February 27th - Saturday
Today was the big day! I woke up and found out from various sources online that all of a sudden we were being told that tickets were being handed out for the special Super Pass autograph session, which was never officially announced and made many of us nervous and angry. This made no sense, since they handed out official Hello! Project tickets the day before! Manuel, Tiffany and I had no time to grab tickets since we had not anticipated this type of non-announced last-minute change of policy by the convention staff, or whoever was responsible for it. We needed to head to the Morning Musume Press Conference instead, where we met up with Eric. I don't know the specifics of why, but the Press Conference ended up turning to each of the press outlets briefly interviewing the girls. It could have been due to the really tight schedule the girls had. Doing it this way would alleviate pressure off of them (otherwise they'd have to do individual interviews after the conference and essentially get no breaks). We don't know for sure. All of us ended up scrambling to prepare for the interview, since we weren't prepared to conduct interviews at that time. We ended up being the second outlet to interview them. It was really fun and the girls were great. Obviously you aren’t getting any details! Wait until we post the interview at www.a-to-jconnections.com. After the interview was over we had a brief chat and took pictures with them (strictly for private use), before moving aside for the next outlet. We were each given a personalized autographed picture by the girls (as we did when we interviewed C-ute). Funny enough, Mizuki handed mine to me and Haruna handed Tiffany's to her. This is funny because Mizuki is her favorite member and Haruna is my favorite member. I don't know who Manuel got his from, but Eric was lucky and got his from his favorite: Ayumi. They were all so nice! I felt bad for Haruna though, who had flushed cheeks and had a little trouble talking sometimes due to her illness. She was a real trooper throughout the whole weekend, actually. Aika (who was there observing), must have mentioned our panel to the girls because they actually mentioned it to us. Aika even told us that she really loved the performance from Tiffany and that we were all very knowledgeable (mainly Manuel, since he did most the talking during the panel) which impressed her. This made us extremely happy! At the end we took a picture and selfie with Aika, who was more than happy to do so, then headed out.
We went straight to the exhibit hall to (hopefully) grab our autograph tickets and get our autographs. Luckily, we managed to grab 3 of the 5 remaining tickets. Tiffany and Manuel went back to the hotel to change and freshen up and I lined up with some fellow friends (since I brought my wota gear with me and just changed in the bathroom nearby). Even though we were told multiple times by the staff that we would only be allowed to get official merchandise sold at the Anime Matsuri merchandise booth signed, they ended up letting us get any official Morning Musume merchandise signed. They also said that we could only get one item signed, yet many people were able to get full photo sets signed or similar things. There must have been a serious lack of understanding between Up-Front and the convention. This was too bad for me, because I didn't bring anything with me. With such limited options, I ended up getting the Houston T-shirt signed. In retrospect, I should have had my Tiki Bun shirt signed instead, since I rarely wear it, while I’d love to have been able to wear the Houston shirt. Here is what happened as I approached each member for the autograph (Keep in mind that unless otherwise noted, the girls spoke in English and I spoke in Japanese…I merely translated for y’all. Also keep in mind that I may not have remembered the order properly…):
Mizuki - She said 'Hello, thank you' to which I replayed 'Hello and thank you for coming. I enjoyed the time today and yesterday so far.' She was very approachable, friendly and sweet. The biggest thing I love about her is how she always gives you her undivided attention. It’s really endearing.
Eripon - We merely said thank you to each other as she signed the shirt. She looked extremely put-off, bored and tired. I assumed it was jetlag, which she later practically confirmed on her blog.
Kanon - She was particularly cute and nice! She cheerfully said 'thank you so much for coming' and then asked me to smile and spread smiles. This, of course, made me smile really big and she said 'LIKE THAT' and we both laughed and said thank you to each other.
Honey - She could barely talk still (or was merely feeling exhausted), so she didn't say much as she signed the shirt. I told her thank you and told her that I hoped for her to feel better (in English). I couldn't remember how to say that in Japanese which was infuriating. She didn't understand what I was trying to say and I was getting pushed ahead so I couldn't do much about it. She looked totally out of it anyway so I just told her thank you in Japanese again before moving on. I felt terrible because she is my favorite and I messed up totally when trying to talk to her. I didn't even get to show her the bracelet from her Birthday event or tell her she was my favorite. That being said, I think she noticed the bracelet since she glanced at it, but didn’t comment on it.
Ayumi - We merely said thank you to each other as she signed the shirt.
Haruka - We also merely said thank you to each other before moving on. She had a huge smile though and as she signed she got help from Masaki holding the shirt for signing.
Masaki - Masaki signed the shirt over Ayumi's shoulder and gave a super hyper and happy thank you to me before I moved on.
Sakura - She got excited because she remembered me from the interview. I told her I'm going to make more people fans of her. She laughed and said "thank you. You are the best" in her super cute English. Then I got nudged to the next girl.
Ogata - We merely said thank you to each other.
Maria - We also only said thank you to each other.
