shokura feb 2017!??
yes! it cost me wayyyy too much, but i attended the sc recording yesterday!
so this is indeed a bit of a summary/my impressions for next month's episodes \o/ because i actually feel like writing a bit of a spam of it?
where to start... themes are yell and love (the 2nd obvious because it's feb.)
the way it was presented - they did both the openers, then a bunch of performances with the on-stage audience & younger jrs, then the ending involving the younger kids who had to go home 1/2 way through, then reset for the 2nd half which involved the game corner, special guest performance and the rest of the older groups' performances that didn't have kids or audience on stage, and closed out with the other ending. some of the performances were obvious which theme they go with, but i'm curious with others how it'll be cut. also was neat to be able to watch the stage as a whole, and see where kawai/akito will repeat song intro's if they mess up, or they were good at just continually talking when they needed to because something else was taking longer to prep.
other things i was impressed by or really noticed (esp cause i haven't sat down and caught up on any eps since the summer):
-i like takahashi kaito's singing! he's got a really clear voice
-the chibis aren't so chibi anymore! seeing 6tones and hihijet members live for the first time in 5.5yrs gave me feelings! esp mizuki/hashimoryo ...those kids are getting all grown up! awwww ♥
-kotaki is so loudddddd. i've now gotten to see jwest 3(!!) times since getting to japan, and seriously kotaki XDDD kid is so noisy it's great XDD i mean he was probably louder than even fuuma? like in terms of decibels XDD i feel like fuuma had it a bit toned down, but maybe it's just cause (as hasshi pointed out) we didn't get him being noisy in the game corner (didn't participate; hasshi's exact comment as staff were instructing guys on stage/setting the stage→ wow it's really quiet without fuuma) XDD
-speaking of singing, shori's actually ok? like i never found him to be particularly bad anyway like everyone not his fan seems to complain of, but like, sure he's not especially amazing, but it's fine?
-on the other hand, prince as a whole when they sang as a group was better than i expected, but jinguji on his own not as good? (sorry kiddo)
anyway, on to the show:
-yell theme... of course they sang -kibou-yell! kinpri/hhj/etc did a medley to open
-we got yuuki 100% at some point too, i think might've been part of the opening medley? or first ending, can't remember
-prince had a jr medley (chibis or at least hhj had a song in there too) that included chankapaana
-king had a solos medley - SHOU DID DIAL UP!!!!!! AND THEN RENREN DID NEXT STAGE!!! ALL THE NOSTALGIC KANJU SONGS T___T ♥♥
--so of course kawai/akito talked about that after, like how ebi still perform their pre-debut songs a lot cause still 'a.b.c' songs, but akito/junta don't ever perform b.a.d songs really
-special guest! was yara!!! i never expected to get to see yara twice this year! and then and then...while they were talking in the mc part (about shock and stuff) 2 ppl went and set up on stage and i could see that one had a violin, and then they started singing happy bday for yara and IT WAS BUNCHAN AND GOTO HIROMI!!!! like the whole audience squealed here XDD the girls beside me were already being all 'uso!?' along w/ me about yaracchi, and then we all reacted the same when it was revealed who the others were XDD
so we got a performance from them that was super amazing! goto was rocking it out on the violin, and getting to watch bun/yara sing and dance together was super lucky!! (moro and teranishi did back up, super cool guys!)
(also like, i thought goto had quit by now so i was extra surprised to see him there!)
-chibi jrs (universal boys aka hhj & super chibis i don't know-they all did name intro during mc) did a whole dance intro thing and then went into Be Cool, and they started with those magnet shoe platforms ebi used for walking on clouds originally!! that was cool to see, esp since seeing from such an overhead view, so could get the whole image of it
(during mc kawai joked that now they were gonna sing ppap, but thankfully everyone was like 'no no no we're not')
-got to see reboot twice (2nd time with snowman!) ...i'm not totally sold on the shouted phrases parts cause they're a bit hard to hear properly? but it's definitely catchy all around, and that bit hasshi-fumi do with the hooked together flipping seriously looks awesome every time♥ also hasshi doing the being carried by the other four flip thing!
