Tuti and Nagayan :: Year Six
HAPPY 6TH ANNIVERSARYof meeting each other
Ok, posting this quickly before I have to run to work, but poll results and such will be up in a couple of hours (so if you STILL haven't done it, you have a few more minutes!)
Seeing as this has become something of a tradition, and I find it really helpful (and tons of fangirly fun) to go over just how far fandom's come in the last 365 days, I present to you the 6th of our annual Anniversary Essays! Happy Anniversary-of-the-day-you-met, guys! ^___^
Year Six - June 30, 2008 to June 29, 2009
Drama Drama Everywhere, and Not a Honkouen to See!
Well, the guys pulled a fast one on us for Year 5, stealthily putting off what would turn out to be quite possibly one of the biggest announcements in fandom history for July 1st and making us wait a whole year before it got compiled into an essay. But, well, we love 'em still!
Every year on July 1st, *pnish* has an event called "HappyPani", which is their annual birthday event to celebrate the founding of their group (July 1, 2001). Every year's show is bigger than the one before that, and over time many of the guys' friends have taken to showing up and enjoying seeing the guys remix all their old skits and characters into one crowded, sweltering, fun-filled afternoon, including Nagayama Takashi himself. July 1, 2008, was no different, as the guys got ready to kick off HappyPani7, their 7th anniversary.
I, lavenderlilly, and her sister (along with a group of other foreign friends) were all crowded into the sticky, musty main hall of Shibuya O-East, thoroughly enjoying ourselves. View the full fangirly report here. But as this is the Tuti/Nagayan anniversary essay, let's cut to the good stuff here!!
If you've never been to a HappyPani (and let's face it, most of us haven't ;_;) O-East is set up with a main concert-hall type floor that can hold over 1000 people, and then there's a balcony overlooking it that can hold another few hundred. We, the lowly paying plebes, were relegated to the lower floor, and the kankeisha (関係者, friends and family of the actors) got to occupy the balcony. Read the account of what happened when *pnish* foolishly let Tuti go up to said balcony, knowing full well Nagayan was up there:
Here, the side screens flickered on again, and Tuti's face filled them as he called out greetings to Wasshi and Daiki. They asked him where he was, because he was now changed into a bright yellow shirt and fuchsia pink newsboy cap. He announced that he was in a far-away place, and Daiki immediately suggested, "Russia?" No, Tuti responded, he was NOT IN RUSSIA, GEEZ. He was...UP ON THE SECOND FLOOR WITH ALL THE GUESTS. ABOUT TO INTERVIEW THEM YAAAAAY! The point of this section? For Tuti to go around and embarrass all their guests and get them to give birthday comments to *pnish* :DDDDDD
[...] I must point out that the whole time the camera was on Gaku, Nagayan--who'd kind of been hanging away from everyone before so as not to be in the shot--was bouncing around and weaving in and out behind Gaku, throwing peace signs at the camera the whole time. Unable, apparently, to resist this anymore, Tuti pushed Gaku away and made for Nagayan, shouting for his attention over and over, "TAKASHI TAKASHI TAKASHI TAKASHI!!" Eiji had really meant for Gaku to be the last interviewee, but Tuti of course couldn't pass up THE BOYFRIEND.
Then--he GRABBED NAGAYAN BY THE WRIST and PULLED HIM TOWARDS HIM (since he'd kind of been off in the shadows) and WOULD NOT LET GO, turning the camera full on him XDDDDDD "IT'S NAGAYAMA TAKASHI-KUN~!!!" he introduced, and oh the SCREAMS FROM THE CROWD. Seriously, in that one moment it felt like the whole crowd, all 1300+ of us, were rooting for them to just kiss already.
Tuti finally let go of Nagayan's wrist, and Nagayan complained that he was really nervous, but Tuti just pressed, "So are you enjoying yourself today??" Nagayan responded, "I'm having a BLAST!" Tuti then regarded the crowd and commented, "Wow, everyone's looking up here at us rather than the monitors~" <--duh, boy. Everyone wants to see your ichaicha live rather than via a screen!!
Realizing all the attention was on him, Nagayan did what he does best and leaned over the railing and BLEW EVERYONE AWAY WITH AN ANNOUNCEMENT:
"I'M GONNA BE IN THE NEXT *PNISH* SHOW!!"
Well, there we had it. After 5 years of friendship with Tuti and just as many of fanboying the group as a whole, Nagayan seemed to be finally about to do what we'd been waiting for: actually appear in one of their own shows. Not a musical with Tuti and Eiji, not a simple straight play with Tuti or Wasshi or Eiji or Daiki alone, but an actual *pnish* honkouen as a cast member. Hot. Fucking. Damn. IT'S ABOUT TIME.
Uuuuuunfortunately this was almost one year ago now, and *pnish* hasn't had a honkouen since last June's Samurai Mode! Their next performance is slated for late October, but the cast list has yet to be announced. Will Nagayan follow through on this announcement, or was he just getting caught up in the moment? Only time will tell!
