BOKU WA AUNT JEMIMA
Oh my god this weekend blew me away.
I apologize if this entry is disjointed, I just spent all night in an airport. I just want to get it posted so I don't forget anything.
Let me start this potentially massive journal entry by saying:
:|
But seriously. This convention is awesome. A seven-floor venue packed with tons of indoor and outdoor photoshoot locations, complete with restaurants inside. Tons of hotels within painless walking distance. Friendly, understanding, helpful staff, both con and con center. A ton of cosplayers, a surprising percentage of them decent at the very least, with a ton of variety in subject matter. I wish it were closer to everyone; cause I think you guys would adore this con. Seattle is a beautiful city, and I felt very comfortable the whole time I was there (admittedly, the wet weather helped). Everything was super organized, and the surrounding community seemed really chill with the whole event; some people even seemed really excited about it. I was very, very impressed; it's definitely up there with Fanime now, which is seriously saying something.
I got in at three in the afternoon on Thursday and met up with Mina (meenuuh ) and Riku ( caineyamiyasha ) at the airport. There was much hugging and yelling and excitement as we took a cab to the Crowne Plaza, which was about two blocks from the con. We unpacked everything and ventured to the con center for a bit to explore, find people, and pick up prereg badges. We spent awhile in the prereg line, during which Riku and I ventured to get some delicious calzones, we met up with Maguma ( maguma_sama ), and had to endure a group of obnoxious fifteen year old screaming kids in maid dresses in front of us. After this, we decided it'd be a marvelous idea to get into our swimsuits and soak in the pool for awhile.... only to discover our hotel didn't have one. XD; Oh. Instead, I dyed my hair and we sat around and ate. Liz ( kasaiface ) finally made it to us a couple hours late due to a really balls flight delay, and we hit the hay. Falling asleep in her arms is always worth the travel, I swear to god. A perfect fit. ♥
Friday morning we got up early and agonized over our appearance for awhile, then went down to the con to the first Hangry&Angry event; the autograph signing. We found the line and I met up with the lovely Allise ( gogirlanime ), a dear friend from the Hello!Online boards who I first met in person at Anime Expo in 2005 and haven't seen since then. There was a bit of a scramble trying to find merchandise to buy that they could sign (we were under the impression that they were only allowed to sign official, licensed merchandise, and the table in the Dealers' Hall that sold it was like... smack dab in the middle of the massive room and had no sign, so I kept missing it. XD; ) Either way, we just managed to buy some photos and run our way back over as they started letting people in.
We were queuing up when we first met a new group of friends: Sumiko the most moe little Japanese lady ever, her tiny old asian Mama, and their sassy translator Tomo. They were all dressed in Hangry&Angry merch, and we found out that they flew to Sakuracon all the way from Japan because it was such a rare event. Die hard fans. ♥ They were super sweet! We saw them several times over the weekend.
We were all standing together waiting when we saw somebody peek out of one of the barricade curtains. It took me a moment, but we realized it was Yossi. My heart literally stopped. We all waved at her and giggled like fifteen-year-olds, and Allise, who speaks Japanese, called at her. When they finally came out, I was a wreck.
She is even more gorgeous in person. Oh my god. Her eyes and her movements and her smile and all of it. She is completely captivating to watch. And so short. I always forget that she's 5'4" because she's so tall compared to the rest of them. I remarked several times that weekend that if she was that tall in person, Mari must be like... bite-sized.
Anyway, she was in this red and black striped suit, and her hair was spiked up in this sort of pseudo-yohawk, and tipped pink at the ends. Rika had blue streaked, voluminous Lolita curls and lots of ruffles and all that, and looked super lovely. They're both super gorgeous in person.
I've also got to state right out of the gate that this weekend really changed my opinion of Rika. It's still possible that she's a bitch in real life, but she's adorable, an awesome performer, and incredibly gracious toward and excited by the fans. She also still seems to hold Momusu close to her heart. While I can never bring myself to support Ishiyoshi full-throttle, I can definitely support the pair as close friends.
Anyway, they started signing, and I was losing my shit. I had to bite my tongue to keep from babbling all the way as we inched closer (and it didn't work too well). When we finally made it up, and she looked up into my face... I was gone. I opened my mouth and nothing came out. All I managed to stammer was "a-a-arigatougouzimasu" to both of them. I had to make a calm, collected break for it to fight back the tears that followed being that close to my idol of six years after ages of being convinced I'd never get the chance. It was a little overwhelming. We all geeked out a bit and then broke off to go to the Dealer's Hall. On our way there, we tried to walk through the gaming center to get there. Riku got stopped for not having a badge (Liz had borrowed his to get into the signing because she hadn't found the person who she was buying hers from (the lovely Michi/ nuriko, who we met up with later) hadn't gotten there yet) The guy who stopped him was a real dick, said some crappy stuff, and even pushed him a couple times. He proceeded to head right down to the con op to complain, and eventually we were engaged by the convention center manager himself, who apologized profusely and said "if there's anything we can do for you to make the weekend more enjoyable, please let us know." We were pleased but couldn't think of anything, so we thanked him and headed out again.
