I ended up sleeping a little bit more than planned, so I had to skip my breakfast. It was no biggie, since I wasn’t hungry anyway. I made it to Diver City without an issue, getting off at the Telecom Center Station. I complained about the heat before, but standing outside with the sun beating on you all day long was challenging. Thankfully, I drank plenty of water and they had a water fountain to refill bottles inside at the cafeteria. I drank about as much water as I normally drink in 3 days, but it prevented me from getting heat stroke or sick so I won’t complain even a little. It was very easy to figure out where to register, so I got my wristband without an issue. Thankfully I printed out a map ahead of time because they didn’t provide any sort of paperwork that I could find. After registering, I headed to the Festival Stage (which was right next to the giant Gundam statue) to wait for KOTO. It was neat to see the statue up close for the first time. On my last trip I merely saw it from the train. Ok so before I get into specifics of each group, keep in mind these are my opinions based on my tastes! I doubt most people will agree. Just throwing that out there.
I got there at about 10am, which is when Ichisakimiki was performing. They were really cute and their music was pretty catchy, so I enjoyed their performance. Next up was Sunmyu. Their music was actually really fun, catchy and engaging, which was exciting to me. One of many groups I put on a list to check out after things settle down. After that, rinaticstate performed. I didn’t like their music for the first half of the performance, but I did think they had a lot of energy which helped make up for it. Their last song was really solid though. The benefit of arriving at the stage early was that after every act, I was able to push myself closer and closer to the stage. By the time it was KOTO’s turn at 1047, I was only 2 rows behind the very front. Now keep in mind that I had seen a couple of lives of hers online and have seen most of her music videos, but nothing was able to compare to the extremely high energy and high tension that she brings to her performance. Sometimes I wonder if she is even human. She was absolutely perfect and on point with every single song she performed. I was ecstatic.
After that I headed right into the cafeteria area not only because I was hungry finally, but because it had air conditioning. Fair warning for the rest of this journal, I don’t remember the name of practically every food place I went to. I ended up getting some takoyaki with a little cheese on top. It was very tasty, but I was quickly realizing something really interesting about southern California: authentic diversity. Between both of my trips to Japan, the food tasted the same as what I can get back home. Because of the large diversity and cultural preservation that happens in coastal America, we don’t lose authentic food so we can get everything we want. It’s wonderful. More on that near the end of my trip though, when it becomes relevant again. Point is, the takoyaki was still tasty. From there I went to the goods area to check out all the booths. Since it was kind of in alphabetical order, I spotted the callme booth first. I went over there and bought some stuff. Of particular note was a ‘sound of summer’ shirt designed by Mimori, who is my favorite member in the group. I bought enough stuff to get about 4 handshake tickets.
I then walked around, observing all of the booths. I found KOTO’s booth and noticed that it had a long line to it. I asked the last person in line what was going on and he said that if we go over to the Tower Records booth and pre-order two copies of her upcoming single we will get a cheki with her. Now keep in mind I’ve never had a cheki with an idol before. I’ve had one with Gashicon and somebody else I forget, I’ve taken selfies and pictures with some too, but there is something special and charming about a cheki. So I excitedly went over to the Tower booth, pre-ordered two copies of her single (which was releasing while I’d be in Japan, thankfully) and then waited in line for my cheki. It was really cool. I asked her to make the letter ‘K’ with her hand for ‘KOTO’. Us both being dorks, apparently, we both made the ‘K’ facing the wrong direction. While we waited for the cheki to develop so she could sign it, we chatted shortly. She asked me where I’m from. She got super excited that I’m from America. She said she practically gets no foreign fans at all, and she’s so thankful I came from so far to see her. I told her that where I come from, it’s nowhere near as hot as Tokyo, and she said that she should come to SoCal for vacation and I laughed and told her she definitely should. She then signed it, writing ‘thank you for coming from far away’ and that was that. It wasn’t until later that Manuel told me I probably should have told her that I was from A-To-J since we’re working closely with her. I told him that I had forgotten, but the truth is I was embarrassed. Since this was an officially sanctioned event, I didn’t know if it would be appropriate to say that. In hindsight, I probably should have, but it’s irrelevant now. Live and learn.
