[report] Sexy Zone in Yokohama Arena, 5/3 @ 5 pm (first show)
Okay, so I'm going to try to keep myself from having a horrible backlog and get started right away on my Sexy Zone reports, since I have 3 more events in May, plus I never wrote my report for J's Party Vol. 2 even though I have notes, AND I realized I'm totally made of fail and never wrote up my plot summary for the Kamen Teacher movie, even though I also have notes for that, too. I suck! But I'm going to attempt to keep my backlog at a minimum, so… here's my first day report for Sexy Zone's 2014 Yokohama Arena concert!
The first day started later than the rest, at 5 pm, which was good because we ended up running late and rushing to get goods and stuff. XD; Our seats were literally the last row of the upper stands, right up next to the stage, so we have a pretty clear view of the main stage, but it was from the side angle, which meant we couldn't see the screen or the set very well, and we could only really see the juniors on the left side of the stage. The setup of the whole place was odd; usually Johnny's groups set YokoAri up the long way, with the stage at one end, a center stage in the middle of the arena, and then the back stage at the opposite end of the house, at the far curve of the catwalk. However, this time, the stage was set up on one of the long sides, and the catwalk was circular, putting part of the arena outside the catwalk, which was utterly bizarre. There was no center stage, only a large back stage. I've never seen YokoAri set up that way before, and honestly, I think it fell short for the lower stands/arena. Generally speaking, being in the front of the lower stands means you get to see the catwalk well, and being in the arena means you get to see the catwalk/center stage/main stage well depending on your place, but with this setup, that wasn't really the case for everyone. It basically created a larger lower stands area and a smaller arena, but the lower stands area didn't have a slant, so short people probably got screwed over. At any rate, I had far seats on the first day and close seats on the third day (which is probably reverse of the better order, since I didn't really get to pay as close attention to the show the second day since I was freaking out every two seconds when someone got close enough to see/touch me), so I got a better impression of the show overall on the first day.
The show opened with a recording of Marius speaking random English. The words were written in English and (very roughly) translated into Japanese on the screens, with a picture of the earth in the background. The general gist of what was said was sort of in the vein of Johnny's World… something about a group of young boys wanting to see the universe or something like that, I don't even know. It was really odd, and the English was clearly not written by Marius, because it was grammatically pretty bad at some points. Then, the recording of Marius introduced the members of Sexy Zone in English while each one called out a message from backstage, and then they pulled back the curtain thing that they had covering the set to reveal the giant car (may have seen it in the news clips and stuff about the tour) set with Sexy Zone on top, Sexy Boyz (Jinguji, Iwahashi, Kishi, Abe, Miyachika), Sexy Jr (Reia, Takahashi Kaito), and Sexy Champ (Morita, Anderson, Masuda, Hanzawa) as well as some prominent younger ones (Amu, Fu, MatsuMatsu, Okamoto Kauan, etc) in the back. Kakuta was still missing, and Kishi took his places in all the formations with Reia and Takahashi Kaito, while Abe was the fourth member in the Sexy Boyz formations. Kuramoto was also missing. By the way, I didn't make up those group names; they're the ones from Crea. Things got complicated a bit later, but Sexy Zone did definitively call Reia and Takahashi Kaito "Sexy Jr," so for the time being, it seems like that name is legit. Jinguji, Iwahashi, Kishi, Abe, and Miyachika were all dressed in pink, Reia and Takahashi Kaito were in orange, and Morita, Anderson, Masuda, and Hanzawa were in green for a lot of the beginning of the show, and their costumes generally all held together in those groupings for the rest of the concert. There were times when all eleven of them were in the same costume and the other juniors were in a different costume, as well.
The opening was pretty standard; they started on the stage with We Gotta Go, and did a few others both from their new album and older songs (Suki Sugite, Silver Moon, and Lady Diamond come to mind, but I honestly am awful at remembering the setlist, and you can find it on twitter and stuff, so sorry that this isn't going to focus on what songs they did in what order!) Early on, they introduced the eleven important Juniors that I mentioned above, and then went around the catwalk and got on carts to be moved around between the arena and the lower stands. On the 3rd, all of Sexy Zone plus the 5 members of Sexy Boyz and the 2 members of Sexy Jr. were on the carts, so I got to see Reia up close (ish) briefly~ At some point (I'm sorry I forget so much of this), Sou did his backflip and the crowd went wild, which was adorable.
Eventually, Fuma, Marius, and Sou disappeared and only Kento and Shori were left onstage. A piano was brought out, and Kento sat at the piano while the eleven important Juniors came out with penlights in hand. The penlights for this concert were colour changing with the five colours that seemed to be attached to the members for the tour (though everyone but Fuma and Shori keep changing all the time, gdi), and Shori told us to watch the juniors and practice changing the colour of our penlights at the same time. Then Kento randomly decided to have us repeat after him, having us say "Shori," "Kenty," "Sexy," "Zone," "Chinatown" (Yokohama is famous for the Chinatown there), and "I love you" XD;; Then he and Shori chatted a little bit, talking about Kento's piano playing skills and just generally making googly eyes at one another. It was really cute; Shori seems to have gotten past his mad crushing and even teased Kento a little bit, but even still, he kept leaning over the piano and looking Kento in the eyes all lovingly, and they both were really smiley and giggly. It was really cute! Eventually, Shori sang A My Girlfriend while Kento played the piano, and the Juniors did simple repetitive penlight movements for us to mimic while changing the colour every once in a while. Partway through the song, Fuma appeared in the audience, causing screams and people to fail to realize they needed to change their penlight colour, which was amusing.
