Gakuensai Chiba 11/13 & 11/14
Late report is majorly late, but hopefully there’s still some interest!
I attended the Chiba campus of the Camui Gakuen tour on Saturday and Sunday so here’s a brief (by my standards anyway!) review, with a bit of the Gazette at the front.
After work on Friday I headed straight to Okayama City to see the Gazette. Unfortunately I got to the venue a little late and missed the first couple of songs (highly embarrassing!) but was really surprised to see that they’d put me in the eleventh row, right by the sound desk. It meant that not only did I have a really good view of the band (I’d love to know what hair care products they use because no matter how much Uruha head bangs, his hair does. not. move) but I was also surrounded by the real hardcore, crazy fans who knew all of the routines.
I had to be back at Okayama train station for around 21:00 in order to get ready for the night bus to Tokyo so if it wasn’t bad enough that I arrived late, I had to duck out early too. I think they only had one song left to go so it wasn’t too bad but still, highly embarrassing.
The night bus to Tokyo was better than expected and when I arrived at Tokyo station at just after 6AM, I was surprisingly awake and alert and waited for khysmet to arrive. The two of us then went on a hunt for a shower and after asking a few people, an equally lost English guy stopped us with a map to an internet café and asked for directions. That internet café was sooooo seedy. We were given a shower room to share and not enough time to get ready, and it felt like one of those places where you’d expect there to be cameras hidden behind the mirror.
After showering and changing we headed to the arena. We were both staying with shinimegami21 and so after the show, headed to her place. It might have been a good idea to figure out exactly what station we needed first as we ended up riding the line back into Tokyo for an hour longer than we needed to (but we did get to see DisneyLand again.. twice!)
On the Sunday, thanks to a certain someone setting their alarm for a stupidly early hour of the morning, me, shinimegami21 and khysmet were at the venue before the staff had finished setting up all of the goods stands. It also meant that the cardboard cut outs of GACKT and JOB weren’t out yet… but gave us first dibs on them when they were put out.
I’m not going to identify the people in these photos in order to protect their identity, but I will say that it was all khysmet’s fault.
As the afternoon wore on, what had originally started as a small group of international Camui G students grew ever larger. A group photo of us all was taken by one of the official photographers at the show so hopefully, a Monthly GG or Gakuen special magazine will have a photo of some of GACKT’s LJ fanbase inside ^_^
The three of us alongside nightangel_jai were seated in the stands of the arena for the show. Our seats were right on the side, as close to the stage as the sides would allow and this was apparently too close because as soon as we’d sat down, a staff member told us to move because we had been given other seats due to the restricted view.
Where were those other seats?
Row fourteen, on the arena floor. Quite an upgrade really!
I’m sure most people have already seen set lists and reports so I won’t rehash everything.
For the dance battle on the Sunday, both teams wore the purple Gakuen tracksuit bottoms with T shirts. Both You and Junji went into the crowd to find a judge (usually it’s just You) and they picked a woman from the crowd. Surprisingly, she picked Junji as the winner (it’s very rare for Junji to win, he won on Friday night too but that was after they picked a Junji cosplayer) and was given a sweaty towel used by both You and Junji as her prize for taking part.
It’s traditional that after the dance battle, GHOST is performed. In Nagoya and Kobe it was Junji who performed it but the first two nights in Chiba saw You attempt it. I say attempt because he’s awful but in an adorable way. His English sounds terrible during the couple of English lines too. On Sunday, the final, both You AND Junji danced GACKT’s part. It worked surprisingly well and for the “I say we got no guarenty [sic]” line, Junji and You stood with their arms draped around each others shoulders while the dancers posed around them. They finished the dance differently too.
During the interval we headed outside after a brief chat with Chris, GACKT’s bodyguard who had come and stood at the end of our row. He spends the first half of the show at the side of the stage on the floor but came for a walk during the interval. Seriously… there were forty rows on the arena floor and he decided to come and stand at the end of ours. I don’t even need to look for him anymore, he keeps on finding me!
