Now it is finally time to tell the story of all stories, kids. Make yourself comfortable and get ready for the story full of adventures. And brace yourself, because it will not be only very long, but also quite brain-damaging *cackles and rubs her hands gleefully*
Originally D’espairsRay planned a FC trip to commemorate a release of Yokohama BLITZ DVD in the end of March, but Tohoku earthquake two weeks prior made it impossible. Moreover, we were supposed to go to Fukushima, talk about bad luck, right? Of course, the trip was canceled. I guess despite the break-up (or maybe exactly because of it) D’espa wanted to make up for the canceled trip, since so many fans looked forward to it. This time people, who were not in the FC, could participate too, they just had to pay about 5000 yen more, which makes up for a FC membership fee.
I decided to go to Tokyo on Monday, a day before the trip, and stay at a hotel near Tokyo station from where we were supposed to depart. I wanted to be well rested for the trip and not having to wake up at 5a.m. to make it in time from Nagoya. Also because the weather was so hot, I wanted to minimize my movements during the trip as much as possible. I wasn’t going to run around D’espa all sweaty. No way.
I arrived to Tokyo on Monday afternoon, checked-in at a hotel and went to Ikebukuro to meet
millenniere. We went to Closet Child first, where I sold off a bunch of vk-related pamphlets and clothes I no longer cared to have and got my 30 pieces of silver. Quite literally by the way. Among other things I got rid of old Gazette FC magazines and they went for 30 yen each. That’s what how much they are worth lol But overall I covered a one-way trip to Tokyo, so all that stuff was at least of some use in the end. After that we went to Kouenji to see D’espairsRay exhibition at Buddy Soundworks.
The exhibition didn’t take us long, there were no band members around to squeal over though we did run into D’espa’s manager Sato-san on the exit from the store. I guess it is correct to say the “former” manager now, as D’espairsRay disbanded and the girls said the other day that he joined Angelo staff. But I digress.
We went to Shibuya and spent several hours at an izakaya drinking and filling out M.’s questionnaire for the FC trip. She sent me her questions to be translated, but I wanted to run them by her first. I was also quite creative with Hizumi’s question (I don’t know why, but the man just brings the worst out of me, it must be love) and we laughed so much filling out the questionnaire. Too bad he didn’t read our questions on a bus, he read very few questions as a matter of fact. All our hard work was for naught (`ε´)
On Tuesday I woke up about half an hour before the time I set my alarm for, but apparently way after D’espa were up. I suppose they needed a lot of time to get all pretty for us ;3 The meeting place wasn’t very far from my hotel, but I decided to take a taxi instead of walking there. Honestly, it was too hot to even stand outside waiting let alone walk around with a suitcase. We got our passes from a travel agent with all our seats and a room assigned and got on the bus number 2. There were total of six buses, one more than every time I went before, and also judging by the number of seats in a dining hall around 240-250 fans participated in the event.
My pass for the trip:
Our bus number 2:
The way to the hotel was split in three intervals of about one hour each (same on the way back) and we had no one from the band riding with us at first. We made the first stop at Umihotaru and had about half an hour to look around. The sea was beautiful, but the wind was a little too strong for my liking. The second stop was at a parking lot on a highway, but it was very brief just to let the band members switch the buses.
Hizumi got on our bus at Umihotaru and, of course, he wore a hat. I don’t think I can imagine him in his casual clothes without a hat these days. But I was dying of curiosity and hoped he’d take the hat off at least at some point so I could see his haircut. His hair looked awfully short and was even shaved above the temples.
Hizumi read very few questions, most of the time he chatted with his “handler” (or whatever that guy was). All band members had a member of the travel agency staff with them all the time, just like we had a staff member assigned to each bus to take care of the fans. Overall I had an impression that Hizumi tried to avoid reading questions, and even the ones he read were rather bleak and safe, chosen after he leafed through the questionnaires. Considering the situation it was understandable, but nonetheless he seemed to be in a cheerful mood.