Moving on--buoyed on by anticipation for the impending co-starring role with Tuti, members of our own comm got off their asses and showed their love via the printed word! Compiling all of the fics posted to our LJ comm in 2005 into one beautiful paperback book, we celebrated the release of the foreign fandom's first anthology on July 14th. At nearly 500 pages with dozens of stories plus interviews with some of fandom's earliest authors, it's definitely worth a read! [/pimping] Hey, the Japanese fandom gets to release their anthologies, we're just making our mark as well ;)
A few days later, while browsing popular video website NicoNico Video, I happened across a quite old recording of Panic Studio, *pnish*'s radio show, specifically the one from May 27, 2006. This was the famed PaniSuta in which Tuti introduced to the world his and Nagayan's FIRST CHILD! Well, "collaboration" is what they were calling it, I suppose, but this doesn't make it any less something the two of them made together, that looks a bit like both of them, and is loved by all! The first of many subsequent joint projects between the two, this Blossam&Decossam shirt announcement appeared to leave our Otote-kun a bit...well, flustered:
Well now, as far as personal announcements go, I've just collaborated with Nagayama Takashi-shi, with whom I co-starred in TeniMyu and BuriMyu, and his brand 'Blossam,' and made a t-shirt. And that will go on sale June 3rd. It'll be available at Gain, this store in Harajuku, [T/N: HARAJUKU? *headdesk* Tuti........] ...eh? Eh? Eh--ah, SHIBUYA. It's in Shibuya, a store in Shibuya. It'll be on sale there. So umm, everyone please, go--go and, and buy it.
And so anyways, today, there's a request here from that same Nagayama Takashi-shi. So now we'll listen to that. Eh--this is Nagayama Takashi's 'Kotoba Kara'."
Forgetting for a moment just how the heck did he "happen" to have his own copy of Kotoba Kara (as the radio station definitely wouldn't have had a CD, since it's unreleased) riiiight when Nagayan "happened" to request it, it still bowls me over how such a loud, excited guy can be embarrassed by the smallest things. He obviously knew quite well what the fans thought of him, Takashi, and himandTakashi--it amazes me how really, really popular they are together. With the hundreds, even thousands of screaming fans that make themselves vocally known any time one of them does something implying a friendship or deeper relationship with the other, not to mention all the doujinshi (hell, we're the biggest Myu pairing comm on LJ!), they're popular, REALLY popular, no matter whether they're dating or not. And Tuti is soooooo obviously not down with that popularity.
It doesn't strike me as an embarrassment borne of being ashamed of their relationship, but more just of being NOTICED, of being popular for some reason completely unrelated to his acting or dancing ability (not that he doesn't appear to be embarrassed by his popularity in those respects as well XD;). He's a weird guy; Nagayan definitely doesn't have any problem being blatantly obvious in his FC events about his close relationship with Tuti, and I suppose we should count our blessings in that respect.
Moving on, we skip ahead to August 11th and Tuti's post that day. In the middle of performances for Arashi ni Naru Made Matte, Nagayan dropped by to watch his boy strut his stuff, and Tuti dropped the bomb that yes, they were going to do another collaboration! For those of you keeping count at home: FOURTH CHILD. Confirmation followed shortly from Yamashita-tenchou of Gain, and it was revealed that it would be another flapped bag, like the previous release, with different--but still very much them--designs on either side of the flap. I'll touch more on this topic later, when it was actually released.
At the end of that month, Nagayan hosted the first of many future fan club events situated around a fictitious school, Nagayama Joshi Gakuen (the Nagayama School for Girls), with the first event taking place at Mother Farm in Chiba (just to the southeast of Tokyo). Why am I including information on this in the TxN anniversary essay? Weeeeeelllllll...mostly because of this, and the section entitled "The Mystery of May 5th SOLVED" (wherein "May 5" refers to this incident):
On the bus ride over, we watched a short video Nagayan made for the occasion, mostly with footage of him months earlier having come to check out where we'd go--including Umihotaru (a big mall-like rest stop, essentially--some footage for NaiPani was filmed there, too) and Mother Farm. In the video, Nagayan is seen to be veeeeeery very tired, yawning at least once every few minutes, so much that the video started showing subtitles commenting on it, like, "And Takashi is yawning again" or "There's another yawn!" to shed a little humor on the situation and distract everyone from the fact that the boy seemed to not have gotten ANY sleep the night before. To make things even MORE obvious that he'd probably not slept more than a couple of hours, if that, he at one point says it's Monday, and is corrected that no, it's Tuesday.
A little further into the video we learn that he is visiting Umihotaru and Mother Farm during Golden Week. The Tuesday around Golden Week when Nagayan was free was Tuesday, May 6. The day after Monday, May 5th (which apparently Nagayan thought it still was, not having gotten any sleep that Monday evening for reasons unknown...)
Now, shifting tracks, many of you may remember a few months back, on a lovely Monday evening, Tuti posted to his blog about going to see Nagayan's show that day. You may also remember that I posted he also came to see the Kitty Guys show afterwards. And then left abruptly headed BACK to Nagayan's theater.
That night? Monday, May 5th. You may also remember that at the time we kind of giggled about it, saying they were probably having some "fun" together before Nagayan was off on tour for Kuuchuu Blanco that Wednesday (his Tuesday was free, as far as we knew).
Well with this new evidence we now know that on Tuesday, May 6th, Nagayan was very, very, very tired, to the point of thinking it was still the previous night, which from previous evidence we suspect he likely had spent with Tuti (since nowhere was there any footage of him going to the uchiage for Kuuchuu Blanco, nor of Tuti for Kitty Guys).
We never got any hard evidence either way, but just how "circumstantial" can something be before it starts to become, "...Well you know, MAYBE something DID happen..."? Too many coincidences for me! But then, I'm a hopeless romantic :P Viva, TxN! *pumps fist*
Fastforward ahead through a slow October and we arrive at November 4th! Yes, that lovely November 4th. It was my second one to celebrate here in Japan, and we had a faboo night of curry, karaoke, and cake! However, the real fun hit home a few days later on November 8th at the much-anticipated NelkeFes!
If you're not in the mood to drudge through the long report, NelkeFes was an event held last November 8th at Shinagawa Prince Hotel that was what Nelke called a "Thank-you Festival". Admission was free, but you had to be lucky enough to win the lottery to get in. Once there, however, you were treated to talks and mini-Lives and overall amazingness from all of Nelke Planning's BIGGEST stars, from Kimeru to *pnish* to TeniMyu stars to BuriMyu stars, tons of actors and seiyuu attended the event, and there were prizes and games, chances to buy tickets to events, get your picture taken with the stars, it was an AMAZING experience.
