with his cutouts, too, but I don't like how I turned out in them. (T_T) Oh well.
After I finished there, I walked around a bit and saw the line for the rooms building was non-existent, so I went in to check out Kimi-kun's room. I was in line for that for maybe 15-20 minutes, and got to see photos he'd taken on various trips he'd been on. And you could use your camera, so now I have photos of my favorite of his photos. Yay.
Oh yeah, in most areas (the history building didn't have it, I think), there was a screen going that mostly showed the making of 8祭 - setting up their rooms, making molds of their hands and feet, taking the photos for the cutouts, etc. - but would be interrupted with a live feed of the boys going between the talk sessions and live sessions throughout the day. They'd stop and talk to the camera, or do silly things, and just generally be themselves. I got some video of it, but I'm not sure if the sound actually picked up or not. (My favorite one was Kimi-kun walking up close to the camera and pointing out the places on his cheek where he has nikibi and how annoyed he was at that.)
The history building was nice too - it started out with a timeline of baby photos of each member - SanBaka together on one wall, KanJimi and Ryo on the other. I only looked at the SanBaka section because, well, the other wall had too many people. Then that turned into a timeline of everything the members had done since joining Johnny's, which I mostly skipped because I know that already. Also, mad crowded. In the center of the room were some tv screens showing clips of old Shochikuza shows... and watching those actually made me sad because I kept finding KanJu (there's Tatsuki! and Daichi! look at little Marcy!) and that made me think about how much I want them to debut and how much I miss Daichi still. (T_T)
The final section was about the Eight Ranger movie, with their costumes and some of the props on display. Including the laser gun thing. And the different posters with the boys advertising beer/running for office/being wanted criminals.
Finally, it was time for the live! I knew from talking to friends that it was going to be pretty short, but that they managed to cover a lot of area in the building so there were lots of chances for fanservice.
My seat was in D3, which was the second block from the left side and in the first row of blocks in the back half of the arena. I was in the fourth row, the third seat in from the left aisle. So pretty good, actually.
Let's see.... this is what I can remember of the setlist: ER, T.W.L, もんじゃいビート, 渇いた花, 急☆上☆Show!!, Eden, Snow White (acoustic arrangement, with Ryo on keyboard), and.... then they finished with ひとつのうた. I think that's everything.
They did indeed come around on little carts all the time, getting between the front and back stages, but pretty much everytime one of them came down my aisle they were looking over me or had their back turned.
Maru saw me from the far side of the neighboring block and his face lit up and he waved ecstatically, and when we got to the final song I figured that that would be the most fanservice I'd have. Which is awesome, don't get me wrong, but you always want something from your favorite. And Kimi-kun had gone RIGHT NEAR ME TWICE and not paid any attention.
But the final song. They all came through on carts again, and stopped them at the aisle between C and D blocks. And Kimi-kun was right there, in front of me. I had my new Kimi-kun uchiwa out, and he saw that first. Then he actually looked at my face and he got that OH HI YOU I KNOW YOU look and grinned and waved a lot.... and since I still had his attention I switched my uchiwa around to my 今日は誕生日に近いです one and he read it and yelled おめでとう! and blew me a kiss.
Then they switched places on the carts and Kimi-kun went to the other side of things, so I just left my birthday uchiwa in front because I knew he wasn't coming back this way.
Maru ended up in front of me, and was doing an awesome job giving fanservice to everyone he could, and then he saw my uchiwa and yelled HAPPY BIRTHDAY to me. I yelled THANK YOU back to him, and he looked happy I replied, lol. He blew me a kiss too.
And Hina saw me, and pointed right at me and said おめでとう and clapped for me. And at this point I could hear people behind me going NANDEYANEN WHY IS SHE GETTING SO MUCH ATTENTION DO THEY KNOW HER WTF.
When I was leaving the live, I saw that sitting in the front row of my section were the two Nice Ladies from earlier. They stopped me as I walked by and were all WERE THEY POINTING AT YOU? YAPPARI IT WAS YOU! SEE, WE TOLD YOU THEY REMEMBERED YOU!