[Concert Reports] Kanfuu Fighting in Yokohama... and Uchi Returns
First, let me translate an article I just found on Yahoo:
NewS returns with six members
Johnny's Entertainment announced on the 30th that they will reactivate NewS with six members: Yamashita, Koyama, Nishikido, Kato, Tegoshi and Masuda. This group had been inactive since May 1st of this year. Also, Uchi and Kusano, who had been away from all activities, will return as trainees.
[EDIT] Yahoo took this article away. I don't know if Johnny wanted to announce it officially on his own or what, but they took that article out pretty quickly. I thought that this was a marketing strategy to make more people watch the countdown live on TV, haha. You know people would look for Uchi and Kusano if they announced it now. Also, I think they chose to announce it after K8's tour was over to avoid panic... I do hope that Uchi's return doesn't overshadow what K8 has done this year though. The seven worked their hearts out! As much as I am happy for Uchi to come back, I hope guys like Maru, Yasu and Ohkura don't step back... I hope they are confident enough to know that they have sooo many fans cheering for them. There must be a lot of pressure for Uchi too, though; K8 has become ginormous compared to when he left. I'm sure the guys will make it the most comfortable transition for Uchi, though. 8->1!!
[EDIT 2] Now Yahoo has it back from a different source! Now it seems official! More specifics!
NewS to return on 12/31
NewS will reactivate starting at the countdown concert on the 31st. JE made the official announcement. The two members that were reported for their drinking incidents say they want to start from scratch, so they will be "trainees" at JE. NewS will continue their activities with six members.
...Since they took that article off Yahoo as well, HERE is the REALLY official announcement made on Johnny's website! It can't get any more official than this! :)
Basically says that NewS will restart with the six of them at the Countdown live, and Uchi and Kusano will start as "trainees." More specifics will be told in early January, they said.YAY.
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So I guess Uchi is still not officially with NewS (or K8, I guess) but will be back in JE! I still don't know what exactly they mean by "trainees," but I guess Uchi's returning! Personally, I wanted Ryo and Uchi out of NewS but oh well! That was just my wish. Great news for NewS fans though, eh!
Okay, on to my original purpose of this post: concert reports! I was fortunate enough to be able to go to three shows in Yokohama.
Kanfuu Fighting Tour 2006 in Yokohama
(12/27 17:30, 12/28 14:00 and 18:00)
0. Overture
Ohkura shows up with his drum solo followed by Maru’s bass and Yasu’s guitar.
1. 明日を狙え！(“Asu wo nerae!” = Aim for tomorrow)
They start singing their new song. Ryo, Yoko, Hina then Subaru.
2. DIVE
3. Obachan Rock
4. Heavenly Psycho
Subaru, Yasu and Ryo play the guitar; Maru plays the bass, Ohkura plays the drums, Hina plays the keyboard and Yoko plays the bongos (?)
5. Greetings
Ohkura, Yasu, Hina, Maru, Subaru, Yoko and Ryo
6. Kanfuu Fighting
As the guys gather to the center for the final pose, Subaru and Yasu do some cute moves together.
7. Dance
First they dance in the middle together and Subaru and Yasu keep on touching each other. Then, they all scatter about and dances in the order of Yasu, Maru, Ryo & Subaru, Yoko & Hina.
8. Butterfly I Loved
Ohkura’s solo. He wrote the lyrics.
9. Who’s Foods
Maru, Yasu and Hina’s solos. They each wrote the lyrics to their parts. First, Maru comes out and blows fire from his hand, takes the glove off and starts dancing to a samba-like version of the song. Then, Yasu, wearing his pink top and pink pants, plays the guitar as he sings his part. Hina comes out in a white suit and dances and sings his part. They all gather in the middle wearing white suits and start their sexy dance, shaking hips and all. They sing the rest of the song.
10. Dance
Ryo, Subaru, Yoko and Ohkura appear in four corners in the darkness and in smoke. Subaru stands still for the first half but begins too shake his hips slowly and sexily. Yoko acts as if he’s taking a shower. They gather to the middle, gets in a circle and starts dancing hard. Then they stop, and the lights change accordingly to the sound of heart beat in the background.
11. Explosion
Ryo starts off this new song. They dance hard to it and rip their shirts off for some skin exposure. If I remember correctly, the singing order for this was Ryo, Maru & Ohkura, Subaru & Yasu, Hina, Yoko. Subaru sings lyrics like “Open your heart to me” straight into Yasu’s face.