One would've thought that in such a public venue, and especially one not set up particularly for *pnish* or Nagayan, that there'd be no Tuti/Nagayan happenings, despite their both being in the same place at the same time. Well you'd be WRONG!
*pnish* was the first of the guests, and came on stage together with Run & Gun, then everyone introduced themselves. However, after R&G finished their introduction, Tuti suddenly pointed across the hall and just interrupted everything going, "Wow, I was just looking at all that stuff written over there by that food cart, and that one nearest the end that says 'Dagashi' [だがし] looked like 'Takashi' [たかし] to me! Takashi! Takashi!" COMPLETELY RANDOMLY AND OUT OF THE BLUE. There hadn't been any talk of Nagayan, Nagayan hadn't even COME OUT YET, just...WTF TUTI. WHAT. THE. FUCK.
As I said in my report, "Dude, man. If you aren't sleeping with Nagayan, you need some serious therapy, Tuti, because you're seeing his name in places it's not." XDDDD Now, come on. Tuti is NOT one for fanservice, really. When he tries to be sexy, he doesn't pull it off very well (but when he just happens to fall into it, god is it amazing), and I seriously doubt he'd purposefully do more to fuel the Tuti/Nagayan flame this far out of TeniMyu. It served a purpose in 2003, 2004, but in 2008, 2009? Now it's getting a little weird. And in a very good way, at that :D Shortly after the event, Nagayan helpfully posted a picture of the offending sign. Yes, we can now all see how Tuti obviously just got confused.
A few days later after this amazing event, *pnish*'s Moriyama Eiji and Washio Noboru announced the guest list for their upcoming third Santies event, an annual event they host, just the two of them, as the oldest *pnish* members. Their guests are always 30 and older, and have featured seiyuu such as Kiuchi Hidenobu (Oshitari Yuushi's seiyuu from Prince of Tennis) and Yuzawa Kouichirou (prominent crossdressing actor and amazing singer and photographer *___*). This year, though...there was a little surprise coming to see them on February 6th: NAGAYAMA TAKASHI would be guesting!
And February 6th? TSUCHIYA YUUICHI'S 30TH BIRTHDAY. Fandom kinda went a little spastic. To spoil everyone, I've gotta confess that nothing untoward wound up happening--Tuti was banished to Nagoya for his birthday, on the road for a show he was doing, and Nagayan seemed content to show everyone how he was an *ahem* really good pitcher and regaled us all with tales of how Eiji liked to smell his farts in BuriMyu rehearsals. Beautifully touching stuff.
To fandom's immense joy, Nagayan got a new blog for his birthday on November 16th (...isn't that more a present for US? XD) and wasted NO time in spamming it with pictures of himself at the NagaJo Onsen Overnight Event. He also showed everyone some of the fun gifts he got...one of which looked eerily familiar.
...well I definitely see a resemblance >_> The outfits (particularly Nagayan's in the back) plus the prominent double-bangs Tuti's known for having really make this...a strange present indeed. Who gave it to Nagayan? Are they both supposed to be Nagayan? And what of Nagayan's strange text posted with this picture: "This is what my house looks like right now." The world may never know...!
The rest of the year passed with relative ease. In late December, Tuti mentioned walking past a rehearsal hall (likely the Shinjuku Mura rehearsal hall park, which is a group of buildings containing some 40-or-so rehearsal spaces) and seeing "[...] Nagayama Takashi screaming while he held up a man who had collapsed." Random chance meetings in their da-to-day lives? It's the little things that count :D
The new year came, and brought with it a busy schedule for our boys--but not so busy that they couldn't take a little time out to bowl fandom over by finally officially announcing THEIR FOURTH CHILD (complete with pics XD). It was to be released Valentine's Day weekend (oh god, get a little more obvious, will ya?) and it appeared, with this release, that the guys had finally stopped pretending this was going to be "the last, we swear". Even Yamashita-tenchou himself writes, "As for myself, it feels more like, 'I wanna see, wanna hear about, wanna make--more Decossam-only goods!' If the designer and actor Tsuchiya Yuuichi-san should see this, please give it some thought (haha)." ...said while wearing the 4th child XDDDDD
This official release date of February 15th coincided (coincidentally? HAH.) with Nagayan's 4th Live (hmmm, 4th child and 4th live? Iiiiiinteresting XD). And JUST in case he felt he wasn't guaranteed to sell out every last one of those babies (pun intended), Nagayan decided he'd do a little throwback to the FC events of yesteryear...and give the audience a thrill in the form of TxN fanservice. Read this excerpt from the full report:
At one point, it was time for the "in-flight meal". This part was performed entirely by Nagayan (pre-recorded audio, not he himself on stage) saying the following in English:
"Fish or Chicken?" (accompanied by an image of a fish and a beef dinner) -- he answered, "Fish"
"Dead or Alive?" (I think this one was a dead fish and a baby, and I guess it was, "Would you rather be dead or alive?") -- he answered, "Alive"
"Takashi or Yuuichi?" (WHAT THE HELL. WHAT THE FUCKING HELL. And yes, this was accompanied by helpful BLOG IMAGES OF THEM -- Nagayan's here, and Tuti's here) -- his answer??
"YUUICHI"
Also, please let it be known that the MOMENT Tuti's picture showed up, the. Entire. Hall. SCREAMED. Another one of those moments where it felt like the entire audience, all 500 or so of us, were in that moment, shipping them both so madly.
