[Report] GACKT's 42nd BIRTHDAY PARTY
Although this was a fanclub members limited event, it wasn't like the Yasoukai where they make you sign a disclaimer saying you won't talk about it online and confiscate your phones, so talking about it is okay this time!
This is ridiculously long, especially for the lunch part, so I apologise!
The party was held at the Sheraton Grande Hotel, Tokyo Bay. This is one of the Tokyo Disney Resort partner hotels, so it’s within walking distance (or Disney monorail distance) from the parks. The event itself was within the hotel’s Club Fuji, and after entering, there was a room full of costumes from the MOON SAGA series of lives and plays on display. There was also bamboo, so that people could hang their wishes ahead of Tanabata on July 7th.
The lunch party started pretty much on time, and the first 90 minutes or so was food time while the GACKT x Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra DVD was played in the venue. For lunch, there was about 60 tables seating 10 people each. So about 600 people there.
After the food was served, the event started. The main MC for the talk event was Ryo Yukawa, also known as ROCKETMAN and he remixed ‘Wasurenai Kara’ on GACKTRACKS. The assistant MC was Shinnosu. They introduced the panel for the event, giving them all nicknames (Mr. Anti-aging for Chacha was the best one), and the panel members all entered through the crowd. The panel was dancers Ryo and Madoka, Val and Hayato from DuelJewel, Sato, Chacha, TAKUMI and YOU. They all wore lovely suits, and I think Takumi won the best dressed award.
They introduced GACKT, and a video began playing on the big screens. It was a copy of the WHITE LOVERS video, only with the Aventador in place of GACKT’s McLaren. It showed someone getting in the car, inputting the Sheraton Hotel into the maps app on his phone, spraying some Platinum Egoiste, selecting RIDE OR DIE as his music, and then leaving GACKT’s garage. The video cut away to the Aventador being in the corner of the room, and Val getting out. I don’t think anybody was actually fooled that it was GACKT in the car, despite how much the camera work tried to cover who it was.
After Val joined the panel, it was time for GACKT’s actual entrance. Each member took a different path through the crowd, so basically everyone in the audience had someone walk past them. I was lucky enough at lunch to have GACKT as the member that walked past me.
After GACKT joined the stage, the first section started.
It was a fill in the blanks challenge. Each table in the audience had pieces of paper with a panel members name on it (no GACKT as he isn’t part of the panel) and each table was asked to choose a member. After the challenge was to finish, GACKT would pick who he thought was most entertaining, and who was least entertaining. Tables who picked the most entertaining member would win goods, but tables who picked the least entertaining member would have to do a batsu game.
The first blanks that had to be filled were all related to MOON SAGA. They showed a very handy infographic on the screens that explained how Yoshitsune, the story of DIABOLOS and the Moon Child movie all linked together. A lot of the text was too small to read, but I did manage to catch how after everything ended with Yoshitsune (which will be MOON SAGA 3, I presume) the monofu migrated to Europe, had their battles with the Darkside Inhabitants and were a band of 13 lead by GACKT’s DIABOLOS character, Alucard. I didn’t know his character in DIABOLOS actually had a name, but he does, and it’s Dracula spelt backwards. Only one of the 13 were left alive, and that somehow eventually led to the vampires/monofu in Moon Child.
So at first, little bits of text were taken from this infographic and the panel had to fill in the blanks. Obviously they were just playing for laughs and not trying to actually get it right. Sato drew many pictures, Chacha made a few lighthearted digs at Takumi, YOU was cute and referenced his dressing up as Hiyori and Val talked about his mole. The next blank fills were a couple of GACKT quotes, and the last was based on one of the old Fuji camera ads.
After that, it was the next scene in a video that they had to fill in. They showed the video from the middle part of DIABOLOS, where GACKT has the nightmare of everyone dying but then wakes up and sees them all in the mirror, offering encouragement to him. The video was stopped before Chacha’s part, and the panel were asked to act out what Chacha did next. The best of these was Takumi’s cute little bit where he chanted “sankaku [triangle], shikaku [square], Chachamaru!! [maru - circle]” while making very cute hand gestures and skipping slightly.
Chacha then showed them the answer, and had an afro wig and sunglasses so that he could do it properly. To-to-together!
GACKT was then asked to judge who was the most entertaining and the least. He picked Chacha for the most entertaining. For least entertaining he’d picked Madoka, who as well as giving many crazy answers that kinda fell flat as humor, had spent the entire time sweating profusely under the lights and had a large sweat patch on his shirt. I think GACKT picked him for that reason alone. It must have been hot on stage though as GACKT took off his suit jacket part of the way through too.