There was a special Guest Reception dinner at 6:30 that Liz and I bought tickets for, so we made our way over to the Hyatt hotel. I confess to not knowing who a lot of the quests were, but I was pleasantly surprised to meet Kappei Yamaguchi there. He'd obviously had a few by the time we got to him, cause he was twice as spunky as usual (which is saying something, from what I've seen of him) and said "oaaah! Pretty gaals!" and threw his arms around us for a photo. He is such a good dude.
We also were first introduced to Myuji, Hangry&Angry's opening band. They did a theme song for X, but that's all I knew about them previously. As it turns out, they're fucking awesome. There are four of them; the bassist, the guitarist, the vocalist and the drummer (I'll talk about them a bit more when I get to the concert recap). During the speeches, they came up to the mic and promptly shouted "COSPLAY ROCKS. I LOVE HENTAI" when asked what their favorite hentai was, the bassist replied something in garbled Japanese a few times, then the lead singer grabbed the mic and repeated "foot fetish." We were all dying.
Overall, as far as Yossi and Rika were concerned, though, I was a little disappointed with the reception. The girls were supposed to be in their Hangry&Angry "characters", which made them stonier and far less silly than their normal selves. That paired with the fact that (Rika admitted to this) they were both exhausted, jetlagged, and (from what I guess) a little overwhelmed at the American con atmosphere.. basically, they were very quiet and the energy was a little off. We got to go up and talk to them, but their translator was on the phone and Allise was engaging them a lot more than we were able to (Liz and I agreed that there has never been a moment before then that we had desired so badly to be fluent in Japanese). She did say that we'd been fans for six years from when they were in Hello!Project though, which got a quickly masked but nonetheless apparent reaction. Rika giggled sweetly at me when I fumbled over my Japanese, too. I do enjoy her.
We headed back to the room and borrowed Mina and Riku's Roxas and Schoolgirl Namine costumes (Liz was the sweetest baby for cosplaying them with me ;A; ), which we wore to the /cgl/ gathering. This was rather fun, even if I'm not too keen on the site, and I made a few new friends, including DW ( ravendarkwings ) and Ikuy, who are both effing adorable and I want to cosplay a ton with them in the future. More west coast kids! ♥ DW loaned me her Nia wig and Maguma (who is now officially my Aniki, even if he is younger than me) loaned Liz his Kamina wig, which we somehow fashioned to look vaguely like Simon's hair, so we got to cosplay gakuenhen Simon and Nia after all! Uhuhuhuuhuhu I love them so. I also got to see Lo-fi Guy dressed as naked Kamina, wearing only a pair of flesh-coloured panties with Boota stuck to the front. But as everyone on /cgl/ has already seen his bits, I guess this doesn't amount to much. The rest of our night consisted of a failed attempt at going to the rave due to stomach issues and a lot of sleep.
Saturday we donned our Simon and Nia gear (though Liz needed to get her wig, still), and ventured to the con center. We had a really enjoyable day hanging out with Maguma and Ikuy, and once we finally obtained Simon hairs, we did a little photoshoot with Mina and Riku, who were cosplaying gakuenhen Naruto and Hinata (lolololol AU crossover desu). This con really reminded me of how much fun cosplaying with friends is. I also got to meet _tazzy at one point, and we met completely by accident via my admiration of her Sailor Cosmos cosplay! ♥ It was really great to see her. At about four we ran back and changed for the concert.
We got to the outside of the main stage about an hour before seating was set to start, and there was no line. We were stoked. There was a line for priority armbands, but we were the first people there, so we kept forgetting about needing them. Everything was going splendidly until our attention was directed to the autograph room next door from the previous day, where we discovered a huge, huge queue for the show. I was livid. The priority booth was empty when we went to check again, and by the time Mina and Riku caught up with us, it looked like I was going to have to fight half the con to get to the front of the stage.
Right as I was bummed to the extreme, who should Liz and Riku find but the con center manager from Friday. Remember the one who owed us a favor?
Needless to day, I was thanking my lucky stars. We got right up front on the right side of the stage, next to kawaiipunkd and her crew, who we bonded with over Hello!Project a bit before the show started.