Chacha, Chirolyn and the dancers all man the canteen and serve food and as me and khysmet had bought pudding from Chacha and shook his hand the night before (and I’d already bought pudding from him in Kobe) we decided to buy Curry no Yousei from the dancers. Takashi and Wang were manning the curry and Kirt and Kazuya were on the Tomakun Yamakun soup. But, Kirt, GACKT’s non-Japanese dancer, saw us and reached over to shake our hands too, completely ignoring the Japanese people buying the soup that he should have been paying attention to. Naughty boy.
For the live, things were very similar to previous nights. GACKT now appears to know the words to the Luna Sea songs, an improvement over the Kobe shows, and the band sounded far more confident with the material than they had done previously.
GACKT really revels in his role as Kaicho and does insist on the crowd calling him Kaicho throughout. During “Kiss Me” and “The Next Decade” he asks the crowd to yell “KAICHO” at certain parts because he’s obviously the person everybody loves the most. Don’t think about shouting for You-senpai or Chacha-senpai because it’s his stage (bitch).
Okay, he doesn’t say the bitch part but he should.
GACKT has sounded really good throughout all of the shows. I’d love for these shows to work their way onto a DVD or CD if only because the perfect answer to any criticism of his singing would be to hear either “Konayuki” or “Yuki no Hana” as he sounds amazing on both. His falsetto on “Konayuki” sounded especially amazing on Sunday as the last line is sung in an even higher key to the rest and usually, this line is much quieter than the rest of the falsetto but on Sunday, he belted that line out.
Junji’s comedy routine before his Blue Hearts set gets longer and more elaborate with every show. What started as him doing all of the characters in a two person skit in Kobe, has developed into him doing six or seven characters and confusing himself with which character he should be. GACKT sings backing vocals during this set so he has a microphone on his drum kit and even though it’s not in position for Junji’s little routine, it still picks up his laughter.
In-between the songs Junji has a lot of banter with the crowd. At one point he was asking the crowd to cheer for him but GACKT decided that he didn’t want the crowd to cheer (if I remember correctly, I think Junji was mocking GACKT slightly here) so he gestured with his thumbs down. Of course, the entire crowd copied GACKT’s actions and gave Junji the thumbs down. Poor old Junji didn’t know what GACKT was doing and seemed thoroughly confused about why the crowd were booing him instead of cheering whereas GACKT was finding everything hilarious. Junji tried again and this time, GACKT stood on his stool so that everyone could see him and signalled for the thumbs down again. Chirolyn saw what he was doing and tried to block GACKT from the crowd by lifting his bass up and then Junji realised what was going on and began to mock cry. You and Chirolyn alternated between comforting Junji and giving GACKT death glares and GACKT was still at the drum kit in fits of laughter.
For “Linda, Linda,” Junji now changes the first few lines of the slow introduction into an advert for the food at the canteen, complete with price list and complaints that they don’t serve miso soup. The GACKT impression he rolled out during this set on Sunday was creepily accurate, he can do GACKT’s speaking voice really well, especially when he’s repeating things that GACKT actually says during the course of the show.
On Sunday there was a special guest, Yama-chan, part of the Nankai Candies (南海キャンディーズ) comedy duo (man, it took me a while to track him down but I found him!). He sang “Owaranai no Uta” with Junji. Again, GACKT was doing the thumbs down thing whenever Yama-chan tried to get the crowd to cheer for him. He must have been pissed that other people were getting the attention. But seriously, GACKT is obviously having the time of his life doing these shows, especially when he’s at the drums. It’s so heart warming to see him cut lose and enjoy himself so much. At the end of that song, the band plus Yama-chan all held hands to take the crowd’s applause (queue fangirlish squeals over the fact that GACKT was on the end of the line holding only You’s hand) and had a few playfights.
The X JAPAN set has really become progressively better. The band has become more confident with Rusty Nail and Chacha owns the stage more than he did in Kobe. And boy, can Chacha squeal when he wants too… GACKT’s drum solo end to “X” got longer every show too.
