JUMP Festa 2009
On Sunday, December 21st, two gaijin attempted to gain insight into what real Japanese anime conventions are like by attending JUMP Festa, a free convention for all the anime and manga featured in Shounen JUMP. We went for the express purpose of stalking seeing the four special guest actors from the Rock Musical Bleach play that were going to be having a presentation there: Isaka Tatsuya (Ichigo's actor), Sato Miki (Rukia's actor), Moriyama Eiji (Renji's actor and also a member of *pnish* and a former Tenimyu actor), and Goumoto Naoya (Shuuhei's actor and also a former Tenimyu actor).
So my friend Rachel (imma_holiday) and I made plans to meet up before heading to JUMP Festa 2009 at Tokyo Station, Keiyo line around 6:40am to get to Makuhari Messe International Convention Center by just a bit after 7:00am and hopefully get a great spot in line. The Rock Musical Bleach Stage event only let in the first 200 people to get there after you bought 2000 yen worth of merchandise. Since the whole event was free, really, the 2000 yen wasn't the problem, we were worried about the 200 other fans that would want to see the guest stars. As luck would have it, we were both late to get to the station (I completely didn't get up to my alarm and luckily noticed when it was was 6:15am and bolted out of bed to get ready.) and didn't end up leaving the station until after 7:10 or so. We took the local train, which turned out to take a much longer time than the express, as opposed to about 8 minutes longer as a sign I read lead me to believe, so we didn't get to Makuhari Messe until about 8:00am. From there, we ran (and I mean ran) and dodged around all the Japanese Festa goers to get further up in the line. Man, I got my exercise that day.
We eventually arrived at a split in the line where you had to choose which line to get in. Of course, being the great Japanese students that we are, we had no clue what the signs said, let alone what sort of area we were looking for in the first place, besides that we wanted to find the Pierrot Booth. So we're like... how about we choose the longer line? That sounds like a good bet, right? So we snaked around the entire building (and to give some perspective, I have never seen a longer line in my life and I go to Anime Expo back in America, so I know lines) before we find out that we got in the wrong line. We did what any foreigner would do and feigned ignorance while jumping the rope line and getting into the proper line. XD;
Once we got into the building, we high-tailed it to the Pierrot Booth to see about getting those tickets. Once we get there, we notice that the sign advertising the stage event for the Bleach voice actors is already out of tickets, but that luckily, the musical one isn't. So, I find the guy with the sign that has the names that I recognise on it (I totally went, MORIYAMA EIJI! I CAN READ THAT! THIS IS WHAT WE WANT! 8D) and ask him what we need to do to get tickets to the event and he points us to a line that snakes around the stage that will eventually house musical cast members... Rachel and I are still a bit confused as to what we have to do, since we know we've got to buy 2000 yen worth of goods and had already passed the table with the merchandise, but we continue to walk, hoping we'll get to where we need to be eventually. Then we get to a table where the lady working there is all, "Hai! 2000 yen!" And we're like, "Oh, I guess this is it?" and pay up to get a bag of random goods and the ticket to the Bleach Musical Cast Stage Event!!!
We were numbers 190 and 191.... *_____* We barely made it. But we totally did!!! <3 <3 <3
So, we spent the next four and a half hours wandering around smiling like retards and randomly mentioning to each other that we're totally going to see Burimyu cast members in so many hours! 8D I'm sure we looked creepily happy for most of the time we were wandering.
Didn't really buy anything but food. However, the food was themed after the various anime in Shounen JUMP, like Naruto Ramen and Bleach division candy. We bought Bleach Seaweed-Emperor Bread that was Cream Bread with some seaweed on the top. XD Surprisingly, it was pretty good. I also got commemorative JUMP Fes-cha (tea) in a pretty can with a pretty paper cup that came with. I kept the wrappers to all of the food like the obsessive dork that I am. The above picture is Rachel modeling the Seaweed-bread.
Cosplay is really different here in Japan than it is in America. First off, you can't take pictures of cosplayers when they wander around the convention, you can only take their pictures in the roped-off, cosplay corner. Also, the cosplayers don't act in character at all. They're just there to look good and while they do, it doesn't seem like they have nearly as much fun as American cosplayers. Plus, I saw a bad Eiji cosplayer and really wished that I had my Prince of Tennis costume on so I could show them how it's done. :P But yeah, the cosplayers' attitudes just seem different. Like the cosplaying isn't for fun, it's to show off and be like a model.