Myuji went on first. As I said before, they were awesome. The lead singer has a really beautiful, strong, clear voice, and his stage presence is awesome. The bassist is really quirky and silly. The drummer is really mellow, but super cute as well. But the guitarist was my favorite. Out of the four of them, I got the feeling he was the "straight man", the most normal looking guy, and the most timid. He looked all kinds of awkward and flustered the first couple songs, which was precious to watch, but I noticed that as the show progressed, he reluctantly let loose and rocked out more and more. He threw guitar picks into the audience at one point, and I caught one~! ♥
The audience was crackling with tension and energy as the stagehands prepped for the girls to come on. What made me happiest was the blend of people present- it seemed like a nice, level mix of hardcore oldschool fans and people who had just discovered Hangry&Angry and had no idea what to expect. As soon as they were announced, the whole crowd roared and started up a stead chant of "Hangry! Angry!" that lasted a decent amount through the (far too long) opening monologue.
( Note: I think I mixed up the setlist a little, my mind is still scrambled. The gist of it is right, though, I think!)
They set foot on stage, totally in character, Yossi staring darkly out at everyone, Rika looking doe-eyed and a little manic. They started with one of the new songs they'd announced would be debuted at Sakuracon, and the crowd was in the palm of their hands, screaming and dancing and chanting with all of their hearts. They're amazing performers with such seasoned, comfortable, commanding stage presence, and their voices have really grown strong. Rika wasn't tone-deaf once, which, if you remember her early performances with Momusu... they both performed massively well.
They sang Angelia after that, and everyone knew the words and sang back to them. It was after this that I started noticing it- they were so energized by the crowd that their stage characters were starting to crack. They were smiling more and more, and trying to fight it off. They sang Sadistic Dance, which is also new, and the crowd loved it (it was just released on iTunes. GO BUY IT. I can't stop listening), and they followed that with Giza Giza, which everyone sang as well. Because we were in the front, We were inches from Rika when she made her way over. We screamed and reached for her, and she smiled and reached back. When Yossi made her way over to us the first time, she made eye contact with us, too, and we sang to each other for a couple moments. We were reaching and waving our glowsticks and giving her the rockstar treatment, and she received it with amazing grace and charisma.
They performed a third new song, called Lady Madonna, I believe, and they danced with feathery fans. They'd thrown glowstick necklaces into the audience prior to that, and Liz, being the amazing girlfriend that she is, caught one from each of them and gave me Yossi's. ♥ After this song, they spoke a bit, and Rika said "time for the next song!" Yossi got into position, with her back turned, and right as she looked as though she was about to get started, the screen behind them flashed "Happy Birthday to Hangry", and everyone screamed (Yossi turned 24 on April 12th, which was Saturday in Japan). Rika led the audience in a chorus of "Happy Birthday", and Yossi lost her character completely in surprise. It made me so happy. She wasn't Hangry at that moment, she was 100% Yoshizawa Hitomi; the Yossi we came all that way to see. It threw her off completely, and for the rest of the concert, both of them were performing as themselves.
They played Kill Me Kiss Me next, and on each pause between "Kill Me" and "Kiss Me", the crowd would echo back to them. They seemed to love that a lot. Rika kept blowing kisses to the audience, and Yossi kicked out and let loose... it was so charged. They went into Romantic Ni Violence next, which is my favorite of their songs, so I was up on the barricade singing my lungs out the whole time. This time when Yossi came up, Liz, Mina and I used both hands to make hearts up at her. She looked back at us, smiled, and with the hand she wasn't using to hold her mic, extended half a heart back at us.
I lost my shit and started bawling my eyes out. Being acknowledged directly, unmistakably... I'll never forget that moment, ever. It was phenomenal. I felt a million feet tall. I didn't think anything could make me feel any better.
And then they played the next song. It took everyone a few moments, because the tune was not one we recognized immediately, even though we all somehow knew the words....
It was a rock version of The Peace.
After all the disassociation from Hello!Project, they sang a Morning Musume song.
The crowd was ballistic There were people in the audience doing the para para for it. Everyone knew the words, On the off beats, people would thrust peace signs into the air and yell like crazy. At the end, even through the wailing guitars and heavy beats, they still did the usual finish, then stumble and start again. It was brilliant.
After that, they covered another Morning Musume song- LOVE AND PEACE! Hero ga Yattekiru. I wish it had been a song I'd known the words to, but it was Momusu either way, so I was beside myself. They said their goodbyes after that and went offstage, and everyone was wailing "encore" for about five minutes. They came back and did Kill Me Kiss Me again, which led me to believe that they weren't expecting to do an encore. This made me super happy, too. As they left, Yossi looked at us and smiled again. My heart was mush. It was such an incredible night.
After the concert, we went back and rested for a short while, repeating our favorite parts of the show over and over again. Liz and I changed into rave gear (we kept our hair all styled from the show... let me state for the record that Liz should always have a faux-hawk and I have such a tremendous crush on her when she does. You know, even moreso that usual) and went back to the con hoping for a good dance or two. We ran into Maguma, Ikuy, DW, and eventually Saku, and we all headed down to the rave, where Smile.dk was playing.
I've been a fan of Smile.dk for years. They do really popular songs like Butterfly and Domo Domo Domo, and I really enjoy their stuff. However... how do I put this delicately.