-kawai name dropped taipi and kame in relation to his new year's events (going to kame's house) and the trip he took to nyc w/ taipi (SERIOUSLY U GUYSSSS SO CLOSE TO ME YET SO FAR T____T ), akito was like 'what about mitsu' to which kawai replied 'ah we're not actually very close' (OBVIOUS LIE XDD) and also brought up tatsumi as usual XD (akito: are you guys married or something?)
-jesse & hirano did a duet together, their voices match well! i think also one of the only times the whole audience was totally silent? both of jwest's songs were ballads this time so was pretty quiet for those too but i don't remember it being as quiet?
jesse's squinty face when he's all out singing higher notes is kinda funny though XD
-sz sang we gotta go & a my girlfriend, for yell and love themes, respectively ...i liked how amg sounded live (refer to above comment about shori's singing), and we gotta go was really fun! that was the first right after the opening so it was a good high energy start~ made me want to make sure i can get to their con in march even more!
i've realised though i have a hard time telling sou and kento apart from far away because they're the two that look most similar when just seeing movements & hair colour ^^;
-speaking of, we got a really cute sou/kenty moment at the end of the game corner, they were all hanging off each other as they walked off stage~ <3333 souken4ever! <33333 and there was another moment during i think wgg? when i think it was mari? pulled sou in such a way that he did a kinda spin XD
-game corner was a relay race, got abecchi and ganchan on one team ^^ abecchi was so cute, kept waving to the audience and being super smiley, also race involved princess carry so of course jingu carried genki, comment from whoever on their team after: something to the effect of 'their bubble is too strong' (forget the exact words). kento team all introduced themselves starting 'ichi ni san shi (name)' and hasshi skipped over tsuka (who was second last to be introduced), claiming the script had written 'and finally __' (i think was kotaki last but can't be positive) so he just read as he should have XD
-there was a point at the end of one of the main all-together songs (forget if opener or ending) where miyachika was being a hyper bouncy ball of adorable, i approved XD
-also sakkun is definitely the easiest to spot suddenly in snowman, for the same reason (+the blonde hair obvs) XD
-6tones performance was really cool, buuuut sry2say ppl, they still aren't cohesive enough for debut i think...i think their tv performances definitely get some sound editing after...plus the cuts between different close ups etc help any out of sync dancing
watching them try to stand up coins was oddly humorous even from super far away though (taiga failed hardcore, jesse/juri/yuugo/hokkun i think it was? all got it the most (but then they kept being knocked over again) ...also as usual even when the 'talk' part of their mc ended they couldn't shut up XDD also hokkun was super happy about getting the 10 yen coin, he was all 'yay! i have 10 yen!' (here was a kawai flib too, since he was supposed to pull a coin out of his pocket like 'today we're using this!' but then didn't have it)
-kenty and glasses suit each other well, yup. shou made me 'kyaa' with his amai serifu for whatever that corner is called (nakajima sensei's love advice or something i dunno) ...also kenty made me laugh when he started going on about there being 4 standard gifts for white day and each one's meaning (iirc, cookies was 'let's stay friends', candies was 'i like you' and macarons was 'let's get married/be together always' kind of deep meaning (so for school aged kids up to candy level is good lol), and 1 other was 'i hate you' XD; can't for the life of me remember what it was though <<;; )
-ah! travis did perfect! it was perfect...*cough* (no but seriously i love this song the fact these guys did it is ♥♥♥
-ah! also how did i forget! while ebi were in standby for their first run of reboot, hasshi did jankenpon with the on stage fans XDDD super cute!