About five tables had picked Madoka, but instead of them all doing the batsu game, GACKT had all of the fans at those tables stand up and play rock, scissors, paper with him. If they lost or drew, they could sit down. If they won, they kept going (that’s opposite to how it normally works so it took some explaining!). The batsu game was to drink a shot of something yellow looking. Madoka said it tasted disgusting, but all of the fans were fine with it. I wonder if the fan’s drinks were just pineapple juice but Madoka’s was spiked…
The next segment had some panel members give a presentation about why they should be in the band for the 2016 LAST VISUALIVE. GACKT would then vote on whether to accept their presentations.
Chacha went first. The presentations were like Powerpoints, so it was quite amusing! Chacha showed his profile and then a photo of him and GACKT kissing during the 2002 live to show how important he was to the band and GACKT. Next, he had a graph of the amount of work he had done with GACKT in each year since 2000. Every year was quite busy, other than 2014 and 2015, which had virtually nothing. He blamed the decline in his participation from 2014 onwards on an unskilled artist - Takumi. Chacha then listed all of Takumi’s negative points, and he listed far too many for me to remember but one that really stood out was that Takumi was the son of an Indian guy. Chacha said that his guitar technique was better than Takumi’s and demonstrated by playing a guitar solo on stage. He challenged Takumi to do a solo in answer, and when Takumi agreed he was given a ukulele.
The next presentation was from Takumi. Again, he showed his profile first and listed the million jobs he does for GACKT (he does a lot of behind the scenes company work too, that’s why he’s with GACKT everywhere). Takumi showed a pyramid ranking the GACKT Job guitarists, putting Chacha first, YOU second, and himself halfway down the third level. He explained that his father was Hideki Samejima, a very respected bass player who played for the band Hound Dog (and played bass on WHITE LOVERS, FYI). Takumi referenced Chacha’s presentation and said that his father was Japanese, not Indian, and after seeing a photo of his father, Shinnosu asked if he was George Harrison. Next, Takumi showed a bass player pyramid with his father placed at the top as the god of bass players. He put himself immediately underneath as he is the son of the god of bass players. Poor Sato was placed at the very bottom of the third tier. So Takumi wants to be the GACKT Job bass player now.
YOU was up next. He showed his profile too, confirming his year of birth as 1974 and his age as being in the same year as GACKT. He showed many photos of himself with GACKT through the years, including the h.DARTS photos where he and GACKT are draped all over each other (“Which one is me and which one is Gaku? I can’t tell”). YOU had a chart of his popularity within GACKT Job and it steadily increased every year before falling to zero in 2014. YOU said that this was due to tabloid stories (the ex-wife/ghostwriter stuff) but that he had managed to recover his popularity by dressing as Hiyori and a cute schoolgirl. YOU didn’t want to kick anyone out of the band though, as he wants everyone on the panel to be in the band. Instead, YOU wanted to be GACKT Job leader. The entire panel pointed out that GACKT is the leader of GACKT Job, but YOU said he wanted to take GACKT’s place as leader (not as singer, just as band leader). YOU then showed a photoshop of the Akatsukizukuyo cover with his face over GACKT’s and also one of GACKT riding the sheep with his face instead of GACKT.
The MCs thought the presentations were finished, but Val surprised them with a presentation of his own. He showed his profile and listed his weight and height in turtles - 70 turtles heavy and 100 turtles high (Val has a turtle as a pet). Val then showed a picture of the current Job drummer, Kei, and said how cool Kei was and how good a drummer he is, as shown by the many bands he plays for. Val continued listing Kei’s good points and had a slide with about 30 of them, including “I like him”, “I love him”, “I want to kiss him”, “Hugging/having sex with him would be okay”. So Val doesn’t want to be Job’s drummer. Val showed a clip of him singing at Gakuensai and now wants to be twin vocal with GACKT! Val also has ideas for the New DuelJewel, where he would be singer, the guitarists and bass player would be the same, but GACKT would be on drums. Hayato (the current DuelJewel singer) would be Val’s manager. Val would then debut as a solo artist in December, 2016. [Tonight, DuelJewel announced that they would be breaking up after their next tour as Hayato is having voice problems again that don't appear to be fixable, so this presentation feels kinda weird now]
I don’t remember 100%, but I think that the only proposal GACKT accepted was YOU’s.