Techno vocalists, especially Bubblegum Dance vocalists, are sort of notorious for being tone deaf, because they rely on computer enhancement so heavily.
Guess who falls into that category.
The long and short of it is that Smike.dk sucks live. I mean really, really sucks. We stayed for about forty minutes, and it just kept getting worse and worse. They made my dance!boner dissipate completely, which is saying something. I tried really hard and simply could not muster it- they sounded like anime karaoke contest rejects. It was upsetting to witness. The only redeeming factor of the performance was finding Dancing Dad, this ridiculously normal looking guy in his mid-fifties wearing a buttondown shirt, slacks, a belt, loafers and glasses.... waving his arms around and getting so into it. Not only was it monsterously funny, but he was having such a fucking great time that I was genuinely happy for him. It was charming rather than embarrassing, even though it should have been the latter.
We left for the rest of their performance, loitered a bit, and went back when Ian K went on. He spun UK hardcore, and was much, much better. Mina joined us and we danced for awhile, until I started feeling sick, and then Liz and I wandered around a bit and eventually made it back home in time to collapse in bed and comb through the details of the concert again until we fell asleep.
Sunday was pretty sad, as con Sundays often are, but a large number of people stuck around. We lined up for the Hangry&Angry Q&A. Liz and I got together a birthday present for her- an I ♥ New York shirt and a blue and white keffyah scarf from her, a "Hollywood" hoodie and a really special charm (I got in Big Sur when I was really young) from me, and CDs and letters from both of us- all in a purple letterbox with a green ribbon. The questions themselves could have been a lot worse, in my opinion, and the girls were cute enough to buffer anything too stupid (though the whole crowd groaned the third time a stupid nerdy boy wasted a question asking them "what they were doing later" or "what it must be like to be the most beautiful girl in the world". What I gathered from it was that they really, really enjoyed the concert, and that they were releasing a new album this year (!!!!!!), performing a lot more lives, and coming back to the US! Somebody also asked whether Yossi's tomboyish nature was an act, and she explained that when she was young, she was trained to be a generic girl idol, but as time progressed, her true nature came forward. ♥ I think my favorite part of the panel might have been Rika's answer to "what was the favorite cosplay you've seen this weekend?" which was a sexy Choppa gijinka from One Piece. My heart. So adorable.
We went up for one last autograph afterward, and when we presented Yossi with her present, we got the sweetest "thank you!" ever. Rika pointed to us and went "Hangry Hair?" and we agreed, and Yossi called us cute (and I died a lot.) Liz was able to tell them she thought the concert was amazing, and I sort of clumisly echoed her sentiments, and we shook both their hands. I swear, my hands were tingling for like... an hour afterwards. We broke off from our group to sit in the room, and watch her a bit longer. Once the line dissipated a bit, she noticed us and smiled again. We waved, she waved back and said "thank you", again. As they left, a big group of stragglers wished her happy birthday again, and she was gone.
Liz and I floated blissfully through the rest of the afternoon, unable to get our minds off of it. After all the years of following their work religiously, to think I'd be able to look her in the eye and speak to her... al;djskajdklajkl. I'll never forget it. Ever. One of my life goals has been accomplished. I hope she comes back to the States- I want to see them at every show I can. We spent the rest of the day hanging out with con friends and watching people leave, and we got out around seven ourselves. All the goodbyes were horrendous, as usual; why can't we all just live in one big place?
I spent the night in the airport to catch my flight at six. I do not recommend this to ANYBODY. D: God, it was atrocious. I spent eight bucks on an internet connection my computer could barely find, and I had to curl up in the kids' play area to sleep it's also amazing how empty the place is at four compared to how packed it is at five. Basically, being a hobo is not fun. Did recieve a nice call from shuriken, though. ♥ Even if I was asleep for most of it. @A@
Also, I got harassed by like three different people at the train station. DO I LOOK LIKE I HAVE MONEY TO GIVE YOU? I'm a fucking broke college kid. Leave me alone. When the third guy approached me and was like "hey, how you doin'?" I was just at the end of my rope.
"Pretty horribly, actually. I'm broke as fuck and I've been awake for 32 hours. All I want to do right now is go the fuck home."
He just looked kind of stunned and walked away. Good.
tl;dr: I talked to Yossi several times. Stood front row at the concert. Cried a ton. She said thank you and called us cute on Sunday. She acknowledged us on a peresonal level. She knows I exist. They're coming back to America. The con was amazing. My. Life. AH.
I'm still in a kind of daze. Work will be interesting today. All I can think about is about Fanime, the summer... and my future after that. And my hand still tingles now and then.
If you took the time to read this, you get a cookie.
I posted a few new cosplay photos at my Coscom, but I am too tired to add images to this hunk of writing. XD;; Sorry! I plan on uploading pictures later on. Till then! ♥ Goodnight, flist.