-love-tune started off the final ending, ai nanda! :D sanapi was being a cute camera-hogging dork, also reo is really fun to watch playing the keyboards ^^
...i dunno, i'm running through twitter reports trying to remember if there were other fun things that won't likely get on the tv cut but can't remember...i'm sad though now i missed the opening/intro before it started though, cause was fukka/abe! i could hear it while we were going up to find our seats but we missed the whole thing ;_; all i caught was something about acrobatics (apparently fukka being like hey! this is snowman's strong point!)
ahhhh i'm really sad how much it cost me just to get this one ticket though, cause if it was cheaper i definitely would've considered changing my plans to stay in tokyo for feb 13 recording since i leave only a few days before anyway...there's definitely a few things i woulda done different so i could've been a lot closer to the stage (like buy a whole hagaki for myself & found someone to come with me, or at least if i hadn't been innocent enough to think the person i tried buying off wasn't going for whoever showed up first...cause considering i got to harajuku w/ lots of time, i could've been at nhk by 4:40 or so, but i had cut communications basically (cause even my deputy didn't get back to me till 6 or so saying he couldn't contact the seller) ...it was my own fault for that though, not going straight to the venue but suggesting a diff. meet up spot, but seriously, if you're looking at several buyers at least contact the other ones like 'hey, you were too late sorry' <<
whatever, i have ebi event coming up the start of next month, also thinking of applying for ebizoo recording (dunno though, got smth else the same day, plus smaller audience so if i do get in i'd def. be on tv probably :S),
and then end of march i'll hopefully get to see all the jrs again! and sz! it will be a crazy insane weekend! maybe i should figure out a way to stash my big luggage smwhere for that weekend, like friend's house, cause otherwise i'm carting 2 rolling luggages around from osaka-nagoya-yokohama-tokyo, not necessarily (but really really hopefully) in that order over the space of like, 3 days :S & it was awkward enough getting it all an hr across town...
but anyway, i think i will definitely have to get these eps asap when they air so can rewatch & relive the moments! hopefully will make me remember some other things too ^^ will be fun too, to see how it's gonna be all cut&edited together~ (which also makes me think it'll be fun seeing jwest's concert dvd when it eventually gets released too! since this tour is so long i hope they get a really long document dvd with it :D esp cause that'll be like a year from now)
agh, no wonder it's so cold in my room! i just realised i accidentally put my heater on the lowest not highest setting ;_; i've been freezing in here the last couple hrs for no reason! T_____T WHY JAPANESE PEOPLE DO YOU NOT USE INSULATION??????
edit: realised i forgot to add, but for the part with yara, before they performed first bun gave him a cactus as a gift XD his reaction was pretty good, like 'uhh?????' XDD
so this is indeed a bit of a summary/my impressions for next month's episodes \o/ because i actually feel like writing a bit of a spam of it?
where to start... themes are yell and love (the 2nd obvious because it's feb.)
the way it was presented - they did both the openers, then a bunch of performances with the on-stage audience & younger jrs, then the ending involving the younger kids who had to go home 1/2 way through, then reset for the 2nd half which involved the game corner, special guest performance and the rest of the older groups' performances that didn't have kids or audience on stage, and closed out with the other ending. some of the performances were obvious which theme they go with, but i'm curious with others how it'll be cut. also was neat to be able to watch the stage as a whole, and see where kawai/akito will repeat song intro's if they mess up, or they were good at just continually talking when they needed to because something else was taking longer to prep.
other things i was impressed by or really noticed (esp cause i haven't sat down and caught up on any eps since the summer):
-i like takahashi kaito's singing! he's got a really clear voice
-the chibis aren't so chibi anymore! seeing 6tones and hihijet members live for the first time in 5.5yrs gave me feelings! esp mizuki/hashimoryo ...those kids are getting all grown up! awwww ♥
-kotaki is so loudddddd. i've now gotten to see jwest 3(!!) times since getting to japan, and seriously kotaki XDDD kid is so noisy it's great XDD i mean he was probably louder than even fuuma? like in terms of decibels XDD i feel like fuuma had it a bit toned down, but maybe it's just cause (as hasshi pointed out) we didn't get him being noisy in the game corner (didn't participate; hasshi's exact comment as staff were instructing guys on stage/setting the stage→ wow it's really quiet without fuuma) XDD
-speaking of singing, shori's actually ok? like i never found him to be particularly bad anyway like everyone not his fan seems to complain of, but like, sure he's not especially amazing, but it's fine?
