この様な終わり
i may have found the japanese version of 'maury'. they just had an mtf transexual on, but the hosts are a group of young-ish girls and one old guy. the ojiisan's most pressing question for the mtf was "but who does he kiss??" to which all the girls replied "oh, don't worry, he has a boyfriend!" but now they have some random girl on who designs her own clothes or something... i'm really not sure the point of the show, actually.
it's like the view on crack!!! and if barbara walters was an old japanese guy in a suit.
bwahaha, the onigiri sale isn't just after midnight! it's still going on! i got onigiri for lunch, obviously.
aaaanyway, i should get around to writing about the past two days before i forget it all. everything starts blending together after a while and i'm sure i'll forget stuff if i don't put it down.
i keep forgetting-- narciss is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year! so there's all sorts of special events and stuff going on there. narciss being the live house out in saitama that was like our home-away-from-home-away-from-home two years ago (we were totally known as the "narciss gaijin"). narciss has gotten a lot more popular recently tho, cuz both lives i went to there were suuuuper crowded. i haven't seen mullet-guy at all tho ;_;
aaanyway, this was a 'session event', so basically a handful of ppl from a couple bands got together and played music. i went cuz members of danger gang and goz vii were playing. komako was also going to be there, but she kept telling me "sorry, we can't be together, we can't be together!" which basically amounted to us saying hello to one another, she giving me an omiyage, and then her ignoring me all evening (she knew a lot of other ppl there and had to go around and make small talk, i understood that, but it's like 'hellooooo, came all the way from america and we're sitting RIGHT next to each other, you could talk to me a bit y'know??'). there were a couple other girls i'd met at the GOZ VII live there too who were pleasant when we first arrived and i gave out candies from asakusa. after that, they really couldn't care less about me, so i just kinda sat in a corner during the live. all of these fans are a bit older than, say, the quench fangirls were, so i think it's a different air, hanging out with them.
anyway, on to the bands! i don't know most of their 'names' cuz, well, they were all made up names anyway... and i might miss one or something...
the first band they were only まあまあ, however! they did a cover of kami uta that just made my night. that's one of my fave phantasmagoria songs and i was all happy to hear it live. even if it was just a cover. a mediocre cover. they reeeeeally milked the ending tho and made us all do that set of furi a zillion and one times.
Tokyo Outsiders i think this was the second band's name. they may have been an actual band, too, and not just a session band. they had a really harsh, punk sound that was rather fun. the singer had the biggest lisp when he spoke, tho! singing, you couldn't hear it at all (cuz he sang in a raspy kinda way). but then he spoke and it was like: LISP. i just thought it was cute cuz he was dressed super-hard core and had loooong hair and everything.
The Reichelle, Hiroro, (guitarist name), (bassist name) and Yuichi band seriously, this is what they called themselves. outside, it was just written as "the reichelle band" which made me laugh. but reichelle was the singer!!! (reichelle, the leader-sama/guitarist of GOZ VII) it was soooo funny. he wasn't half bad at singing, but you could tell that he just didn't know what to do with himself when he didn't need to be singing. he also wouldn't be caught dead actually looking out into the audience. whenever there was a pause or he took his hands off the mic, he kept picking at his jacket awkwardly cuz he just didn't know where to put his hands without a guitar there. it was pretty great. then, when he had to do mc, he started with "zomg, i have to do the mc! this is way too hard..." apparently, all the songs they sang were only cuz reichelle wanted to sing them. hiroro had to remind him what he needed to say. hiroro looking alarmingly like nero from merry this evening, too. i almost wasn't sure if it was him at first. and yuichi looked... CUTE. i swear that he and tomokatsu dressed each other or had a bet going or something, cuz yuichi had this flower clip thing in his hair (more on tomokatsu's outfit later). he was also smiling the whole time, while usually at GOZ VII lives he looks more focused.
soooo, they were fun, and i went back and got my drink afterwards (melon-vanilla cocktail partner tastes like kakigori syrup and is tastey but leaves a questionable after taste. i gotta stop drinking cocktail partners when i got to narciss on my own...).
hmm, there was some other band in here... don't remember.
at one point, i tried getting to the bathroom but then saw hiroro and someone else from that band sitting back there so i ran away. if i was gonna approach them, i wanted my enquette (they actually made one for their session band!) so i missed that chance. later, when i finally got to the back and had my enquette it was reichelle and two other ppl back there for that band. after squirming nervously for a little bit i finally went up and gave him my enquette. reichelle would not even look me in the face! what the hell? this is the man who made us all *pinky swear* with him that we would come see them again! why is he suddenly scared of a lone gaijin? mayhaps he's nervous cuz he can't remember who i am but knows that he *should* remember who i am. ah well, i left him alone after that.
the band with Thera in it don't remember their name either. they were pretty decent but the most interesting part for me was that Thera was in it. she was wearing a toned down version of her danger gang costume, which i far preferred to what she had worn at the 無料 live. and i think the orange is slowly growing on me >_<
they played one danger gang song that i couldn't entirely recognize, but they were a pretty decent band in the end.
or was the missing band at this point?.... whatever.
the band with Hidetora, Tomokatsu and Hiko in it this band had two vocalists (one of whom was Hidetora from GOZ VII, of course), so they did a GOZ VII song which was soooo fun. 'cept i was stuck next to a short and pissy japanese girl who wouldn't really move. and the second vocalist totally couldn't do asuto's part right, but oh well.
so the second guitarist and tomokatsu were both in gothiloli dresses. for the 2nd guitarist, this was his normal costume, but for tomokatsu... i have to wonder where he got that dress. he also had his hair done up in curls and had white make up on. this is when i began wondering if he and yuichi had a bet going on or something... i dunno how they got him into that get up! actually, at first, he seemed rather content in his dress. he practically skipped onto stage (poor boy doesn't know the dangers of skipping in short skirts). hidetora and the other vocalist were both all in black suits and had 弟 and 兄 written on their faces (hidetora being the 兄). apparently they've known each other for 7 years or some such.
during the mc, hidetora started out by calling hiko "hiko-chan" and then quickly corrected himself to just say 'hiko', it was funny. she made some announcement about danger gang's lives and their single coming out and then said something about becoming a hero? i really hope she doesn't mean that she's switching her name to 'hiro' cuz that would upset me. but anyway, she's gonna become a 'hero' and then both vocalists looked at tomokatsu and 2nd guitarist in their frilly little dresses and basically said "you two... there's no way either of you could become a hero." they also berrated the two of them for not jumping up on the dictator like hiko did during their introductions.
then they tried to make tomokatsu talk but he couldn't/wouldn't. so finally he came forward to try and stand on the dictator but... the mechanics of getting up on in while wearing a skirt were too complicated for him. so he took a running leap up onto it! it was like "tomo-chan... YOUR SKIRT'S GONNA FLIP UP DOING THAT!" aaaanyway, after all that trouble, he finally took the mic and said "actually, i have nothing to say!" then got back down. 面白いヤツだな
then the other vocalist went off stage under the guise of getting something to drink and, in his place, some other singer came out?? he was wearing the same thing as the original singer, but his hair was a different color. then hidetora also went off stage randomly and yet another guy came out! but this guy was wearing hidetora's GOZ VII costume (the purple coat with feather boa). then these two singers did one song (they kinda sucked too...) with the band before hidetora and the other-singer came back out. so the replacement singers climbed into the audience and stood bar for the band's last song! i have noooo idea what that was all about o_O
Nalcist i think this was an actual band too. they had some weird boy-band-esque video playing before they came on stage. i dunno what their deal was. they weren't bad or anything, but after the first song i sat down and was messaging kumi to make plans for the next day. i felt kinda bad cuz i think the singer kept saying random crap in english for my benefit (unless that's just part of his schtick...). so i stood up for their last three songs or so.
that was the last band, but no one seemed to be coming out to talk to ppl. komako et al had already left (i thought they had just gone to stand in the back but they'd really gone outside). when i got outside it was RAINING. i was happy i'd bought a larger umbrella in harajuku that day. i went down the street and found the other GOZ VII fangirls in an alcove nearby and one of them actually called out to me. she asked if i knew where komako was, but i didn't, then asked if i was gonna do demachi and i said i wanted to try. so i figured it was ok for me to hang with them, or at least take refuge under the same overhang as they were. i grabbed an onigiri at the 7-11 just so i had something to do but i never ate it and it got crushed in my purse. i stood half under the alcove getting a bit wet and being kinda ignored by the japanese girls for a loooong time.
i had *promised* myself i would do demachi at this live, since i had chickened out at the danger gang live. and i really wanted to at least thank hidetora in person for being such an awesome performer. but i waited around for a good 45 minutes and no one was coming out and i *swore* the japanese fangirl told her friends one thing about the band coming out and me something different. so finally i gave in cuz it was raining and i was meeting kumi early the next day, so i went to mcdonald's for dinner, came back 20 min later and STILL no bands had come out! so i sought out komako and said goodbye quickly then went home. really, talking to band members is not worth getting sick, y'know?
the next day i had plans to meet kumi in ueno in the morning and eat monja-yaki, then go to ikebukuro cyber that night to see kazuki's session band.