There may have been more songs in between (oh god I'm sorry it's really hard to remember all this stuff. @__@;) but soon after, all five members of Sexy Zone came out onto the back stage and directed our attention to a floor plan image they asked the staff to put up on the screens. It showed the inside of the catwalk versus the outside of the catwalk, and they asked us to watch and practice changing our penlight colours based on the image. Basically, the inside of the catwalk was one colour ahead of the outside, but when we did it, it looked pretty cool. As always, some fans didn't participate for whatever reason, and Fuma said something along the lines of "some people are having trouble!" or something, teasingly. Marius decided to add a "I'm sorry, I know it's difficult~" all patronizingly, which… I'm sure he didn't mean to sound the way it did, but it sounded pretty obnoxious. |D;;; It was also amusing to watch them tell the staff "Can you please change the image now? Okay, can you change it again? Please? Hello?" There were generally a lot of technical difficulties during the first show-- the bass kept causing feedback in the mics, and when any of the front three had vocal solos that weren't lip-synced, their mics didn't get turned on right, causing the first few words of their solos to be quiet or muffled. All the difficulties seemed fixed by the show on the 5th, but it was pretty weird and awkward that everything was messed up on the first day.
Once we got a hang of the penlight thing, the guys sang four seasons, then went back to the main stage and got into four groups with Juniors to do season-themed skits. Spring was Fuma with Anderson and Masuda. They talked about the new school year, but I'm the worst at understanding Japanese humour, so I didn't really understand the punchline… but Anderson did do a really weird dance for almost the entire time that was pretty funny. XD; Next up was Summer with Kento, Hanzawa, and Myuto, but again, I really didn't get the joke. Third was Shori with Jinguji and Genki, and started with Shori talking about how fall was so meaningful and deep with the changing of seasons, then asked Genki for his opinion. Genki used his "knock" mune-kyun line from the first Gamushara J's Party (I think it got into most of the news reports, even though I apparently failed to mention it in my report, oops) without stuttering, which was cute because there had been a kerfluffle at J's Party about Kento not really understanding the pun. Then Shori turned to Jinguji and asked him, saying "Ne, Jin…" which was super adorable, and Jinguji tried to make a joke but sort of tripped over his words and it was cute. His roots were already beginning to show a bit under his blonde poofy hair, too. |D;; Last up was Sou with Reia, Takahashi Kaito, and Kishi, doing winter. They all were shivering and Sou asked how they could warm things up, to which Reia responded "with warm words!" Sou replied that it was okay, but Reia had to go first XD Reia said a line about loving everyone in the audience and wanting to warm them up. Then Kishi went, and said "I won't make the fans uneasy (o u o)v" which was adorable because… what? XD;;; I think he was trying to make a pun off of "fan" and "fuan" (uneasiness, anxiety), but… it was just cute and so Kishi-like and nonsensical. XD; Next was Takahashi Kaito, and I honestly completely forget what he said, but I think it was a failed pun also. Then Sou did his, which was him putting down his mic and just screaming "I LOVE YOU!" to the audience in his loudest voice, which was really cute.
Up next, Marius came onto the stage to do his solo, Paraiso, after having changed into a yellow outfit. It was a really odd song in English about some run-down town with no grass and no birds that was ignored by the rest of the world or something, I don't even know. His singing was really, really good, though! I was pleasantly surprised. Unfortunately, they didn't really let him sing solo for long; they had Masuda Ryo come harmonize/sing backup, but it made it a lot harder to hear Marius. Miyachika also did a silly interpretive dance while Marius sang. It was cute; the majority of the audience changed their penlights to yellow, which was Marius's colour for this tour, during this number.
After that, Kento, Shori, and Fuma were in carts in the upper stands while singing Kimi wo Hanasanai Kimi wo Hanarenai, with Kento and Fuma on the house-right of the arena and Fuma on the house-left. At one point, the paths of Shori and Kento's carts met, and they hugged while switching carts, which was really cute. After that, the carts switched to Sexy Boyz, Sexy Jr, and Marius and Sou for Don't Stop Sexy Boyz. Finally, they all came back to the stage and went around the catwalk while singing Young and Beautiful and Shout!! before it was time for the MC.