...oh Nagayan... There is a really special feeling when the fandom and the guys themselves share a single point in space-time with the same feelings and same hopes, and this was one of those moments. It may have been nothing more than simple fanservice, but really, what point would that have served? There's no more TeniMyu for these two, and Nagayan has long since stopped including his costars in his events. The only person these days who even refers to them still as "the Golden Pair" is Yamashita-tenchou, and you know it's just to increase sales :P
Let's not even mention that Tuti himself was spotted up in the kankeisha section watching the entire affair, and GOD I hope he was embarrassed by that 8DDDDD
But no. Noooo no no, this was not the end to the amazing fandom events that were to occur in February, no no. It's like their birthday months are month-long celebrations of themselves and their relationship--first November, and now February! For barely a week later, we got spammed with two-shots and more. What was this mysterious new project? We wouldn't get any official news until over a month later, but this was filming for a special follow-up to the popular drama ShibaTora, in which Tuti and Nagayan would play two detectives, with a few prominent roles in the special. They obviously had some scenes together, and it became apparent that fandom was not the only one to notice their chemistry.
Just how exactly did they land not only parts on the same drama, but playing partners? That was the $64,000 question! And one to which we had no answer...until April 11th, at one of Nagayan's famed FC tea parties:
Suzuki-san popped in to ask Nagayan about the midokoro, or what the audience should focus on. He seemed to think about this for a moment, putting on a serious thinking face while the audience silently waited.
And then, it started. Slowly at first.
"Tuti!"
"Tuti!"
"Tuti! Tuti!"
"TUTI! TUTI! TUTI!"
LIKE A FRICKING STORM OF VOICES, something like half the audience was SHOUTING TUTI'S NAME AT NAGAYAN XDDDDDDDD After a moment everyone calmed down, and he nodded, then kind of adopted this expression that was really...frustrated/angry but obviously trying not to smile XD;;;
HERE STARTED THE COMPLAINING.
So, apparently, he told us, HE'D HAD NO IDEA TUTI WAS EVEN IN THE SPECIAL, LET ALONE HIS PARTNER.
How did that happen? Well after he'd gotten his part, Nagayan had received a script and his role's name, but of course the script only had character names in it, and so all he knew was the characters he was going to interact with and not people beyond the main actors. A few days later, he was asked to come in for a costume fitting, and so he arrived at the place thinking nothing of it.
And he's sitting there, waiting his turn patiently.
And then...
THE LAUGH.
That loud, abrasive, ONLY ONE PERSON IN THE WORLD HAS IT. Laugh.
When he looked across the room, there walking towards him was TSUCHIYA YUUICHI. He said as soon as he heard the laugh, this little bit inside of him just died from disappointment like "OH GOD NO. HE'S NEVER IN DRAMAS. NO WAY." XDDDDDDDD (seriously, the entire time he was talking it sounded like a WIFE COMPLAINING ABOUT HER STUPID HUSBAND XD)
Then he proceeded to utterly maul Tuti in front of us :P He complained about the guy being late ("It's one thing to be late for theater rehearsals, but another to be late for a drama! There are schedules that have to be stuck to, filming time sheets and all! You can't just stroll in with your loud laugh way too high tension for this early in the morning!") and about him being super sweaty--as usual XD ("He was DRIPPING with sweat and the poor costume lady just kept asking for more and more tissues to wipe him down with -- GEEZ, CONTROL YOUR WATER INTAKE ALREADY!") and of course, ABOUT THE GUY NOT EVEN TELLING HIM THAT HE WAS GOING TO BE IN A DRAMA (me, I'm wondering why Nagayan felt the need to be informed of this :DDDDD). He then ranted about how he runs into this guy everywhere, and now he's doing dramas with him XD And added that yes...they have quite a few scenes together :DDDDD
Yup. The red thread of fate strikes again...or did it? Tuti has never hidden his dislike for television appearances, even outright stating that he prefers the stage. Up until this appearance, he hadn't done any TV work in years, save for a short stint guesting in another detective drama and, of course, *pnish*'s NaiPani, which was hardly your run-of-the-mill drama. Nagayan, on the other hand, thoroughly enjoys guesting in goofy shows and doing movie shoots. So how the heck did these two wind up going for the same television show and landing partner roles without either one knowing it? That, friends, is a little too coincidental for words. And if it's true, I'd be getting mighty freaked out at how we kept getting drawn together if I were them.
March 19th, the Rock Musical Bleach website started getting geared up for the upcoming May Film Fest events, during which some of the actors would discuss the shows, funny stories, and everyone would sing and have fun. To prep people for the impending awesome backstage footage, some video got posted to the official site. Video which included things like adorable images of Nagayan singing cheesily and Tuti looking very, "oi vey, see what I have to put up with?"
Please to be noting the smiiiiiile on Tuti's face, kthxbai.
May was a quite slow month for fandom, with Tuti off around the country to tour with his show Yakamashii Hitobito and Nagayan...in Tuti's hometown, filming a movie (and of course Nagayan had no power over where the movie was going to be filmed, but who's to say he didn't take advantage of it and drop by and see Tsuchiya Yumiko? :DDDDD Gotta keep on the in-laws' good side!)
We were pretty sure the 6th year was going to be "in like a lion, out like a lamb"...until they sprang another surprise on us June 17th, celebrating Kimeru's birthday Old Cast style! Booze, Nintendo Wii, and lots and lots of pictures made for what looked to be an excellent time, and we can only imagine what fun times were had when the boys got reunited after not being able to hang out for months on end.
Let's hope it wasn't wasted ^_~ and that their 6th year will flow into their 7th with as much enduring friendship and more-than-friendship as has lasted this long.
Happy Meeting Anniversary, guys :) Your continuing antics make a lot of people happy, and we can only hope it's made you two just as happy and more so!