After the presentations, they showed a video of Val and Hayato getting a present for GACKT. The video started with them at the giant Gundam statue, and GACKT burst out laughing when he saw them there. As GACKT loves Gundam so much, they planned to get some of his celebrity friends to make a Gundam drawing for him. The first friend they visited was Golden Bomber’s Kiryuuin Sho at his company’s office
When they visited KiriSho, it was June 20th and his birthday. They had a present for him from GACKT, but said he couldn’t have it until he’d finished drawing. Sho was given a minute to look at the Gundam he chose to draw, and then had to draw it from memory. While he was drawing, a staff member at the office gave Val and Hayato drinks and doriyaki to eat. Val’s doriyaki was spiked with wasabi inside and he nearly choked when eating it. KiriSho finished the drawing and got the present.
The next friend was the director Kiriya Kazuaki. Again, while he was drawing Val and Hayato were given drinks and doriyaki. Val eyed his doriyaki with suspicion and reconsidered eating it, before eventually doing so and discovering it was fine. Instead this time, his drink was spiked!
The third and final friend came to see Val and Hayato in the G-Pro office (so many GACKT CDs, DVDs, goods and awards on the shelves behind them!). It was the comedian Yama-chan. He drew while Val and Hayato munched on convenience store candy.
The video finished and the final present was unveiled for GACKT to see. It was a composite of the drawings Val and Hayato had collected, plus some extras drawn by the panel. Kiriya Kazuaki’s drawing was amazing, and GACKT was very impressed by it.
After the present, was cake time! The cake at lunch time was mainly just a pile of cream with a slab of white chocolate on top with the logo of GACKT’s 42nd birthday printed on it. GACKT made a wish and blew out his candles. As he spoke after this about his birthday and being able to spend it with everyone, he was slowly removing the candles from the cake. He looked over at Val and Madoka, who were standing next to each other, and the two of them knew that one of them was going in the cake. GACKT asked Madoka, and the dancer jumped face first into it. GACKT was amused that the cake now had the imprint of Madoka’s face in it, and someone (Chacha or Takumi, I think) remarked that it was like a cake death mask.
A couple of birthday messages were shown on the screen. The first was from the band Kishidan. Kaicho is playing their festival in September, and they told a story about meeting GACKT many years ago and a discussion about the width of their pant legs. The second message was from Hyde. He said that 42 was an unlucky year and that GACKT should be careful. GACKT wasn’t particularly happy that Hyde was stressing how bad a year it was going to be.
The final part of the show was a song. The song was ‘Memories’, and the panel sang it. Their singing ranged from good (Hayato, Chacha) to okay (YOU, Sato, Ryo) to purposely awful (Val, Madoka). The music was stopped early and GACKT noted that everyone had sung other than Takumi. So he made Takumi sing his part acapella. GACKT sang the end of the song after they had restarted it, and then complained that it was his birthday yet they were making him sing the last part.
GACKT gave one final message, and spoke about recording music for the VISUALIVE next year and that everyone should prepare themselves for it, as he is also preparing.
The lunch show overran by about one hour and twenty minutes. The doors should have opened for the dinner before it had fully finished!
So dinner started late, although they made up some time as the food was served far quicker than at lunch. There were 71 tables this time, so about 710 people. Again the panel entered through the crowd, but this time they were all wearing yukata!
The MCs introduced GACKT, and the WHITE LOVERS parody video played on the screens, but it was different to lunch time. They didn’t try to pretend it was GACKT, and showed Val straight away. He bumped his head getting into the car and couldn’t start the engine. The video showed Val driving along and singing WHITE LOVERS, like the MV, but then he changed the song to DuelJewel’s LOST ASH. Again, the Aventador was in the hall and Val struggled to get out in his yukata.
Finally GACKT entered through the crowd, dressed in the same red yukata from the event goods (or is his a kimono?) and joined the stage.
The first challenge was to change the lyrics from some of GACKT’s songs. There was a guy on hand with the Gakupo software, and he’d program it to sing the new lyrics. They used lyrics from Zan, Another World, GHOST, Hakuro and one more that I can’t remember. The missing lyrics differed in length, so in some songs it was just one missing word of three or four character length, but other songs had multiple words missing. For one of the songs, the missing words were obviously ripe for some rude answers, so the MCs reminded the panel that they were not junior high students and should show restraint. They did, largely…
The fans had been asked to choose a member prior to the missing lyrics challenge, and again GACKT chose the most entertaining and least entertaining member. For most entertaining he chose Madoka, and for least he chose Ryo. This time, the fans that had to do the batsu game of drinking the shot did say it tasted bad.