The MC began with them talking about how Yokohama was the last stop on their tour, and they were sad that they hadn't been able to go to Hokkaido and other places like last time. They also talked about the change of setup, and how they were trying a new arrangement for the arena. Marius tried to tell everyone where the dressing rooms were, but the others told him to shut up. XD They talked about the car set, and Kento jokingly said it was his car. The car set opened up to make a sort of backdrop with screens on it (which I couldn't really see from where I was on that day, sadly), freeing up the stage instead of having a giant car there, which was clever, but it was brought up that it was sort of like Momotaro, with them popping out of a car. Marius responded, "But Momotaro is cute, so it's okay!" to which Shori replied, "Wow, you know Momotaro?" or something along those lines. Because being mean to Marius is still everyone's hobby, sob.
At the beginning of the MC, Marius stumbled on his words a little, and Fuma teased him, saying "Oh, you messed up! Time to go back to Germany." I know Marius can definitely be annoying and needs to learn when to shut up, but I was surprised to see that this year's MC was more uncomfortable than last year's, and Marius tended to get more flustered and do worse with Japanese than one year ago. ;___; Poor baby. I don't know why recently Fuma has become so mean to him when before, he was one of the ones protecting him from Kento's and the others' teasing. I hope everything's all right, but then again, their interactions are pretty reminiscent of Arashi around 2002, so I'm going to hope that things are on track and it will all go better.
They then talked about the free bags that were part of the promotion for reserving King & Queen & Joker. Shori randomly said very seriously, "We don't have them to show the audience right now," to which everyone else was sort of like "We don't…?" and Shori was like, "We don't. :|" Not sure what happened there XD;; Last year, not in the shows I went to, but in other shows, Fuma apparently put the small promotion bag on his head and ripped it, but he was disappointed that this year, he couldn't do that because they were actually big enough and it wouldn't break and therefore wasn't funny anymore. XD; Marius started talking possibly about using it as a school bag or something? But he was sort of doing that rambly thing where I'm not even sure he knew what he wanted to say and I couldn't for the life of me figure out what he was saying. Eventually he said that we should take the bags and show them to random people to start a conversation about Sexy Zone, and everyone else was sort of like "…lol what."
Kento started talking about a variety show that he was on with the Takarazuka, saying they got impressively excited when they won, but despite that Marius seemed very interested in finding out the Takarazuka story, Kento got cut off by Fuma jokingly demonstrating what they'd do when they were excited about winning, which included pointing at the audience and saying "85% Sexy!" |D; Marius was confused and asked, "Why not 100% Sexy?" to which I don't think he ever got any answer. XD;
They also talked about their appearance on Music Station, and Kento started bragging about how he and Sou did really cool magic. Fuma replied that it went by too fast and no one probably even saw it. Kento's response was to say "In ja nai?" (Isn't it fine?) and Sou began singing Johnny's West's Ee Ja Nai Ka. XD;;
Then, Marius tried to announce his Akumu-chan movie, but when he said he had an announcement about a movie, first Kento butted in saying it was the Amazing Spiderman. Marius pouted and tried again, but this time Fuma cut in and said it was Frozen, before breaking out into a very heartfelt rendition of Let it Go (the Japanese version, sadly no English). Kento and Fuma kept singing until Marius started getting really upset, then they finally let him announce his movie. He pouted and said, "You guys are like five year olds!" and Kento replied, in English, "I'm five years old!" Idek. XD; But then Marius whipped out an envelope with four pre-order tickets, and gave one to each member of Sexy Zone, telling them to come see his movie. They also made fun of Sou for never having any dramas, poor Sou.
Next, the announced the special guest, Sexy Age, which consists of Nagase Ren from Kansai Johnny's Juniors' Naniwa Ouji, and Hirano Sho, from Kansai Johnny's Juniors' KinKan. They'll be doing Johnny's Livehouse Ginza at Theatre Crea with Sexy Jr, so Takahashi Kaito came out, and the three of them did a song apparently written for them, Kimi no Mikata, though why there was no Reia I'm not sure.
That was the end of the MC, and then Sexy Zone came on and performed King & Queen & Joker (during which Miyachika fell during the back dancing and Jinguji was highly annoyed with him XD), followed by a few more songs, including BaiBai Dubai, in which Jinguji messed up the choreography. Oh Jinchan, what are you doing. XD;
Up after that was the Junior corner, starting with Sexy Boyz (Jinguji, Genki, Kishi, Abe, Miyachika) doing $10 on the back stage, which involved some seriously horrifying fanservice between Jinguji and Genki. While Jinguji was kneeling in front of him, Genki did a few hip rolls, then Jinguji stood up and they did a sort of shirt grabbing type thing while their faces were really close. Afterwards, Genki looked sort of scarred for life XD; They all then returned to the main stage and were joined by Sexy Jr. (Reia and Takahashi Kaito) to do Kiss Umai or however you say the name of that song. XD; Reia was doing skateboard, which was, of course, adorable. Up next, Masuda, Anderson, Morita, and Hanzawa did a Kinki Kids song, the name of which I completely forget, and then… things got weird.