One thing I just cannot not to mention happened pretty much in the beginning of our ride with him. Hizumi was sitting on the front seat so all we could see from behind most of the time was a top of his hat. However, right above a bus driver there was a piece of plastic that sort of reflected what was beneath it including partly Hizumi. I’m pretty sure he didn’t realize people behind could actually see him, because at one time he stuck the right arm under his T-shirt to scratch his chest, which in itself can be hardly considered good manners. To make things worse his T-shirt rode up to his chest exposing the tummy. Nice bellybutton, but man, where were your manners? *laughs hysterically* OK, fine! Moving on with the story! Bellybuttons are distracting, I’m sure you all understand ;P
Hizumi talked a lot about random stuff related to sightseeing and travelling, he chatted with his travel agency staff, and it was more of a dialog between them than just Hizumi talking to us. He talked about Katsura hotel we were going to stay at and a golden bath it’s famous for. Then he asked who came from where and if there was someone on the bus who could say with surety: “I came from the furthest away”. I think M. didn’t want to draw attention to her, but I just grabbed to her hand and raised it >;P Hizumi laughed at us and said: “Of course, you came from overseas! Internet is awesome! Where are you from?” And when I answered instead of M.: “Australia,” he tried to remember what he knew about it and its famous places. For example, Stonehenge… *headdesk* Ayers Rock, Hizumi! It’s Ayers Rock!
He talked a lot about travelling, Hawaii and especially Yamagata, what places are good for sightseeing etc. But it didn’t seem to me that he actually went to many of those places himself, if any at all. Regarding Yamagata he also mentioned how it is often featured on TV in a show about weird stuff people do. He complained that because of that TV program everyone thinks all people in Yamagata are weird. He should just take another look at Tsukasa and himself, face the truth and stop complaining >;D
Questions he read included, for example, what he adds to curry. Another question, but at least a lot more interesting, was what D’espa lyrics he had troubles memorizing. He said that In vain and Forbidden were difficult and Karyu’s lyrics were in general difficult to remember. When asked if he ever made mistakes in lyrics during lives, he said he never made mistakes in his lyrics, he just re-arranged them. Of course, when it came to Karyu’s lyrics he made mistakes, but his own - always new arrangements! xD
Karyu got on our bus next and he seemed to be really down, his smiles were quite obviously forced. He only read questions without talking much, but considering that the only time he actually strayed away from what he was asked about in questions was when he talked about Isshi… Seriously that was the worst part. I already wrote about it in relation to their autograph session at Buddy Soundworks the other day, but I’ll mention it here again, for consistency.
When answering a question, he suddenly said that he kept loosing friends lately, Daisuke and Isshi. He and Isshi were friends for a long time and since they were born on the same day maybe in a way their lives and bands had a lot in common, similar ups and downs. But Isshi’s death made him realize that he didn’t have courage to die after all. I can only interpret it as a confession that he had been so depressed he thought about death and he must have thought a lot about it if he let something that bad slip in front of fans. Karyu gradually started to laugh and have fun in earnest as the evening progressed and we played all those silly games, but in the very beginning and at the end on the second day he was really down.
Among things he was asked about was a question about what he was into lately and he said he liked watching Burn Notice and he also ate curry all the time for breakfast. He was asked about his weight and he said that now it was back to normal, but because he’d been eating curry all the time he gained like 10 kg and he just recently managed to loose them. He wanted to loose weight for Love Parade live, but couldn’t. I can’t say that I thought he gained weight, when I saw him during Love parade lives though.
Karyu was asked if he saw the latest Ghibli movie “Arrietty” and he said he did, but totally didn’t get the message. There was a question about what had made him happy lately and Karyu said seeing all the band members together again at Zero’s birthday party. He was also asked about other band members’ secrets and he said it was something he should not talk about, but he mentioned their quirks. For example, he said Tsukasa gets angry easily.
