aibanokokuhaku

I tried writing this long blog post once already, but halfway through I accidentally closed the wrong tab. *sigh*

This post is going to be very long and will include a lot of details of my experience that maybe you don't necessarily care about.

It's mostly for my own record, because so much happened. I may edit this post later to add more details as I recollect them.

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January 24th:

I was still working this day, but it was Hikaru's birthday!

bday boy

I ate a pudding and fruit parfait to celebrate after my lunch break. Yay!

January 25th:

I took the bullet train from Tokyo Station all the way to Shin-Osaka. I had meant to reach my hotel as soon as check-in started (16:00) but due to heavy snow, a suicide on the line I live on, and other stuff, I didn't reach my hotel until 18:30. It was a pretty exhausting day, but my hotel was only a 6 minute walk from the Orix Theater, so I wasn't too worried about the next day.

January 26th:

I spent the morning getting dressed and ready while also nervously listening to 90's-2000's punk rock (Rancid, Bad Religion, NOFX, etc) to get myself pumped. I made myself up and looked like this. Basically I would be easy to recognize for the other fans and the band alike. The venues on a hall tour are small enough that I was probably noticed.

So I get to the venue at like 11:30am. There's no one there. Well, almost no one. Businessmen are milling around, and some strangely-familiar man walks buy in a white tracksuit at some point. I gave him a curious glance and looked back down at my phone. I wouldn't realize who it was until later...

About half an hour later, some other KISSES show up. You know, like these folks, one of which decided to go out for udon with me after knowing me for merely 2 minutes:

Or this guy, whom I talk to quite regularly on twitter and he made sure to wish me a happy birthday (since there is no GIG on 127 day)!

Anyway, the wait for the goods line was long, and Shin-Osaka was very cold and snowy, and getting worse by the minute. By the time we were let in (15:00), I was exhausted. Of course, this was still hours before the show would begin, and we were only allowed in to buy goods, including the very limited autograph tickets. ...I bought my ticket and had to reach in a box held by manager Kobayashi to find out which member I'd get to meet. When he called out "Ranma", I made a very dramatic fistpump and yelled, "yatta!" Much of the staff and many people behind me laughed. How embarrassing.

I spent the remaining almost 3 hours before doors open at a cafe with several other KISSES, drinking hot coffee and exchanging sweets. Someone gave me an orange button that said 不良 on it. It seems like buttons are a common gift.

Finally, 18:00 rolls around, and I go by myself to find my seat. Floor 1, row 19, seat 35. The two seats to my right were empty the entire time (I am guessing with it being flu season someone got sick), and to my left was a mom, dad, and their 3 year-old daughter. The dad was wearing red for Show-yan, mom was green for Matsu, and the daughter was orange for Ranma. She was so cute! The mom was also very friendly and guided me and her daughter through the dances together during the concert.

Mostly the concert was the same as Ichikawa, of course. It's the same tour. I can confirm that they played a few other songs, like ジゴロ13 and うすぴた (which was the a-capella song I was talking about at Ichikawa). The person to do the roulette was a teenage girl who wanted to hear Baumkuchen but got Aokidokusaisanitsugu. Whoops. Hikaru kept trying to spin the wheel extra times to get her song, but after the fourth try he gave up.

Show-yan got scolded for this afterward, but he spent a very long time (30-40 minutes) talking about when he first worked at the club called Los Angeles in Tokyo (it still exists, I may take a day trip there) with Ranma and Tommy. He talked about their weird, uncool quirks, but it made them seem all the more endearing. Ranma-chan had to train Show-yan but seemed like a sweet child more than a senpai, telling him what to do kindly and gently, with long hair and these weird taped-up broken Coca Cola glasses that Show-yan still remembers with fond discomfort. Tommy was too tall for the building's ceilings and walked with his head at a 45 degree angle. He also carried an old style runaway knapsack, like the tablecloth knit type slung over his shoulder. He'd wear tight jeans, black boots, this bright red sweater and carry this sack around... Show-yan eventually found out Tommy carried this pack with him everywhere just to house his contact lens case, when it could have easily fit in his pocket! What! He mostly skipped over the story of Matsu, talked about how Hikaru became Hikaru because they've been friends since elementary school so there wasn't much of a story to him joining. But apparently overnight Hikaru became the type to shout and when angry, probably due to the fact everyone started suddenly getting taller than him, and he was always wearing this Tomoyasu Hotei shirt under his school uniform... Hahaha omg. It was at about this point that Hikaru mentioned walking around outside the venue this morning. I screamed! The story of Akira joining was also great, just the way he told it. Kishidan was playing a GIG out west, and suddenly Yukki couldn't play his part for the encore at the end of a show, his hand was hurting so bad (from dystonia). So Show-yan asked if there were any drummers that could fill in. Akira did! It was gonna be a one night thing, but as Yukki decided he needed to stop drumming, the label searched and searched for a drummer to fill in. They couldn't find anyone. So guess who approached Akira himself? Show-yan. And even now Akira calls himself a support drummer, but it's been five years. Join the autograph sessions, dang it! Be in the band already!

After the concert, we lined up for the autograph session. The members could only sign up to 6 characters of katakana for a name, and as you can see from the photo, my name was spelled wrong. Ahahaha. But yeah, waiting 10 minutes for this interaction made me more nervous than if I had the chance to approach him organically. I had so many things I wanted to say to Ranma-chan, but I simply mustered a, "Sorry if my name is difficult" and he said, "Oh no, it's no problem!" and I watched him sign slowly. He went one stroke at a time. I knew it would be difficult for him to write (Subarachnoid Hemmoraging does that to someone) but it was heartbreaking. Silence filled the seconds. He went to hand me my autograph. He looked up. Our eyes met, and then our eyes locked for several seconds. God damn, he is a gorgeous human and while I always liked him before, it was a distant idol crush. In that moment, I was head over heels. But it makes me wonder, why was he staring back so intensely? Before I knew it, time was up, as dictated by manager Kobayashi. I thanked him and ran off, forgetting to get a handshake. Just... wow.