Not sure if this happened in Nagoya or Osaka (I don't think it did?), but next, Marius and Sou came out with Jinguji and Genki (dressed in yellow to match Marius), and Genta and Matsukura Kaito (dressed in blue to match Sou.) They announced this group as "New Sexy Boyz" and they did a song that I didn't recognize together. The name "Sexy Boyz" scrolled past on the screen behind them despite the fact that just days ago, Sexy Boyz was Jinguji, Genki, Abe, Miyachika, and Kishi at Crea. Very odd, but things got even weirder at this point in the 5/5 show, so… stay tuned. XD;
After that, Sexy Jr ad Sexy Age did a number together on the back stage, presumable from Crea, before Sexy Zone came back to do Congratulations and Butsukacchau Yo. The car got put back into Car form for Butsukacchau Yo, and Sexy Zone stood on the car while the Juniors stood on the stage around it. The dance at the beginning of Butsukacchau Yo (during the runrunrun part) involves cute hip wiggling, and Reia was absolutely adorable doing it ♥ At one point, Kishi looked lost and Reia had to tell him where to go XD; Meanwhile, Jinguji seemed like he was too cool to do the dance, and was doing it very halfheartedly, while Kishi was doing it really crazily and flailingly. XD; At the end, they showed a planet on the screen and made it seem like they were going to crash (making a pun on "butsukaru," the base of the word "butsukacchau," which means to crash or collide), and while all the Juniors were pretending to be scared and hold onto the car, Genki grabbed onto Miyachika's arm, and it was super cute~
In the wake of the "crash," the car opened up and Sexy Zone came out in new costumes to do If You Wanna Dance. Sou got a really cute little solo bit, and Marius even got to dance in the front for about half the time! It was really nice to see a lot more evenness than in the last concert tour; their costumes were all quite similar and Marius and Sou didn't seem separated in the choreography as much, either. There were still really bad things, but I'm hoping things are moving in the right direction.
After If You Wanna Dance, they went into Ghost, which was really silly, but Shori and Kento did a lot of fanservice. Kento sort of came up behind Shori and grabbed him by the shoulders, touching his face and neck while Shori made a surprised expression, and the crowd went wild XD; There was also fanservice between Kento and Fuma and Fuma and Shori, but Kento and Shori's was by far the longest and the most well-received. XD
Up next was Bad Boys, which was mostly the same as usual. Kento and Shori did the shirt-grabbing bit and got all up in one another's faces, much to the crowd's delight. Obviously, this didn't happen in Bad Boys, but often, after Kento and Shori did fanservice (they did it so much that I didn't even manage to remember all the places and write them here… they did it in Sexy Summer ni Yuki ga Furu as per usual, and a few other times, too), Fuma would hug Marius and Sou, but it was almost funny how natural and fluid it was with Kento and Shori, and how much they clearly were enjoying it, compared to how staged the stuff with Fuma and Marius and Sou felt, with them walking up on cue so Fuma could put his arms around them. I'm actually sort of sad that things have gotten so weird between Fuma and Marius, but… Shori and Kento's relationship is adorable. The other thing about Bad Boys is that Jinguji just didn't know the choreography. XD He kept messing up and stuff. I don't know if it's because he had his Crea shows leading up to this and didn't get enough rehearsal or if it's just because he's bad at dancing, but he was really messing up the whole time.
After that, it was time for the last spurt! They decided to show the kankeisha in the box rather than bringing them all onstage, and it included (but was not limited to; it was hard to tell) Jesse, Yasui, Teranishi, Shoki, and a sketchy looking old dude in a baseball cap in the back who I suspect to be a certain person. They did a few songs before everyone cleared out, and then Kento came up onto the stage to give the last little speech thanking everyone for coming. He asked for us to all be one "Sexy Family" together (seriously Kento, why) before they started singing Soba ni Iru yo. At first, it was only Kento and Fuma, then Shori came out, and Marius and Sou didn't get to come out until the last chorus. Why. >__<;
They introduced the eleven Juniors one more time before telling us goodbye and leaving, and then an ending like the intro played, showing the earth again and giving a random voice over by Marius in English. The Japanese was, again, really far off from the English, and the message was basically "We want to stay on Earth because we have our beautiful fans here, and we want to say we love you." At the end it said "By Sexy Zone" so idk who wrote it, but it was really special. XD;
There was sadly only one encore, but we got Genta right in front of us for part of it generally being really adorable and jumping and waving. I love the way his hair always bounces when he jumps. XD Yasui and Jesse came onto the stage and walked around the catwalk; Jesse was wearing his glasses and his hair looked like he'd just rolled out of bed, while Yasui was dressed cutely in a lavender hoodie. He chatted with Reia cutely for a moment before meeting up with Fuma somewhere on the catwalk and giggling about something together with him. Sadly, the guys didn't wear the concert goods in the encore except the tiny hair accessories on their wrists… I wanted to see them in the T-shirt. I was also surprised that they saved Sexy Zone for the encore… seeing as it's their debut song. XD; But then they ended on Yuuki 100% like usual, and all thanked us for coming before leaving again. As they were about to leave, Kento and Fuma sort of grinned at one another then shouted "We love you!" at us together without mics. Since they can be pretty antagonistic sometimes, it was nice to see them being pals.