friday morning- ueno with kumi
when we had last met, somehow, our conversation got to the point that i told kumi that i'd eaten monja-yaki once before but didn't like it as much as okonomiyaki. もんじゃ焼き, as i would describe it, is just watery okonomiyaki. i had tried it with my host family in asakusa but hadn't liked it cuz it was just kinda mushy. apparently, the reason i didn't like it is cuz we hadn't made it right! it's supposed to be all パリパリ (crunchy) when you eat it. kumi said she would take me to eat it the proper way someday.
wanting an excuse to meet with kumi sometime outside the lives, i'd emailed her asking if she was busy this week cuz i wanted to try *real* monja-yaki. turns out, she had something she wanted to give me anyway and we agreed to meet in ueno that day before my live. (even tho ueno is on the opposite side of the yamanote from where my live would be-- but she'd given me the choice between asakusa and ueno and i'd just gone to asakusa on my own so i said ueno)
i reeeeally wanted to wear my new h.naoto skirt that day but then... i didn't have a proper top for it really... so i ended up wearing my dokuro maid shirt with my sex pot revenge shirt over it, the naoto skirt, and my 'mantle' as a scarf (in case it got cold that night after the live), two kinds of stockings and my new boots. i kinda looked like harajuku threw up on me but i was desperate to wear my skirt and i was running a little late so i didn't feel like changing or anything and left my house.
funny thing is, i sweeeeear i got LESS stares walking around today in my crazy-get-up than i have any other day before! perhaps the ppl in my neighborhood are just getting used to the weirdly dressed gaijin or something...
of course, kumi ended up running late! whoever said that japanese ppl are always on time really never went to japan. in my experience japanese ppl are always late (not horribly late or anything, but they always end up changing meeting times on you). but i didn't get the message until i was on the train and there was no real time to turn back. so i figured it was good cuz it gave me time to figure out the exit we were supposed to meet at.
i got there about a half hour early so i went to yamashiroya (the big toy store in ueno) for a little bit before heading back to the station exit we'd agreed upon. we were meeting at the 公園口 (park exit) right across from the art museum there. there were a tooon of ppl around going to the art museum. ueno kouen (park) is actually rather famous and has a bunch of different museums in it along with a zoo and such. we did hanami there when i was studying abroad and i'd gone to the art museum briefly to see obaasan's paintings with lica, but had never really hung out on that side of ueno before.
kumi arrived, apologizing for being late, and gave me my present. she made me a ring with kitty, fish and heart charms hanging off of it. she later told me that she chose blue cuz that's the color of my eyes (japanese ppl seem obsessed with my eyes lately...). it's just about the sweetest thing ever.
it turns out that kumi had planned a whooole day of touring around ueno for me! i was a little embarassed when i realized how little of ueno i'd actually bothered to go to-- usually we would just hang out around ameyokocho (where stores and stuff are). but on the far side of the park there's a zillion and one cultural things going on.
it was a really hot day and we were both in black, lolz. kumi had on a long sleeve black moi-meme moitie shirt and i asked if she wasn't hot in it. but apparently moi-meme stuff is always really thin, since mana-sama himself wears that style all year round. so it's made to be a little cool.
first she took me over to the grave of the last shogun. we didn't actually go to the grave, we went cuz there's a patisserie next door to it that makes the greatest shuu-cream! we walked for a really long time but got a little lost apparently and kumi wanted to just take a taxi. then we suddenly came upon a spot in the road where a ton of taxis were waiting around so kumi hailed one (she offered to pay for it all so i didn't complain cuz i was a little hot). so we finally made it to the cake shop-- it was like a little oasis of bright pinkness amongst lotsa old japanese buildings. there was even a security guard type guy who opened the door and welcomed us in. they had sooo many tastey looking things but we decided just to get shuu-cream (cream puffs). kumi paid for mine again and we sat outside on a bench to eat them. the tenin actually took them outside on a tray and we procured them before sitting down. they were really tastey. we sat in the shade for quite some time chatting before kumi told me about some kinda neat building that was also nearby and we decided to go there.
i really didn't know where anything was so i simply followed kumi's lead. on that side of the park it's all really old japanese-style buildings and temples and the like. we went by the temple that was basically the family temple for the tokugawa. then there were a whole bunch of european-style buildings randomly. kumi seemed to be an expert on the history of the area (or mayhaps it's all just well known info among tokyo-ites? i'm not sure).
we had to cross through the park again on our way back and i pointed out where we'd done hanami. we went by the back end of the zoo and were able to see an eagle in a cage. there's a temple in the park that you're supposed to pray at when you're sick, another one to pray at for luck with your love, and finally, a big one that you shouldn't go to when on a date, cuz the kami that lives there is a female and will get jealous. there were lots of ajisai blooming (hydrangea) and we went by a big pond where, soon, waterlilies will be coming out. we saw a big crane by that pond.
finally we got to the neat building kumi had told me about. it's basically the house of a reeeeally old japanese family who used to own the entire area. the majority of it is european style with a smaller japanese wing on the side. it was a really pretty house and reminded me of a cross between something you'd see in france and the colonial sites in DC. before going in you had to take your shoes off and the guard gave me two bags cuz mine were just soooo big (my boots have quite a platform on them). he gave us a little shpeal about the trees there, one across the way was over 800 years old (older than america! zomg).
kumi explained a lot of the signs and stuff to me. we went out on the balcony on the 2nd floor and saw the huuuuge backyard. kumi said that if she was rich she'd rent it and have a live there and we had fun speculating where everything would go. back on the first floor, out on the deck, we examined a picture of the family who had lived in the house. the graduate student in me loved it cuz it was the perfect representation of modernity in japan-- all the women were in kimono and the head-of-the-family was also in traditional japanese clothing, but the three other male members were in suits and they were all sitting on couches out on a very western-style sun deck. (you prolly have to be a student of japanese culture to get that...) just behind us was a table with souvenirs and stuff on it and the person running it told us where the picture had been taken. then he started complimenting me on my japanese (パーフェクト) and kumi was all like my host mother going "oh, she is, isn't she??" and doing the 'i'm proud of my gaijin' thing. i told him about living in shimo when i was younger and then doing study abroad at jouchi and such.
the next room was the den and they had info on the various other houses around tokyo that this family also owned (which are all now museum-like, like this one). one of them is most famous for its rose garden and sells rose-flavored ice cream and sweets. it's really popular among gothiloli types apparently and whenever you go there there will always be a couple lurking about. kumi told me that she'd definitely take me there someday.
we went into the 'japanese' wing of the house and it felt really nice on my feet to walk on the tatami. we saw the big stone by the back door where ppl living there would line up their shoes. there must have been room for, like, 50 pairs of shoes and kumi said that was just too much! how can you possibly have a family that big? i explained to her that if i had my whooooole family living in that house it would just be enough space, since my mother has 8 younger brothers and sisters. she was all shocked at the size of my extended family, hehe.
we put our shoes back on and walked around the lawn just chatting and looking at the flowers. we came up behind a pair of older japanese women and started admiring some ajisai there. one of them turned around, suddenly butting into our convo going "omg, your japanese is so good!" apparently, she had been really surprised cuz, before she turned around, she thought we were just two japanese ppl. (i only list that one cuz it's about the biggest compliment you can get from someone-- that they didn't realize you *weren't* japanese until they saw your face)
we sat under the trees cooling off for a bit and talked more. it was really nice to just stroll around with a japanese friend, especially after having felt kinda abandoned and outsider-y the night before. kumi is just the best person ever. i swear, even if my japanese was teh suck, she'd still insist on being my friend and taking me places. obviously, she always puts up with me when i misinterpret what she's asked and go off on some random tangent. she always explains things when i get confused and is just a really good person. i'm so glad we met her.
we finally left the building and by the time we made it back to the main road it was pretty late and we were hungry so we decided to head over to eat. kumi had found a restaurant near the station that had stuff other than monja-yaki, in case i really *wasn't* in the mood for it. the place was on the fourth floor of a random building around ameyokocho and was set up like a family-style japanese restaurant with tatami and pillows to sit on and low tables and all. i let kumi chose what we would get cuz i really had no idea what to order, so we ended up getting mixed monja (which had beef and random fix in it). like i said before, monja-yaki is just kinda like watery okonomiyaki, and this was the sorta place where you cooked it yourself on a skillet built into your table. i left the cooking up to kumi ^_^ there's a whole style to cooking monja-yaki that's different from okonomiyaki. you mix up all the ingredients but then you just pour the veggies/meat/etc onto the skillet first. then you arrange it so there's a pit in the middle and pour in the rest of the batter/water. then you mix it all together and smush it out flat. then you waaaaait, pressing it down every now and then. the trick is you have to wait for it to be practically burnt before you eat it or else it isn't tasty. this is very true, cuz the more burnt the edges became, the tastier it was! i did enjoy it but... i don't think i'd ever order it on my own. not without someone who knows how to make it with me. we also got an order of okonomiyaki with mochi in it.
i explained to kumi that in america i don't actually eat beef or pork but in japan i can eat it cuz the pieces are so small and thin. she told me about how, when she first went to america (she did study-abroad when she was in college as well) she was served a huuuuge steak as one of her first meals. she thought it would be rude *not* to finish it so she forced herself to eat it all, but it made her really sick the next day. she had to become a vegetarian for the first few weeks she was in america.