But anyway, griping about cosplay aside, it was really really fun to wander around the stalls and look at all the random merchandise and freebee random things they hand out. ^_^ Went past the Tenimyu booth and was sad that it was all 4th cast stuff that I could see. Cry... No 5th cast love. Saw a random song performed live by a really good band. I think it was called, "I, Ai, Ai" but I don't know the band's name.
After we'd killed some time, we wandered back to the Pierrot booth to wait in line for the Burimyu event. We tried to get there early, but they'd already started lining everyone up for seating, so we arrived right on time. Being in the really late numbers, we didn't end up getting terrific seats, especially since the guests were on a slightly raised stage, but were sitting down in traditional seiza position on mats for the whole thing. It was really hard to see them, but I managed to get a good view of Moriyama Eiji (Renji) and Goumoto Naoya (Hisagi) and could see Isaka Tatsuya (Ichigo) pretty often, too. Poor Sato Miki (Rukia). She was short, so it would have been hard to see her even if she hadn't been blocked by a random girl's head.
After the standard sorts of introductions (where for some reason they all talked about getting fatter after having not been in the Bleach Musicals for several months now), they talked about the two latest Myus: The All and Bankai Live Code 002. It must be said, though, that Eiji and Naoya totally stole the show and talked way longer than everyone else, not including the times they interrupted each other or aided in whatever random thing was being mentioned. For instance, Eiji messed up in his fight with Osamu-chan (Byakuya) in The All. He was supposed to miss stabbing him and then fall down because of Byakuya's superior skills, but he accidentally stabbed into Byakuya's taichou coat, making it look like he really did stab him. So then he had to move the sword down so that Osamu-chan could get around it to walk past him indifferently. Eiji was mortified that that was on the taping day and made it to DVD. XD Everyone else then chimed in saying that they noticed him messing up on lyrics during Bankai 002 on the DVD, which he vehemently denied. Tatsuya also talked about Osamu-chan and his fight, but I don't remember what it was about exactly. I was just happy to know who they were talking about.
Then, Tatsuya kinda half-stands up and says that he's got an announcement for everyone. He then kinda starts to say something that almost sounded like "Film" or maybe "furimu" or "furumu" because he couldn't get it right before giving up and taking out this piece of paper describing the event, also making the other guests read bits of the event info. Rock Musical Bleach is going to have an Film Fes where they showcase one of the musicals (or possibly bits and pieces from all the musicals?) along with the cast being there for a talk event. It sounded like they were going to basically be commentating on the musical or something of that sort. The awesome thing about this news is that it's going to be in Tokyo in May!!!!! I can totally go see it!!!! 8DDD OMG, excitement!!!! <3 <3 <3
They then moved on to games. The first one was called "A-I-U-E-O Sakubun" or "A E I O U Essay-Creations" where the guests were given a word and had to make a sentence with each syllable in the word. Hard to explain and I'm not quite sure about the rules myself. But, the word given was "Shidou," so their sentence had to start with a word beginning with "Shi" and in the middle of the sentence had to be "Do" and the ending part had to start with "U." Naoya's had to do with Unohana, Eiji's had to do with Naoya ("Always dependable, a guy who will do anything... I'm lying, though." Ouch, Moriyama, ouch.), Miki's had to do with Shibuya being loud and busy (though why, I'm not sure since it was supposed to be about Burimyu...), and Tatsuya's was about Eiji, though it was lame and I don't remember it. It was cute hearing him complain about how lame his own created sentence was, though. xD <3 <3
Then they're last game was a drawing contest. Each actor had to draw his character. Everyone complained that Tatsuya had it easy, though, since his character is the main one and there was an advertisement of him in the back of the stage area. He did kinda crane his neck to cheat and look at Ichigo's picture, though. XD
~Tatsuya's was kinda good... Kinda. He filled in Ichigo's hair with the black pen, but it was a little flat, though still obviously supposed to be spiky and complained that it'd be really obvious that it was Ichigo if he'd had an orange pen. Also, the drawing was holding a butterknife... by which I mean his sword Zangetsu. XD Now, the sword does kinda look like a butterknife, but with a shorter handle and Tatsuya kinda failed at that. It was a good effort, though! :D Tatsuya mentioned that Okuchi Kengo (Aizen's actor) was actually the best out of the cast at drawing. ^_^
~ Miki's rendition of Rukia came next. It was really cute. She'd remembered the hairstyle and had the bow on the uniform and even had a little crappily-drawn bunny next to her with the sentence "Chappy and me, Rukia" alongside the drawing. Pretty much everyone agreed that hers was really good, though Eiji complained that it was because she was a girl and therefore better at drawing. Way to be sexist, Sexy.