SMAP is just fun. Whichever members of F9 (+ Nemuri actors) that were at the front of the stage would do the routine properly but whoever was at the back, minus GACKT who always did the routine properly albeit with the biggest grin on his face, would be messing around. The one Nemuri actor completely lost his place, Junji and Kazuya had a playfight… They’re just having fun. For the part that GACKT and You sing together, they link arms and You sways his hips towards GACKT (and it is a swaying motion… not a thrust ^_^)
Here are the chibi stamps I collected on my tickets. I didn't get the neko but never mind...
(OMG - I wanna buy this set of stamps so much! I'd love to mark my student's works with Gackt chibi stamps!)
After the show I grabbed my bags, said goodbye to everyone, jumped on the train back to Tokyo Station and went through the station that serves Tokyo DisneyLand for the fourth time that weekend (torture! Being that close and not being able to go…) I got to Tokyo Station and the next train I knew that was going to Shinjuku, the bus terminal my night bus was leaving from, was due in three minutes and would take 31 minutes to get there.
My bus left in 25 minutes.
After panicking slightly, I realised that the train I was waiting for, the Yamanote line, is a circular so it doesn’t go directly to Shinjuku and takes, instead, a longer route. I didn’t know of any other trains and didn’t have the time to check so I ran to the taxi rank and jumped in a taxi. After finally convincing the taxi driver that yes, it was Shinjuku I wanted we got to the bus terminal and I was on the night bus with five minutes to spare. I didn’t have time to change (I put on my trousers on the bus), take off my make up or take out my contact lenses but I made it! Barely. If I’d have missed that bus I’d have been in trouble as I was due in work the next day… I’d probably have had to call in sick and blame the Curry no You-sei for it.
After the Kobe shows and the amazing experience of being first row and centre, I kinda didn’t want to go to Chiba. I knew that the shows wouldn’t be as good for me and it was really only the opportunity to meet up with people there that was making me excited about it. I’m really glad I did go though - the shows were still sooo much fun and I met more people than I thought I would.
I think that the enjoyment you get out of seeing GACKT in Japan is 50% due to GACKT, and 50% due to the other fans there, be they his foreign fans or his Japanese ones.
I attended the Chiba campus of the Camui Gakuen tour on Saturday and Sunday so here’s a brief (by my standards anyway!) review, with a bit of the Gazette at the front.
After work on Friday I headed straight to Okayama City to see the Gazette. Unfortunately I got to the venue a little late and missed the first couple of songs (highly embarrassing!) but was really surprised to see that they’d put me in the eleventh row, right by the sound desk. It meant that not only did I have a really good view of the band (I’d love to know what hair care products they use because no matter how much Uruha head bangs, his hair does. not. move) but I was also surrounded by the real hardcore, crazy fans who knew all of the routines.
I had to be back at Okayama train station for around 21:00 in order to get ready for the night bus to Tokyo so if it wasn’t bad enough that I arrived late, I had to duck out early too. I think they only had one song left to go so it wasn’t too bad but still, highly embarrassing.
The night bus to Tokyo was better than expected and when I arrived at Tokyo station at just after 6AM, I was surprisingly awake and alert and waited for khysmet to arrive. The two of us then went on a hunt for a shower and after asking a few people, an equally lost English guy stopped us with a map to an internet café and asked for directions. That internet café was sooooo seedy. We were given a shower room to share and not enough time to get ready, and it felt like one of those places where you’d expect there to be cameras hidden behind the mirror.
After showering and changing we headed to the arena. We were both staying with shinimegami21 and so after the show, headed to her place. It might have been a good idea to figure out exactly what station we needed first as we ended up riding the line back into Tokyo for an hour longer than we needed to (but we did get to see DisneyLand again.. twice!)
On the Sunday, thanks to a certain someone setting their alarm for a stupidly early hour of the morning, me, shinimegami21 and khysmet were at the venue before the staff had finished setting up all of the goods stands. It also meant that the cardboard cut outs of GACKT and JOB weren’t out yet… but gave us first dibs on them when they were put out.
I’m not going to identify the people in these photos in order to protect their identity, but I will say that it was all khysmet’s fault.