12. ∞Ranger
The time is Christmas and Eito City was back to its peaceful state. The Eito Rangers were about to celebrate Christmas. They each have crackers and say “Merry Christmas!” Red aims the crackers right to Blue’s face while Orange decorates himself with the streamers and claps and smiles like a dork. Black starts complaining because he didn’t have a cracker. They argue again and Black takes out a gun and aims at the others. They all tell him to stop but he ends up firing the gun and that bullet deflected off guard rails and posts, even Tanaka-san, and ended up attacking Green, who at that time was wondering what he should eat for dinner. It killed him and the Rangers start crying. They dramatically start singing a song that basically says that their lives are different now that they are missing a piece (Green). One time, when Blue had to start singing, he couldn’t because his butt was sticking out and his head was stuck between Purple’s legs. Blue punches Black in the stomach while singing and mourning his friend’s death; Orange pushes Black away; Red punches Black as well and Yellow kicks him away.
Yellow gets pissed at Black and yells at him. Orange tries to stop him but Yellow doesn’t listen. Black starts blaming himself, then Red blames himself saying that it was his gun to begin with. Black says it’s his fault because he was the one who brought it, Red says it’s his fault because he was the owner of the gun. Blue tells Red that it wasn’t Red’s fault and Red ends up blaming Blue for everything. Red keeps on kicking, punching, abusing, molesting Blue. Purple tells everyone that there is this forest called “Fernandez” and if they went there, there is a chance that Green might come back to life. Blue turns around to the rest to say something but Red stands right in front of him. Their faces are just about an inch away. Black says that a person’s spirit only lasts for 24 hours so they better hurry up. They only have six minutes left when the countdown clock started ticking (in most shows, they were able to finish up in time, but in some, they weren’t able to finish everything in six minutes so had to adlib so that they can bring Green back to life).
They all decide to go to the forest. Yellow and Red fight through big rocks; Blue and Orange have a synchronized dance movement while fighting through heat. Orange keeps on molesting Blue’s boobs or biting the feather mark on his helmet in the process. Black and Purple face tons of arrows aiming toward them. Black fights them off, but Purple ends up having them all shot to his stomach. During the show on the 27th, it was Black and Blue, Orange and Purple.
After all the trouble, they finally meet up in the forest. If each of them can bring their “aura” and put them together, an all-mighty god will show up and grant them one wish. Black comments on each guy’s aura: Purple’s aura is “自信(confidence).” Black says things like, “Yeah, he really believes he looks like Kimura Takuya. He calls himself the Kimutaku of Takatsuki (the city where Hina’s from).” “He is so full of confidence that he thinks he’s the best singer in the world.” Yellow’s aura is “優しさ(kindness).” Black says, “Yeah, he cries when he watches DVDs.” “He cries when he eats his mom’s food.” “He walked in from behind while I was taking a shower. I thought to myself ‘wow, it’s big.’” Red’s aura is “情熱(passion).” Black says, “Yeah, he wants to be on 情熱大陸 (a TV show)” “His mother is Italian.” Orange’s aura is “元気(energy).” Black says, “Yeah, that’s all he’s got.” Blue’s aura is “癒し(cure).” Black says, “Yeah, whatever.” Black tries to bring his aura too but nothing comes up. The other Rangers start to lose their strength and Black runs away.
Then, Green’s spirit comes out singing parts of “Name of Love.” He tells Black that Black taught him the importance of friendship. Black gets encouraged and goes back to the forest where the others were. He tries one more time and this time, he was able to bring his “友情(friendship)” aura. When all these combined, a huge balloon showed up. The “エイタクロース・フェルナンデス８世(Eita-claus Fernandez the 8th)” said because they were able to bring together their powers, he would grant them one wish. During the show on the 27th, Black wished he could drink miso soup (instead of asking for Green’s life). He goes on and says, “Right? Tegomasu.” Then the spotlight turned to Tegoshi and Masuda, who were watching the show from the stands. In the second show on the 28th, Black says he wants to meet Arashi’s Nino, then Matsu-Jun, but neither of them were there. Purple yelled at him for lying. During the third show on the 28th, Black wished for Tackey & Tsubasa. Again, neither of them were there and Black said, “I’m not that powerful.” Anyway, they finally ask for Green and he comes back to life. Everyone’s happy. Then, it started to snow. They all thanked the Eita-claus and moved on to the next song.
