Hosogai Kei's 25th Birthday Event!
In which I try very hard not to think the way he interacts with other Hyoutei members is cute, the chick right next to me is the luckiest bitch on the planet, and my new favorite Kei-phrase is, "Wow, you from the States??"
So yesterday was Hosogai's 25th birthday yaaaaaay! As such, West Power, in their infinite wisdom, put on an event for the guy and invited, oh, 300 of his closest friends fans. I use "closest" liberally--as not a one of us personally knew the guy, and some of these ladies came from as far away as Hokkaido and Kagoshima to see him *____*
daikidansu and I were situated nearish to the back, but on the first set of risers and in the middle, so we had a great view. We'd gotten there extremely girigiri and rushed in to find our seats, deciding to wait to buy merch until the photosession, to help kill time. Luckily, the show hadn't started yet...but about 2 minutes later, it did...
WITH MR. HOSOGAI KEI HIMSELF ENTERING FROM THE BACK IN A WHITE TUXEDO AND SINGING "Catch the Wave". The crowd went crazy of course, and he managed to pull it off effectively, so good for him XD
Once he got on stage, his MC came out, a girl, and they dove right into the talk session. They first discussed all of the things he'd been up to in the past year, a lot of which Hosogai himself appeared to be a little fuzzy on and received frequent suggestions and such from the audience. His reactions were made of intense win, though XD He's just absolutely adorable in that respect. Once they got to DL6th, though, then came the requests for Kei to try and sing a bit more of Remember Hyoutei, since surely he'd gotten a little more adept at it by now, right? He caved and tried it, getting only as far as, "Remember, Remember Hyoutei" before giving up XD Not bad, though!
Talk then segued into Hana Oni, his next big project, which, from what I gathered, is about a trio of 500-year-old demons who...have normal jobs in present-day society (I think Kei's character is a kindergarten teacher or something?), starring Araki, Murai Ryouta (B Shishido), and Hosogai (Dai-chan's in it too :D). It's split up into 3 movies, each focusing on a different guy with his own romance.
Then they talked about his upcoming commercial appearance...which got canceled, after he'd already told all his friends in America he'd be in a commercial, yay XD;;;; Then discussions of Winter TeniMyu coming up.
After this, as a way of reviewing his 25 years of life, they had a photo slide show on the big screen behind them, including pics from when Hosogai was just a baby, up until really recent stuff. Some highlights included:
--shot of him at 4 years old with some strange white guy with a scare 8D expression on his face whom Kei definitely did not remember XD;;;
--shot of him with his 3rd grade teacher "Mrs. Kobayashi" (pronounced in English XD) when he lived in Hawaii
--shots of him in school plays and on field trips (this was all from when he lived in America, and it was hilarious seeing him trying to explain to everyone what these things were XD)
--explanation that he changed his name to "Ken" in school, because "Kei"/"Kay" is a girls' name in English.
--shot of him for high school graduation in...of course...A CAP AND GOWN, WITH HIS DIPLOMA XDDDDD It's so SURREAL seeing a TENIMYU GUY in the outfit he wore for his graduation from AN AMERICAN HIGH SCHOOL. Eeee, adorable XD
--LOTS of shots of him playing basketball at various stages of his life, including a shot of him with Nate Robinson, who I think went to school with him o_O
--shots of him working at a Japanese restaurant part-time XD He explained there were, like, Mexicans and Americans working there as well, AWESOME XDDDDD
Next it was...time for cake! It wasn't that much of a surprise to-do, so the MC called for them to wheel the cake out, and from offstage an attendant wheeled on a cart slowly...
And then the two backdoors to the hall were FLUNG open...and in walked...
KUBOTA YUUKI
TWO OTHER GUYS I HAD NO CLUE WHO THEY WERE 8D
Yeah, I have NO CLUE who the others were (I THINK they were Onna Nobunaga costars), BUT WHO THE FUCK CARES?!
KUBOBE. RIGHT THERE. RIGHT THERE IN FRONT OF ME. BEING ALL CUTE AND FLIRTY WITH KEI AND VERY VERY VERY MUCH NOT HELPING MY NOT LOOKING FOR ANYONE TO HAVE CHEMISTRY WITH HOSOGAI THANKYOUVERYMUCH.
Once they were all on stage, they introduced themselves, and then decided they'd help wish him happy birthday. First, of course, they needed someone to come and light the candles, though.
...........................SO ON WALKS KAWAAI RYUUNOSUKE TO HELP OUT.
I'm gonna be honest, I had NO CLUE it was him because...the guy looked COMPLETELY different. Super super short, almost-shaved hair, scruffy features, he looked like a gangster almost XD;;; So Kawaai lit the candles and we all joined in with a rousing round of Happy Birthday XD
The guys then gave Kei their respective presents (only have Kubobe and Kawaai listed XD;;;):
Kawaai: flyer for his next play, something else I couldn't tell what it was
Kubobe: photobook (one of the other two's XD;;;), 1000yen, a birthday card
Hosogai thanked them for the presents, and then seemed unsure of what to do with the gifts, so he slipped off stage for a moment to get rid of them, at which point Kubota decided to take over as the star of the event. Kawaai was excellent with follow-up (*sniffsniff* Do I smell a Leader/fuku-Leader relationship here??) commenting:
Kawaai: "Kubota-san, happy birthday! Wow, it's amazing all these people came to see you!"