Ok, posting this quickly before I have to run to work, but poll results and such will be up in a couple of hours (so if you STILL haven't done it, you have a few more minutes!)
Seeing as this has become something of a tradition, and I find it really helpful (and tons of fangirly fun) to go over just how far fandom's come in the last 365 days, I present to you the 6th of our annual Anniversary Essays! Happy Anniversary-of-the-day-you-met, guys! ^___^
Year Six - June 30, 2008 to June 29, 2009
Drama Drama Everywhere, and Not a Honkouen to See!
Well, the guys pulled a fast one on us for Year 5, stealthily putting off what would turn out to be quite possibly one of the biggest announcements in fandom history for July 1st and making us wait a whole year before it got compiled into an essay. But, well, we love 'em still!
Every year on July 1st, *pnish* has an event called "HappyPani", which is their annual birthday event to celebrate the founding of their group (July 1, 2001). Every year's show is bigger than the one before that, and over time many of the guys' friends have taken to showing up and enjoying seeing the guys remix all their old skits and characters into one crowded, sweltering, fun-filled afternoon, including Nagayama Takashi himself. July 1, 2008, was no different, as the guys got ready to kick off HappyPani7, their 7th anniversary.
I, lavenderlilly, and her sister (along with a group of other foreign friends) were all crowded into the sticky, musty main hall of Shibuya O-East, thoroughly enjoying ourselves. View the full fangirly report here. But as this is the Tuti/Nagayan anniversary essay, let's cut to the good stuff here!!
If you've never been to a HappyPani (and let's face it, most of us haven't ;_;) O-East is set up with a main concert-hall type floor that can hold over 1000 people, and then there's a balcony overlooking it that can hold another few hundred. We, the lowly paying plebes, were relegated to the lower floor, and the kankeisha (関係者, friends and family of the actors) got to occupy the balcony. Read the account of what happened when *pnish* foolishly let Tuti go up to said balcony, knowing full well Nagayan was up there:
Here, the side screens flickered on again, and Tuti's face filled them as he called out greetings to Wasshi and Daiki. They asked him where he was, because he was now changed into a bright yellow shirt and fuchsia pink newsboy cap. He announced that he was in a far-away place, and Daiki immediately suggested, "Russia?" No, Tuti responded, he was NOT IN RUSSIA, GEEZ. He was...UP ON THE SECOND FLOOR WITH ALL THE GUESTS. ABOUT TO INTERVIEW THEM YAAAAAY! The point of this section? For Tuti to go around and embarrass all their guests and get them to give birthday comments to *pnish* :DDDDDD
[...] I must point out that the whole time the camera was on Gaku, Nagayan--who'd kind of been hanging away from everyone before so as not to be in the shot--was bouncing around and weaving in and out behind Gaku, throwing peace signs at the camera the whole time. Unable, apparently, to resist this anymore, Tuti pushed Gaku away and made for Nagayan, shouting for his attention over and over, "TAKASHI TAKASHI TAKASHI TAKASHI!!" Eiji had really meant for Gaku to be the last interviewee, but Tuti of course couldn't pass up THE BOYFRIEND.
Then--he GRABBED NAGAYAN BY THE WRIST and PULLED HIM TOWARDS HIM (since he'd kind of been off in the shadows) and WOULD NOT LET GO, turning the camera full on him XDDDDDD "IT'S NAGAYAMA TAKASHI-KUN~!!!" he introduced, and oh the SCREAMS FROM THE CROWD. Seriously, in that one moment it felt like the whole crowd, all 1300+ of us, were rooting for them to just kiss already.
Tuti finally let go of Nagayan's wrist, and Nagayan complained that he was really nervous, but Tuti just pressed, "So are you enjoying yourself today??" Nagayan responded, "I'm having a BLAST!" Tuti then regarded the crowd and commented, "Wow, everyone's looking up here at us rather than the monitors~" <--duh, boy. Everyone wants to see your ichaicha live rather than via a screen!!
Realizing all the attention was on him, Nagayan did what he does best and leaned over the railing and BLEW EVERYONE AWAY WITH AN ANNOUNCEMENT:
"I'M GONNA BE IN THE NEXT *PNISH* SHOW!!"
Well, there we had it. After 5 years of friendship with Tuti and just as many of fanboying the group as a whole, Nagayan seemed to be finally about to do what we'd been waiting for: actually appear in one of their own shows. Not a musical with Tuti and Eiji, not a simple straight play with Tuti or Wasshi or Eiji or Daiki alone, but an actual *pnish* honkouen as a cast member. Hot. Fucking. Damn. IT'S ABOUT TIME.
Uuuuuunfortunately this was almost one year ago now, and *pnish* hasn't had a honkouen since last June's Samurai Mode! Their next performance is slated for late October, but the cast list has yet to be announced. Will Nagayan follow through on this announcement, or was he just getting caught up in the moment? Only time will tell!
Moving on--buoyed on by anticipation for the impending co-starring role with Tuti, members of our own comm got off their asses and showed their love via the printed word! Compiling all of the fics posted to our LJ comm in 2005 into one beautiful paperback book, we celebrated the release of the foreign fandom's first anthology on July 14th. At nearly 500 pages with dozens of stories plus interviews with some of fandom's earliest authors, it's definitely worth a read! [/pimping] Hey, the Japanese fandom gets to release their anthologies, we're just making our mark as well ;)
A few days later, while browsing popular video website NicoNico Video, I happened across a quite old recording of Panic Studio, *pnish*'s radio show, specifically the one from May 27, 2006. This was the famed PaniSuta in which Tuti introduced to the world his and Nagayan's FIRST CHILD! Well, "collaboration" is what they were calling it, I suppose, but this doesn't make it any less something the two of them made together, that looks a bit like both of them, and is loved by all! The first of many subsequent joint projects between the two, this Blossam&Decossam shirt announcement appeared to leave our Otote-kun a bit...well, flustered:
Well now, as far as personal announcements go, I've just collaborated with Nagayama Takashi-shi, with whom I co-starred in TeniMyu and BuriMyu, and his brand 'Blossam,' and made a t-shirt. And that will go on sale June 3rd. It'll be available at Gain, this store in Harajuku, [T/N: HARAJUKU? *headdesk* Tuti........] ...eh? Eh? Eh--ah, SHIBUYA. It's in Shibuya, a store in Shibuya. It'll be on sale there. So umm, everyone please, go--go and, and buy it.