Of course, everyone had been worried about him completely disappearing lately. Karyu was asked four times about what he had been up to lately and a couple questions even said something along the lines of: “you have completely disappeared” straight away. When he read the same question for the forth time, he laughed and apologized for making everyone worry. Not sure if he’ll change his offline ways, he did say he had no intention of getting a twitter account, but at least I hope we got through to him and he realized that a lot of fans were worried about him. As for what he had been up to lately Karyu just said that he’d been eating curry and writing music.
We arrived to the hotel and, after the band members got off the buses and left for their rooms, we were allowed to get off too and led to a lobby, where we were instructed about a schedule. There were too many people, a tour guide’s voice was too low and I could hardly hear anything. Why couldn’t they say that while we were on the bus? Anyway, we got the gist of what was going to happen next and ran for our rooms to change. It was time for pictures! The three of us, aside from M. a friend of mine A. stayed with us, shared a room with two other girls, but we managed not to get in each other’s way too much when getting ready. One of them, Etsuko, wore yukata for the evening, just like quite a few other girls. Changing clothes was fast for me, but I had to re-apply my make-up and by the time we got to the front entrance people in the first group were already taking their places in front of a camera for a group photo. We were in the second group, so we were OK in the end. The best part, however, was that we got lucky, when taking our seats for the photo, and we ended up sitting right next to the band. M. was next to Zero and I was next to her. Only the two of them were between me and Hizumi! *crazy gleam in the eyes* We received photos on our way back the next day and they weren’t particularly good, colors were rather weird.
After the group photos we moved to a hall that was going to be used for taking individual shots and for the second party. It was separated in two parts, one was in front of the stage where members appeared to greet us, and the other one was for taking pictures. First, we took pictures with all four band members and then with each of them in turn. It was so fast, like a conveyer, we just walked from one band member to another and barely had enough time to sit before the shutter was pressed. No time for preparations and I totally blame that for all weird faces I made! I was quite nervous too ♥
My photoshopping skills are so amazing I did that in Paint ;P
Gah! Zero crept up on me while I wasn’t looking!
We had almost an hour to kill before the start of the banquet, while others finished taking their pictures, so we just chilled in our room for a while. Dinner was a Japanese style, which meant we had to sit on tatami floors and only half of what was on our tables was edible as far as I was concerned. On a bright side we had D’espairsRay fans placed on our seats.
After everyone was seated the band appeared on the stage to say a few words of greetings and Tsukasa toasted. And then the band members walked around the room toasting and clicking glass with all fans! ≧(´▽`)≦ Tsukasa was clowning as usual, he kept stopping and drinking from his cup and then continuing with the toasting. Some girls poured him more beer from their own bottles ;D
Afterwards the guys left to eat their dinner in peace and, when they came back an hour later, games started. We were seated in eight rows and they split us in four teams, two rows per each. D’espa pulled pieces of paper with row numbers out of a box to decide who gets which team and we ended up to be Hizumi’s team. *sigh* I’ll tell you right away, if you want to win - join Zero’s team, he always wins. Actually I think Hizumi did win once in the past, but other than that it was always Zero.
The first game was a “synchro game”, all band members were asked two questions, total of eight and we had to guess their answers and write them down. If we guessed right, we got points for the team, more points in case of guessing your team’s band member’s answer right. The first question Hizumi got was: “If one day you woke up a girl, what would be the first thing you touched?” What kind of a question is that?! I wrote “breasts” on M. answer sheet and “vagina” on mine, I figured it had to be one of those two and I was right. He drew girl’s legs and hips (in underwear) and an arrow pointing between the legs. I wasn’t that off even if I wrote a rather vulgar word, excuse my Japanese I couldn’t think of a polite way to phrase the answer and the questions were asked pretty fast! *totally looking for an excuse here* Other questions included: a favorite place (live or event or anything) for Hizumi - he answered Yamagata, because his family came to their live there; and what other band member he’d like to try to be for Zero - he said Tsukasa, because Tsukasa’s “Tsukasa katta!” salute, when he throws his left hand sideways, looked like fun.