after we ate i reeeeally wanted to do purikura, but i was actually running late for my live (not that i let kumi know this) and we couldn't find purikura aaaanywhere. everything was just pachinko-ya! i KNOW there's a normal game center with purikura around there sooomewhere, i just used it a week or two ago! but we couldn't find it so we finally had to give up (kumi said she'd do purikura with me in ikebukuro before/after kazumi's live ^_^). kumi was going back to shinjuku so we rode the yamanote together and kumi gave me the history of all the different stops. we also talked about lives and i said how i'd been having trouble talking to ppl cuz i was shy with my japanese. she was like "why be shy? didn't you have a bunch of ppl compliment you today and say how good you sounded??" she also said that it's just easier if you talk to ppl cuz it prevents confusion or animosity, and told me the story of a blood live where some random foreigners showed up and tried to take front row. everyone else was too scared to tell them they couldn't stand there (cuz saizen was already decided for the band) so finally kumi went over and straightened things out. the foreigners, apparently, weren't planning on staying there and were just standing and talking. they kindly moved after kumi explained the situation.
i really need to take that kind of thing to heart. i know that if i just talked to ppl at lives where i'm alone it would be better all around, even if i didn't necessarily make new friends or anything. at least the japanese fans would know i spoke japanese and that i know what i'm about, right? i still have trouble with that, tho >_<
so i got off at ikebukuro and thanked kumi profusely for taking me around all day. a little worried cuz i was late for doors (which didn't end up mattering) and cuz i didn't entirely remember how to get to cyber, i rushed through the station.
and now what you were *really* waiting for! kazuki's live! damn, i write a lot in these things... don't blame you if you just skipped to here...
friday evening- live at cyber
i managed not to get lost on my way to cyber! i was all proud. as soon as i figured out the right exit i was fine again (tho i've taken to muttering to myself in japanese when i'm trying to find places...). i grabbed a drink at the 7-11 nearby cuz i needed to break a man-en before i paid for my ticket. i got to the live house only 10 minutes late for doors and went inside. turned out, it didn't matter than i was late at all, cuz there were only three of us there then! and cyber is a suuuuper tiny live house... luckily, akiho was standing in the back and saw me come in so i got to great her and give her omiyage. she told me that shouko-san was coming too and i was glad i wouldn't be all alone all evening.
little background so ppl know who's who: reveille is one of the bands we followed two years ago. basically, we were the ONLY fans of this band. eventually, the japanese fans started demurring to *us* when the band came on stage. they stayed and did demachi with us one time even after being in a car accdient. that's how close we were with this band. reveille consisted of three ppl-- naoki (aka ojiisan- singer), shun (aka pinky-shun, 1st guitarist and lover of all things hide), and kazuki (2nd guitarist, the youngest member). akiho (aka oneesan) was their staff-girl and took it upon herself to keep naoki in line; she always made sure the boys did demachi with us and was generally protective of us as fans. shouko (aka drunk girl) was another fan of reveille from long ago (when they were *actually* VK) and was always really nice and talkative with us but we could never understand a word she said! hence the nickname "drunk girl" cuz we kinda thought she was always drunk, which was why she didn't make sense.
when we left, shun left the band as well (it turned out that his last live with the band was also our last live there), then i think reveille basically disbanded. naoki immediately went on to do 'ef', which is reveille with just him and some guitarist (and i'm gonna go see that later in the month), shun took some time off from bands, and kazuki disappeared off the face of the earth.
when i got here and emailed akiho she told me that kazuki was doing a session band at cyber and invited me to come! of course, i had to go see him. kazuki was always nice to us and was basically the reason we came back to see reveille again in the first place. he was like our little brother, so i was super happy to see him in a band again.
ok, enough of background! onto the present.
SO! it was a lone gaijin and three japanese girls in the live house when the first band came on stage. i took a spot in the back (which isn't actualy *that* far from the stage) and stood there and the two japanese girls went closer to the stage to see what this band was like. the first member who came out was in a freakish wig and a yukata thing, which scared the japanese girls who kinda went running away. i felt pretty bad for this band cuz NO ONE was there to see them. they weren't bad or anything! just new prolly. the japanese girls finally sat smack in the middle of the floor and i was left being horribly conspicuous standing in the back. the singer just stared STRAIGHT AT ME most of the live. he also kept yelling 後ろ、かかってこい！ i looked to my left... looked to my right... and realized that i *was* the 後ろ. but i couldn't go *stand* in the front cuz no one else was. so i finally came and sat on the floor a few feet from the japanese girls and did a little head-bob greeting. the singer then continued to stare straight at me (whenever he wasn't head banging, of course). when they were done the freakish guitarist jumped off stage to hand out free cds. he tooootally bipassed me at first until i stood up kinda stopped him for one.
i shoulda talked to the two other japanese girls. it woulda be simple, どのバンド見に来たか？ aaah, but i didn't. i'm sure they would have been nice to me, mayhaps i could have even stood in the front for their band. but i didn't, instead i squatted by my bags and busied myself with chirashi.
a few more ppl were trickling in. some other bands played. the other one of most interest was called 'myu' and their costumes were total kagrra-meets-decora. the singer even had a sensu that he danced with. at that point, everyone else that was there took up the whole front row, so i kinda stood in no-man's land in front of the stage and off to the side.
i am proud to say that i actually tried to talk to this band! it turned out, the table i was squatting under was right next to the table they claimed for their enquette box and all. when the guitarist first came out i realized... she's a girl! did i mention that this was the night of random female band members? for the first time, i really couldn't believe it was a girl. i mean, with jun, i didn't realize she was female on stage, but as soon as i heard her talk it was like "oooh, you're a girl!" and with the members of danger gang i figured it out on stage but with this chick... even after hearing her talk a whole lot i couldn't believe it. really, i kept looking her up and down when she wasn't look and she was... flat o_O her face didn't scream 'girl' either. then the bassist came out too so i finally stood up and turned to them, saying お疲れ様でした and the girl-guitarist was all excited. she told me that i should have come closer to the stage (i didn't realize she'd actually noticed me) and that, next time, i should definitely come up front. the bassist was about to talk to me too when the lights went down and the next band came on stage. argh, i totally coulda talked to them more, too, but never got another chance with them alone.
some other bands played. one of them threw candies into the audience at the start and the damned bassist threw *3* at me. it was like "ok, i caught one, i don't want anymore now! quite it!" but had to pick them all up (that mighta been aka-maru-boys). another band (sister floyd) were totally anti-feminism wanna-be's (the singer is apparently obsessed with kenzi, which was very noticeable) and the singer began by using a megaphone and yelling at the audience. he also jumped into the audience and ran around a bit at one point.
slowly, slowly, more ppl trickled in. akiho had told me that kazuki's band wasn't coming on until 18:55 (almost 7, and the live started at 5 >_<). then suddenly, when i was trying to look busy with chirashi between bands, i hear someone say エイプリルさんですか？ and i look up and there's shouko! i was like "yes, someone to talk to!!!" she put her bag with my stuff and i gave her omiyage too (thank god i took extra with me). we stood together the rest of the time and she babbled at me a whole lot. i *can* understand a lot more of what she says now, which helped the conversation quite a bit. i could even interject into it a bit! akiho would come out in between bands and talk to us too, but it was hard to hear them sometimes with the bands warming up on stage.
then, fiiiinally, it was time for kazuki's band! they're called しえりる and are only together for two lives. it's basically a bunch of ppl from other bands, plus kazuki. shouko and i were decently close to the stage until these two japanese girls came and just STOOD in front of us >_< they didn't move a lot during the live either, so we got stuck in this stupid third-row area, which sucked. but then kazuki came out and spotted me さくing at him and pointed right at me with a great big "there's my gaijin!" grin on his face. he was wearing a black yukata with a red obi with a hood that had cat ears on it. his hair is bleached within an inch of its life and his bangs are slightly pink; he had it back in two pigtails. of course, he was wearing his glasses on a string (does he really need those??). omg, he was just the cutest (and everyone in the audience agreed). he got sooo much crowd love, and gave it just as easily. his guitar is still the same from reveille-days (the purple one that changes colors with the lights on stage). i swear he must have told his bandmates that his gaijin-friend was coming cuz i got stared at by the singer too. sadly... the singer wasn't very good >_< the only good part of the band was kazuki, actually. i think the audience may have agreed. kazuki's confidence on stage has certainly grown. i'm sure the crowd-love helped A LOT. at one point, he threw his pick right at me but it veered off to the side and someone else picked it up. i did my best as part of the crowd even tho i was stuck behind non-moving fans and i'm sure he saw.
when their set ended, the girl who had gotten kazuki's pick stopped me and gave it to me! i was really surprised at that. a japanese fangirl gave *me* a pick?? but now i have a kazuki-pick. it's a pink hello kitty one (different from before, i think).