And so anyways, today, there's a request here from that same Nagayama Takashi-shi. So now we'll listen to that. Eh--this is Nagayama Takashi's 'Kotoba Kara'."
Forgetting for a moment just how the heck did he "happen" to have his own copy of Kotoba Kara (as the radio station definitely wouldn't have had a CD, since it's unreleased) riiiight when Nagayan "happened" to request it, it still bowls me over how such a loud, excited guy can be embarrassed by the smallest things. He obviously knew quite well what the fans thought of him, Takashi, and himandTakashi--it amazes me how really, really popular they are together. With the hundreds, even thousands of screaming fans that make themselves vocally known any time one of them does something implying a friendship or deeper relationship with the other, not to mention all the doujinshi (hell, we're the biggest Myu pairing comm on LJ!), they're popular, REALLY popular, no matter whether they're dating or not. And Tuti is soooooo obviously not down with that popularity.
It doesn't strike me as an embarrassment borne of being ashamed of their relationship, but more just of being NOTICED, of being popular for some reason completely unrelated to his acting or dancing ability (not that he doesn't appear to be embarrassed by his popularity in those respects as well XD;). He's a weird guy; Nagayan definitely doesn't have any problem being blatantly obvious in his FC events about his close relationship with Tuti, and I suppose we should count our blessings in that respect.
Moving on, we skip ahead to August 11th and Tuti's post that day. In the middle of performances for Arashi ni Naru Made Matte, Nagayan dropped by to watch his boy strut his stuff, and Tuti dropped the bomb that yes, they were going to do another collaboration! For those of you keeping count at home: FOURTH CHILD. Confirmation followed shortly from Yamashita-tenchou of Gain, and it was revealed that it would be another flapped bag, like the previous release, with different--but still very much them--designs on either side of the flap. I'll touch more on this topic later, when it was actually released.
At the end of that month, Nagayan hosted the first of many future fan club events situated around a fictitious school, Nagayama Joshi Gakuen (the Nagayama School for Girls), with the first event taking place at Mother Farm in Chiba (just to the southeast of Tokyo). Why am I including information on this in the TxN anniversary essay? Weeeeeelllllll...mostly because of this, and the section entitled "The Mystery of May 5th SOLVED" (wherein "May 5" refers to this incident):
On the bus ride over, we watched a short video Nagayan made for the occasion, mostly with footage of him months earlier having come to check out where we'd go--including Umihotaru (a big mall-like rest stop, essentially--some footage for NaiPani was filmed there, too) and Mother Farm. In the video, Nagayan is seen to be veeeeeery very tired, yawning at least once every few minutes, so much that the video started showing subtitles commenting on it, like, "And Takashi is yawning again" or "There's another yawn!" to shed a little humor on the situation and distract everyone from the fact that the boy seemed to not have gotten ANY sleep the night before. To make things even MORE obvious that he'd probably not slept more than a couple of hours, if that, he at one point says it's Monday, and is corrected that no, it's Tuesday.
A little further into the video we learn that he is visiting Umihotaru and Mother Farm during Golden Week. The Tuesday around Golden Week when Nagayan was free was Tuesday, May 6. The day after Monday, May 5th (which apparently Nagayan thought it still was, not having gotten any sleep that Monday evening for reasons unknown...)
Now, shifting tracks, many of you may remember a few months back, on a lovely Monday evening, Tuti posted to his blog about going to see Nagayan's show that day. You may also remember that I posted he also came to see the Kitty Guys show afterwards. And then left abruptly headed BACK to Nagayan's theater.
That night? Monday, May 5th. You may also remember that at the time we kind of giggled about it, saying they were probably having some "fun" together before Nagayan was off on tour for Kuuchuu Blanco that Wednesday (his Tuesday was free, as far as we knew).
Well with this new evidence we now know that on Tuesday, May 6th, Nagayan was very, very, very tired, to the point of thinking it was still the previous night, which from previous evidence we suspect he likely had spent with Tuti (since nowhere was there any footage of him going to the uchiage for Kuuchuu Blanco, nor of Tuti for Kitty Guys).
We never got any hard evidence either way, but just how "circumstantial" can something be before it starts to become, "...Well you know, MAYBE something DID happen..."? Too many coincidences for me! But then, I'm a hopeless romantic :P Viva, TxN! *pumps fist*
Fastforward ahead through a slow October and we arrive at November 4th! Yes, that lovely November 4th. It was my second one to celebrate here in Japan, and we had a faboo night of curry, karaoke, and cake! However, the real fun hit home a few days later on November 8th at the much-anticipated NelkeFes!
If you're not in the mood to drudge through the long report, NelkeFes was an event held last November 8th at Shinagawa Prince Hotel that was what Nelke called a "Thank-you Festival". Admission was free, but you had to be lucky enough to win the lottery to get in. Once there, however, you were treated to talks and mini-Lives and overall amazingness from all of Nelke Planning's BIGGEST stars, from Kimeru to *pnish* to TeniMyu stars to BuriMyu stars, tons of actors and seiyuu attended the event, and there were prizes and games, chances to buy tickets to events, get your picture taken with the stars, it was an AMAZING experience.