And that was all for the first show! All in all, it was quite long, about 3 hours in total (which they shaved down to 2 and a half in the following shows). There were a lot of technical problems, but it was nice to see everything on the opening night since it changed so much after that! I'll try to do my write up for the show on May 5th tomorrow, if I can, so that it's easy to compare. ^^
But that's all for now, because I'm going to relax and watch Marius being adorable on Shounen Club and try to catch up on sleep. x___x;
The first day started later than the rest, at 5 pm, which was good because we ended up running late and rushing to get goods and stuff. XD; Our seats were literally the last row of the upper stands, right up next to the stage, so we have a pretty clear view of the main stage, but it was from the side angle, which meant we couldn't see the screen or the set very well, and we could only really see the juniors on the left side of the stage. The setup of the whole place was odd; usually Johnny's groups set YokoAri up the long way, with the stage at one end, a center stage in the middle of the arena, and then the back stage at the opposite end of the house, at the far curve of the catwalk. However, this time, the stage was set up on one of the long sides, and the catwalk was circular, putting part of the arena outside the catwalk, which was utterly bizarre. There was no center stage, only a large back stage. I've never seen YokoAri set up that way before, and honestly, I think it fell short for the lower stands/arena. Generally speaking, being in the front of the lower stands means you get to see the catwalk well, and being in the arena means you get to see the catwalk/center stage/main stage well depending on your place, but with this setup, that wasn't really the case for everyone. It basically created a larger lower stands area and a smaller arena, but the lower stands area didn't have a slant, so short people probably got screwed over. At any rate, I had far seats on the first day and close seats on the third day (which is probably reverse of the better order, since I didn't really get to pay as close attention to the show the second day since I was freaking out every two seconds when someone got close enough to see/touch me), so I got a better impression of the show overall on the first day.
The show opened with a recording of Marius speaking random English. The words were written in English and (very roughly) translated into Japanese on the screens, with a picture of the earth in the background. The general gist of what was said was sort of in the vein of Johnny's World… something about a group of young boys wanting to see the universe or something like that, I don't even know. It was really odd, and the English was clearly not written by Marius, because it was grammatically pretty bad at some points. Then, the recording of Marius introduced the members of Sexy Zone in English while each one called out a message from backstage, and then they pulled back the curtain thing that they had covering the set to reveal the giant car (may have seen it in the news clips and stuff about the tour) set with Sexy Zone on top, Sexy Boyz (Jinguji, Iwahashi, Kishi, Abe, Miyachika), Sexy Jr (Reia, Takahashi Kaito), and Sexy Champ (Morita, Anderson, Masuda, Hanzawa) as well as some prominent younger ones (Amu, Fu, MatsuMatsu, Okamoto Kauan, etc) in the back. Kakuta was still missing, and Kishi took his places in all the formations with Reia and Takahashi Kaito, while Abe was the fourth member in the Sexy Boyz formations. Kuramoto was also missing. By the way, I didn't make up those group names; they're the ones from Crea. Things got complicated a bit later, but Sexy Zone did definitively call Reia and Takahashi Kaito "Sexy Jr," so for the time being, it seems like that name is legit. Jinguji, Iwahashi, Kishi, Abe, and Miyachika were all dressed in pink, Reia and Takahashi Kaito were in orange, and Morita, Anderson, Masuda, and Hanzawa were in green for a lot of the beginning of the show, and their costumes generally all held together in those groupings for the rest of the concert. There were times when all eleven of them were in the same costume and the other juniors were in a different costume, as well.
The opening was pretty standard; they started on the stage with We Gotta Go, and did a few others both from their new album and older songs (Suki Sugite, Silver Moon, and Lady Diamond come to mind, but I honestly am awful at remembering the setlist, and you can find it on twitter and stuff, so sorry that this isn't going to focus on what songs they did in what order!) Early on, they introduced the eleven important Juniors that I mentioned above, and then went around the catwalk and got on carts to be moved around between the arena and the lower stands. On the 3rd, all of Sexy Zone plus the 5 members of Sexy Boyz and the 2 members of Sexy Jr. were on the carts, so I got to see Reia up close (ish) briefly~ At some point (I'm sorry I forget so much of this), Sou did his backflip and the crowd went wild, which was adorable.
Eventually, Fuma, Marius, and Sou disappeared and only Kento and Shori were left onstage. A piano was brought out, and Kento sat at the piano while the eleven important Juniors came out with penlights in hand. The penlights for this concert were colour changing with the five colours that seemed to be attached to the members for the tour (though everyone but Fuma and Shori keep changing all the time, gdi), and Shori told us to watch the juniors and practice changing the colour of our penlights at the same time. Then Kento randomly decided to have us repeat after him, having us say "Shori," "Kenty," "Sexy," "Zone," "Chinatown" (Yokohama is famous for the Chinatown there), and "I love you" XD;; Then he and Shori chatted a little bit, talking about Kento's piano playing skills and just generally making googly eyes at one another. It was really cute; Shori seems to have gotten past his mad crushing and even teased Kento a little bit, but even still, he kept leaning over the piano and looking Kento in the eyes all lovingly, and they both were really smiley and giggly. It was really cute! Eventually, Shori sang A My Girlfriend while Kento played the piano, and the Juniors did simple repetitive penlight movements for us to mimic while changing the colour every once in a while. Partway through the song, Fuma appeared in the audience, causing screams and people to fail to realize they needed to change their penlight colour, which was amusing.