After that fun ordeal, I headed to Smile Garden, on the other side of Diver City. I made it for the last ten minutes of 3bjunior. I was not impressed, and thought they were really dull. After that, at 1350, was Lovendor. They did some sound checks first then proceeded to perform. This was the last time I was going to see Yuki Uozumi live (who is my favorite in the group), so I gave it my all. There was a minor sound hiccup halfway through, but otherwise they did an absolutely fantastic job, and I got a few recognitions from Reina and Yuki during the performance. That’s the advantage of making it to the very front. Even though I wanted to stick around for Bitter & Sweet, there was a long line to get up to Sky Stage so I headed over there. We all stuffed in a single elevator and rode to the top, then we had to walk another 4-5 flights of stairs to get to the roof. Admittedly, I got a little squeamish due to my fear of heights and had to sit in a corner for the first couple performances to gather some courage. I got there when Lovely Doll was up. They were by far the most boring group I saw up on stage thus far. Next up was Dorothy Little Happy, who was decent. They were a little low energy but their music wasn’t half bad. Up Up Girls followed, and at this point I was finally up near the stage. The music was decent at best and they weren’t entirely energetic, but they did shoot us with super-soakers and throw water balloons at us. Mori Saki particularly stood out to me for some reason, she’s really pretty and charming. Plus she threw a water balloon at me which felt really nice so that’s a lot of extra bonus points as far as I’m concerned! After them was Kobushi Factory. This would be the first time I’d see them live since they performed at Berryz Matsuri the previous year. They didn’t disappoint me at all. I was really impressed with how much they’d improved over that year. I also decided that Ninkimono is officially the most amazingly fun song to see live in the entire universe. They closed out with Maji Bomber. I suspected they’d close with a Berryz song, so it wasn’t a surprise. They did definitely do the song justice. I really enjoyed their performance.
From there, I headed back to the goods area for the callme handshake. My biggest fear (or maybe hope?) was that they would recognize me from when we interviewed them a while ago. I realize that idols deal with interviews so often that unless it happens more than once, they probably don’t remember. Ruuna was up first. She felt like she had seen me before, but didn’t know. I told her we interviewed them a while ago and she got really excited and thanked me for coming so far and also for providing all the support that we’ve done through our website. She also thanked me for learning Japanese, saying I was doing a good job (which I really wasn’t haha). Mimori asked me where I’m from. When I told her I’m from America, she remembered who I was and thanked me for coming and thanked us for the support we’ve given them. She asked me how I was enjoying TIF and if I was there for business and I said that I was actually there just for fun. So she told me to have fun and I was pushed ahead to Koumi. Mimori told Koumi I’m from America really excitedly then went to the next person in line. Koumi got really excited (though she was the only one who didn’t recognize me) and started talking in English, saying that she’s worked hard to study. She asked me where I was from, and I told her Los Angeles. She got really happy and said that that’s the number one place in the world that she wants to visit. I told her she should come and visit sometime, there’ll be plenty of fun things for her to do. She said she will, and then it was over. It was another fun and eventful handshake event.
Since I hadn’t really eaten properly before, I headed back to the cafeteria to grab my dinner, since it was a little past 1700. I got some ‘premium’ roast beef, which was served in a bowl with an egg over a bowl of rice. It was really good and definitely worth the extra money for the ‘premium’ part of it. Since I had no plans at that point, I decided to head to the Hot Stage, since that’s where the last event I wanted to attend would be held. It was good I did, because the line to get in was really long. When I finally got in, it was about 1820. Idol Renaissance was up, and they were decent overall. Following them Kobushi Factory came up, and they were super fun again. I’ve really fallen in love with them. They did another Berryz song, though I didn’t write down what it was and I don’t remember. Even though I actually made a Facebook post about it. Well played Teepu’s memory. Well played.
I originally was planning on skipping out on the Idol Club Night Legend since it was to go pretty late, until 2230 I think, but I’m really happy I decided to stay for it. Up Up Girls, Ayumikurikamaki, Cyber Japan Dancers, hy4_4yh, Vanilla Beans, Bed In, Rhymeberry and lyrical school all performed and were mostly really solid, which pleased me greatly. Of special note, Up Up Girls were significantly better here than they were on the Sky Stage. There were a lot of songs spun by DJ Dainoji, and about half of them were Hello! Project songs, which really made me feel at home. It helped that he was extremely charismatic and fun. One of the few times I really enjoyed a DJ set list, to be quite honest. It was interesting because he would essentially spin a song or two between each performance of group (or MC). Akari Takeuchi (from ANGERME) and Chisato Okai (from C-ute) were the main hosts for the event, which is truthfully the real reason I was there. They were both really funny and I especially gained a new appreciation for Take-chan. Chisa I already love so she didn’t need to do anything extra to make me happy. The other two main highlights of the event revolved around Take-chan and Chisa also. Take-chan sung Taiki Bansei solo, and my goodness did she blow my freaking mind she was really good! She nailed it! Chisa also did an all-out dance to Dance de Bakon, which she also nailed completely. This was particularly pleasing because she originally became my favorite in C-ute when I discovered her ‘dance cover’ video of that song on YouTube (I really loved those ‘dance cover’ videos of hers). So all in all it was an extremely fun event and even though, after all that standing and thus being eternally exhausted, I had no regrets at all.