As the afternoon wore on, what had originally started as a small group of international Camui G students grew ever larger. A group photo of us all was taken by one of the official photographers at the show so hopefully, a Monthly GG or Gakuen special magazine will have a photo of some of GACKT’s LJ fanbase inside ^_^
The three of us alongside nightangel_jai were seated in the stands of the arena for the show. Our seats were right on the side, as close to the stage as the sides would allow and this was apparently too close because as soon as we’d sat down, a staff member told us to move because we had been given other seats due to the restricted view.
Where were those other seats?
Row fourteen, on the arena floor. Quite an upgrade really!
I’m sure most people have already seen set lists and reports so I won’t rehash everything.
For the dance battle on the Sunday, both teams wore the purple Gakuen tracksuit bottoms with T shirts. Both You and Junji went into the crowd to find a judge (usually it’s just You) and they picked a woman from the crowd. Surprisingly, she picked Junji as the winner (it’s very rare for Junji to win, he won on Friday night too but that was after they picked a Junji cosplayer) and was given a sweaty towel used by both You and Junji as her prize for taking part.
It’s traditional that after the dance battle, GHOST is performed. In Nagoya and Kobe it was Junji who performed it but the first two nights in Chiba saw You attempt it. I say attempt because he’s awful but in an adorable way. His English sounds terrible during the couple of English lines too. On Sunday, the final, both You AND Junji danced GACKT’s part. It worked surprisingly well and for the “I say we got no guarenty [sic]” line, Junji and You stood with their arms draped around each others shoulders while the dancers posed around them. They finished the dance differently too.
During the interval we headed outside after a brief chat with Chris, GACKT’s bodyguard who had come and stood at the end of our row. He spends the first half of the show at the side of the stage on the floor but came for a walk during the interval. Seriously… there were forty rows on the arena floor and he decided to come and stand at the end of ours. I don’t even need to look for him anymore, he keeps on finding me!
Chacha, Chirolyn and the dancers all man the canteen and serve food and as me and khysmet had bought pudding from Chacha and shook his hand the night before (and I’d already bought pudding from him in Kobe) we decided to buy Curry no Yousei from the dancers. Takashi and Wang were manning the curry and Kirt and Kazuya were on the Tomakun Yamakun soup. But, Kirt, GACKT’s non-Japanese dancer, saw us and reached over to shake our hands too, completely ignoring the Japanese people buying the soup that he should have been paying attention to. Naughty boy.
For the live, things were very similar to previous nights. GACKT now appears to know the words to the Luna Sea songs, an improvement over the Kobe shows, and the band sounded far more confident with the material than they had done previously.
GACKT really revels in his role as Kaicho and does insist on the crowd calling him Kaicho throughout. During “Kiss Me” and “The Next Decade” he asks the crowd to yell “KAICHO” at certain parts because he’s obviously the person everybody loves the most. Don’t think about shouting for You-senpai or Chacha-senpai because it’s his stage (bitch).
Okay, he doesn’t say the bitch part but he should.
GACKT has sounded really good throughout all of the shows. I’d love for these shows to work their way onto a DVD or CD if only because the perfect answer to any criticism of his singing would be to hear either “Konayuki” or “Yuki no Hana” as he sounds amazing on both. His falsetto on “Konayuki” sounded especially amazing on Sunday as the last line is sung in an even higher key to the rest and usually, this line is much quieter than the rest of the falsetto but on Sunday, he belted that line out.
Junji’s comedy routine before his Blue Hearts set gets longer and more elaborate with every show. What started as him doing all of the characters in a two person skit in Kobe, has developed into him doing six or seven characters and confusing himself with which character he should be. GACKT sings backing vocals during this set so he has a microphone on his drum kit and even though it’s not in position for Junji’s little routine, it still picks up his laughter.
