Day 8 (3/4/15)
Today I slept in a little to recover from the emotional and physical exhaustion of the day before. I had screamed, jumped, danced and cried fairly excessively the night before. Today a small group of us were going to Disneyland. I was actually excited to see the difference between Tokyo and Anaheim.
Much to my disappointment, it was exactly the same as back home. In layout and ride selection. The only difference was that a small number of attractions were missing so the Park was slightly smaller as a result. That's not to say it wasn't fun. It merely wasn't unique. I would assume that all the fun exclusive rides would be at Disney Sea, which we didn’t have the time to go to.
That being said, the four of us enjoyed it thoroughly. We spent the majority of the time watching the parades and such. This was nice for me because that's usually something I skip back home. To top it off, one of Mimi's friends happened to be classmates with Miyabi Natsuyaki from Berryz in junior high (If I understood Mimi properly.). We didn't bug her with stupid questions and just hung out like normal people. Rin was her name I believe, and she was with her friend Yuki. They were both sweethearts and we had an absolute blast together. At the end of the day, we realized it was really smart to go to Disneyland after how emotionally draining the final Berryz concert was.
Of particular note was the electric parade. This is something I haven't seen since I was very young since it got removed. I don't know if it's back at the Park at home yet, since I haven't been for almost 6 years, but it certainly brought back some really pleasant memories and made me tear up as soon as I heard the song start up. All in all it was a good day.
Day 9 - Lovendor Steal Your Heart Final (3/5/15)
Today is the real conclusion to my journey. While I had a little time the next day, realistically it's just clean up since my flight is then. It was a good conclusion too. I started off the day by heading to Sunshine City for some last minute shopping requests from friends. I got those tasks done and also picked up a couple more things from Pokémon Center. I also finally tried the caramelly sakura latte from Starbucks. It was actually extremely tasty and made me wish we had it back home. From there Elina and I left for Alita's place for a little pizza party. It was fun to be able to hang out one last time as a group. Alita and Michael were the sweetest hosts. The pizza (Dominos) was good and we chatted while watching a concert. It really helped solidify how amazing the people in the fandom are. We all always work so hard to look out for each other it's so nice. Alita and Michael especially took extra care of us and I'll never be able to repay them. I'll have to give them a nice gift later. After saying my farewells to everybody, I took my leave for the Lovendor concert in Shinjuku Blaze.
Luckily, I didn’t have too much of an issue finding the place. I ended up buying so many goods that I ended up getting a bunch of copies of each of the bonus photos. I ended up not getting the Miyazawa photo though, even though I had pulled 13 photos and there were only 5 total. To my good fortune, a nice lady who I had met a few days earlier at Trio (second-hand store of idol goods and other things too). She had managed to get everybody except for Yuki and Marina. Since I had multiples of those already I traded those two to her for an extra Reina and the missing Miyazawa. That was really cool, actually. To top it off, the signed Visual Book I got was signed by Miyazawa! I’m still torn between her and Yuki being my favorite in the group…especially since I really like OkaMari as well. Tough tough tough!!
Upon entering the (relatively) small venue I got a pretty decent spot near the stage up front. Bitter & Sweet opened. I wasn’t particularly impressed with them, nor did I think they were bad. They were fun though, which I suppose is good enough for me. Lovendor started off with my favorite song of theirs (Kono Yo ni Shinjitsu no Ai ga Hitotsu Dake Aru Nara) which really helped to make sure I got super pumped right from the beginning. I was also happy that they don’t need to fall on the crutch of performing Morning Musume covers anymore (remember that the last time I saw them was in San Francisco in the first half of 2013). They performed mostly original songs but even the covers they performed were appropriate for the genre.
Surprisingly, even though I’m a Reina fan because she was in Morning Musume, I feel like OkaMari is SIGNIFICANTLY more talented as a singer (at least in the pop/rock genre) than Reina. Reina has the potential, but since they performed almost only rock songs at the concert her inability to adapt outside idol pop was really showing. Without a doubt OkaMari and Yuki owned the show. That’s another thing. Yuki totally rocks out which is really exciting and fun to watch. She’s so energetic! Miyazawa on the other hand is so mellow that when she has her guitar solos it isn’t as fun to see and it doesn’t get the crowd pumped the same way. It sucks because she’s certainly talented, yet Reina pulled off pumping up the crowd better (though that’s what her whole career revolved around for so long).
I did get some pleasant surprises aside from it being a freaking rockin’ concert overall. First, I got recognition from the drummer which actually made me blush. I made direct eye contact with her and she gave me the warmest smile anybody has ever given me. So I smiled back and gave her a thumbs up to which she gave me a thumbs up too. I also got really positive recognition from Reina as well. She pointed right at me and gave me a huge wink which totally made me melt (this was during Ikujinashi)! I was also pleasantly surprised by Zwei performing. I love Lovendor. I really do. A lot. But Zwei was clearly more talented because they weren’t held back by Reina’s previous career’s limitations. They were a sight to behold and hearing them perform made me immediately want to get all their stuff. Now that’s a pair that knows how to carry a crowd (To be fair, the whole band was playing as support and they are all talented as well…it was definitely a group effort. But Zwei was at the shining center of those few songs.).
Since my Japanese is pretty limited, I couldn’t understand what the staff was yelling on the megaphone before we started exiting. So as we were shuffling outside and I noticed Lovendor outside the door giving all of us high fives you can imagine how ridiculously giddy I got! Since I was caught by surprise all I could say was ‘Thanks. You are awesome!’ That being said, they were certainly surprised to see an Indian guy. To top it off, Yuki and Reina remembered me from San Francisco! Reina was like ‘AH! I saw you in America!’ I was super excited about this and told her to come back again. Yuki simply said ‘Berryz Kobo fan!’ I answered ‘yes’ and moved on. It wasn’t until later that I made the connection. At the Jpop Summit Festival in San Francisco I was wearing a Berryz shirt and she pointed it out to me at that time and told me she was a fan too. So I was assuming she was referring to that since I was fully decked out in Lovendor stuff today (Unless she was at any of the Berryz concerts and happened to see me? I find that unlikely from my seats during those concerts.). That was the most pleasant surprise of them all.
In the end, it was an absolutely amazing concert and it was a beautiful and amazing way to close out my Japan trip. I went back to the hotel in positive spirits and stopped by a Sukiya to grab a quick bite before bed.
Day 10 (3/6/15)
This is it. The end. My flight was in the evening and my hotel allowed me to keep the bags at the hotel for the day thankfully. I used my extra time to grab a poster tube, do some last minute shopping in the Hello! Pro Shop and then grab one last meal before heading out. I couldn’t decide where to go then found this Izakaya that looked good. Elina went to a café next door while I grabbed some cold soba. The lady showed me how to eat it and I dug in. It was very tasty, actually. With that, I packed away my last minute purchases and headed to the airport without any issues. Upon arriving home, I grabbed some In N Out to close out my vacation with.
I want to give a very special mention to all the wonderful people I spent time with while there. Namely Alita, Michael, Hero, Ryu, Eric, Holly, Elina, Mimi, Momo and Gabrielle. They were all wonderfully awesome and the trip would have been really dull if they were not there too. I’m really happy I got to meet every single one of them.
It was a very fun and fulfilling vacation, despite my one regret of not going on the bus tour. Berryz has been in my life for 10 years, and I enjoyed and savored every moment. They will forever be treasured and I will always enjoy their music to the fullest. I wish them all the best in their future endeavors. I hope the ones who stay out of the public scene from here on out know that they have a warm and loving fan base who will always wish them well no matter what they choose to do.
Berryz Ikubee~!