Next was a gesture game and it was hysterical! Karyu promised us on the bus that the guys were going to do something embarrassing that evening, but, oh dear, I didn’t think they’d go that far! They moved to a stage on the other end of the hall (there was a stage on each side) much closer to where we were seated. A host had a bunch of cards with the words he showed the guys and they had to gesture words for their team to guess. The teams were seated right in front of the stage for their turn, so I had a chance to watch Hizumi make a complete fool out of himself just two meters away from me ~bliss~ We also had a time limit, so the faster fans in a team were at guessing, the faster they proceeded and earned more points. My favorites were Karyu gesturing a molester (he was way too good at it), Tsukasa - a model (so traumatizing!) and a typhoon, Hizumi - thinking (he imitated Rodin’s “The Thinker”). D’espa themselves laughed so hard at each other that at one point Karyu was on his knees on the floor grasping his belly and Hizumi wiped tears from his eyes. I think it was a miracle I didn’t die of a brain hemorrhage right there and then.
By the way our team was winning after the gesture game! And that means Hizumi was good at imitating things and we were good at guessing lol But stupid him lost the last game - janken!
D’espa had to play janken with one of other teams. We had to play with Tsukasa, for example. The host counted “jan-ken-pon” and the band members went from one fan to another and played janken with each of them and they could not move to the next one until they won. Of course, the fastest to finish won. Tsukasa was such a show off! I don’t think he really cared about winning, he just wanted to have fun and make everyone enjoy the game. He kept making strange moves like throwing a fireball or something and sometimes because of his constant show-off he missed beats. He could have finished much faster! Instead he was the last to finish and Zero won. We came second thanks to Hizumi getting completely stuck on one girl. He played with her like 20 times and he just couldn’t win, even though until then he was moving at a relatively fast speed and was actually in the lead for a while. Zero later said on the bus that he remembered a janken strategy how, for example, people often tend to throw “rock”, when they suddenly have to play the game and such. Zero’s team that won got signed D’espa postcards. Stupid Hizumi! >oAfter the banquet was over we moved back to the same hall we had our photos taken for the second party. The guys came dressed in yukata! *fangirl moment* I’m sure everyone already saw a photo I posted the other day, but one can never have too much yukata-clad D’espa!
We were seated pretty far and unfortunately lately I can’t see removed objects as well as I used to, old age must be catching up to me though I don’t think I need glasses yet. Anyway I’m pretty sure Hizumi had make-up applied and Karyu had a fork and a knife holding his hair up instead of hair pins ;D They started with the results of a questionnaire, which we filled out and handed to the staffs in the very beginning, when we got on the buses.
The first question was who was the strongest in the band and Tsukasa got the most votes. The other band members were very doubtful of the result and argued that he was actually the weakest out of all four of them. To prove his strength the guys made him do one arm push-ups and Tsukasa couldn’t do it even once and just fell flat on his face. After that Hizumi did it and he could push himself up twice. He made Karyu go next and the guitarist’s result was the same as Tsukasa, he just fell down right away. They told Zero to try it too, but he laughed and said he was going to end up the same way as Karyu and Tsukasa. He still went along with it and tried to do one arm push-ups, but just like he warned everyone he did fall without being able to push himself up even once lol
The second question was who had the best sixth sense and Zero won the vote. They covered his eyes so that he couldn’t see anything and then Karyu took a plastic katana and attacked him and Zero had to catch the “blade” with his “bare hands”. All that accompanied by a dramatic narrative from Tsukasa about a fight to death on this fateful day blah-blah-blah. Karyu approached Zero and backed off, then repeated it again a few times before smacking the bassist on the head without Zero making even a slightest move to stop him. I suppose his sixth sense is not as good as fans seemed to believe after all.