There may have been more songs in between (oh god I'm sorry it's really hard to remember all this stuff. @__@;) but soon after, all five members of Sexy Zone came out onto the back stage and directed our attention to a floor plan image they asked the staff to put up on the screens. It showed the inside of the catwalk versus the outside of the catwalk, and they asked us to watch and practice changing our penlight colours based on the image. Basically, the inside of the catwalk was one colour ahead of the outside, but when we did it, it looked pretty cool. As always, some fans didn't participate for whatever reason, and Fuma said something along the lines of "some people are having trouble!" or something, teasingly. Marius decided to add a "I'm sorry, I know it's difficult~" all patronizingly, which… I'm sure he didn't mean to sound the way it did, but it sounded pretty obnoxious. |D;;; It was also amusing to watch them tell the staff "Can you please change the image now? Okay, can you change it again? Please? Hello?" There were generally a lot of technical difficulties during the first show-- the bass kept causing feedback in the mics, and when any of the front three had vocal solos that weren't lip-synced, their mics didn't get turned on right, causing the first few words of their solos to be quiet or muffled. All the difficulties seemed fixed by the show on the 5th, but it was pretty weird and awkward that everything was messed up on the first day.
Once we got a hang of the penlight thing, the guys sang four seasons, then went back to the main stage and got into four groups with Juniors to do season-themed skits. Spring was Fuma with Anderson and Masuda. They talked about the new school year, but I'm the worst at understanding Japanese humour, so I didn't really understand the punchline… but Anderson did do a really weird dance for almost the entire time that was pretty funny. XD; Next up was Summer with Kento, Hanzawa, and Myuto, but again, I really didn't get the joke. Third was Shori with Jinguji and Genki, and started with Shori talking about how fall was so meaningful and deep with the changing of seasons, then asked Genki for his opinion. Genki used his "knock" mune-kyun line from the first Gamushara J's Party (I think it got into most of the news reports, even though I apparently failed to mention it in my report, oops) without stuttering, which was cute because there had been a kerfluffle at J's Party about Kento not really understanding the pun. Then Shori turned to Jinguji and asked him, saying "Ne, Jin…" which was super adorable, and Jinguji tried to make a joke but sort of tripped over his words and it was cute. His roots were already beginning to show a bit under his blonde poofy hair, too. |D;; Last up was Sou with Reia, Takahashi Kaito, and Kishi, doing winter. They all were shivering and Sou asked how they could warm things up, to which Reia responded "with warm words!" Sou replied that it was okay, but Reia had to go first XD Reia said a line about loving everyone in the audience and wanting to warm them up. Then Kishi went, and said "I won't make the fans uneasy (o u o)v" which was adorable because… what? XD;;; I think he was trying to make a pun off of "fan" and "fuan" (uneasiness, anxiety), but… it was just cute and so Kishi-like and nonsensical. XD; Next was Takahashi Kaito, and I honestly completely forget what he said, but I think it was a failed pun also. Then Sou did his, which was him putting down his mic and just screaming "I LOVE YOU!" to the audience in his loudest voice, which was really cute.
Up next, Marius came onto the stage to do his solo, Paraiso, after having changed into a yellow outfit. It was a really odd song in English about some run-down town with no grass and no birds that was ignored by the rest of the world or something, I don't even know. His singing was really, really good, though! I was pleasantly surprised. Unfortunately, they didn't really let him sing solo for long; they had Masuda Ryo come harmonize/sing backup, but it made it a lot harder to hear Marius. Miyachika also did a silly interpretive dance while Marius sang. It was cute; the majority of the audience changed their penlights to yellow, which was Marius's colour for this tour, during this number.
After that, Kento, Shori, and Fuma were in carts in the upper stands while singing Kimi wo Hanasanai Kimi wo Hanarenai, with Kento and Fuma on the house-right of the arena and Fuma on the house-left. At one point, the paths of Shori and Kento's carts met, and they hugged while switching carts, which was really cute. After that, the carts switched to Sexy Boyz, Sexy Jr, and Marius and Sou for Don't Stop Sexy Boyz. Finally, they all came back to the stage and went around the catwalk while singing Young and Beautiful and Shout!! before it was time for the MC.
The MC began with them talking about how Yokohama was the last stop on their tour, and they were sad that they hadn't been able to go to Hokkaido and other places like last time. They also talked about the change of setup, and how they were trying a new arrangement for the arena. Marius tried to tell everyone where the dressing rooms were, but the others told him to shut up. XD They talked about the car set, and Kento jokingly said it was his car. The car set opened up to make a sort of backdrop with screens on it (which I couldn't really see from where I was on that day, sadly), freeing up the stage instead of having a giant car there, which was clever, but it was brought up that it was sort of like Momotaro, with them popping out of a car. Marius responded, "But Momotaro is cute, so it's okay!" to which Shori replied, "Wow, you know Momotaro?" or something along those lines. Because being mean to Marius is still everyone's hobby, sob.