i don't remember if his band came out right away or not. there might have been another band in between. in any case, i wrote out my enquette for them really quickly (but realized later that it had no space for name/email so it didn't really matter now did it?) and got out the omiyage i brought for him too. when he first came out from backstage, he was immediately MOBBED by japanese fangirls. they were, like, all over him. it got to be a bit much, really. i'm sure at least half of them were ファックちゃん too, which really rubbed me the wrong way. anyway, i finally managed to catch his eye, which he took as an excuse to push through the crowd of his fans to come over to me. he was immediately like "we have picture sets! buy one?" at first, i was a little annoyed that he just wanted to sell me photos, but later i realized, they only had about 5 sets of these pictures (they were polaroids), so actually, kazumi had made a point of coming to me as one of the first ppl to get a chance at buying them. he totally remembered my obsession with band pictures from before. so i bought a set, then gave him the enquette and handed him his omiyage. he was like "omg, omiyage! for me???"
he tried to shake my hand, but offered me his right hand, and i was still holding something in my right, so i had to awkwardly offer him my left. we did a weird kinda hand shake/bow at first but then, suddenly, he changed his mind. this is when he got down on one knee and kissed my hand. i just kept bowing to him and was like "omg, what are you doing?? get up off your knees before i'm murdered!" the group of fangirls (and his bandmates too) turned and STARED with mouths wide open. i could tell they hated me then and there... they later banded together to keep kazuki away from me; if it wasn't for akiho i prolly wouldn't have gotten to talk to him again actually.
he got dragged away again after that and another band came out. the rest of the bands were halfway decent but not so great as to describe individually. there was another session band with a female singer (who i think is the singer of the other band akiho is staffing for), but she was a pretty poor singer. they did a cover of a really old DEG song, and even tho it sucked, it just sucked enough that i could laugh instead of scream in pain. there was also a random female drummer in another band (yeah, night of random female members!!).
the only person worth mentioning was the 'guest', who's name was called 'あこぎのおっちゃん'. he was... special. it was just a single guy with a fuzzy orange cowboy hat, sunglasses, pink feather boa, and over-the-top suit. he entered the stage while some really loud j-pop song was playing (something about seniorita's...) and swaggered around. whenever he would blow his whistle the music would pause and he'd yell something random (sometimes slightly obscene) at the audience. we were all just laughing our asses off. shouko was interested so we were closer to the stage too. then finally he sat down on a chair and took up his acoustic guitar. after saying a bunch of times "i'm playing three weird songs then going home. three songs, then home." they were actually kinda fun and generally consisted of him babbling about what he'd done or eaten lately, interspersed with singing この様な終わり(hence the title of this entry), and sometimes we had to sing along or clap or whatever. he was enjoyable in his strangeness.
shouko fell in love with him! between all the remaining bands she kept going "i wanna talk to occhan... i wonder if he's gonna come out... is he gonna come out?..." it was so random. he did end up coming out in the end, btw, and shouko bought *all* of his cds. i prolly shoulda gotten one for 懐かしい purposes but didn't.
oh yeah, there was one other awkward meeting with kazuki in the bathroom >_< the bathroom in cyber is a room off to the side with three stalls, one for ladies, one for gentlemen and one that's useable by all. so everyone goes into the same room. *just* when i tell shouko i'm going to the toilet, kazuki comes running out from backstage and goes in ahead of me. i'd seen a couple other ppl go in so i'd assumed there was a line. i really, really didn't want to end up having to talk to kazuki in the bathroom. it was just too much. i turned around to wait, but shouko insisted that there was more than one stall so i could go. all the stalls were being used but there was no one waiting, so i lucked out. of course, the first person to finish was kazuki. when he first came out, i was standing RIGHT THERE (it's not that big of a space) and he saw me, freaked, and went right back into the stall. i was like "er, you can come out you know." i think for a second he expected me to talk to him (or he thought i was waiting for him?), but instead i just went into the stall. seriously, i really had to pee! of course, he was gone by the time i came back out. so that was the great awkward bathroom adventure.
the live ended and most ppl left, so i figured if i waited around i might actually get to have a few words with kazuki (dammit, i was gonna talk to that boy!). akiho came out and talked to us, then went running all over the place looking for kazuki for me. she's still really posessive of us as fans, cuz when i had a dvd for another band in my hand (it was a free one) she was giving it death glares! then, of course, she was set on making sure kazuki came and properly talked to me. shouko was saying that if he had gone walking around in his costume he'd prolly gotten picked up by some pervert cuz he was so cute. fiiiinally, kazuki came out and was his normal, bouncy self. he wanted to know if i liked his new hair and i got to pull on his pigtails (hey, he started it) and i got to tell him how glad i was that he was in a band again and that lica and farron were super jealous i was seeing him again. of course, right when we actually got to talking some cyber staff came out and started yelling for everyone to please leave >_< so shouko and i had to go outside and akiho promised they'd be out soon.
we waited in the "park" area nearby, then finally the whole band came out (in their street clothes), went to the conbini quickly, but then were way layed by a group of japanese fangirls (really, ファックちゃん, drunken ファックちゃん no less). akiho came over and sat with shouko and i. the three of us talked about a lot of various things. or rather, they talked and i nodded and laughed when appropriate. i could follow the convo and knew what they were saying, but didn't really have anything to add most of the time (they were talking about cooking and not being able to wake up cuz of their b/f's and such). this is when i found out that akiho is now living with her boyfriend in saitama (who doesn't come home till 7 am... is he a host or something??) and that shouko is most definitely a college student. i had already found out that akiho no longer likes jigoro!!! she has no respect for kohei/whatever his new name is. and she's fed up with v-kei in general, actually, and generally just does staff work for friends nowadays.
i got to watch kazuki and his bandmates make general fools of themselves at the drunken ファックちゃん's request. they did random acrobatics that were apparently things you do as an elementray school student in japan. the drummer carried kazuki around on his shoulders and they did a weird pyramid thing. i found it all pretty funny, akiho was rolling her eyes like mad. it was pretty great.
akiho did get kazuki to come over at one point early on. for a little while, it was just like old times, like a reveille 出町 before naoki would come out. kazuki is still a total freak, by the by. at one point, suddenly, he stuck his face right in front of mine and was staaaaring at me over his sunglasses (yes, sunglasses at night, it's a jrocker thing). i was like "ah, er, whatwhatwhat? what're you looking at??" i actually thought i had something on my face. then he said "your eyes are pretty." me: "er... thank you... (freak!)" kazuki: "yeah, they're even lighter colored than the contacts i was wearing today! i want them! let me use them as contact lenses. ::mimics taking my eyes and putting them in his own::" me: "ah, no, this would be my NATURAL eye color, you cannot have them! (and thanks for making a sweet statement CREEPY!)" i think akiho saw kazuki's freakishness and my utter embarassment and at that point took his attention off me (little brothers making comments like that is だめ!). we talked a little more, and akiho and shouko made fun of him for showing off his biceps before (he does have some more muscle on him from carrying his guitar and all, but he's still pretty scrawny so actually, they're not *that* impressive). he tried to flex and all i could do was snicker cuz you could see all the veins stick out on his forearm cuz of it.
now, this is why i'm SURE the japanese fangirls had made plans to keep kazuki away from *me*. right when we were starting to actually get to talk again, two girls came over and told kazuki that they had to leave soon, so he went off to talk to them a little. then, they NEVER LEFT. akiho and shouko kept mentioning it too. "do they know what time it is? didn't they say they had to leave? wtf?" all evening the two of them kept complaining about the ファックちゃん (not that they used that word) and how they have no respect for "girls like that". they would sometimes go to the side and have a whispered conference so i couldn't hear, but i knew they weren't trying to leave me out, actually, i'm pretty sure they were muttering about how kazuki was kinda ignoring his gaijin fan and really needed to get it together. both akiho and shouko pulled him aside at different points to have a little chat with him about his behavior too. i actually kinda enjoyed the whole thing... they were actually being really sweet to me, making sure i didn't feel left out of their conversation even tho i wasn't really talking much. it was really just nice to sit there surrounded by friends at 出町 again, even if it was kinda fruitless.
finally, it was getting really late, and akiho and was all like "omg, your last train! it's earlier cuz you're on the subway!" they both pulled out their keitai and checked on a site for me what time my last train was. akiho said it was at 11:59 (it was already 11:40-ish by this point) so i had to rush off. i only really got to wave good-bye at kazuki, cuz he was surrounded by a bunch of japanese fangirls and i didn't feel like getting in the middle of that. oh well, it's his fault if he wanted to say a proper good bye, cuz i was waiting there the whole time.
i was really worried i'd miss my last train, but quickly realized that 11:59 was the last marunouchi train from *ikebukuro*. i get on the marnouchi at shinjuku. i had already learned that it's pointless to get on the marunouchi at ikebukuro if you wanna go to my stop, cuz it goes aaaaall the way around to tokyo before coming back to shinjuku. my last marunouchi train from shinjuku is at 1:21. so i was in plenty of time.
so i got back to my station, legs and feet killing me, grabbed a cheap onigiri and some tea for dinner, and strolled back home. i was actually in a really great mood and ended up dancing down the allyway to my appartment when 'girl anachronism' came on my mp3 player. no one else was there, so it was ok (altho, i may have been head banging in the street earlier ::snickers::). i was just in a really good mood ^_^
thus ended my very busy day.