~ Luckily, Eiji's drawing was pretty crappy, too. Renji's spiky hair was all spiked out of one side of his head (I have to assume in an attempt at perspective?), but he did draw in the headband and funky tattooed eyebrows. And somehow, the little oblong eyes seemed to have a good Renji-esque expression in my opinion, too. He also attempted to draw his sword and ended up making it look like a comb. The rest of the cast laughed at how small it was in comparison to the person and Eiji laughed, too, saying that he ran out of space.
~ And they saved the best for last with Naoya! ... And by best, I mean worst! XD Oh man, the picture was barely human shaped. Naoya insisted on explaining all the details that he'd added in to make sure it was a good portrayal of Hisagi Shuuhei, like muscles, the spiky hair (which kinda reminded me of how it would look if Charlie Brown decided to spike his hair), the 69 on his face, and the fuku-taichou badge on his sleeveless arm. After each person presented their picture, there was a comparison with the actual character design and a picture of the performer projected on a screen behind the stage. So, the picture of Hisagi Shuuhei comes up and suddenly Naoya realises that he's forgotten a few important details... Like the rest of the markings on the guy's face. XD So, he'd forgotten to add a silver stripe across the nose (which he bemoaned loudly about being difficult to put on for performances and how he couldn't believe he'd forgotten it) and had only put one scar over his right eye instead of three. So, it was generally agreed upon that Naoya fails at remembering what he looks like. XD
The audience was then polled (by way of clapping volume) as to who did the best drawing. Naoya got a pretty good turn out for having drawn kinda crappily ( I must admit that I did clap). Eiji did second best, which I agree with, since he had all the components of his character at least, though they weren't drawn terribly well. Rukia's did the best, which was well deserved in my opinion. Aaaaand, poor Tatsuya... XD; The MC was all "Now for Isaka-san's drawing!" and there was just this silence.... before it was broken by a few hesitant claps. Tatsuya kinda fell over in laughing despair, as did everyone else at how badly he did at winning the audience over with his art skills.
And then, as the last part of the event, each actor drew slips of paper with seat numbers on them and if your number was pulled you got either the board with the sentence they came up with written on it or the crappy drawing!! :D Sadly, neither Rachel's nor my number was pulled, though we had a huge scare with Rachel's, since she was number 190. Naoya, when pulling for the crappy drawing, called out the number "hyaku-kyuu ban," or 109 and her number is pronounced "hyaku-kyuu-jyuu ban." Man, we were sad we didn't get his amazing attempt at drawing Shuuhei. XD; Two of the winners were cosplayers (or one had been cosplaying, but changed their outfit and not hair) of Kira Izuru, also a character from Bleach. I think the former Izuru won the Naoya drawing (corrected by imma_holiday: the Izuru cosplayers both won Eiji's giveaways, so the sentence board, too) and the active cosplayer won Eiji's Renji drawing, which was funny because Eiji's all, "Oh! Well, I'm supposed to get along well with Izuru anyway! Here! :D" and Naoya was just all, "Izuru?" in a questioning voice. XD; It was awesome.
The event ended with Naoya mentioning that he was having a play in January (I think?) with Sano Mizuki (again, I think?) and then they left and we filed out of the stage area. We kinda left going "OMG THAT WAS AWESOME! 8D Wasn't it funny when blahblahblah..." We saw some people gathered around the area that the actors had gone into and decided to opt out of looking like creepy foreign stalkers and just head back to Tokyo. Leaving was a little harder than getting into the convention and we had to backtrack and turn around a lot to finally get to the exit.