I apologize if this entry is disjointed, I just spent all night in an airport. I just want to get it posted so I don't forget anything.
Let me start this potentially massive journal entry by saying:
:|
But seriously. This convention is awesome. A seven-floor venue packed with tons of indoor and outdoor photoshoot locations, complete with restaurants inside. Tons of hotels within painless walking distance. Friendly, understanding, helpful staff, both con and con center. A ton of cosplayers, a surprising percentage of them decent at the very least, with a ton of variety in subject matter. I wish it were closer to everyone; cause I think you guys would adore this con. Seattle is a beautiful city, and I felt very comfortable the whole time I was there (admittedly, the wet weather helped). Everything was super organized, and the surrounding community seemed really chill with the whole event; some people even seemed really excited about it. I was very, very impressed; it's definitely up there with Fanime now, which is seriously saying something.
I got in at three in the afternoon on Thursday and met up with Mina (meenuuh ) and Riku ( caineyamiyasha ) at the airport. There was much hugging and yelling and excitement as we took a cab to the Crowne Plaza, which was about two blocks from the con. We unpacked everything and ventured to the con center for a bit to explore, find people, and pick up prereg badges. We spent awhile in the prereg line, during which Riku and I ventured to get some delicious calzones, we met up with Maguma ( maguma_sama ), and had to endure a group of obnoxious fifteen year old screaming kids in maid dresses in front of us. After this, we decided it'd be a marvelous idea to get into our swimsuits and soak in the pool for awhile.... only to discover our hotel didn't have one. XD; Oh. Instead, I dyed my hair and we sat around and ate. Liz ( kasaiface ) finally made it to us a couple hours late due to a really balls flight delay, and we hit the hay. Falling asleep in her arms is always worth the travel, I swear to god. A perfect fit. ♥
Friday morning we got up early and agonized over our appearance for awhile, then went down to the con to the first Hangry&Angry event; the autograph signing. We found the line and I met up with the lovely Allise ( gogirlanime ), a dear friend from the Hello!Online boards who I first met in person at Anime Expo in 2005 and haven't seen since then. There was a bit of a scramble trying to find merchandise to buy that they could sign (we were under the impression that they were only allowed to sign official, licensed merchandise, and the table in the Dealers' Hall that sold it was like... smack dab in the middle of the massive room and had no sign, so I kept missing it. XD; ) Either way, we just managed to buy some photos and run our way back over as they started letting people in.
We were queuing up when we first met a new group of friends: Sumiko the most moe little Japanese lady ever, her tiny old asian Mama, and their sassy translator Tomo. They were all dressed in Hangry&Angry merch, and we found out that they flew to Sakuracon all the way from Japan because it was such a rare event. Die hard fans. ♥ They were super sweet! We saw them several times over the weekend.
We were all standing together waiting when we saw somebody peek out of one of the barricade curtains. It took me a moment, but we realized it was Yossi. My heart literally stopped. We all waved at her and giggled like fifteen-year-olds, and Allise, who speaks Japanese, called at her. When they finally came out, I was a wreck.
She is even more gorgeous in person. Oh my god. Her eyes and her movements and her smile and all of it. She is completely captivating to watch. And so short. I always forget that she's 5'4" because she's so tall compared to the rest of them. I remarked several times that weekend that if she was that tall in person, Mari must be like... bite-sized.
Anyway, she was in this red and black striped suit, and her hair was spiked up in this sort of pseudo-yohawk, and tipped pink at the ends. Rika had blue streaked, voluminous Lolita curls and lots of ruffles and all that, and looked super lovely. They're both super gorgeous in person.
I've also got to state right out of the gate that this weekend really changed my opinion of Rika. It's still possible that she's a bitch in real life, but she's adorable, an awesome performer, and incredibly gracious toward and excited by the fans. She also still seems to hold Momusu close to her heart. While I can never bring myself to support Ishiyoshi full-throttle, I can definitely support the pair as close friends.
Anyway, they started signing, and I was losing my shit. I had to bite my tongue to keep from babbling all the way as we inched closer (and it didn't work too well). When we finally made it up, and she looked up into my face... I was gone. I opened my mouth and nothing came out. All I managed to stammer was "a-a-arigatougouzimasu" to both of them. I had to make a calm, collected break for it to fight back the tears that followed being that close to my idol of six years after ages of being convinced I'd never get the chance. It was a little overwhelming. We all geeked out a bit and then broke off to go to the Dealer's Hall. On our way there, we tried to walk through the gaming center to get there. Riku got stopped for not having a badge (Liz had borrowed his to get into the signing because she hadn't found the person who she was buying hers from (the lovely Michi/ nuriko, who we met up with later) hadn't gotten there yet) The guy who stopped him was a real dick, said some crappy stuff, and even pushed him a couple times. He proceeded to head right down to the con op to complain, and eventually we were engaged by the convention center manager himself, who apologized profusely and said "if there's anything we can do for you to make the weekend more enjoyable, please let us know." We were pleased but couldn't think of anything, so we thanked him and headed out again.