there will be actually writing under those cuts in a bit, but i think i'm gonna save this thing first, mayhaps go out for a bit. or fold my laundry. ok, the day with kumi is all done, and the kazuki live is half done. will finish, i promise! crap, it's DONE now. that thing is waaay too long...
it's like the view on crack!!! and if barbara walters was an old japanese guy in a suit.
bwahaha, the onigiri sale isn't just after midnight! it's still going on! i got onigiri for lunch, obviously.
aaaanyway, i should get around to writing about the past two days before i forget it all. everything starts blending together after a while and i'm sure i'll forget stuff if i don't put it down.
i keep forgetting-- narciss is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year! so there's all sorts of special events and stuff going on there. narciss being the live house out in saitama that was like our home-away-from-home-away-from-home two years ago (we were totally known as the "narciss gaijin"). narciss has gotten a lot more popular recently tho, cuz both lives i went to there were suuuuper crowded. i haven't seen mullet-guy at all tho ;_;
aaanyway, this was a 'session event', so basically a handful of ppl from a couple bands got together and played music. i went cuz members of danger gang and goz vii were playing. komako was also going to be there, but she kept telling me "sorry, we can't be together, we can't be together!" which basically amounted to us saying hello to one another, she giving me an omiyage, and then her ignoring me all evening (she knew a lot of other ppl there and had to go around and make small talk, i understood that, but it's like 'hellooooo, came all the way from america and we're sitting RIGHT next to each other, you could talk to me a bit y'know??'). there were a couple other girls i'd met at the GOZ VII live there too who were pleasant when we first arrived and i gave out candies from asakusa. after that, they really couldn't care less about me, so i just kinda sat in a corner during the live. all of these fans are a bit older than, say, the quench fangirls were, so i think it's a different air, hanging out with them.
anyway, on to the bands! i don't know most of their 'names' cuz, well, they were all made up names anyway... and i might miss one or something...
the first band they were only まあまあ, however! they did a cover of kami uta that just made my night. that's one of my fave phantasmagoria songs and i was all happy to hear it live. even if it was just a cover. a mediocre cover. they reeeeeally milked the ending tho and made us all do that set of furi a zillion and one times.
Tokyo Outsiders i think this was the second band's name. they may have been an actual band, too, and not just a session band. they had a really harsh, punk sound that was rather fun. the singer had the biggest lisp when he spoke, tho! singing, you couldn't hear it at all (cuz he sang in a raspy kinda way). but then he spoke and it was like: LISP. i just thought it was cute cuz he was dressed super-hard core and had loooong hair and everything.
The Reichelle, Hiroro, (guitarist name), (bassist name) and Yuichi band seriously, this is what they called themselves. outside, it was just written as "the reichelle band" which made me laugh. but reichelle was the singer!!! (reichelle, the leader-sama/guitarist of GOZ VII) it was soooo funny. he wasn't half bad at singing, but you could tell that he just didn't know what to do with himself when he didn't need to be singing. he also wouldn't be caught dead actually looking out into the audience. whenever there was a pause or he took his hands off the mic, he kept picking at his jacket awkwardly cuz he just didn't know where to put his hands without a guitar there. it was pretty great. then, when he had to do mc, he started with "zomg, i have to do the mc! this is way too hard..." apparently, all the songs they sang were only cuz reichelle wanted to sing them. hiroro had to remind him what he needed to say. hiroro looking alarmingly like nero from merry this evening, too. i almost wasn't sure if it was him at first. and yuichi looked... CUTE. i swear that he and tomokatsu dressed each other or had a bet going or something, cuz yuichi had this flower clip thing in his hair (more on tomokatsu's outfit later). he was also smiling the whole time, while usually at GOZ VII lives he looks more focused.
soooo, they were fun, and i went back and got my drink afterwards (melon-vanilla cocktail partner tastes like kakigori syrup and is tastey but leaves a questionable after taste. i gotta stop drinking cocktail partners when i got to narciss on my own...).
hmm, there was some other band in here... don't remember.
at one point, i tried getting to the bathroom but then saw hiroro and someone else from that band sitting back there so i ran away. if i was gonna approach them, i wanted my enquette (they actually made one for their session band!) so i missed that chance. later, when i finally got to the back and had my enquette it was reichelle and two other ppl back there for that band. after squirming nervously for a little bit i finally went up and gave him my enquette. reichelle would not even look me in the face! what the hell? this is the man who made us all *pinky swear* with him that we would come see them again! why is he suddenly scared of a lone gaijin? mayhaps he's nervous cuz he can't remember who i am but knows that he *should* remember who i am. ah well, i left him alone after that.
the band with Thera in it don't remember their name either. they were pretty decent but the most interesting part for me was that Thera was in it. she was wearing a toned down version of her danger gang costume, which i far preferred to what she had worn at the 無料 live. and i think the orange is slowly growing on me >_<
they played one danger gang song that i couldn't entirely recognize, but they were a pretty decent band in the end.
or was the missing band at this point?.... whatever.
the band with Hidetora, Tomokatsu and Hiko in it this band had two vocalists (one of whom was Hidetora from GOZ VII, of course), so they did a GOZ VII song which was soooo fun. 'cept i was stuck next to a short and pissy japanese girl who wouldn't really move. and the second vocalist totally couldn't do asuto's part right, but oh well.
so the second guitarist and tomokatsu were both in gothiloli dresses. for the 2nd guitarist, this was his normal costume, but for tomokatsu... i have to wonder where he got that dress. he also had his hair done up in curls and had white make up on. this is when i began wondering if he and yuichi had a bet going on or something... i dunno how they got him into that get up! actually, at first, he seemed rather content in his dress. he practically skipped onto stage (poor boy doesn't know the dangers of skipping in short skirts). hidetora and the other vocalist were both all in black suits and had 弟 and 兄 written on their faces (hidetora being the 兄). apparently they've known each other for 7 years or some such.
during the mc, hidetora started out by calling hiko "hiko-chan" and then quickly corrected himself to just say 'hiko', it was funny. she made some announcement about danger gang's lives and their single coming out and then said something about becoming a hero? i really hope she doesn't mean that she's switching her name to 'hiro' cuz that would upset me. but anyway, she's gonna become a 'hero' and then both vocalists looked at tomokatsu and 2nd guitarist in their frilly little dresses and basically said "you two... there's no way either of you could become a hero." they also berrated the two of them for not jumping up on the dictator like hiko did during their introductions.
then they tried to make tomokatsu talk but he couldn't/wouldn't. so finally he came forward to try and stand on the dictator but... the mechanics of getting up on in while wearing a skirt were too complicated for him. so he took a running leap up onto it! it was like "tomo-chan... YOUR SKIRT'S GONNA FLIP UP DOING THAT!" aaaanyway, after all that trouble, he finally took the mic and said "actually, i have nothing to say!" then got back down. 面白いヤツだな
then the other vocalist went off stage under the guise of getting something to drink and, in his place, some other singer came out?? he was wearing the same thing as the original singer, but his hair was a different color. then hidetora also went off stage randomly and yet another guy came out! but this guy was wearing hidetora's GOZ VII costume (the purple coat with feather boa). then these two singers did one song (they kinda sucked too...) with the band before hidetora and the other-singer came back out. so the replacement singers climbed into the audience and stood bar for the band's last song! i have noooo idea what that was all about o_O
Nalcist i think this was an actual band too. they had some weird boy-band-esque video playing before they came on stage. i dunno what their deal was. they weren't bad or anything, but after the first song i sat down and was messaging kumi to make plans for the next day. i felt kinda bad cuz i think the singer kept saying random crap in english for my benefit (unless that's just part of his schtick...). so i stood up for their last three songs or so.
that was the last band, but no one seemed to be coming out to talk to ppl. komako et al had already left (i thought they had just gone to stand in the back but they'd really gone outside). when i got outside it was RAINING. i was happy i'd bought a larger umbrella in harajuku that day. i went down the street and found the other GOZ VII fangirls in an alcove nearby and one of them actually called out to me. she asked if i knew where komako was, but i didn't, then asked if i was gonna do demachi and i said i wanted to try. so i figured it was ok for me to hang with them, or at least take refuge under the same overhang as they were. i grabbed an onigiri at the 7-11 just so i had something to do but i never ate it and it got crushed in my purse. i stood half under the alcove getting a bit wet and being kinda ignored by the japanese girls for a loooong time.
i had *promised* myself i would do demachi at this live, since i had chickened out at the danger gang live. and i really wanted to at least thank hidetora in person for being such an awesome performer. but i waited around for a good 45 minutes and no one was coming out and i *swore* the japanese fangirl told her friends one thing about the band coming out and me something different. so finally i gave in cuz it was raining and i was meeting kumi early the next day, so i went to mcdonald's for dinner, came back 20 min later and STILL no bands had come out! so i sought out komako and said goodbye quickly then went home. really, talking to band members is not worth getting sick, y'know?
the next day i had plans to meet kumi in ueno in the morning and eat monja-yaki, then go to ikebukuro cyber that night to see kazuki's session band.