In-between the songs Junji has a lot of banter with the crowd. At one point he was asking the crowd to cheer for him but GACKT decided that he didn’t want the crowd to cheer (if I remember correctly, I think Junji was mocking GACKT slightly here) so he gestured with his thumbs down. Of course, the entire crowd copied GACKT’s actions and gave Junji the thumbs down. Poor old Junji didn’t know what GACKT was doing and seemed thoroughly confused about why the crowd were booing him instead of cheering whereas GACKT was finding everything hilarious. Junji tried again and this time, GACKT stood on his stool so that everyone could see him and signalled for the thumbs down again. Chirolyn saw what he was doing and tried to block GACKT from the crowd by lifting his bass up and then Junji realised what was going on and began to mock cry. You and Chirolyn alternated between comforting Junji and giving GACKT death glares and GACKT was still at the drum kit in fits of laughter.
For “Linda, Linda,” Junji now changes the first few lines of the slow introduction into an advert for the food at the canteen, complete with price list and complaints that they don’t serve miso soup. The GACKT impression he rolled out during this set on Sunday was creepily accurate, he can do GACKT’s speaking voice really well, especially when he’s repeating things that GACKT actually says during the course of the show.
On Sunday there was a special guest, Yama-chan, part of the Nankai Candies (南海キャンディーズ) comedy duo (man, it took me a while to track him down but I found him!). He sang “Owaranai no Uta” with Junji. Again, GACKT was doing the thumbs down thing whenever Yama-chan tried to get the crowd to cheer for him. He must have been pissed that other people were getting the attention. But seriously, GACKT is obviously having the time of his life doing these shows, especially when he’s at the drums. It’s so heart warming to see him cut lose and enjoy himself so much. At the end of that song, the band plus Yama-chan all held hands to take the crowd’s applause (queue fangirlish squeals over the fact that GACKT was on the end of the line holding only You’s hand) and had a few playfights.
The X JAPAN set has really become progressively better. The band has become more confident with Rusty Nail and Chacha owns the stage more than he did in Kobe. And boy, can Chacha squeal when he wants too… GACKT’s drum solo end to “X” got longer every show too.
SMAP is just fun. Whichever members of F9 (+ Nemuri actors) that were at the front of the stage would do the routine properly but whoever was at the back, minus GACKT who always did the routine properly albeit with the biggest grin on his face, would be messing around. The one Nemuri actor completely lost his place, Junji and Kazuya had a playfight… They’re just having fun. For the part that GACKT and You sing together, they link arms and You sways his hips towards GACKT (and it is a swaying motion… not a thrust ^_^)
Here are the chibi stamps I collected on my tickets. I didn't get the neko but never mind...
(OMG - I wanna buy this set of stamps so much! I'd love to mark my student's works with Gackt chibi stamps!)
After the show I grabbed my bags, said goodbye to everyone, jumped on the train back to Tokyo Station and went through the station that serves Tokyo DisneyLand for the fourth time that weekend (torture! Being that close and not being able to go…) I got to Tokyo Station and the next train I knew that was going to Shinjuku, the bus terminal my night bus was leaving from, was due in three minutes and would take 31 minutes to get there.
My bus left in 25 minutes.
After panicking slightly, I realised that the train I was waiting for, the Yamanote line, is a circular so it doesn’t go directly to Shinjuku and takes, instead, a longer route. I didn’t know of any other trains and didn’t have the time to check so I ran to the taxi rank and jumped in a taxi. After finally convincing the taxi driver that yes, it was Shinjuku I wanted we got to the bus terminal and I was on the night bus with five minutes to spare. I didn’t have time to change (I put on my trousers on the bus), take off my make up or take out my contact lenses but I made it! Barely. If I’d have missed that bus I’d have been in trouble as I was due in work the next day… I’d probably have had to call in sick and blame the Curry no You-sei for it.
After the Kobe shows and the amazing experience of being first row and centre, I kinda didn’t want to go to Chiba. I knew that the shows wouldn’t be as good for me and it was really only the opportunity to meet up with people there that was making me excited about it. I’m really glad I did go though - the shows were still sooo much fun and I met more people than I thought I would.
I think that the enjoyment you get out of seeing GACKT in Japan is 50% due to GACKT, and 50% due to the other fans there, be they his foreign fans or his Japanese ones.