Miki - At this point, the line kind of got stuck, so Miki and I were able to converse quite a bit in English. She started off by thanking me for the interview earlier, and hoped that I had a good time. I told her it was my pleasure and that I have been a fan of the group for a long time. She said 'well thank you for coming' and I said 'no, thank YOU for coming' to which she replied 'you're so nice!' She asked me where I'm from. I told her Los Angeles. She said she has never been there, but that she lived in the countryside in Alabama for 8 years. She said that she was a bit scared of the big cities. I told her that the people are nice and that if she came to Los Angeles she could go to Disneyland which is nearby and that she could eat lots of yummy food. She got really excited about this and said she hopes she could come someday. I told her I hope she could come too, and that all us fans in California will always be cheering for her. She smiled with her adorable single dimple smile and told me thanks so much and that the fans were awesome. I told her that I’m really excited for the concert and told her she’s going to be amazing. She giggled and said ‘only because of fans like you!’ At that point I started getting pushed again so we said goodbye and I said thanks again.
Akane - She said thank you and I asked her if she liked Houston so far. She told me that it was a bit dry which she wasn't used to, but that the people were really nice and she's been having a great time thus far. I got pushed so I said thank you and grabbed my shirt and left.
I said hi to Aika on my way out, who was filming my stuff being autographed for about half of my autographs. I then stood behind the railing with Eric and some other friends. Eric actually was interacting with Maria almost every moment she had, which was really cute and fun to watch. They kept imitating each other, or acting out various silly things with each other. It certainly gave me a much greater appreciation for Maria because she was so fun and cute! During all this, I managed to wave or give hearts to each other to most of the members. Of particular note was Mizuki, Kanon and Ogata who gave me the most attention. I couldn't see Haruna most of the time unfortunately because the line was blocking her. Thankfully she waved and smiled to me after the line dispersed shortly before they left. They took a picture with all of us in the background before heading out. We were told that this picture would actually appear on the official Morning Musume site for a while, which I thought was super cool!
From there, we went back to the room to relax for a short while. While back at the room, I found out that the convention was handing out special concert tickets to early liners, even though they adamantly said no lining before 5pm would be tolerated. This irritated me to no end. I ended up missing this ticketing window, though I ended up being in the very front of the normal Super Pass line, which netted me a good position in the concert, just not as good as it could have been. It was an absolute mess though, with fans getting upset with the staff for this and the staff snapping back at a lot of the fans. My main complaint about all this was the extreme lack of communication from the staff to the attendees.
I’ll spare you the details about the concert, because if you weren’t there you likely watched a bootleg video already anyway. Plus, we’ll have a full official concert report up via A-To-J Connections soon anyway. I will say that it was full of energy and that it was extremely well done. It was a little shorter than I would have expected (14 songs), but it was really awesome. They were full of energy and performed amazingly. This was especially cool to me because I had never seen the 12th gen girls perform since they joined, in-person or digitally. They all impressed me to no end. I even got to see them perform Sukatto My Heart, Tsumetai Kaze to Kataomoi and One and Only. These are my favorite modern songs so I was so pleased. I screamed my lungs out for these. All the girls performed beautifully (in case I didn’t emphasize this enough already)! I got a few waves from Ayumi, Haruna and Mizuki as well, which warmed my heart. It was hands down the best performance they've done in America so far. They even had a legit MC section where Aika was the interpreter. It was conducted similar to the way they are done in Japan, which made me so happy! Aika had been interviewing fans in the line earlier for questions, and she asked the girls some of these questions during the MC section. My favorite was when she asked them who their favorite senpai was. Maria answered first, and immediately said Sayumi which wasn't a surprise to anyone. Everybody else said Aika was their favorite which made Aika really happy and she hugged all of them except Maria. She made a quip at Erina, saying that we all know that her favorite was Risa. I didn’t quite catch it, but I think she may have said something similar to Masaki (about Reina). Then she teased Maria for not saying she was her favorite and Maria sat down and pouted. Aika then gave her a hug anyway much to Maria's delight. Another highlight of the MC section was when they were trying to teach the crowd the phrase 'ganbatte ikimasshoi'. Aika explained that the girls would hold gather in a circle and place their hands on top of each other and say that phrase. The girls demonstrated this and Miki, who was sitting in a chair the whole time due to a leg injury, excitedly got up and joined the other girls. She quickly sat down after and told everybody that she probably shouldn't have done that but she was so excited and wanted to join in with everybody. It was so freaking cute! Right before the encore started, most people made their glow sticks green and chanted for Kanon, as a tribute since she is graduating soon. When they all came back out she saw the green and we cheered for her again. She cried and thanked us all happily. It was such a beautiful moment. The concert concluded with a lot of energy and love and we all left extremely happy and satisfied. It was the closure to an extremely exciting and fun event for us Morning Musume fans.
On the way out I found out that Manuel (most likely) broke his foot at the beginning of the concert (he still stuck it through like a true fan). Eric and I helped him to a seat and called first aid for him. While we waited for the first aid to come the rest of us bolted to hang out with the fans. Aika was also there interviewing a bunch of fans and taking pictures. We had a lot of fun and Aika was getting a lot of love and attention, which I'm sure she enjoyed quite a bit. It eventually started to get a bit much so Tiffany and I left in order to respect her space. Aika ended up having to bolt in order to escape from the crowd, which was a little sad that people didn’t know when to stop (though admittedly understandable for fans). Still, it's really nice to see fans give her so much love. Manuel, Tiffany and I then headed back to our room and chilled a little before passing out from exhaustion. It was a wonderfully beautiful day.