The third question was about who makes the best sound. I had no idea what it was supposed to mean, I thought they were talking about playing instruments. How naïve of me… It was D’espa we were dealing with after all! Tsukasa got the most votes and to prove it they beat him up with slippers so everyone could listen to exactly what kind of sounds he made *headdesk* First it was just Hizumi and Zero, but then Karyu hit Tsukasa too and he did it really hard. The guys said how it was very D’espairsRay-like, no half-assed job. Poor Tsukasa, he kept trying to look cool even while being beaten with slippers, which only made the whole thing even more hilarious lol
The last question was about who has the best balance and Zero got the most votes. They made him turn around himself 20 times and then walk to the other end of the hall. Poor Zero fell the moment he stopped, then got up only to walk backward instead of forward, but after that he composed himself and walked in a relatively straight line towards the opposite wall.
Remember what I said about me not dying from a brain hemorrhage being a miracle? I was subjected to terrible perils and unimaginable ordeals all the time! Katana, slippers… I don’t know how I managed to handle it all, my sensitive psyche must be scarred forever now ~_~
The last part of the evening was a bingo game and the guys gave away a lot of their stage clothes from PVs and tours. Unfortunately I didn’t win anything this time, didn’t even come close. Following Karyu’s earlier success at imitating a molester, D’espa decided that fans had to say “Please stop!” when they had only one number missing in a line on a bingo card and then shout “Molester!”, when they won. When giving prizes, the guys said something along the lines of: “Please take this and forgive me for molesting you!” They laughed so hard, when a male fan first said “Please stop!” and then won and called them “molesters”. He won a prize from Zero and the others made fun of him: “So that’s how it is, huh, Zero?” lol
After all prizes were given and games played they talked a little and I think it was another proof of how bad D’espa are at wrapping things up. They just went on and on talking! But it was OK, we didn’t mind ♥ Despite his glorious defeat Tsukasa still claimed that he was good at janken so the others challenged him to a fight. Of course, he lost, so Tsukasa went up front and sang and danced wriggling his ass. How were we supposed to sleep after that?! Anyway it was an appropriate ending for the evening, even if I might never recover from a trauma.
After all events of the first day were over, the five of us went to a convenience store a couple of blocks away from the hotel, bought alcohol and fireworks (N. brought some, but we decided we needed more) and went to the beach. It was a good way to end the night, but I wish we stayed there another hour, we would have a chance to run into the band *sigh* Well, one can’t have everything after all.
I woke up before 6a.m. next morning to go to onsen before breakfast, but in the end water was too hot for me to stay there long. It was good though, the bath was on one of the top floors of the hotel with a view of the sea. I also had a chance to look at the famous golden bath, but I couldn’t use it, since it was too early. Not that I actually had any intentions of getting into it to begin with, the weird thing was weird.
Breakfast was a Japanese style meal again, and afterwards we lined up to buy cheki. The line was so long! We could buy only eight photos at a time, but I decided it was more than enough, plus I got really lucky this time too. But some people lined up like four times.
We went to the same hall we had pictures taken the day before for the last meet-and-greet. The band appeared on the stage and greeted everyone. They said that the previous day after the party they went to onsen together and then to the beach. Hizumi joked how, when they were making a racket in the onsen about all the fans sneaking in to peek at them, the other guests of the hotel, who had no idea what was going on, looked weird at them. Of course! Why was he surprised about it? lol They also mentioned that Tsukasa went swimming with his clothes on the previous night, but because he brought no spare pants with him he had to borrow Karyu’s jeans. They definitely sat weird on him, too wide around the hips, but it was not too bad ;) Karyu said that the trip was the best thing that happened to him this year and Zero apologized to the bus number 3 for having his eyes closed on the group photo. He said: “It was because the wind was too strong, I wasn’t sleeping!”
After that they moved to the back of the hall behind the screens for a tête-à-tête with the fans. It was so fast this time! I barely had time to give them my presents and letters and say a simple “thank you” before the staff would push me slightly on a shoulder urging me to move on to the next band member. Hizumi was the last and in all the rush I managed to remember to ask him for a hug. He nodded and hugged me back tightly. I had to hold back tears, because I didn’t want to cry and make it any harder for him and the rest of the band, I just hugged him and told him to take care of himself. I am really glad I had a chance to do that.