-on the other hand, prince as a whole when they sang as a group was better than i expected, but jinguji on his own not as good? (sorry kiddo)
anyway, on to the show:
-yell theme... of course they sang -kibou-yell! kinpri/hhj/etc did a medley to open
-we got yuuki 100% at some point too, i think might've been part of the opening medley? or first ending, can't remember
-prince had a jr medley (chibis or at least hhj had a song in there too) that included chankapaana
-king had a solos medley - SHOU DID DIAL UP!!!!!! AND THEN RENREN DID NEXT STAGE!!! ALL THE NOSTALGIC KANJU SONGS T___T ♥♥
--so of course kawai/akito talked about that after, like how ebi still perform their pre-debut songs a lot cause still 'a.b.c' songs, but akito/junta don't ever perform b.a.d songs really
-special guest! was yara!!! i never expected to get to see yara twice this year! and then and then...while they were talking in the mc part (about shock and stuff) 2 ppl went and set up on stage and i could see that one had a violin, and then they started singing happy bday for yara and IT WAS BUNCHAN AND GOTO HIROMI!!!! like the whole audience squealed here XDD the girls beside me were already being all 'uso!?' along w/ me about yaracchi, and then we all reacted the same when it was revealed who the others were XDD
so we got a performance from them that was super amazing! goto was rocking it out on the violin, and getting to watch bun/yara sing and dance together was super lucky!! (moro and teranishi did back up, super cool guys!)
(also like, i thought goto had quit by now so i was extra surprised to see him there!)
-chibi jrs (universal boys aka hhj & super chibis i don't know-they all did name intro during mc) did a whole dance intro thing and then went into Be Cool, and they started with those magnet shoe platforms ebi used for walking on clouds originally!! that was cool to see, esp since seeing from such an overhead view, so could get the whole image of it
(during mc kawai joked that now they were gonna sing ppap, but thankfully everyone was like 'no no no we're not')
-got to see reboot twice (2nd time with snowman!) ...i'm not totally sold on the shouted phrases parts cause they're a bit hard to hear properly? but it's definitely catchy all around, and that bit hasshi-fumi do with the hooked together flipping seriously looks awesome every time♥ also hasshi doing the being carried by the other four flip thing!
-kawai name dropped taipi and kame in relation to his new year's events (going to kame's house) and the trip he took to nyc w/ taipi (SERIOUSLY U GUYSSSS SO CLOSE TO ME YET SO FAR T____T ), akito was like 'what about mitsu' to which kawai replied 'ah we're not actually very close' (OBVIOUS LIE XDD) and also brought up tatsumi as usual XD (akito: are you guys married or something?)
-jesse & hirano did a duet together, their voices match well! i think also one of the only times the whole audience was totally silent? both of jwest's songs were ballads this time so was pretty quiet for those too but i don't remember it being as quiet?
jesse's squinty face when he's all out singing higher notes is kinda funny though XD
-sz sang we gotta go & a my girlfriend, for yell and love themes, respectively ...i liked how amg sounded live (refer to above comment about shori's singing), and we gotta go was really fun! that was the first right after the opening so it was a good high energy start~ made me want to make sure i can get to their con in march even more!