At the beginning of the MC, Marius stumbled on his words a little, and Fuma teased him, saying "Oh, you messed up! Time to go back to Germany." I know Marius can definitely be annoying and needs to learn when to shut up, but I was surprised to see that this year's MC was more uncomfortable than last year's, and Marius tended to get more flustered and do worse with Japanese than one year ago. ;___; Poor baby. I don't know why recently Fuma has become so mean to him when before, he was one of the ones protecting him from Kento's and the others' teasing. I hope everything's all right, but then again, their interactions are pretty reminiscent of Arashi around 2002, so I'm going to hope that things are on track and it will all go better.
They then talked about the free bags that were part of the promotion for reserving King & Queen & Joker. Shori randomly said very seriously, "We don't have them to show the audience right now," to which everyone else was sort of like "We don't…?" and Shori was like, "We don't. :|" Not sure what happened there XD;; Last year, not in the shows I went to, but in other shows, Fuma apparently put the small promotion bag on his head and ripped it, but he was disappointed that this year, he couldn't do that because they were actually big enough and it wouldn't break and therefore wasn't funny anymore. XD; Marius started talking possibly about using it as a school bag or something? But he was sort of doing that rambly thing where I'm not even sure he knew what he wanted to say and I couldn't for the life of me figure out what he was saying. Eventually he said that we should take the bags and show them to random people to start a conversation about Sexy Zone, and everyone else was sort of like "…lol what."
Kento started talking about a variety show that he was on with the Takarazuka, saying they got impressively excited when they won, but despite that Marius seemed very interested in finding out the Takarazuka story, Kento got cut off by Fuma jokingly demonstrating what they'd do when they were excited about winning, which included pointing at the audience and saying "85% Sexy!" |D; Marius was confused and asked, "Why not 100% Sexy?" to which I don't think he ever got any answer. XD;
They also talked about their appearance on Music Station, and Kento started bragging about how he and Sou did really cool magic. Fuma replied that it went by too fast and no one probably even saw it. Kento's response was to say "In ja nai?" (Isn't it fine?) and Sou began singing Johnny's West's Ee Ja Nai Ka. XD;;
Then, Marius tried to announce his Akumu-chan movie, but when he said he had an announcement about a movie, first Kento butted in saying it was the Amazing Spiderman. Marius pouted and tried again, but this time Fuma cut in and said it was Frozen, before breaking out into a very heartfelt rendition of Let it Go (the Japanese version, sadly no English). Kento and Fuma kept singing until Marius started getting really upset, then they finally let him announce his movie. He pouted and said, "You guys are like five year olds!" and Kento replied, in English, "I'm five years old!" Idek. XD; But then Marius whipped out an envelope with four pre-order tickets, and gave one to each member of Sexy Zone, telling them to come see his movie. They also made fun of Sou for never having any dramas, poor Sou.
Next, the announced the special guest, Sexy Age, which consists of Nagase Ren from Kansai Johnny's Juniors' Naniwa Ouji, and Hirano Sho, from Kansai Johnny's Juniors' KinKan. They'll be doing Johnny's Livehouse Ginza at Theatre Crea with Sexy Jr, so Takahashi Kaito came out, and the three of them did a song apparently written for them, Kimi no Mikata, though why there was no Reia I'm not sure.
That was the end of the MC, and then Sexy Zone came on and performed King & Queen & Joker (during which Miyachika fell during the back dancing and Jinguji was highly annoyed with him XD), followed by a few more songs, including BaiBai Dubai, in which Jinguji messed up the choreography. Oh Jinchan, what are you doing. XD;
Up after that was the Junior corner, starting with Sexy Boyz (Jinguji, Genki, Kishi, Abe, Miyachika) doing $10 on the back stage, which involved some seriously horrifying fanservice between Jinguji and Genki. While Jinguji was kneeling in front of him, Genki did a few hip rolls, then Jinguji stood up and they did a sort of shirt grabbing type thing while their faces were really close. Afterwards, Genki looked sort of scarred for life XD; They all then returned to the main stage and were joined by Sexy Jr. (Reia and Takahashi Kaito) to do Kiss Umai or however you say the name of that song. XD; Reia was doing skateboard, which was, of course, adorable. Up next, Masuda, Anderson, Morita, and Hanzawa did a Kinki Kids song, the name of which I completely forget, and then… things got weird.