There was a special Guest Reception dinner at 6:30 that Liz and I bought tickets for, so we made our way over to the Hyatt hotel. I confess to not knowing who a lot of the quests were, but I was pleasantly surprised to meet Kappei Yamaguchi there. He'd obviously had a few by the time we got to him, cause he was twice as spunky as usual (which is saying something, from what I've seen of him) and said "oaaah! Pretty gaals!" and threw his arms around us for a photo. He is such a good dude.
We also were first introduced to Myuji, Hangry&Angry's opening band. They did a theme song for X, but that's all I knew about them previously. As it turns out, they're fucking awesome. There are four of them; the bassist, the guitarist, the vocalist and the drummer (I'll talk about them a bit more when I get to the concert recap). During the speeches, they came up to the mic and promptly shouted "COSPLAY ROCKS. I LOVE HENTAI" when asked what their favorite hentai was, the bassist replied something in garbled Japanese a few times, then the lead singer grabbed the mic and repeated "foot fetish." We were all dying.
Overall, as far as Yossi and Rika were concerned, though, I was a little disappointed with the reception. The girls were supposed to be in their Hangry&Angry "characters", which made them stonier and far less silly than their normal selves. That paired with the fact that (Rika admitted to this) they were both exhausted, jetlagged, and (from what I guess) a little overwhelmed at the American con atmosphere.. basically, they were very quiet and the energy was a little off. We got to go up and talk to them, but their translator was on the phone and Allise was engaging them a lot more than we were able to (Liz and I agreed that there has never been a moment before then that we had desired so badly to be fluent in Japanese). She did say that we'd been fans for six years from when they were in Hello!Project though, which got a quickly masked but nonetheless apparent reaction. Rika giggled sweetly at me when I fumbled over my Japanese, too. I do enjoy her.
We headed back to the room and borrowed Mina and Riku's Roxas and Schoolgirl Namine costumes (Liz was the sweetest baby for cosplaying them with me ;A; ), which we wore to the /cgl/ gathering. This was rather fun, even if I'm not too keen on the site, and I made a few new friends, including DW ( ravendarkwings ) and Ikuy, who are both effing adorable and I want to cosplay a ton with them in the future. More west coast kids! ♥ DW loaned me her Nia wig and Maguma (who is now officially my Aniki, even if he is younger than me) loaned Liz his Kamina wig, which we somehow fashioned to look vaguely like Simon's hair, so we got to cosplay gakuenhen Simon and Nia after all! Uhuhuhuuhuhu I love them so. I also got to see Lo-fi Guy dressed as naked Kamina, wearing only a pair of flesh-coloured panties with Boota stuck to the front. But as everyone on /cgl/ has already seen his bits, I guess this doesn't amount to much. The rest of our night consisted of a failed attempt at going to the rave due to stomach issues and a lot of sleep.
Saturday we donned our Simon and Nia gear (though Liz needed to get her wig, still), and ventured to the con center. We had a really enjoyable day hanging out with Maguma and Ikuy, and once we finally obtained Simon hairs, we did a little photoshoot with Mina and Riku, who were cosplaying gakuenhen Naruto and Hinata (lolololol AU crossover desu). This con really reminded me of how much fun cosplaying with friends is. I also got to meet _tazzy at one point, and we met completely by accident via my admiration of her Sailor Cosmos cosplay! ♥ It was really great to see her. At about four we ran back and changed for the concert.
We got to the outside of the main stage about an hour before seating was set to start, and there was no line. We were stoked. There was a line for priority armbands, but we were the first people there, so we kept forgetting about needing them. Everything was going splendidly until our attention was directed to the autograph room next door from the previous day, where we discovered a huge, huge queue for the show. I was livid. The priority booth was empty when we went to check again, and by the time Mina and Riku caught up with us, it looked like I was going to have to fight half the con to get to the front of the stage.
Right as I was bummed to the extreme, who should Liz and Riku find but the con center manager from Friday. Remember the one who owed us a favor?
Needless to day, I was thanking my lucky stars. We got right up front on the right side of the stage, next to kawaiipunkd and her crew, who we bonded with over Hello!Project a bit before the show started.
Myuji went on first. As I said before, they were awesome. The lead singer has a really beautiful, strong, clear voice, and his stage presence is awesome. The bassist is really quirky and silly. The drummer is really mellow, but super cute as well. But the guitarist was my favorite. Out of the four of them, I got the feeling he was the "straight man", the most normal looking guy, and the most timid. He looked all kinds of awkward and flustered the first couple songs, which was precious to watch, but I noticed that as the show progressed, he reluctantly let loose and rocked out more and more. He threw guitar picks into the audience at one point, and I caught one~! ♥
The audience was crackling with tension and energy as the stagehands prepped for the girls to come on. What made me happiest was the blend of people present- it seemed like a nice, level mix of hardcore oldschool fans and people who had just discovered Hangry&Angry and had no idea what to expect. As soon as they were announced, the whole crowd roared and started up a stead chant of "Hangry! Angry!" that lasted a decent amount through the (far too long) opening monologue.