i've realised though i have a hard time telling sou and kento apart from far away because they're the two that look most similar when just seeing movements & hair colour ^^;
-speaking of, we got a really cute sou/kenty moment at the end of the game corner, they were all hanging off each other as they walked off stage~ <3333 souken4ever! <33333 and there was another moment during i think wgg? when i think it was mari? pulled sou in such a way that he did a kinda spin XD
-game corner was a relay race, got abecchi and ganchan on one team ^^ abecchi was so cute, kept waving to the audience and being super smiley, also race involved princess carry so of course jingu carried genki, comment from whoever on their team after: something to the effect of 'their bubble is too strong' (forget the exact words). kento team all introduced themselves starting 'ichi ni san shi (name)' and hasshi skipped over tsuka (who was second last to be introduced), claiming the script had written 'and finally __' (i think was kotaki last but can't be positive) so he just read as he should have XD
-there was a point at the end of one of the main all-together songs (forget if opener or ending) where miyachika was being a hyper bouncy ball of adorable, i approved XD
-also sakkun is definitely the easiest to spot suddenly in snowman, for the same reason (+the blonde hair obvs) XD
-6tones performance was really cool, buuuut sry2say ppl, they still aren't cohesive enough for debut i think...i think their tv performances definitely get some sound editing after...plus the cuts between different close ups etc help any out of sync dancing
watching them try to stand up coins was oddly humorous even from super far away though (taiga failed hardcore, jesse/juri/yuugo/hokkun i think it was? all got it the most (but then they kept being knocked over again) ...also as usual even when the 'talk' part of their mc ended they couldn't shut up XDD also hokkun was super happy about getting the 10 yen coin, he was all 'yay! i have 10 yen!' (here was a kawai flib too, since he was supposed to pull a coin out of his pocket like 'today we're using this!' but then didn't have it)
-kenty and glasses suit each other well, yup. shou made me 'kyaa' with his amai serifu for whatever that corner is called (nakajima sensei's love advice or something i dunno) ...also kenty made me laugh when he started going on about there being 4 standard gifts for white day and each one's meaning (iirc, cookies was 'let's stay friends', candies was 'i like you' and macarons was 'let's get married/be together always' kind of deep meaning (so for school aged kids up to candy level is good lol), and 1 other was 'i hate you' XD; can't for the life of me remember what it was though <<;; )
-ah! travis did perfect! it was perfect...*cough* (no but seriously i love this song the fact these guys did it is ♥♥♥
-ah! also how did i forget! while ebi were in standby for their first run of reboot, hasshi did jankenpon with the on stage fans XDDD super cute!
-love-tune started off the final ending, ai nanda! :D sanapi was being a cute camera-hogging dork, also reo is really fun to watch playing the keyboards ^^
...i dunno, i'm running through twitter reports trying to remember if there were other fun things that won't likely get on the tv cut but can't remember...i'm sad though now i missed the opening/intro before it started though, cause was fukka/abe! i could hear it while we were going up to find our seats but we missed the whole thing ;_; all i caught was something about acrobatics (apparently fukka being like hey! this is snowman's strong point!)
ahhhh i'm really sad how much it cost me just to get this one ticket though, cause if it was cheaper i definitely would've considered changing my plans to stay in tokyo for feb 13 recording since i leave only a few days before anyway...there's definitely a few things i woulda done different so i could've been a lot closer to the stage (like buy a whole hagaki for myself & found someone to come with me, or at least if i hadn't been innocent enough to think the person i tried buying off wasn't going for whoever showed up first...cause considering i got to harajuku w/ lots of time, i could've been at nhk by 4:40 or so, but i had cut communications basically (cause even my deputy didn't get back to me till 6 or so saying he couldn't contact the seller) ...it was my own fault for that though, not going straight to the venue but suggesting a diff. meet up spot, but seriously, if you're looking at several buyers at least contact the other ones like 'hey, you were too late sorry' <<
whatever, i have ebi event coming up the start of next month, also thinking of applying for ebizoo recording (dunno though, got smth else the same day, plus smaller audience so if i do get in i'd def. be on tv probably :S),
and then end of march i'll hopefully get to see all the jrs again! and sz! it will be a crazy insane weekend! maybe i should figure out a way to stash my big luggage smwhere for that weekend, like friend's house, cause otherwise i'm carting 2 rolling luggages around from osaka-nagoya-yokohama-tokyo, not necessarily (but really really hopefully) in that order over the space of like, 3 days :S & it was awkward enough getting it all an hr across town...
but anyway, i think i will definitely have to get these eps asap when they air so can rewatch & relive the moments! hopefully will make me remember some other things too ^^ will be fun too, to see how it's gonna be all cut&edited together~ (which also makes me think it'll be fun seeing jwest's concert dvd when it eventually gets released too! since this tour is so long i hope they get a really long document dvd with it :D esp cause that'll be like a year from now)
agh, no wonder it's so cold in my room! i just realised i accidentally put my heater on the lowest not highest setting ;_; i've been freezing in here the last couple hrs for no reason! T_____T WHY JAPANESE PEOPLE DO YOU NOT USE INSULATION??????
edit: realised i forgot to add, but for the part with yara, before they performed first bun gave him a cactus as a gift XD his reaction was pretty good, like 'uhh?????' XDD