While we were leaving the building and heading to the station, we passed this big mural with a billion JUMP characters on it saying 'Welcome to JUMP Festa' and the like. We weren't even paying attention and accidentally walked right into the camera view of a hand-held video camera this guy and his friend had and we were kinda like, "Oh, woops," and avoided it. Then Rachel turns to me and says that she'd really been tempted to like make a peace sign in the background or something. I laugh and turn back to look at the poor guy that we just walked past and do the biggest double-take in my whole life. I kinda look at him and go, "Huh, he's cute.... Wait a.... WAIT A FUCKING MINUTE! RACHEL! Rachel, I think that's- HOLY SHIT! BUCK-TEETH!! OMG, IT'S TATSUYA!!!! WE JUST NEARLY BUMPED INTO TATSUYA!!!!" I was freaking out so badly! Sooooo badly!!! 8DDDDD But, my god, we just walked within like 3 feet of Tatsuya on accident!!!! So we stare for a moment, before I remember that I have a camera on my phone, but by then, he's got his back to us because he and the guy taping him are reviewing the tape. So I take a picture of him from that distance, but it's such crappy proof, I decide to be a horrible, gaijin stalker and start nonchalantly walking back the way I came, but Tatsuya turned around the other way and starts walking back. So I start following him, but he doesn't turn around again... So, in desperation of just getting a picture of him no matter what, I took a picture of his butt. XD
Apparently, while I was failing in my stalking, when Tatsuya turned around and started walking again, Rachel caught his eye and bowed. Tatsuya looked kinda confused and I have to assume that's because he figured that random gaijin wouldn't know who the hell he was and that it was therefore weird to be acknowledged. Little did he know that seeing him and the other cast members was the entire reason the two of us woke up at 6am and came to the Festa in the first place! 8DDD Of course we recognised him!!! *___* <3 We followed him until he went into another building near some stairs we needed to go up. My god, I was like incoherent and babbling and so completely blown away that we nearly bumped into the freaking main actor in the Bleach Musicals!! <3 <3 <3 I couldn't believe it. My voice is gone from the fangirling squeels and complete freak-out that I ended up doing. I feel bad for Rachel, since she had to deal with me on the ride home, but by god! We were both so incredibly stoked that we got accidentally up-close-and-personal with Tatsuya!!!!!! <3 <3 <3
We were so pumped up on Bleach that Rachel came home with me and we watched The All while eating take-out curry for the three or so hours that it takes to get through that. *_* <3 <3 <3
Holy crap, the day was good.
Holy crap.
~ <3
So my friend Rachel (imma_holiday) and I made plans to meet up before heading to JUMP Festa 2009 at Tokyo Station, Keiyo line around 6:40am to get to Makuhari Messe International Convention Center by just a bit after 7:00am and hopefully get a great spot in line. The Rock Musical Bleach Stage event only let in the first 200 people to get there after you bought 2000 yen worth of merchandise. Since the whole event was free, really, the 2000 yen wasn't the problem, we were worried about the 200 other fans that would want to see the guest stars. As luck would have it, we were both late to get to the station (I completely didn't get up to my alarm and luckily noticed when it was was 6:15am and bolted out of bed to get ready.) and didn't end up leaving the station until after 7:10 or so. We took the local train, which turned out to take a much longer time than the express, as opposed to about 8 minutes longer as a sign I read lead me to believe, so we didn't get to Makuhari Messe until about 8:00am. From there, we ran (and I mean ran) and dodged around all the Japanese Festa goers to get further up in the line. Man, I got my exercise that day.
We eventually arrived at a split in the line where you had to choose which line to get in. Of course, being the great Japanese students that we are, we had no clue what the signs said, let alone what sort of area we were looking for in the first place, besides that we wanted to find the Pierrot Booth. So we're like... how about we choose the longer line? That sounds like a good bet, right? So we snaked around the entire building (and to give some perspective, I have never seen a longer line in my life and I go to Anime Expo back in America, so I know lines) before we find out that we got in the wrong line. We did what any foreigner would do and feigned ignorance while jumping the rope line and getting into the proper line. XD;
Once we got into the building, we high-tailed it to the Pierrot Booth to see about getting those tickets. Once we get there, we notice that the sign advertising the stage event for the Bleach voice actors is already out of tickets, but that luckily, the musical one isn't. So, I find the guy with the sign that has the names that I recognise on it (I totally went, MORIYAMA EIJI! I CAN READ THAT! THIS IS WHAT WE WANT! 8D) and ask him what we need to do to get tickets to the event and he points us to a line that snakes around the stage that will eventually house musical cast members... Rachel and I are still a bit confused as to what we have to do, since we know we've got to buy 2000 yen worth of goods and had already passed the table with the merchandise, but we continue to walk, hoping we'll get to where we need to be eventually. Then we get to a table where the lady working there is all, "Hai! 2000 yen!" And we're like, "Oh, I guess this is it?" and pay up to get a bag of random goods and the ticket to the Bleach Musical Cast Stage Event!!!