The presentation topic for the evening event was to give ideas for the LAST VISUALIVE.
YOU’s presentation was very YOU-centric. I actually don’t remember much of YOU’s presentation compared to the others… He said that instead of snow effects on stage they should go back to rain, and showed stage photos where the rain was only on him. He suggested new mascots instead of the cats, and they were the cat bodies with giant YOU as Hiyori heads. I’m sure there was more to it than this, I just don’t remember.
Hayato went second and his presentation was all about cool and expensive technology. Each piece of technology had a really long and complicated name that was just a string of kanji and even Hayato struggled to read some of them. So, each one also had an easier name that included Hayato’s name. The first idea was that instead of boring stage lights, there would be some polarising rays. GACKT rightly pointed out that everyone on stage would probably die from them. Hayato’s second idea was a moveable stage that could reach every part of the audience. It would be powered by fire spewing jets. It was raised that this would probably kill the audience. Hayato’s third idea was based around the fact that touring took a lot of time and effort because the stage had to be transported and constructed in each venue. He had the idea of a portable stage, that was basically a space ship. Each idea was going to cost billions of yen, and each price was another play on his name.
The final presentation was from Sato. He showed a graph of the number of visitors at popular theme parks in Japan and it had Disney Land at the top. So, Sato thought that the VISUALIVE should be Gacky Land. The mascot of the park would be Gacky, which was a very frightening photoshop of GACKT’s face on Mickey Mouse. Gacky should have some friends, so there would be Chachald (Chacha photoshopped onto Donald Duck) and Kuma no YOU-san (YOU as Winnie the Pooh, his Japanese name is Kuma no Pooh-san so it rhymes). Sato said that Kuma no YOU-san would get lots of hugs from the female visitors. Gacky should also have a girlfriend, so there was a photoshop with GACKT as Minnie too, or Gani. And when everyone leaves the park, they will also turn into GACKT. I can’t describe how simultaneously hilarious and terrifying this was. Throughout the entire presentation GACKT was saying how scary and creepy it all was. He talked more through Sato’s presentation than all of the others added together.
With the presentations finished, it was time for Val and Hayato to get GACKT another present. The video started the same as the lunch video, with them at the giant Gundam and then going to meet KiriSho. However, they asked him to draw another Gundam for the dinner event this time. While Sho was trying to remember what the Gundam looked like, they tried to ruin his concentration with inane questions. When he had finished, they gave him GACKT’s present and this time he opened it. It was a bottle of G-Enzyme and a card.
Next were the comedians Black Mayonnaise. They spoke about meeting GACKT for the first time on an episode of Moshimo Tours. The final guest was also a comedian, who’s name I can’t remember but I know that he guested at a Camui Gakuen show a couple of years ago. Again the final pictures were put together and GACKT commented on it.
The birthday cake for the evening show was lined with strawberries, had several slices of white chocolate on top with GACKT pictures on them and also had a huge Gakucchi in the middle that stood about 10 inches high. GACKT made a wish, and blew out the candles. As before, he removed the candles and then offhandedly mentioned to Ryo how hot it was… Ryo instantly understood what GACKT was hinting at and jumped into the cake quicker than anyone, GACKT included I think, expected. The Gakucchi was knocked over and Val went to grab it, but couldn’t quite decide the best way to pick it up. GACKT suggesting scooping it from the front, so Val leaned in to do so… and GACKT pushed him into the cake. He didn’t just place a hand on the back of Val’s head though, he kinda elbowed him in the back of the neck. It was quite violent!
The birthday messages on the evening were from a guy I don’t know and don’t remember the name of (sorry) and Yoshiki. Yoshiki’s comment was a bit of mess. Everyone, including the guys on stage, were laughing at him. It wasn’t cruel laughter, more a ‘typical Yoshiki” type. He managed to plug his dinner shows and did remember to wish GACKT a happy birthday at least.
The song this time was Sakura, Chiru. Ryo started, and he had Hayato backing him up when he struggled and got lost. GACKT winced a bit at Chacha’s singing, because he was a little loud, I think. Val and Madoka did the chorus lines and tried to outdo each other in awfulness. GACKT missed his cue to start singing, but that was mainly because he didn’t know it was his turn. He sang the end though.
The dinner show was shorter than the lunch one. Overall, I found the lunch one to be more entertaining, which is probably why I remember so much more of it. The dinner show definitely had it’s highlights though, such as the yukatas and Gacky Land.