Kubota: *full of himself* "Oh, yeah. Thanks. And...may I just say these are a bunch of fine looking ladies."
Audience: *falls over themselves*
Kubota further extended the metaphor by breaking into a bad imitation of the song Hosogai had come out singing, until Hosogai himself came back and firmly put a stop to it all XDDDD Kuboa apologized and then suggested that...hey, they should do an event together!
In fact...they should do an event in November!
Together!
And they should invite Setocchi (Seto Yuusuke, Ohtori) and Taiki (Naitou Taiki, Jiro). He glanced up at their managers above in the balcony and just said, "That's cool, right?" Apparently getting the okay from this "sudden" proposal, all was settled in Kubobe's head, and Hosogai had no choice but to be dragged along XD it was adorable watching him just flail about in Kubota's wake XDDDD He really appeared to have no clue about this supposed event, but was forced to accept XD
Here, the boys took their leave, and it was back to Hosogai himself. They segued into the question/suggestion corner, which included a request to do an imitation of Kubota (as himself, not as Atobe), which Hosogai took great glee in pulling off XD Other suggestions for things to say included, "Uta mo neta mo dansu mo gekokujou da!" (I'm going to gekokujou my singing, acting, and dancing!) in preparation for the winter run of TeniMyu.
After this was the lottery--where 5 girls each won either an autographed pic of Hosogai from the event, or even better: a bag of goodies from VICTORIA SECRET (newsflash: No VSs in Japan! This was a souvenir he'd picked up during his time visiting Seattle) plus a PERSONALLY autographed pic of Hosogai (like, he would write your name on it right there).
So of course daikidansu, who was sitting RIGHT NEXT TO ME won one of the bags. BITCH!
Nnnngh, much hate :P Here's a scan of her autographed pic, too!
Then it was time to dive into the photosession. Meg and I chatted for a little while, even being approached by a girl she'd sat beside at the last event who wanted to see the pic XD We then decided to kill some time by buying goods--a 30-photo set for 3000yen XD We freshened up in the bathrooms, and when we came back out...we saw a card to sign in the corner! It'd already been pretty much COVERED with well-wishes for Hosogai, but Meg and I both managed to find little strips that we filled with English XD
Since you're not allowed to check your cellphone in the halls at these events, we waited outside a bit more so I could check my email...and were hesitatingly approached by two girls, who started speaking to us in halting English! They asked if they could see the picture, and we let them, and then spent a good 10-15 minutes chatting with them. The more proficient of the two, Hisae-san, turned out to be a middle school English teacher! She was quite good, and left him a message in English as well, and it made me really happy seeing her so confident in her second language that she felt comfortable leaving a message to someone who's almost at native level himself *___* The other girl, Masuda-san, wasn't QUITE as good, but definitely didn't appear to have a problem understanding us. We chatted for a while, and then exchanged phone information before parting ways XD Friends = made!
We popped back into the hall, to find that we weren't far from about to go up, yay! We talked a little more, reviewed our photoset hall, and generally tried to not be bored while we waited. A bit before we were set to go up, though, a strange guy snuck into line among the girls waiting to get their picture taken. He was dressed really nicely, but had on a hat and dark glasses, and was kind of skulking around looking really out of place. I assumed he was someone's boyfriend, dragged along unwillingly, because he was holding a huge white purse XD;
The girls in line started tittering to themselves, and it wasn't long until the audience was noticing him as well. Soon, it was the guy's turn to go up, so he entrusted his large manpurse to the staff, and made a show of being really nervous, patting himself down and wiping the sweat from his hands on his pants. He then hopped into the chair beside Hosogai, and when asked who he was, he proclaimed, "I'M A HUGE HOSOGAI KEI-SAN FAN!!" And yanked his glasses off his face...
SETO YUUSUKE!!
...a very very very BLOND, very EXCITED Seto Yuusuke XD He then reached into the little bag he'd brought to give as a present and pressed the contents into Kei's hands: "I thought...I thought Kei-san might look really nice as a blond, so I...I bought you hair color! Teehee!" <--he made a big show of being the excited fan XDDDDD We were all CRACKING UP.
They then spent 5ish minutes chatting, and took some pics together since, well, Seto WAS there to take pics, like he'd stood in line for! XD Hosogai then brought up their event in November (that Kubobe had announced earlier) and...Seto was really confused XD He had NO CLUE, which apparently meant that Kubobe really HAD just pretty much made it up on the spot XD
Seto then had to take his leave as well, unfortunately, and eventually it got around to Meg's and my turn. One very short chat and quick picture later...
And that was the end of our super awesome fun time at Hosogai Kei's 25th Birthday event!