Not sure if this happened in Nagoya or Osaka (I don't think it did?), but next, Marius and Sou came out with Jinguji and Genki (dressed in yellow to match Marius), and Genta and Matsukura Kaito (dressed in blue to match Sou.) They announced this group as "New Sexy Boyz" and they did a song that I didn't recognize together. The name "Sexy Boyz" scrolled past on the screen behind them despite the fact that just days ago, Sexy Boyz was Jinguji, Genki, Abe, Miyachika, and Kishi at Crea. Very odd, but things got even weirder at this point in the 5/5 show, so… stay tuned. XD;
After that, Sexy Jr ad Sexy Age did a number together on the back stage, presumable from Crea, before Sexy Zone came back to do Congratulations and Butsukacchau Yo. The car got put back into Car form for Butsukacchau Yo, and Sexy Zone stood on the car while the Juniors stood on the stage around it. The dance at the beginning of Butsukacchau Yo (during the runrunrun part) involves cute hip wiggling, and Reia was absolutely adorable doing it ♥ At one point, Kishi looked lost and Reia had to tell him where to go XD; Meanwhile, Jinguji seemed like he was too cool to do the dance, and was doing it very halfheartedly, while Kishi was doing it really crazily and flailingly. XD; At the end, they showed a planet on the screen and made it seem like they were going to crash (making a pun on "butsukaru," the base of the word "butsukacchau," which means to crash or collide), and while all the Juniors were pretending to be scared and hold onto the car, Genki grabbed onto Miyachika's arm, and it was super cute~
In the wake of the "crash," the car opened up and Sexy Zone came out in new costumes to do If You Wanna Dance. Sou got a really cute little solo bit, and Marius even got to dance in the front for about half the time! It was really nice to see a lot more evenness than in the last concert tour; their costumes were all quite similar and Marius and Sou didn't seem separated in the choreography as much, either. There were still really bad things, but I'm hoping things are moving in the right direction.
After If You Wanna Dance, they went into Ghost, which was really silly, but Shori and Kento did a lot of fanservice. Kento sort of came up behind Shori and grabbed him by the shoulders, touching his face and neck while Shori made a surprised expression, and the crowd went wild XD; There was also fanservice between Kento and Fuma and Fuma and Shori, but Kento and Shori's was by far the longest and the most well-received. XD
Up next was Bad Boys, which was mostly the same as usual. Kento and Shori did the shirt-grabbing bit and got all up in one another's faces, much to the crowd's delight. Obviously, this didn't happen in Bad Boys, but often, after Kento and Shori did fanservice (they did it so much that I didn't even manage to remember all the places and write them here… they did it in Sexy Summer ni Yuki ga Furu as per usual, and a few other times, too), Fuma would hug Marius and Sou, but it was almost funny how natural and fluid it was with Kento and Shori, and how much they clearly were enjoying it, compared to how staged the stuff with Fuma and Marius and Sou felt, with them walking up on cue so Fuma could put his arms around them. I'm actually sort of sad that things have gotten so weird between Fuma and Marius, but… Shori and Kento's relationship is adorable. The other thing about Bad Boys is that Jinguji just didn't know the choreography. XD He kept messing up and stuff. I don't know if it's because he had his Crea shows leading up to this and didn't get enough rehearsal or if it's just because he's bad at dancing, but he was really messing up the whole time.
After that, it was time for the last spurt! They decided to show the kankeisha in the box rather than bringing them all onstage, and it included (but was not limited to; it was hard to tell) Jesse, Yasui, Teranishi, Shoki, and a sketchy looking old dude in a baseball cap in the back who I suspect to be a certain person. They did a few songs before everyone cleared out, and then Kento came up onto the stage to give the last little speech thanking everyone for coming. He asked for us to all be one "Sexy Family" together (seriously Kento, why) before they started singing Soba ni Iru yo. At first, it was only Kento and Fuma, then Shori came out, and Marius and Sou didn't get to come out until the last chorus. Why. >__<;
They introduced the eleven Juniors one more time before telling us goodbye and leaving, and then an ending like the intro played, showing the earth again and giving a random voice over by Marius in English. The Japanese was, again, really far off from the English, and the message was basically "We want to stay on Earth because we have our beautiful fans here, and we want to say we love you." At the end it said "By Sexy Zone" so idk who wrote it, but it was really special. XD;
There was sadly only one encore, but we got Genta right in front of us for part of it generally being really adorable and jumping and waving. I love the way his hair always bounces when he jumps. XD Yasui and Jesse came onto the stage and walked around the catwalk; Jesse was wearing his glasses and his hair looked like he'd just rolled out of bed, while Yasui was dressed cutely in a lavender hoodie. He chatted with Reia cutely for a moment before meeting up with Fuma somewhere on the catwalk and giggling about something together with him. Sadly, the guys didn't wear the concert goods in the encore except the tiny hair accessories on their wrists… I wanted to see them in the T-shirt. I was also surprised that they saved Sexy Zone for the encore… seeing as it's their debut song. XD; But then they ended on Yuuki 100% like usual, and all thanked us for coming before leaving again. As they were about to leave, Kento and Fuma sort of grinned at one another then shouted "We love you!" at us together without mics. Since they can be pretty antagonistic sometimes, it was nice to see them being pals.
And that was all for the first show! All in all, it was quite long, about 3 hours in total (which they shaved down to 2 and a half in the following shows). There were a lot of technical problems, but it was nice to see everything on the opening night since it changed so much after that! I'll try to do my write up for the show on May 5th tomorrow, if I can, so that it's easy to compare. ^^
But that's all for now, because I'm going to relax and watch Marius being adorable on Shounen Club and try to catch up on sleep. x___x;