All of the photos and text here are mine, so if you do repost a link back would be appreciated.
Don't forget, that if anyone has a report from an event or even a review of some goods, that can always be posted here. We like discussing things!
This is ridiculously long, especially for the lunch part, so I apologise!
The party was held at the Sheraton Grande Hotel, Tokyo Bay. This is one of the Tokyo Disney Resort partner hotels, so it’s within walking distance (or Disney monorail distance) from the parks. The event itself was within the hotel’s Club Fuji, and after entering, there was a room full of costumes from the MOON SAGA series of lives and plays on display. There was also bamboo, so that people could hang their wishes ahead of Tanabata on July 7th.
The lunch party started pretty much on time, and the first 90 minutes or so was food time while the GACKT x Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra DVD was played in the venue. For lunch, there was about 60 tables seating 10 people each. So about 600 people there.
After the food was served, the event started. The main MC for the talk event was Ryo Yukawa, also known as ROCKETMAN and he remixed ‘Wasurenai Kara’ on GACKTRACKS. The assistant MC was Shinnosu. They introduced the panel for the event, giving them all nicknames (Mr. Anti-aging for Chacha was the best one), and the panel members all entered through the crowd. The panel was dancers Ryo and Madoka, Val and Hayato from DuelJewel, Sato, Chacha, TAKUMI and YOU. They all wore lovely suits, and I think Takumi won the best dressed award.
They introduced GACKT, and a video began playing on the big screens. It was a copy of the WHITE LOVERS video, only with the Aventador in place of GACKT’s McLaren. It showed someone getting in the car, inputting the Sheraton Hotel into the maps app on his phone, spraying some Platinum Egoiste, selecting RIDE OR DIE as his music, and then leaving GACKT’s garage. The video cut away to the Aventador being in the corner of the room, and Val getting out. I don’t think anybody was actually fooled that it was GACKT in the car, despite how much the camera work tried to cover who it was.
After Val joined the panel, it was time for GACKT’s actual entrance. Each member took a different path through the crowd, so basically everyone in the audience had someone walk past them. I was lucky enough at lunch to have GACKT as the member that walked past me.
After GACKT joined the stage, the first section started.
It was a fill in the blanks challenge. Each table in the audience had pieces of paper with a panel members name on it (no GACKT as he isn’t part of the panel) and each table was asked to choose a member. After the challenge was to finish, GACKT would pick who he thought was most entertaining, and who was least entertaining. Tables who picked the most entertaining member would win goods, but tables who picked the least entertaining member would have to do a batsu game.
The first blanks that had to be filled were all related to MOON SAGA. They showed a very handy infographic on the screens that explained how Yoshitsune, the story of DIABOLOS and the Moon Child movie all linked together. A lot of the text was too small to read, but I did manage to catch how after everything ended with Yoshitsune (which will be MOON SAGA 3, I presume) the monofu migrated to Europe, had their battles with the Darkside Inhabitants and were a band of 13 lead by GACKT’s DIABOLOS character, Alucard. I didn’t know his character in DIABOLOS actually had a name, but he does, and it’s Dracula spelt backwards. Only one of the 13 were left alive, and that somehow eventually led to the vampires/monofu in Moon Child.
So at first, little bits of text were taken from this infographic and the panel had to fill in the blanks. Obviously they were just playing for laughs and not trying to actually get it right. Sato drew many pictures, Chacha made a few lighthearted digs at Takumi, YOU was cute and referenced his dressing up as Hiyori and Val talked about his mole. The next blank fills were a couple of GACKT quotes, and the last was based on one of the old Fuji camera ads.
After that, it was the next scene in a video that they had to fill in. They showed the video from the middle part of DIABOLOS, where GACKT has the nightmare of everyone dying but then wakes up and sees them all in the mirror, offering encouragement to him. The video was stopped before Chacha’s part, and the panel were asked to act out what Chacha did next. The best of these was Takumi’s cute little bit where he chanted “sankaku [triangle], shikaku [square], Chachamaru!! [maru - circle]” while making very cute hand gestures and skipping slightly.
Chacha then showed them the answer, and had an afro wig and sunglasses so that he could do it properly. To-to-together!
GACKT was then asked to judge who was the most entertaining and the least. He picked Chacha for the most entertaining. For least entertaining he’d picked Madoka, who as well as giving many crazy answers that kinda fell flat as humor, had spent the entire time sweating profusely under the lights and had a large sweat patch on his shirt. I think GACKT picked him for that reason alone. It must have been hot on stage though as GACKT took off his suit jacket part of the way through too.