( Note: I think I mixed up the setlist a little, my mind is still scrambled. The gist of it is right, though, I think!)
They set foot on stage, totally in character, Yossi staring darkly out at everyone, Rika looking doe-eyed and a little manic. They started with one of the new songs they'd announced would be debuted at Sakuracon, and the crowd was in the palm of their hands, screaming and dancing and chanting with all of their hearts. They're amazing performers with such seasoned, comfortable, commanding stage presence, and their voices have really grown strong. Rika wasn't tone-deaf once, which, if you remember her early performances with Momusu... they both performed massively well.
They sang Angelia after that, and everyone knew the words and sang back to them. It was after this that I started noticing it- they were so energized by the crowd that their stage characters were starting to crack. They were smiling more and more, and trying to fight it off. They sang Sadistic Dance, which is also new, and the crowd loved it (it was just released on iTunes. GO BUY IT. I can't stop listening), and they followed that with Giza Giza, which everyone sang as well. Because we were in the front, We were inches from Rika when she made her way over. We screamed and reached for her, and she smiled and reached back. When Yossi made her way over to us the first time, she made eye contact with us, too, and we sang to each other for a couple moments. We were reaching and waving our glowsticks and giving her the rockstar treatment, and she received it with amazing grace and charisma.
They performed a third new song, called Lady Madonna, I believe, and they danced with feathery fans. They'd thrown glowstick necklaces into the audience prior to that, and Liz, being the amazing girlfriend that she is, caught one from each of them and gave me Yossi's. ♥ After this song, they spoke a bit, and Rika said "time for the next song!" Yossi got into position, with her back turned, and right as she looked as though she was about to get started, the screen behind them flashed "Happy Birthday to Hangry", and everyone screamed (Yossi turned 24 on April 12th, which was Saturday in Japan). Rika led the audience in a chorus of "Happy Birthday", and Yossi lost her character completely in surprise. It made me so happy. She wasn't Hangry at that moment, she was 100% Yoshizawa Hitomi; the Yossi we came all that way to see. It threw her off completely, and for the rest of the concert, both of them were performing as themselves.
They played Kill Me Kiss Me next, and on each pause between "Kill Me" and "Kiss Me", the crowd would echo back to them. They seemed to love that a lot. Rika kept blowing kisses to the audience, and Yossi kicked out and let loose... it was so charged. They went into Romantic Ni Violence next, which is my favorite of their songs, so I was up on the barricade singing my lungs out the whole time. This time when Yossi came up, Liz, Mina and I used both hands to make hearts up at her. She looked back at us, smiled, and with the hand she wasn't using to hold her mic, extended half a heart back at us.
I lost my shit and started bawling my eyes out. Being acknowledged directly, unmistakably... I'll never forget that moment, ever. It was phenomenal. I felt a million feet tall. I didn't think anything could make me feel any better.
And then they played the next song. It took everyone a few moments, because the tune was not one we recognized immediately, even though we all somehow knew the words....
It was a rock version of The Peace.
After all the disassociation from Hello!Project, they sang a Morning Musume song.
The crowd was ballistic There were people in the audience doing the para para for it. Everyone knew the words, On the off beats, people would thrust peace signs into the air and yell like crazy. At the end, even through the wailing guitars and heavy beats, they still did the usual finish, then stumble and start again. It was brilliant.
After that, they covered another Morning Musume song- LOVE AND PEACE! Hero ga Yattekiru. I wish it had been a song I'd known the words to, but it was Momusu either way, so I was beside myself. They said their goodbyes after that and went offstage, and everyone was wailing "encore" for about five minutes. They came back and did Kill Me Kiss Me again, which led me to believe that they weren't expecting to do an encore. This made me super happy, too. As they left, Yossi looked at us and smiled again. My heart was mush. It was such an incredible night.
After the concert, we went back and rested for a short while, repeating our favorite parts of the show over and over again. Liz and I changed into rave gear (we kept our hair all styled from the show... let me state for the record that Liz should always have a faux-hawk and I have such a tremendous crush on her when she does. You know, even moreso that usual) and went back to the con hoping for a good dance or two. We ran into Maguma, Ikuy, DW, and eventually Saku, and we all headed down to the rave, where Smile.dk was playing.
I've been a fan of Smile.dk for years. They do really popular songs like Butterfly and Domo Domo Domo, and I really enjoy their stuff. However... how do I put this delicately.