One would've thought that in such a public venue, and especially one not set up particularly for *pnish* or Nagayan, that there'd be no Tuti/Nagayan happenings, despite their both being in the same place at the same time. Well you'd be WRONG!
*pnish* was the first of the guests, and came on stage together with Run & Gun, then everyone introduced themselves. However, after R&G finished their introduction, Tuti suddenly pointed across the hall and just interrupted everything going, "Wow, I was just looking at all that stuff written over there by that food cart, and that one nearest the end that says 'Dagashi' [だがし] looked like 'Takashi' [たかし] to me! Takashi! Takashi!" COMPLETELY RANDOMLY AND OUT OF THE BLUE. There hadn't been any talk of Nagayan, Nagayan hadn't even COME OUT YET, just...WTF TUTI. WHAT. THE. FUCK.
As I said in my report, "Dude, man. If you aren't sleeping with Nagayan, you need some serious therapy, Tuti, because you're seeing his name in places it's not." XDDDD Now, come on. Tuti is NOT one for fanservice, really. When he tries to be sexy, he doesn't pull it off very well (but when he just happens to fall into it, god is it amazing), and I seriously doubt he'd purposefully do more to fuel the Tuti/Nagayan flame this far out of TeniMyu. It served a purpose in 2003, 2004, but in 2008, 2009? Now it's getting a little weird. And in a very good way, at that :D Shortly after the event, Nagayan helpfully posted a picture of the offending sign. Yes, we can now all see how Tuti obviously just got confused.
A few days later after this amazing event, *pnish*'s Moriyama Eiji and Washio Noboru announced the guest list for their upcoming third Santies event, an annual event they host, just the two of them, as the oldest *pnish* members. Their guests are always 30 and older, and have featured seiyuu such as Kiuchi Hidenobu (Oshitari Yuushi's seiyuu from Prince of Tennis) and Yuzawa Kouichirou (prominent crossdressing actor and amazing singer and photographer *___*). This year, though...there was a little surprise coming to see them on February 6th: NAGAYAMA TAKASHI would be guesting!
And February 6th? TSUCHIYA YUUICHI'S 30TH BIRTHDAY. Fandom kinda went a little spastic. To spoil everyone, I've gotta confess that nothing untoward wound up happening--Tuti was banished to Nagoya for his birthday, on the road for a show he was doing, and Nagayan seemed content to show everyone how he was an *ahem* really good pitcher and regaled us all with tales of how Eiji liked to smell his farts in BuriMyu rehearsals. Beautifully touching stuff.
To fandom's immense joy, Nagayan got a new blog for his birthday on November 16th (...isn't that more a present for US? XD) and wasted NO time in spamming it with pictures of himself at the NagaJo Onsen Overnight Event. He also showed everyone some of the fun gifts he got...one of which looked eerily familiar.
...well I definitely see a resemblance >_> The outfits (particularly Nagayan's in the back) plus the prominent double-bangs Tuti's known for having really make this...a strange present indeed. Who gave it to Nagayan? Are they both supposed to be Nagayan? And what of Nagayan's strange text posted with this picture: "This is what my house looks like right now." The world may never know...!
The rest of the year passed with relative ease. In late December, Tuti mentioned walking past a rehearsal hall (likely the Shinjuku Mura rehearsal hall park, which is a group of buildings containing some 40-or-so rehearsal spaces) and seeing "[...] Nagayama Takashi screaming while he held up a man who had collapsed." Random chance meetings in their da-to-day lives? It's the little things that count :D
The new year came, and brought with it a busy schedule for our boys--but not so busy that they couldn't take a little time out to bowl fandom over by finally officially announcing THEIR FOURTH CHILD (complete with pics XD). It was to be released Valentine's Day weekend (oh god, get a little more obvious, will ya?) and it appeared, with this release, that the guys had finally stopped pretending this was going to be "the last, we swear". Even Yamashita-tenchou himself writes, "As for myself, it feels more like, 'I wanna see, wanna hear about, wanna make--more Decossam-only goods!' If the designer and actor Tsuchiya Yuuichi-san should see this, please give it some thought (haha)." ...said while wearing the 4th child XDDDDD
This official release date of February 15th coincided (coincidentally? HAH.) with Nagayan's 4th Live (hmmm, 4th child and 4th live? Iiiiiinteresting XD). And JUST in case he felt he wasn't guaranteed to sell out every last one of those babies (pun intended), Nagayan decided he'd do a little throwback to the FC events of yesteryear...and give the audience a thrill in the form of TxN fanservice. Read this excerpt from the full report:
At one point, it was time for the "in-flight meal". This part was performed entirely by Nagayan (pre-recorded audio, not he himself on stage) saying the following in English:
"Fish or Chicken?" (accompanied by an image of a fish and a beef dinner) -- he answered, "Fish"
"Dead or Alive?" (I think this one was a dead fish and a baby, and I guess it was, "Would you rather be dead or alive?") -- he answered, "Alive"
"Takashi or Yuuichi?" (WHAT THE HELL. WHAT THE FUCKING HELL. And yes, this was accompanied by helpful BLOG IMAGES OF THEM -- Nagayan's here, and Tuti's here) -- his answer??
"YUUICHI"
Also, please let it be known that the MOMENT Tuti's picture showed up, the. Entire. Hall. SCREAMED. Another one of those moments where it felt like the entire audience, all 500 or so of us, were in that moment, shipping them both so madly.