friday morning- ueno with kumi
when we had last met, somehow, our conversation got to the point that i told kumi that i'd eaten monja-yaki once before but didn't like it as much as okonomiyaki. もんじゃ焼き, as i would describe it, is just watery okonomiyaki. i had tried it with my host family in asakusa but hadn't liked it cuz it was just kinda mushy. apparently, the reason i didn't like it is cuz we hadn't made it right! it's supposed to be all パリパリ (crunchy) when you eat it. kumi said she would take me to eat it the proper way someday.
wanting an excuse to meet with kumi sometime outside the lives, i'd emailed her asking if she was busy this week cuz i wanted to try *real* monja-yaki. turns out, she had something she wanted to give me anyway and we agreed to meet in ueno that day before my live. (even tho ueno is on the opposite side of the yamanote from where my live would be-- but she'd given me the choice between asakusa and ueno and i'd just gone to asakusa on my own so i said ueno)
i reeeeally wanted to wear my new h.naoto skirt that day but then... i didn't have a proper top for it really... so i ended up wearing my dokuro maid shirt with my sex pot revenge shirt over it, the naoto skirt, and my 'mantle' as a scarf (in case it got cold that night after the live), two kinds of stockings and my new boots. i kinda looked like harajuku threw up on me but i was desperate to wear my skirt and i was running a little late so i didn't feel like changing or anything and left my house.
funny thing is, i sweeeeear i got LESS stares walking around today in my crazy-get-up than i have any other day before! perhaps the ppl in my neighborhood are just getting used to the weirdly dressed gaijin or something...
of course, kumi ended up running late! whoever said that japanese ppl are always on time really never went to japan. in my experience japanese ppl are always late (not horribly late or anything, but they always end up changing meeting times on you). but i didn't get the message until i was on the train and there was no real time to turn back. so i figured it was good cuz it gave me time to figure out the exit we were supposed to meet at.
i got there about a half hour early so i went to yamashiroya (the big toy store in ueno) for a little bit before heading back to the station exit we'd agreed upon. we were meeting at the 公園口 (park exit) right across from the art museum there. there were a tooon of ppl around going to the art museum. ueno kouen (park) is actually rather famous and has a bunch of different museums in it along with a zoo and such. we did hanami there when i was studying abroad and i'd gone to the art museum briefly to see obaasan's paintings with lica, but had never really hung out on that side of ueno before.
kumi arrived, apologizing for being late, and gave me my present. she made me a ring with kitty, fish and heart charms hanging off of it. she later told me that she chose blue cuz that's the color of my eyes (japanese ppl seem obsessed with my eyes lately...). it's just about the sweetest thing ever.
it turns out that kumi had planned a whooole day of touring around ueno for me! i was a little embarassed when i realized how little of ueno i'd actually bothered to go to-- usually we would just hang out around ameyokocho (where stores and stuff are). but on the far side of the park there's a zillion and one cultural things going on.
it was a really hot day and we were both in black, lolz. kumi had on a long sleeve black moi-meme moitie shirt and i asked if she wasn't hot in it. but apparently moi-meme stuff is always really thin, since mana-sama himself wears that style all year round. so it's made to be a little cool.
first she took me over to the grave of the last shogun. we didn't actually go to the grave, we went cuz there's a patisserie next door to it that makes the greatest shuu-cream! we walked for a really long time but got a little lost apparently and kumi wanted to just take a taxi. then we suddenly came upon a spot in the road where a ton of taxis were waiting around so kumi hailed one (she offered to pay for it all so i didn't complain cuz i was a little hot). so we finally made it to the cake shop-- it was like a little oasis of bright pinkness amongst lotsa old japanese buildings. there was even a security guard type guy who opened the door and welcomed us in. they had sooo many tastey looking things but we decided just to get shuu-cream (cream puffs). kumi paid for mine again and we sat outside on a bench to eat them. the tenin actually took them outside on a tray and we procured them before sitting down. they were really tastey. we sat in the shade for quite some time chatting before kumi told me about some kinda neat building that was also nearby and we decided to go there.
i really didn't know where anything was so i simply followed kumi's lead. on that side of the park it's all really old japanese-style buildings and temples and the like. we went by the temple that was basically the family temple for the tokugawa. then there were a whole bunch of european-style buildings randomly. kumi seemed to be an expert on the history of the area (or mayhaps it's all just well known info among tokyo-ites? i'm not sure).
we had to cross through the park again on our way back and i pointed out where we'd done hanami. we went by the back end of the zoo and were able to see an eagle in a cage. there's a temple in the park that you're supposed to pray at when you're sick, another one to pray at for luck with your love, and finally, a big one that you shouldn't go to when on a date, cuz the kami that lives there is a female and will get jealous. there were lots of ajisai blooming (hydrangea) and we went by a big pond where, soon, waterlilies will be coming out. we saw a big crane by that pond.
finally we got to the neat building kumi had told me about. it's basically the house of a reeeeally old japanese family who used to own the entire area. the majority of it is european style with a smaller japanese wing on the side. it was a really pretty house and reminded me of a cross between something you'd see in france and the colonial sites in DC. before going in you had to take your shoes off and the guard gave me two bags cuz mine were just soooo big (my boots have quite a platform on them). he gave us a little shpeal about the trees there, one across the way was over 800 years old (older than america! zomg).
kumi explained a lot of the signs and stuff to me. we went out on the balcony on the 2nd floor and saw the huuuuge backyard. kumi said that if she was rich she'd rent it and have a live there and we had fun speculating where everything would go. back on the first floor, out on the deck, we examined a picture of the family who had lived in the house. the graduate student in me loved it cuz it was the perfect representation of modernity in japan-- all the women were in kimono and the head-of-the-family was also in traditional japanese clothing, but the three other male members were in suits and they were all sitting on couches out on a very western-style sun deck. (you prolly have to be a student of japanese culture to get that...) just behind us was a table with souvenirs and stuff on it and the person running it told us where the picture had been taken. then he started complimenting me on my japanese (パーフェクト) and kumi was all like my host mother going "oh, she is, isn't she??" and doing the 'i'm proud of my gaijin' thing. i told him about living in shimo when i was younger and then doing study abroad at jouchi and such.
the next room was the den and they had info on the various other houses around tokyo that this family also owned (which are all now museum-like, like this one). one of them is most famous for its rose garden and sells rose-flavored ice cream and sweets. it's really popular among gothiloli types apparently and whenever you go there there will always be a couple lurking about. kumi told me that she'd definitely take me there someday.
we went into the 'japanese' wing of the house and it felt really nice on my feet to walk on the tatami. we saw the big stone by the back door where ppl living there would line up their shoes. there must have been room for, like, 50 pairs of shoes and kumi said that was just too much! how can you possibly have a family that big? i explained to her that if i had my whooooole family living in that house it would just be enough space, since my mother has 8 younger brothers and sisters. she was all shocked at the size of my extended family, hehe.
we put our shoes back on and walked around the lawn just chatting and looking at the flowers. we came up behind a pair of older japanese women and started admiring some ajisai there. one of them turned around, suddenly butting into our convo going "omg, your japanese is so good!" apparently, she had been really surprised cuz, before she turned around, she thought we were just two japanese ppl. (i only list that one cuz it's about the biggest compliment you can get from someone-- that they didn't realize you *weren't* japanese until they saw your face)
we sat under the trees cooling off for a bit and talked more. it was really nice to just stroll around with a japanese friend, especially after having felt kinda abandoned and outsider-y the night before. kumi is just the best person ever. i swear, even if my japanese was teh suck, she'd still insist on being my friend and taking me places. obviously, she always puts up with me when i misinterpret what she's asked and go off on some random tangent. she always explains things when i get confused and is just a really good person. i'm so glad we met her.
we finally left the building and by the time we made it back to the main road it was pretty late and we were hungry so we decided to head over to eat. kumi had found a restaurant near the station that had stuff other than monja-yaki, in case i really *wasn't* in the mood for it. the place was on the fourth floor of a random building around ameyokocho and was set up like a family-style japanese restaurant with tatami and pillows to sit on and low tables and all. i let kumi chose what we would get cuz i really had no idea what to order, so we ended up getting mixed monja (which had beef and random fix in it). like i said before, monja-yaki is just kinda like watery okonomiyaki, and this was the sorta place where you cooked it yourself on a skillet built into your table. i left the cooking up to kumi ^_^ there's a whole style to cooking monja-yaki that's different from okonomiyaki. you mix up all the ingredients but then you just pour the veggies/meat/etc onto the skillet first. then you arrange it so there's a pit in the middle and pour in the rest of the batter/water. then you mix it all together and smush it out flat. then you waaaaait, pressing it down every now and then. the trick is you have to wait for it to be practically burnt before you eat it or else it isn't tasty. this is very true, cuz the more burnt the edges became, the tastier it was! i did enjoy it but... i don't think i'd ever order it on my own. not without someone who knows how to make it with me. we also got an order of okonomiyaki with mochi in it.
i explained to kumi that in america i don't actually eat beef or pork but in japan i can eat it cuz the pieces are so small and thin. she told me about how, when she first went to america (she did study-abroad when she was in college as well) she was served a huuuuge steak as one of her first meals. she thought it would be rude *not* to finish it so she forced herself to eat it all, but it made her really sick the next day. she had to become a vegetarian for the first few weeks she was in america.