We had to wait another hour for the meet-and-greet to be over before getting on the buses to go back to Tokyo. Zero got on our bus first and he seemed sleepy and fell silent for no reason at times. I seriously hope he wasn’t falling asleep on us, but then he is hardly a good talker, maybe he was just looking through questionnaires or something. He told us how the band together with their hairdresser Obuchi-san went walking around the town looking for alcohol the previous night, but all they could find was a convenience store nearby. After that they went to the beach and Karyu and Tsukasa went swimming. He said Karyu looked scary, because he wore his white yukata and most of the time he stood on a rock in the water, so he looked like some sort of a ghost. After the beach they went back to their room and Karyu and Zero, who shared a room, kept drinking together.
Zero said that because they wore yukata the previous night he felt like he was cosplaying and he liked it. He said he would like to cosplay again one day, maybe a goth loli or a soccer player. Zero talked about performances for TV he did with Gackt and how he spun around himself in one of them. It made him dizzy and later, when he watched himself on TV, he noticed that he looked unsteady on his feet lol
The last to get on our bus was Tsukasa. He read questions and chatted a lot and he seemed to be in a good mood in general, but personally I think he and Zero are a lot more difficult to read, when it comes to their emotions. Tsukasa talked about his bird Buntarou, that he grew up a lot and how he’d jump and grab on a cage and let Tsukasa to pet him. But the drummer said that even though he loves Buntarou he ran out of the house without him during the earthquake. He regretted leaving Buntarou behind and said that next time he was definitely going to escape together with his bird.
He was asked about some recent Ghibli movie, but he said that he did not like them all that much lately, like Ponyo and the movies after it. He said they were more for little kids and he wished they made movies with more action.
Tsukasa told us a story about the TV recording with Gackt. He said Gackt came to the support musicians’ dressing room and asked Tsukasa to go for a smoke with him even though Gackt does not smoke. They stood outside talking and Tsukasa mentioned that he watched Gackt singing Shimauta (a song is sorta an unofficial hymn of Okinawa, Gackt’s place of birth) on TV before and he liked it a lot and Gackt just sang it for him right there. Tsukasa read M.’s question about dirty words he learned abroad, but he only told us: “Oh shit”. We expected so much more from him!
He mentioned that he liked some song of Jang Geun Suk and he sung a few lines from it to give us an idea what he was talking about. I still have no clue who and what was he talking about, I am not into Korean, or any for that matter, pop music. He mentioned though that he wanted to get a haircut like the guy he was talking about. I do not approve…
Tsukasa was asked about making a twitter account, but he said twitter looked too confusing. However, he also said that he realized that he needed some sort of medium to tell the fans that he was doing alright, especially at the times like this, so he was considering twitter and a new blog. It seems he is not as hopeless as Karyu.
Tsukasa asked what we thought of the guy hosting the games the previous night and his constant hooting/cheering. He said he actually liked it, because it was rather old-fashioned. Me? I just thought he was annoying.
We made a forty minutes stop at Umihotaru again and the band members came to our bus to say their good-bye. The guys said that they will always treasure D’espairsRay and the bond between them and the fans, which is for life and will never be broken. Hizumi mentioned that there should be soon an announcement about his future plans, but I didn’t think he meant it as in “tomorrow” lol
During the last hour ride back to Tokyo we had no one with us and it was way too lonely and sad. M. was crying next to me, but I felt that whatever tears I had for them I cried all out at the last Love Parade live and that was when I made peace, at least to some degree, with the fact that there was no more D’espairsRay. I never even thought I could cry like that for a band and I don’t think I ever will for anyone else. Still the trip left me worried about them, especially Karyu. There was an announcement about Hizumi’s UMBRELLA right after and it was good to know that he did not give up and found something new to do. Even though it must be really tough for him since he is starting something completely new from the scratch and all on his own. But the signing event at Buddy Soundworks on Sunday made me feel better about Karyu, because he looked so cheerful and, of course, because of what he promised me. I wish al four of them the best from now on too and I hope whatever they chose to do will make them happy. I will continue supporting them ♥