Techno vocalists, especially Bubblegum Dance vocalists, are sort of notorious for being tone deaf, because they rely on computer enhancement so heavily.
Guess who falls into that category.
The long and short of it is that Smike.dk sucks live. I mean really, really sucks. We stayed for about forty minutes, and it just kept getting worse and worse. They made my dance!boner dissipate completely, which is saying something. I tried really hard and simply could not muster it- they sounded like anime karaoke contest rejects. It was upsetting to witness. The only redeeming factor of the performance was finding Dancing Dad, this ridiculously normal looking guy in his mid-fifties wearing a buttondown shirt, slacks, a belt, loafers and glasses.... waving his arms around and getting so into it. Not only was it monsterously funny, but he was having such a fucking great time that I was genuinely happy for him. It was charming rather than embarrassing, even though it should have been the latter.
We left for the rest of their performance, loitered a bit, and went back when Ian K went on. He spun UK hardcore, and was much, much better. Mina joined us and we danced for awhile, until I started feeling sick, and then Liz and I wandered around a bit and eventually made it back home in time to collapse in bed and comb through the details of the concert again until we fell asleep.
Sunday was pretty sad, as con Sundays often are, but a large number of people stuck around. We lined up for the Hangry&Angry Q&A. Liz and I got together a birthday present for her- an I ♥ New York shirt and a blue and white keffyah scarf from her, a "Hollywood" hoodie and a really special charm (I got in Big Sur when I was really young) from me, and CDs and letters from both of us- all in a purple letterbox with a green ribbon. The questions themselves could have been a lot worse, in my opinion, and the girls were cute enough to buffer anything too stupid (though the whole crowd groaned the third time a stupid nerdy boy wasted a question asking them "what they were doing later" or "what it must be like to be the most beautiful girl in the world". What I gathered from it was that they really, really enjoyed the concert, and that they were releasing a new album this year (!!!!!!), performing a lot more lives, and coming back to the US! Somebody also asked whether Yossi's tomboyish nature was an act, and she explained that when she was young, she was trained to be a generic girl idol, but as time progressed, her true nature came forward. ♥ I think my favorite part of the panel might have been Rika's answer to "what was the favorite cosplay you've seen this weekend?" which was a sexy Choppa gijinka from One Piece. My heart. So adorable.
We went up for one last autograph afterward, and when we presented Yossi with her present, we got the sweetest "thank you!" ever. Rika pointed to us and went "Hangry Hair?" and we agreed, and Yossi called us cute (and I died a lot.) Liz was able to tell them she thought the concert was amazing, and I sort of clumisly echoed her sentiments, and we shook both their hands. I swear, my hands were tingling for like... an hour afterwards. We broke off from our group to sit in the room, and watch her a bit longer. Once the line dissipated a bit, she noticed us and smiled again. We waved, she waved back and said "thank you", again. As they left, a big group of stragglers wished her happy birthday again, and she was gone.
Liz and I floated blissfully through the rest of the afternoon, unable to get our minds off of it. After all the years of following their work religiously, to think I'd be able to look her in the eye and speak to her... al;djskajdklajkl. I'll never forget it. Ever. One of my life goals has been accomplished. I hope she comes back to the States- I want to see them at every show I can. We spent the rest of the day hanging out with con friends and watching people leave, and we got out around seven ourselves. All the goodbyes were horrendous, as usual; why can't we all just live in one big place?
I spent the night in the airport to catch my flight at six. I do not recommend this to ANYBODY. D: God, it was atrocious. I spent eight bucks on an internet connection my computer could barely find, and I had to curl up in the kids' play area to sleep it's also amazing how empty the place is at four compared to how packed it is at five. Basically, being a hobo is not fun. Did recieve a nice call from shuriken, though. ♥ Even if I was asleep for most of it. @A@
Also, I got harassed by like three different people at the train station. DO I LOOK LIKE I HAVE MONEY TO GIVE YOU? I'm a fucking broke college kid. Leave me alone. When the third guy approached me and was like "hey, how you doin'?" I was just at the end of my rope.
"Pretty horribly, actually. I'm broke as fuck and I've been awake for 32 hours. All I want to do right now is go the fuck home."
He just looked kind of stunned and walked away. Good.
tl;dr: I talked to Yossi several times. Stood front row at the concert. Cried a ton. She said thank you and called us cute on Sunday. She acknowledged us on a peresonal level. She knows I exist. They're coming back to America. The con was amazing. My. Life. AH.
I'm still in a kind of daze. Work will be interesting today. All I can think about is about Fanime, the summer... and my future after that. And my hand still tingles now and then.
If you took the time to read this, you get a cookie.
I posted a few new cosplay photos at my Coscom, but I am too tired to add images to this hunk of writing. XD;; Sorry! I plan on uploading pictures later on. Till then! ♥ Goodnight, flist.