after we ate i reeeeally wanted to do purikura, but i was actually running late for my live (not that i let kumi know this) and we couldn't find purikura aaaanywhere. everything was just pachinko-ya! i KNOW there's a normal game center with purikura around there sooomewhere, i just used it a week or two ago! but we couldn't find it so we finally had to give up (kumi said she'd do purikura with me in ikebukuro before/after kazumi's live ^_^). kumi was going back to shinjuku so we rode the yamanote together and kumi gave me the history of all the different stops. we also talked about lives and i said how i'd been having trouble talking to ppl cuz i was shy with my japanese. she was like "why be shy? didn't you have a bunch of ppl compliment you today and say how good you sounded??" she also said that it's just easier if you talk to ppl cuz it prevents confusion or animosity, and told me the story of a blood live where some random foreigners showed up and tried to take front row. everyone else was too scared to tell them they couldn't stand there (cuz saizen was already decided for the band) so finally kumi went over and straightened things out. the foreigners, apparently, weren't planning on staying there and were just standing and talking. they kindly moved after kumi explained the situation.
i really need to take that kind of thing to heart. i know that if i just talked to ppl at lives where i'm alone it would be better all around, even if i didn't necessarily make new friends or anything. at least the japanese fans would know i spoke japanese and that i know what i'm about, right? i still have trouble with that, tho >_<
so i got off at ikebukuro and thanked kumi profusely for taking me around all day. a little worried cuz i was late for doors (which didn't end up mattering) and cuz i didn't entirely remember how to get to cyber, i rushed through the station.
and now what you were *really* waiting for! kazuki's live! damn, i write a lot in these things... don't blame you if you just skipped to here...
friday evening- live at cyber
i managed not to get lost on my way to cyber! i was all proud. as soon as i figured out the right exit i was fine again (tho i've taken to muttering to myself in japanese when i'm trying to find places...). i grabbed a drink at the 7-11 nearby cuz i needed to break a man-en before i paid for my ticket. i got to the live house only 10 minutes late for doors and went inside. turned out, it didn't matter than i was late at all, cuz there were only three of us there then! and cyber is a suuuuper tiny live house... luckily, akiho was standing in the back and saw me come in so i got to great her and give her omiyage. she told me that shouko-san was coming too and i was glad i wouldn't be all alone all evening.
little background so ppl know who's who: reveille is one of the bands we followed two years ago. basically, we were the ONLY fans of this band. eventually, the japanese fans started demurring to *us* when the band came on stage. they stayed and did demachi with us one time even after being in a car accdient. that's how close we were with this band. reveille consisted of three ppl-- naoki (aka ojiisan- singer), shun (aka pinky-shun, 1st guitarist and lover of all things hide), and kazuki (2nd guitarist, the youngest member). akiho (aka oneesan) was their staff-girl and took it upon herself to keep naoki in line; she always made sure the boys did demachi with us and was generally protective of us as fans. shouko (aka drunk girl) was another fan of reveille from long ago (when they were *actually* VK) and was always really nice and talkative with us but we could never understand a word she said! hence the nickname "drunk girl" cuz we kinda thought she was always drunk, which was why she didn't make sense.
when we left, shun left the band as well (it turned out that his last live with the band was also our last live there), then i think reveille basically disbanded. naoki immediately went on to do 'ef', which is reveille with just him and some guitarist (and i'm gonna go see that later in the month), shun took some time off from bands, and kazuki disappeared off the face of the earth.
when i got here and emailed akiho she told me that kazuki was doing a session band at cyber and invited me to come! of course, i had to go see him. kazuki was always nice to us and was basically the reason we came back to see reveille again in the first place. he was like our little brother, so i was super happy to see him in a band again.
ok, enough of background! onto the present.
SO! it was a lone gaijin and three japanese girls in the live house when the first band came on stage. i took a spot in the back (which isn't actualy *that* far from the stage) and stood there and the two japanese girls went closer to the stage to see what this band was like. the first member who came out was in a freakish wig and a yukata thing, which scared the japanese girls who kinda went running away. i felt pretty bad for this band cuz NO ONE was there to see them. they weren't bad or anything! just new prolly. the japanese girls finally sat smack in the middle of the floor and i was left being horribly conspicuous standing in the back. the singer just stared STRAIGHT AT ME most of the live. he also kept yelling 後ろ、かかってこい！ i looked to my left... looked to my right... and realized that i *was* the 後ろ. but i couldn't go *stand* in the front cuz no one else was. so i finally came and sat on the floor a few feet from the japanese girls and did a little head-bob greeting. the singer then continued to stare straight at me (whenever he wasn't head banging, of course). when they were done the freakish guitarist jumped off stage to hand out free cds. he tooootally bipassed me at first until i stood up kinda stopped him for one.
i shoulda talked to the two other japanese girls. it woulda be simple, どのバンド見に来たか？ aaah, but i didn't. i'm sure they would have been nice to me, mayhaps i could have even stood in the front for their band. but i didn't, instead i squatted by my bags and busied myself with chirashi.
a few more ppl were trickling in. some other bands played. the other one of most interest was called 'myu' and their costumes were total kagrra-meets-decora. the singer even had a sensu that he danced with. at that point, everyone else that was there took up the whole front row, so i kinda stood in no-man's land in front of the stage and off to the side.
i am proud to say that i actually tried to talk to this band! it turned out, the table i was squatting under was right next to the table they claimed for their enquette box and all. when the guitarist first came out i realized... she's a girl! did i mention that this was the night of random female band members? for the first time, i really couldn't believe it was a girl. i mean, with jun, i didn't realize she was female on stage, but as soon as i heard her talk it was like "oooh, you're a girl!" and with the members of danger gang i figured it out on stage but with this chick... even after hearing her talk a whole lot i couldn't believe it. really, i kept looking her up and down when she wasn't look and she was... flat o_O her face didn't scream 'girl' either. then the bassist came out too so i finally stood up and turned to them, saying お疲れ様でした and the girl-guitarist was all excited. she told me that i should have come closer to the stage (i didn't realize she'd actually noticed me) and that, next time, i should definitely come up front. the bassist was about to talk to me too when the lights went down and the next band came on stage. argh, i totally coulda talked to them more, too, but never got another chance with them alone.
some other bands played. one of them threw candies into the audience at the start and the damned bassist threw *3* at me. it was like "ok, i caught one, i don't want anymore now! quite it!" but had to pick them all up (that mighta been aka-maru-boys). another band (sister floyd) were totally anti-feminism wanna-be's (the singer is apparently obsessed with kenzi, which was very noticeable) and the singer began by using a megaphone and yelling at the audience. he also jumped into the audience and ran around a bit at one point.
slowly, slowly, more ppl trickled in. akiho had told me that kazuki's band wasn't coming on until 18:55 (almost 7, and the live started at 5 >_<). then suddenly, when i was trying to look busy with chirashi between bands, i hear someone say エイプリルさんですか？ and i look up and there's shouko! i was like "yes, someone to talk to!!!" she put her bag with my stuff and i gave her omiyage too (thank god i took extra with me). we stood together the rest of the time and she babbled at me a whole lot. i *can* understand a lot more of what she says now, which helped the conversation quite a bit. i could even interject into it a bit! akiho would come out in between bands and talk to us too, but it was hard to hear them sometimes with the bands warming up on stage.
then, fiiiinally, it was time for kazuki's band! they're called しえりる and are only together for two lives. it's basically a bunch of ppl from other bands, plus kazuki. shouko and i were decently close to the stage until these two japanese girls came and just STOOD in front of us >_< they didn't move a lot during the live either, so we got stuck in this stupid third-row area, which sucked. but then kazuki came out and spotted me さくing at him and pointed right at me with a great big "there's my gaijin!" grin on his face. he was wearing a black yukata with a red obi with a hood that had cat ears on it. his hair is bleached within an inch of its life and his bangs are slightly pink; he had it back in two pigtails. of course, he was wearing his glasses on a string (does he really need those??). omg, he was just the cutest (and everyone in the audience agreed). he got sooo much crowd love, and gave it just as easily. his guitar is still the same from reveille-days (the purple one that changes colors with the lights on stage). i swear he must have told his bandmates that his gaijin-friend was coming cuz i got stared at by the singer too. sadly... the singer wasn't very good >_< the only good part of the band was kazuki, actually. i think the audience may have agreed. kazuki's confidence on stage has certainly grown. i'm sure the crowd-love helped A LOT. at one point, he threw his pick right at me but it veered off to the side and someone else picked it up. i did my best as part of the crowd even tho i was stuck behind non-moving fans and i'm sure he saw.
when their set ended, the girl who had gotten kazuki's pick stopped me and gave it to me! i was really surprised at that. a japanese fangirl gave *me* a pick?? but now i have a kazuki-pick. it's a pink hello kitty one (different from before, i think).