About five tables had picked Madoka, but instead of them all doing the batsu game, GACKT had all of the fans at those tables stand up and play rock, scissors, paper with him. If they lost or drew, they could sit down. If they won, they kept going (that’s opposite to how it normally works so it took some explaining!). The batsu game was to drink a shot of something yellow looking. Madoka said it tasted disgusting, but all of the fans were fine with it. I wonder if the fan’s drinks were just pineapple juice but Madoka’s was spiked…
The next segment had some panel members give a presentation about why they should be in the band for the 2016 LAST VISUALIVE. GACKT would then vote on whether to accept their presentations.
Chacha went first. The presentations were like Powerpoints, so it was quite amusing! Chacha showed his profile and then a photo of him and GACKT kissing during the 2002 live to show how important he was to the band and GACKT. Next, he had a graph of the amount of work he had done with GACKT in each year since 2000. Every year was quite busy, other than 2014 and 2015, which had virtually nothing. He blamed the decline in his participation from 2014 onwards on an unskilled artist - Takumi. Chacha then listed all of Takumi’s negative points, and he listed far too many for me to remember but one that really stood out was that Takumi was the son of an Indian guy. Chacha said that his guitar technique was better than Takumi’s and demonstrated by playing a guitar solo on stage. He challenged Takumi to do a solo in answer, and when Takumi agreed he was given a ukulele.
The next presentation was from Takumi. Again, he showed his profile first and listed the million jobs he does for GACKT (he does a lot of behind the scenes company work too, that’s why he’s with GACKT everywhere). Takumi showed a pyramid ranking the GACKT Job guitarists, putting Chacha first, YOU second, and himself halfway down the third level. He explained that his father was Hideki Samejima, a very respected bass player who played for the band Hound Dog (and played bass on WHITE LOVERS, FYI). Takumi referenced Chacha’s presentation and said that his father was Japanese, not Indian, and after seeing a photo of his father, Shinnosu asked if he was George Harrison. Next, Takumi showed a bass player pyramid with his father placed at the top as the god of bass players. He put himself immediately underneath as he is the son of the god of bass players. Poor Sato was placed at the very bottom of the third tier. So Takumi wants to be the GACKT Job bass player now.
YOU was up next. He showed his profile too, confirming his year of birth as 1974 and his age as being in the same year as GACKT. He showed many photos of himself with GACKT through the years, including the h.DARTS photos where he and GACKT are draped all over each other (“Which one is me and which one is Gaku? I can’t tell”). YOU had a chart of his popularity within GACKT Job and it steadily increased every year before falling to zero in 2014. YOU said that this was due to tabloid stories (the ex-wife/ghostwriter stuff) but that he had managed to recover his popularity by dressing as Hiyori and a cute schoolgirl. YOU didn’t want to kick anyone out of the band though, as he wants everyone on the panel to be in the band. Instead, YOU wanted to be GACKT Job leader. The entire panel pointed out that GACKT is the leader of GACKT Job, but YOU said he wanted to take GACKT’s place as leader (not as singer, just as band leader). YOU then showed a photoshop of the Akatsukizukuyo cover with his face over GACKT’s and also one of GACKT riding the sheep with his face instead of GACKT.
The MCs thought the presentations were finished, but Val surprised them with a presentation of his own. He showed his profile and listed his weight and height in turtles - 70 turtles heavy and 100 turtles high (Val has a turtle as a pet). Val then showed a picture of the current Job drummer, Kei, and said how cool Kei was and how good a drummer he is, as shown by the many bands he plays for. Val continued listing Kei’s good points and had a slide with about 30 of them, including “I like him”, “I love him”, “I want to kiss him”, “Hugging/having sex with him would be okay”. So Val doesn’t want to be Job’s drummer. Val showed a clip of him singing at Gakuensai and now wants to be twin vocal with GACKT! Val also has ideas for the New DuelJewel, where he would be singer, the guitarists and bass player would be the same, but GACKT would be on drums. Hayato (the current DuelJewel singer) would be Val’s manager. Val would then debut as a solo artist in December, 2016. [Tonight, DuelJewel announced that they would be breaking up after their next tour as Hayato is having voice problems again that don't appear to be fixable, so this presentation feels kinda weird now]
I don’t remember 100%, but I think that the only proposal GACKT accepted was YOU’s.