13. 10 nen go no kyou no hi mo
Near the end of the song, Purple and Orange have their faces about an inch away from each other and start talking. Purple tells Orange to make sure not to catch a cold. Before Orange could get away, Purple sneezes right into his face. A while later, Purple starts telling Blue that he’s so happy to be able to be with Blue. Blue also tells Purple that he makes him happy. Purple and Blue keep on telling each other “Blue, you are too cute!” “No, Purple, you are cuter!” “No, you are!” “No, you are!” and Purple ends up saying “you’re right; I am cuter.” and moves on to the next song.
14. Yajirushi
Ryo, Ohkura and Subaru appear in the stands and sing. They go around one-third of the arena, then go down through the crowd back to the stage.
15. MC
12/27 17:30: They were talking about how big Yokohama arena was and started to try and read the uchiwas in the back rows. They also invited TegoMasu up to the stage and talked. They were all surprised at how long Masu has been in Johnny’s and Masu said that Yasu and Shige used to be pretty good friends. Yasu said they used to text each other and such. One time, during a NewS concert when V.West was invited, Masu kept on messing up the intro phrase for V.West, so in the dressing room, Yasu, Maru and Ohkura pretended to be very pissed at him. Yasu yelled at Masu, kicked the table and walked angrily out the door. Ohkura was just watching and Maru was giving Masu the death glare. Masu started crying real hard so Yasu rushed back into the room, laughed and said that it was only a joke. Then they started talking about how it’s not scary at all when Maru is mad. Earlier in the show, there was a sound that sounded like someone had burped during the Ranger skit, and Yoko blamed Maru. They discussed about this during this MC and found out that it was Yasu’s snorting sound. Maru (acted) mad that Yasu didn’t defend him, but that just proved to everyone that Maru wasn’t scary at all when he’s mad.
12/28 14:00: During Heavenly Psycho, all Yoko could think of is how he forgot to update his J-Web diary entry. He asked the staff to bring his cell phone to the stage. Ryo wasn’t sure if he had done his either, so they both waited for their phones. The staff had no clue which one was whose, so he ended up bring everyone’s. Ryo looked through his sent folder and found out that he did update his so was relieved. Yoko didn’t, however, so he decided to send it from the stage. Maru suggested that he should put in a keyword in it that only the people at this concert would understand. So, Yoko put in the word “ホトトギス (a type of bird)” and sent it. Then they started talking about the J-Web diaries. Ohkura and Maru were having fun with their novel thing at first, but after a few entries, they wanted to finish it as soon as possible. Yoko kept on commenting on everyone else’s, for example he said that Subaru always writes cool things, no one really pays attention to Hina’s soccer stuff, and he tried to do that inspiration game that Ryo had going but was too hard for him. Then he asked Yasu what kind of diaries he writes and if anyone really read his. Yasu acted pretty pissed and said “Check that out yourself” in a rather serious tone. (I feel like Yasu was already kind of pissed that Yoko was taking the MC time to type in his entry while all the others had already done it and put a lot of time and thought into it, since it was their last entry of the year and all. That’s just how I felt, though.) Then he started talking about how if A comes into his head, the Z goes out. This got everyone confused so they went on to the next song.
12/28 18:00: Yoko talked about some moments during the year that made him cry. He invited his family to the concert in Osaka in May, and after that they went out to eat yakiniku. Ohkura and Hina bumped into them coincidentally, but they gave the Yokoyama family some privacy and went upstairs. After Yoko returned from the bathroom, his mom had prepared him a cake for an early birthday present. His two younger brothers gave him Nintendo DS and that made Yoko really emotional. He was teary when the K8 guys celebrated his birthday as well. After they went for dinner, they went to karaoke and they sang F.T.O and such, getting excited because the real ones were singing the song (what dorks!). They also sang and danced to Morning Musume. Yoko sat in between Ryo and Ohkura as they sang to him. They sang songs like Osaka Romanesque and Eden while changing some parts of the lyrics to Yoko’s name. Maru kept on cheering the mood up while Yasu cleaned up the table and ordered more drinks when they were running short. They also talked about how Ryo cried like a baby during his sister’s wedding, how Hina, Maru and Ohkura sang “Sukiyanen, Osaka” at a friend’s wedding, and how Yoko wants the guys to sing “Sukiyanen Osaka,” “Osaka Romanesque” and such at his own wedding.