i don't remember if his band came out right away or not. there might have been another band in between. in any case, i wrote out my enquette for them really quickly (but realized later that it had no space for name/email so it didn't really matter now did it?) and got out the omiyage i brought for him too. when he first came out from backstage, he was immediately MOBBED by japanese fangirls. they were, like, all over him. it got to be a bit much, really. i'm sure at least half of them were ファックちゃん too, which really rubbed me the wrong way. anyway, i finally managed to catch his eye, which he took as an excuse to push through the crowd of his fans to come over to me. he was immediately like "we have picture sets! buy one?" at first, i was a little annoyed that he just wanted to sell me photos, but later i realized, they only had about 5 sets of these pictures (they were polaroids), so actually, kazumi had made a point of coming to me as one of the first ppl to get a chance at buying them. he totally remembered my obsession with band pictures from before. so i bought a set, then gave him the enquette and handed him his omiyage. he was like "omg, omiyage! for me???"
he tried to shake my hand, but offered me his right hand, and i was still holding something in my right, so i had to awkwardly offer him my left. we did a weird kinda hand shake/bow at first but then, suddenly, he changed his mind. this is when he got down on one knee and kissed my hand. i just kept bowing to him and was like "omg, what are you doing?? get up off your knees before i'm murdered!" the group of fangirls (and his bandmates too) turned and STARED with mouths wide open. i could tell they hated me then and there... they later banded together to keep kazuki away from me; if it wasn't for akiho i prolly wouldn't have gotten to talk to him again actually.
he got dragged away again after that and another band came out. the rest of the bands were halfway decent but not so great as to describe individually. there was another session band with a female singer (who i think is the singer of the other band akiho is staffing for), but she was a pretty poor singer. they did a cover of a really old DEG song, and even tho it sucked, it just sucked enough that i could laugh instead of scream in pain. there was also a random female drummer in another band (yeah, night of random female members!!).
the only person worth mentioning was the 'guest', who's name was called 'あこぎのおっちゃん'. he was... special. it was just a single guy with a fuzzy orange cowboy hat, sunglasses, pink feather boa, and over-the-top suit. he entered the stage while some really loud j-pop song was playing (something about seniorita's...) and swaggered around. whenever he would blow his whistle the music would pause and he'd yell something random (sometimes slightly obscene) at the audience. we were all just laughing our asses off. shouko was interested so we were closer to the stage too. then finally he sat down on a chair and took up his acoustic guitar. after saying a bunch of times "i'm playing three weird songs then going home. three songs, then home." they were actually kinda fun and generally consisted of him babbling about what he'd done or eaten lately, interspersed with singing この様な終わり(hence the title of this entry), and sometimes we had to sing along or clap or whatever. he was enjoyable in his strangeness.
shouko fell in love with him! between all the remaining bands she kept going "i wanna talk to occhan... i wonder if he's gonna come out... is he gonna come out?..." it was so random. he did end up coming out in the end, btw, and shouko bought *all* of his cds. i prolly shoulda gotten one for 懐かしい purposes but didn't.
oh yeah, there was one other awkward meeting with kazuki in the bathroom >_< the bathroom in cyber is a room off to the side with three stalls, one for ladies, one for gentlemen and one that's useable by all. so everyone goes into the same room. *just* when i tell shouko i'm going to the toilet, kazuki comes running out from backstage and goes in ahead of me. i'd seen a couple other ppl go in so i'd assumed there was a line. i really, really didn't want to end up having to talk to kazuki in the bathroom. it was just too much. i turned around to wait, but shouko insisted that there was more than one stall so i could go. all the stalls were being used but there was no one waiting, so i lucked out. of course, the first person to finish was kazuki. when he first came out, i was standing RIGHT THERE (it's not that big of a space) and he saw me, freaked, and went right back into the stall. i was like "er, you can come out you know." i think for a second he expected me to talk to him (or he thought i was waiting for him?), but instead i just went into the stall. seriously, i really had to pee! of course, he was gone by the time i came back out. so that was the great awkward bathroom adventure.
the live ended and most ppl left, so i figured if i waited around i might actually get to have a few words with kazuki (dammit, i was gonna talk to that boy!). akiho came out and talked to us, then went running all over the place looking for kazuki for me. she's still really posessive of us as fans, cuz when i had a dvd for another band in my hand (it was a free one) she was giving it death glares! then, of course, she was set on making sure kazuki came and properly talked to me. shouko was saying that if he had gone walking around in his costume he'd prolly gotten picked up by some pervert cuz he was so cute. fiiiinally, kazuki came out and was his normal, bouncy self. he wanted to know if i liked his new hair and i got to pull on his pigtails (hey, he started it) and i got to tell him how glad i was that he was in a band again and that lica and farron were super jealous i was seeing him again. of course, right when we actually got to talking some cyber staff came out and started yelling for everyone to please leave >_< so shouko and i had to go outside and akiho promised they'd be out soon.
we waited in the "park" area nearby, then finally the whole band came out (in their street clothes), went to the conbini quickly, but then were way layed by a group of japanese fangirls (really, ファックちゃん, drunken ファックちゃん no less). akiho came over and sat with shouko and i. the three of us talked about a lot of various things. or rather, they talked and i nodded and laughed when appropriate. i could follow the convo and knew what they were saying, but didn't really have anything to add most of the time (they were talking about cooking and not being able to wake up cuz of their b/f's and such). this is when i found out that akiho is now living with her boyfriend in saitama (who doesn't come home till 7 am... is he a host or something??) and that shouko is most definitely a college student. i had already found out that akiho no longer likes jigoro!!! she has no respect for kohei/whatever his new name is. and she's fed up with v-kei in general, actually, and generally just does staff work for friends nowadays.
i got to watch kazuki and his bandmates make general fools of themselves at the drunken ファックちゃん's request. they did random acrobatics that were apparently things you do as an elementray school student in japan. the drummer carried kazuki around on his shoulders and they did a weird pyramid thing. i found it all pretty funny, akiho was rolling her eyes like mad. it was pretty great.
akiho did get kazuki to come over at one point early on. for a little while, it was just like old times, like a reveille 出町 before naoki would come out. kazuki is still a total freak, by the by. at one point, suddenly, he stuck his face right in front of mine and was staaaaring at me over his sunglasses (yes, sunglasses at night, it's a jrocker thing). i was like "ah, er, whatwhatwhat? what're you looking at??" i actually thought i had something on my face. then he said "your eyes are pretty." me: "er... thank you... (freak!)" kazuki: "yeah, they're even lighter colored than the contacts i was wearing today! i want them! let me use them as contact lenses. ::mimics taking my eyes and putting them in his own::" me: "ah, no, this would be my NATURAL eye color, you cannot have them! (and thanks for making a sweet statement CREEPY!)" i think akiho saw kazuki's freakishness and my utter embarassment and at that point took his attention off me (little brothers making comments like that is だめ!). we talked a little more, and akiho and shouko made fun of him for showing off his biceps before (he does have some more muscle on him from carrying his guitar and all, but he's still pretty scrawny so actually, they're not *that* impressive). he tried to flex and all i could do was snicker cuz you could see all the veins stick out on his forearm cuz of it.
now, this is why i'm SURE the japanese fangirls had made plans to keep kazuki away from *me*. right when we were starting to actually get to talk again, two girls came over and told kazuki that they had to leave soon, so he went off to talk to them a little. then, they NEVER LEFT. akiho and shouko kept mentioning it too. "do they know what time it is? didn't they say they had to leave? wtf?" all evening the two of them kept complaining about the ファックちゃん (not that they used that word) and how they have no respect for "girls like that". they would sometimes go to the side and have a whispered conference so i couldn't hear, but i knew they weren't trying to leave me out, actually, i'm pretty sure they were muttering about how kazuki was kinda ignoring his gaijin fan and really needed to get it together. both akiho and shouko pulled him aside at different points to have a little chat with him about his behavior too. i actually kinda enjoyed the whole thing... they were actually being really sweet to me, making sure i didn't feel left out of their conversation even tho i wasn't really talking much. it was really just nice to sit there surrounded by friends at 出町 again, even if it was kinda fruitless.
finally, it was getting really late, and akiho and was all like "omg, your last train! it's earlier cuz you're on the subway!" they both pulled out their keitai and checked on a site for me what time my last train was. akiho said it was at 11:59 (it was already 11:40-ish by this point) so i had to rush off. i only really got to wave good-bye at kazuki, cuz he was surrounded by a bunch of japanese fangirls and i didn't feel like getting in the middle of that. oh well, it's his fault if he wanted to say a proper good bye, cuz i was waiting there the whole time.
i was really worried i'd miss my last train, but quickly realized that 11:59 was the last marunouchi train from *ikebukuro*. i get on the marnouchi at shinjuku. i had already learned that it's pointless to get on the marunouchi at ikebukuro if you wanna go to my stop, cuz it goes aaaaall the way around to tokyo before coming back to shinjuku. my last marunouchi train from shinjuku is at 1:21. so i was in plenty of time.
so i got back to my station, legs and feet killing me, grabbed a cheap onigiri and some tea for dinner, and strolled back home. i was actually in a really great mood and ended up dancing down the allyway to my appartment when 'girl anachronism' came on my mp3 player. no one else was there, so it was ok (altho, i may have been head banging in the street earlier ::snickers::). i was just in a really good mood ^_^
thus ended my very busy day.
there will be actually writing under those cuts in a bit, but i think i'm gonna save this thing first, mayhaps go out for a bit. or fold my laundry. ok, the day with kumi is all done, and the kazuki live is half done. will finish, i promise! crap, it's DONE now. that thing is waaay too long...