After the presentations, they showed a video of Val and Hayato getting a present for GACKT. The video started with them at the giant Gundam statue, and GACKT burst out laughing when he saw them there. As GACKT loves Gundam so much, they planned to get some of his celebrity friends to make a Gundam drawing for him. The first friend they visited was Golden Bomber’s Kiryuuin Sho at his company’s office
When they visited KiriSho, it was June 20th and his birthday. They had a present for him from GACKT, but said he couldn’t have it until he’d finished drawing. Sho was given a minute to look at the Gundam he chose to draw, and then had to draw it from memory. While he was drawing, a staff member at the office gave Val and Hayato drinks and doriyaki to eat. Val’s doriyaki was spiked with wasabi inside and he nearly choked when eating it. KiriSho finished the drawing and got the present.
The next friend was the director Kiriya Kazuaki. Again, while he was drawing Val and Hayato were given drinks and doriyaki. Val eyed his doriyaki with suspicion and reconsidered eating it, before eventually doing so and discovering it was fine. Instead this time, his drink was spiked!
The third and final friend came to see Val and Hayato in the G-Pro office (so many GACKT CDs, DVDs, goods and awards on the shelves behind them!). It was the comedian Yama-chan. He drew while Val and Hayato munched on convenience store candy.
The video finished and the final present was unveiled for GACKT to see. It was a composite of the drawings Val and Hayato had collected, plus some extras drawn by the panel. Kiriya Kazuaki’s drawing was amazing, and GACKT was very impressed by it.
After the present, was cake time! The cake at lunch time was mainly just a pile of cream with a slab of white chocolate on top with the logo of GACKT’s 42nd birthday printed on it. GACKT made a wish and blew out his candles. As he spoke after this about his birthday and being able to spend it with everyone, he was slowly removing the candles from the cake. He looked over at Val and Madoka, who were standing next to each other, and the two of them knew that one of them was going in the cake. GACKT asked Madoka, and the dancer jumped face first into it. GACKT was amused that the cake now had the imprint of Madoka’s face in it, and someone (Chacha or Takumi, I think) remarked that it was like a cake death mask.
A couple of birthday messages were shown on the screen. The first was from the band Kishidan. Kaicho is playing their festival in September, and they told a story about meeting GACKT many years ago and a discussion about the width of their pant legs. The second message was from Hyde. He said that 42 was an unlucky year and that GACKT should be careful. GACKT wasn’t particularly happy that Hyde was stressing how bad a year it was going to be.
The final part of the show was a song. The song was ‘Memories’, and the panel sang it. Their singing ranged from good (Hayato, Chacha) to okay (YOU, Sato, Ryo) to purposely awful (Val, Madoka). The music was stopped early and GACKT noted that everyone had sung other than Takumi. So he made Takumi sing his part acapella. GACKT sang the end of the song after they had restarted it, and then complained that it was his birthday yet they were making him sing the last part.
GACKT gave one final message, and spoke about recording music for the VISUALIVE next year and that everyone should prepare themselves for it, as he is also preparing.
The lunch show overran by about one hour and twenty minutes. The doors should have opened for the dinner before it had fully finished!
So dinner started late, although they made up some time as the food was served far quicker than at lunch. There were 71 tables this time, so about 710 people. Again the panel entered through the crowd, but this time they were all wearing yukata!
The MCs introduced GACKT, and the WHITE LOVERS parody video played on the screens, but it was different to lunch time. They didn’t try to pretend it was GACKT, and showed Val straight away. He bumped his head getting into the car and couldn’t start the engine. The video showed Val driving along and singing WHITE LOVERS, like the MV, but then he changed the song to DuelJewel’s LOST ASH. Again, the Aventador was in the hall and Val struggled to get out in his yukata.
Finally GACKT entered through the crowd, dressed in the same red yukata from the event goods (or is his a kimono?) and joined the stage.
The first challenge was to change the lyrics from some of GACKT’s songs. There was a guy on hand with the Gakupo software, and he’d program it to sing the new lyrics. They used lyrics from Zan, Another World, GHOST, Hakuro and one more that I can’t remember. The missing lyrics differed in length, so in some songs it was just one missing word of three or four character length, but other songs had multiple words missing. For one of the songs, the missing words were obviously ripe for some rude answers, so the MCs reminded the panel that they were not junior high students and should show restraint. They did, largely…
The fans had been asked to choose a member prior to the missing lyrics challenge, and again GACKT chose the most entertaining and least entertaining member. For most entertaining he chose Madoka, and for least he chose Ryo. This time, the fans that had to do the batsu game of drinking the shot did say it tasted bad.