We were numbers 190 and 191.... *_____* We barely made it. But we totally did!!! <3 <3 <3
So, we spent the next four and a half hours wandering around smiling like retards and randomly mentioning to each other that we're totally going to see Burimyu cast members in so many hours! 8D I'm sure we looked creepily happy for most of the time we were wandering.
Didn't really buy anything but food. However, the food was themed after the various anime in Shounen JUMP, like Naruto Ramen and Bleach division candy. We bought Bleach Seaweed-Emperor Bread that was Cream Bread with some seaweed on the top. XD Surprisingly, it was pretty good. I also got commemorative JUMP Fes-cha (tea) in a pretty can with a pretty paper cup that came with. I kept the wrappers to all of the food like the obsessive dork that I am. The above picture is Rachel modeling the Seaweed-bread.
Cosplay is really different here in Japan than it is in America. First off, you can't take pictures of cosplayers when they wander around the convention, you can only take their pictures in the roped-off, cosplay corner. Also, the cosplayers don't act in character at all. They're just there to look good and while they do, it doesn't seem like they have nearly as much fun as American cosplayers. Plus, I saw a bad Eiji cosplayer and really wished that I had my Prince of Tennis costume on so I could show them how it's done. :P But yeah, the cosplayers' attitudes just seem different. Like the cosplaying isn't for fun, it's to show off and be like a model.
But anyway, griping about cosplay aside, it was really really fun to wander around the stalls and look at all the random merchandise and freebee random things they hand out. ^_^ Went past the Tenimyu booth and was sad that it was all 4th cast stuff that I could see. Cry... No 5th cast love. Saw a random song performed live by a really good band. I think it was called, "I, Ai, Ai" but I don't know the band's name.
After we'd killed some time, we wandered back to the Pierrot booth to wait in line for the Burimyu event. We tried to get there early, but they'd already started lining everyone up for seating, so we arrived right on time. Being in the really late numbers, we didn't end up getting terrific seats, especially since the guests were on a slightly raised stage, but were sitting down in traditional seiza position on mats for the whole thing. It was really hard to see them, but I managed to get a good view of Moriyama Eiji (Renji) and Goumoto Naoya (Hisagi) and could see Isaka Tatsuya (Ichigo) pretty often, too. Poor Sato Miki (Rukia). She was short, so it would have been hard to see her even if she hadn't been blocked by a random girl's head.
After the standard sorts of introductions (where for some reason they all talked about getting fatter after having not been in the Bleach Musicals for several months now), they talked about the two latest Myus: The All and Bankai Live Code 002. It must be said, though, that Eiji and Naoya totally stole the show and talked way longer than everyone else, not including the times they interrupted each other or aided in whatever random thing was being mentioned. For instance, Eiji messed up in his fight with Osamu-chan (Byakuya) in The All. He was supposed to miss stabbing him and then fall down because of Byakuya's superior skills, but he accidentally stabbed into Byakuya's taichou coat, making it look like he really did stab him. So then he had to move the sword down so that Osamu-chan could get around it to walk past him indifferently. Eiji was mortified that that was on the taping day and made it to DVD. XD Everyone else then chimed in saying that they noticed him messing up on lyrics during Bankai 002 on the DVD, which he vehemently denied. Tatsuya also talked about Osamu-chan and his fight, but I don't remember what it was about exactly. I was just happy to know who they were talking about.