...oh Nagayan... There is a really special feeling when the fandom and the guys themselves share a single point in space-time with the same feelings and same hopes, and this was one of those moments. It may have been nothing more than simple fanservice, but really, what point would that have served? There's no more TeniMyu for these two, and Nagayan has long since stopped including his costars in his events. The only person these days who even refers to them still as "the Golden Pair" is Yamashita-tenchou, and you know it's just to increase sales :P
Let's not even mention that Tuti himself was spotted up in the kankeisha section watching the entire affair, and GOD I hope he was embarrassed by that 8DDDDD
But no. Noooo no no, this was not the end to the amazing fandom events that were to occur in February, no no. It's like their birthday months are month-long celebrations of themselves and their relationship--first November, and now February! For barely a week later, we got spammed with two-shots and more. What was this mysterious new project? We wouldn't get any official news until over a month later, but this was filming for a special follow-up to the popular drama ShibaTora, in which Tuti and Nagayan would play two detectives, with a few prominent roles in the special. They obviously had some scenes together, and it became apparent that fandom was not the only one to notice their chemistry.
Just how exactly did they land not only parts on the same drama, but playing partners? That was the $64,000 question! And one to which we had no answer...until April 11th, at one of Nagayan's famed FC tea parties:
Suzuki-san popped in to ask Nagayan about the midokoro, or what the audience should focus on. He seemed to think about this for a moment, putting on a serious thinking face while the audience silently waited.
And then, it started. Slowly at first.
"Tuti!"
"Tuti!"
"Tuti! Tuti!"
"TUTI! TUTI! TUTI!"
LIKE A FRICKING STORM OF VOICES, something like half the audience was SHOUTING TUTI'S NAME AT NAGAYAN XDDDDDDDD After a moment everyone calmed down, and he nodded, then kind of adopted this expression that was really...frustrated/angry but obviously trying not to smile XD;;;
HERE STARTED THE COMPLAINING.
So, apparently, he told us, HE'D HAD NO IDEA TUTI WAS EVEN IN THE SPECIAL, LET ALONE HIS PARTNER.
How did that happen? Well after he'd gotten his part, Nagayan had received a script and his role's name, but of course the script only had character names in it, and so all he knew was the characters he was going to interact with and not people beyond the main actors. A few days later, he was asked to come in for a costume fitting, and so he arrived at the place thinking nothing of it.
And he's sitting there, waiting his turn patiently.
And then...
THE LAUGH.
That loud, abrasive, ONLY ONE PERSON IN THE WORLD HAS IT. Laugh.
When he looked across the room, there walking towards him was TSUCHIYA YUUICHI. He said as soon as he heard the laugh, this little bit inside of him just died from disappointment like "OH GOD NO. HE'S NEVER IN DRAMAS. NO WAY." XDDDDDDDD (seriously, the entire time he was talking it sounded like a WIFE COMPLAINING ABOUT HER STUPID HUSBAND XD)
Then he proceeded to utterly maul Tuti in front of us :P He complained about the guy being late ("It's one thing to be late for theater rehearsals, but another to be late for a drama! There are schedules that have to be stuck to, filming time sheets and all! You can't just stroll in with your loud laugh way too high tension for this early in the morning!") and about him being super sweaty--as usual XD ("He was DRIPPING with sweat and the poor costume lady just kept asking for more and more tissues to wipe him down with -- GEEZ, CONTROL YOUR WATER INTAKE ALREADY!") and of course, ABOUT THE GUY NOT EVEN TELLING HIM THAT HE WAS GOING TO BE IN A DRAMA (me, I'm wondering why Nagayan felt the need to be informed of this :DDDDD). He then ranted about how he runs into this guy everywhere, and now he's doing dramas with him XD And added that yes...they have quite a few scenes together :DDDDD
Yup. The red thread of fate strikes again...or did it? Tuti has never hidden his dislike for television appearances, even outright stating that he prefers the stage. Up until this appearance, he hadn't done any TV work in years, save for a short stint guesting in another detective drama and, of course, *pnish*'s NaiPani, which was hardly your run-of-the-mill drama. Nagayan, on the other hand, thoroughly enjoys guesting in goofy shows and doing movie shoots. So how the heck did these two wind up going for the same television show and landing partner roles without either one knowing it? That, friends, is a little too coincidental for words. And if it's true, I'd be getting mighty freaked out at how we kept getting drawn together if I were them.
March 19th, the Rock Musical Bleach website started getting geared up for the upcoming May Film Fest events, during which some of the actors would discuss the shows, funny stories, and everyone would sing and have fun. To prep people for the impending awesome backstage footage, some video got posted to the official site. Video which included things like adorable images of Nagayan singing cheesily and Tuti looking very, "oi vey, see what I have to put up with?"
Please to be noting the smiiiiiile on Tuti's face, kthxbai.
May was a quite slow month for fandom, with Tuti off around the country to tour with his show Yakamashii Hitobito and Nagayan...in Tuti's hometown, filming a movie (and of course Nagayan had no power over where the movie was going to be filmed, but who's to say he didn't take advantage of it and drop by and see Tsuchiya Yumiko? :DDDDD Gotta keep on the in-laws' good side!)
We were pretty sure the 6th year was going to be "in like a lion, out like a lamb"...until they sprang another surprise on us June 17th, celebrating Kimeru's birthday Old Cast style! Booze, Nintendo Wii, and lots and lots of pictures made for what looked to be an excellent time, and we can only imagine what fun times were had when the boys got reunited after not being able to hang out for months on end.
Let's hope it wasn't wasted ^_~ and that their 6th year will flow into their 7th with as much enduring friendship and more-than-friendship as has lasted this long.
Happy Meeting Anniversary, guys :) Your continuing antics make a lot of people happy, and we can only hope it's made you two just as happy and more so!