The presentation topic for the evening event was to give ideas for the LAST VISUALIVE.
YOU’s presentation was very YOU-centric. I actually don’t remember much of YOU’s presentation compared to the others… He said that instead of snow effects on stage they should go back to rain, and showed stage photos where the rain was only on him. He suggested new mascots instead of the cats, and they were the cat bodies with giant YOU as Hiyori heads. I’m sure there was more to it than this, I just don’t remember.
Hayato went second and his presentation was all about cool and expensive technology. Each piece of technology had a really long and complicated name that was just a string of kanji and even Hayato struggled to read some of them. So, each one also had an easier name that included Hayato’s name. The first idea was that instead of boring stage lights, there would be some polarising rays. GACKT rightly pointed out that everyone on stage would probably die from them. Hayato’s second idea was a moveable stage that could reach every part of the audience. It would be powered by fire spewing jets. It was raised that this would probably kill the audience. Hayato’s third idea was based around the fact that touring took a lot of time and effort because the stage had to be transported and constructed in each venue. He had the idea of a portable stage, that was basically a space ship. Each idea was going to cost billions of yen, and each price was another play on his name.
The final presentation was from Sato. He showed a graph of the number of visitors at popular theme parks in Japan and it had Disney Land at the top. So, Sato thought that the VISUALIVE should be Gacky Land. The mascot of the park would be Gacky, which was a very frightening photoshop of GACKT’s face on Mickey Mouse. Gacky should have some friends, so there would be Chachald (Chacha photoshopped onto Donald Duck) and Kuma no YOU-san (YOU as Winnie the Pooh, his Japanese name is Kuma no Pooh-san so it rhymes). Sato said that Kuma no YOU-san would get lots of hugs from the female visitors. Gacky should also have a girlfriend, so there was a photoshop with GACKT as Minnie too, or Gani. And when everyone leaves the park, they will also turn into GACKT. I can’t describe how simultaneously hilarious and terrifying this was. Throughout the entire presentation GACKT was saying how scary and creepy it all was. He talked more through Sato’s presentation than all of the others added together.
With the presentations finished, it was time for Val and Hayato to get GACKT another present. The video started the same as the lunch video, with them at the giant Gundam and then going to meet KiriSho. However, they asked him to draw another Gundam for the dinner event this time. While Sho was trying to remember what the Gundam looked like, they tried to ruin his concentration with inane questions. When he had finished, they gave him GACKT’s present and this time he opened it. It was a bottle of G-Enzyme and a card.
Next were the comedians Black Mayonnaise. They spoke about meeting GACKT for the first time on an episode of Moshimo Tours. The final guest was also a comedian, who’s name I can’t remember but I know that he guested at a Camui Gakuen show a couple of years ago. Again the final pictures were put together and GACKT commented on it.
The birthday cake for the evening show was lined with strawberries, had several slices of white chocolate on top with GACKT pictures on them and also had a huge Gakucchi in the middle that stood about 10 inches high. GACKT made a wish, and blew out the candles. As before, he removed the candles and then offhandedly mentioned to Ryo how hot it was… Ryo instantly understood what GACKT was hinting at and jumped into the cake quicker than anyone, GACKT included I think, expected. The Gakucchi was knocked over and Val went to grab it, but couldn’t quite decide the best way to pick it up. GACKT suggesting scooping it from the front, so Val leaned in to do so… and GACKT pushed him into the cake. He didn’t just place a hand on the back of Val’s head though, he kinda elbowed him in the back of the neck. It was quite violent!
The birthday messages on the evening were from a guy I don’t know and don’t remember the name of (sorry) and Yoshiki. Yoshiki’s comment was a bit of mess. Everyone, including the guys on stage, were laughing at him. It wasn’t cruel laughter, more a ‘typical Yoshiki” type. He managed to plug his dinner shows and did remember to wish GACKT a happy birthday at least.
The song this time was Sakura, Chiru. Ryo started, and he had Hayato backing him up when he struggled and got lost. GACKT winced a bit at Chacha’s singing, because he was a little loud, I think. Val and Madoka did the chorus lines and tried to outdo each other in awfulness. GACKT missed his cue to start singing, but that was mainly because he didn’t know it was his turn. He sang the end though.
The dinner show was shorter than the lunch one. Overall, I found the lunch one to be more entertaining, which is probably why I remember so much more of it. The dinner show definitely had it’s highlights though, such as the yukatas and Gacky Land.
All of the photos and text here are mine, so if you do repost a link back would be appreciated.
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