Then, Tatsuya kinda half-stands up and says that he's got an announcement for everyone. He then kinda starts to say something that almost sounded like "Film" or maybe "furimu" or "furumu" because he couldn't get it right before giving up and taking out this piece of paper describing the event, also making the other guests read bits of the event info. Rock Musical Bleach is going to have an Film Fes where they showcase one of the musicals (or possibly bits and pieces from all the musicals?) along with the cast being there for a talk event. It sounded like they were going to basically be commentating on the musical or something of that sort. The awesome thing about this news is that it's going to be in Tokyo in May!!!!! I can totally go see it!!!! 8DDD OMG, excitement!!!! <3 <3 <3
They then moved on to games. The first one was called "A-I-U-E-O Sakubun" or "A E I O U Essay-Creations" where the guests were given a word and had to make a sentence with each syllable in the word. Hard to explain and I'm not quite sure about the rules myself. But, the word given was "Shidou," so their sentence had to start with a word beginning with "Shi" and in the middle of the sentence had to be "Do" and the ending part had to start with "U." Naoya's had to do with Unohana, Eiji's had to do with Naoya ("Always dependable, a guy who will do anything... I'm lying, though." Ouch, Moriyama, ouch.), Miki's had to do with Shibuya being loud and busy (though why, I'm not sure since it was supposed to be about Burimyu...), and Tatsuya's was about Eiji, though it was lame and I don't remember it. It was cute hearing him complain about how lame his own created sentence was, though. xD <3 <3
Then they're last game was a drawing contest. Each actor had to draw his character. Everyone complained that Tatsuya had it easy, though, since his character is the main one and there was an advertisement of him in the back of the stage area. He did kinda crane his neck to cheat and look at Ichigo's picture, though. XD
~Tatsuya's was kinda good... Kinda. He filled in Ichigo's hair with the black pen, but it was a little flat, though still obviously supposed to be spiky and complained that it'd be really obvious that it was Ichigo if he'd had an orange pen. Also, the drawing was holding a butterknife... by which I mean his sword Zangetsu. XD Now, the sword does kinda look like a butterknife, but with a shorter handle and Tatsuya kinda failed at that. It was a good effort, though! :D Tatsuya mentioned that Okuchi Kengo (Aizen's actor) was actually the best out of the cast at drawing. ^_^
~ Miki's rendition of Rukia came next. It was really cute. She'd remembered the hairstyle and had the bow on the uniform and even had a little crappily-drawn bunny next to her with the sentence "Chappy and me, Rukia" alongside the drawing. Pretty much everyone agreed that hers was really good, though Eiji complained that it was because she was a girl and therefore better at drawing. Way to be sexist, Sexy.
~ Luckily, Eiji's drawing was pretty crappy, too. Renji's spiky hair was all spiked out of one side of his head (I have to assume in an attempt at perspective?), but he did draw in the headband and funky tattooed eyebrows. And somehow, the little oblong eyes seemed to have a good Renji-esque expression in my opinion, too. He also attempted to draw his sword and ended up making it look like a comb. The rest of the cast laughed at how small it was in comparison to the person and Eiji laughed, too, saying that he ran out of space.
~ And they saved the best for last with Naoya! ... And by best, I mean worst! XD Oh man, the picture was barely human shaped. Naoya insisted on explaining all the details that he'd added in to make sure it was a good portrayal of Hisagi Shuuhei, like muscles, the spiky hair (which kinda reminded me of how it would look if Charlie Brown decided to spike his hair), the 69 on his face, and the fuku-taichou badge on his sleeveless arm. After each person presented their picture, there was a comparison with the actual character design and a picture of the performer projected on a screen behind the stage. So, the picture of Hisagi Shuuhei comes up and suddenly Naoya realises that he's forgotten a few important details... Like the rest of the markings on the guy's face. XD So, he'd forgotten to add a silver stripe across the nose (which he bemoaned loudly about being difficult to put on for performances and how he couldn't believe he'd forgotten it) and had only put one scar over his right eye instead of three. So, it was generally agreed upon that Naoya fails at remembering what he looks like. XD
The audience was then polled (by way of clapping volume) as to who did the best drawing. Naoya got a pretty good turn out for having drawn kinda crappily ( I must admit that I did clap). Eiji did second best, which I agree with, since he had all the components of his character at least, though they weren't drawn terribly well. Rukia's did the best, which was well deserved in my opinion. Aaaaand, poor Tatsuya... XD; The MC was all "Now for Isaka-san's drawing!" and there was just this silence.... before it was broken by a few hesitant claps. Tatsuya kinda fell over in laughing despair, as did everyone else at how badly he did at winning the audience over with his art skills.