16. Puropera
Subaru, Yasu, Hina and Ryo do some serious jumping and head banging during the intro. Subaru leaves early during this song to prepare for his solo.
17. Everyday music
Subaru’s solo song, lyrics written by Subaru.
18. Fantastic Music!
Yoko’s solo song. First, it’s like a ballad… his singing is not that bad! Then, all of a sudden, the song changes to lyrics like “Me! Let’s go me!” and “I can’t do anything by myself; I need you guys” etc. Then Kimiko (Yoko cross-dressing) shows up on the screen. There are many variations to this video, including each member acting as her boyfriend. 12/27 had Kimiko trying to pick something up from the floor while the camera zoomed in on her boobs. Kimiko reacts and says “What are you looking at!” 12/28 14:00 had Ryo as the boyfriend, who grabbed Kimiko’s boobs. 12/28 18:00 had Hina as the boyfriend. Hina had his six packs showing and kept on flipping Kimiko’s skirt.
19. Itsuka, Mata
20. Osaka Rainy Blues
21. Sukiyanen, Osaka
22. Naniwa Iroha Bushi
23. Potential
Ryo’s solo. Ryo starts off with the guitar, then the rest of the band joins in. I felt like the song didn’t really fit Ryo’s vocal range, though. It sounded like a Mr. Children song, since the beginning part was pretty low.
24. High Position
SubaruBAND’s new song. Lyrics by Subaru and composed by Yasu. I liked this a lot. It’s like an off-beat rock music.
25. Do you agree?
26. Kuchibue no mukou
27. Mirai no mukou e
Encore
1. Samurai Blues
2. Kanfuu Fighting
Encore 2 (except for 12/28 14:00)
Thank yous
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I had more on my notes for the three concerts but I think this should give you all a very good idea of how the concerts were. This was the first time I went to a Kanjani8 concert and let me just say that I enjoyed every moment of it! Yokohama arena was pretty big but I didn’t feel the distance at all. Heck, my seat for the 14:00 show on the 28th was at the very back. We were in the very last row. But, guys (for us it was Subaru) came around and we were able to see them close. The seats we had for the 18:00 show was amazing. Ground level and I could clearly see their sweat on their faces. For the show on the 27th, we sat six rows from the very top. Ohkura came around and I swear we had eye contact for at least three seconds (too bad it wasn’t Yasu, haha). It was really nice because the ground level seat was the third show I went to and I had a very good idea of where everyone was going to be. Yasu came out right in front of me for the opening, so I had my back to Ohkura and Maru’s direction as I waited for him to pop up in his glow-in-the-dark yellow costume, haha.
Overall, I was amazed at how entertaining these guys were. They have everything in their concerts: songs, bands, dances, comedy, ballads, rock music, etc. They all seemed to be enjoying themselves and looked very confident in what they did. Awesome, awesome, awesome.
Seriously, Kanjani8 is a 最高で最強の (best and the mightiest) group!!!!!!
…After I got back home from Yokohama (three-hour ride on the shinkansen), I watched all three dramas that I had taped. “Dive to the Future” (Hina/Yasu/Ryo) was a nice, simple drama with lots of Shota-nakedness (and yukata, too!). I wish I had that kind of a waist. They seemed comfortable with their acting too because they spoke in Kansai-ben. I wish “Double” (Subaru/Maru/Yasu/Ohkura) was a bit longer than an hour because the plot was a lot more complicated than “Dive-.” Maru was so funny in this rather serious thriller, though. The part I actually freaked out the most was (don’t read it you don’t want a spoiler) when Subaru went to open the door and found no one there… until Maru appeared, hahahaha. “Kemarishi” (Yoko/Ohkura/Ryo) was full of surprises! (Spoilers ahead) I kinda had the idea that that masked guy was Ryo or something, but was surprised it was actually Ohkura. He acted that psycho kemarishi out pretty well, though!
These three dramas were way more than what I had expected, so I enjoyed them all. Thank you to Kansai TV for putting a week-long promotion effort into the boys’ dramas! Please keep on with the love next year as well!