And then, as the last part of the event, each actor drew slips of paper with seat numbers on them and if your number was pulled you got either the board with the sentence they came up with written on it or the crappy drawing!! :D Sadly, neither Rachel's nor my number was pulled, though we had a huge scare with Rachel's, since she was number 190. Naoya, when pulling for the crappy drawing, called out the number "hyaku-kyuu ban," or 109 and her number is pronounced "hyaku-kyuu-jyuu ban." Man, we were sad we didn't get his amazing attempt at drawing Shuuhei. XD; Two of the winners were cosplayers (or one had been cosplaying, but changed their outfit and not hair) of Kira Izuru, also a character from Bleach. I think the former Izuru won the Naoya drawing (corrected by imma_holiday: the Izuru cosplayers both won Eiji's giveaways, so the sentence board, too) and the active cosplayer won Eiji's Renji drawing, which was funny because Eiji's all, "Oh! Well, I'm supposed to get along well with Izuru anyway! Here! :D" and Naoya was just all, "Izuru?" in a questioning voice. XD; It was awesome.
The event ended with Naoya mentioning that he was having a play in January (I think?) with Sano Mizuki (again, I think?) and then they left and we filed out of the stage area. We kinda left going "OMG THAT WAS AWESOME! 8D Wasn't it funny when blahblahblah..." We saw some people gathered around the area that the actors had gone into and decided to opt out of looking like creepy foreign stalkers and just head back to Tokyo. Leaving was a little harder than getting into the convention and we had to backtrack and turn around a lot to finally get to the exit.
While we were leaving the building and heading to the station, we passed this big mural with a billion JUMP characters on it saying 'Welcome to JUMP Festa' and the like. We weren't even paying attention and accidentally walked right into the camera view of a hand-held video camera this guy and his friend had and we were kinda like, "Oh, woops," and avoided it. Then Rachel turns to me and says that she'd really been tempted to like make a peace sign in the background or something. I laugh and turn back to look at the poor guy that we just walked past and do the biggest double-take in my whole life. I kinda look at him and go, "Huh, he's cute.... Wait a.... WAIT A FUCKING MINUTE! RACHEL! Rachel, I think that's- HOLY SHIT! BUCK-TEETH!! OMG, IT'S TATSUYA!!!! WE JUST NEARLY BUMPED INTO TATSUYA!!!!" I was freaking out so badly! Sooooo badly!!! 8DDDDD But, my god, we just walked within like 3 feet of Tatsuya on accident!!!! So we stare for a moment, before I remember that I have a camera on my phone, but by then, he's got his back to us because he and the guy taping him are reviewing the tape. So I take a picture of him from that distance, but it's such crappy proof, I decide to be a horrible, gaijin stalker and start nonchalantly walking back the way I came, but Tatsuya turned around the other way and starts walking back. So I start following him, but he doesn't turn around again... So, in desperation of just getting a picture of him no matter what, I took a picture of his butt. XD
Apparently, while I was failing in my stalking, when Tatsuya turned around and started walking again, Rachel caught his eye and bowed. Tatsuya looked kinda confused and I have to assume that's because he figured that random gaijin wouldn't know who the hell he was and that it was therefore weird to be acknowledged. Little did he know that seeing him and the other cast members was the entire reason the two of us woke up at 6am and came to the Festa in the first place! 8DDD Of course we recognised him!!! *___* <3 We followed him until he went into another building near some stairs we needed to go up. My god, I was like incoherent and babbling and so completely blown away that we nearly bumped into the freaking main actor in the Bleach Musicals!! <3 <3 <3 I couldn't believe it. My voice is gone from the fangirling squeels and complete freak-out that I ended up doing. I feel bad for Rachel, since she had to deal with me on the ride home, but by god! We were both so incredibly stoked that we got accidentally up-close-and-personal with Tatsuya!!!!!! <3 <3 <3
We were so pumped up on Bleach that Rachel came home with me and we watched The All while eating take-out curry for the three or so hours that it takes to get through that. *_* <3 <3 <3
Holy crap, the day was good.
Holy crap.
~ <3