#maricha-17

Just a bit of history: how I got here began when I met up with a fellow Arashian from tumblr in Osaka last June– #mayukoson (whom we have fondly christened as “J”), was my “ambassador of quan”. We agreed to watch the con together, if there was one on the dates when I’m back in Japan, and IF she was lucky enough to get tickets to the Osaka show. For some uncanny reason, I booked our hotel in Osaka for the 28th of Nov., ‘not even sure that was the slot she was gonna get or if she was gonna get us tickets at all. At first she messaged me that she didn’t get lucky on any of the places she balloted for. I was resigned to the fact that it wasn’t my time and consoled myself with the thought that I’ve only been a fan for less than a year afterall…A week later, she’s back on whatsapp with the news that she got an email saying we got tickets to the con in Osaka on the 28th. What can I say? God is soooo good!

Fast forward to Saturday, the 28th of Nov. I took the 10:15am Hikari train to Shin-Osaka. We had just landed in Tokyo the previous night. Kyocera Dome was 2 more subway trains away. I was told it would be easy to find: just follow the crowd of Arashians making their way to the venue. She wasn’t kidding.

The exodus to Kyocera Dome…they came in droves, all 45,000 of them (by Sho’s rough estimate)…

When it comes to fangirling, japanese fans pull out all the stops…I hastened to follow a group of girls dressed in variations of purple (Was I glad I wore my purple turtleneck).

When we finally entered the dome, I felt dwarfed just by the sheer size of it and the number of people inside. Oh! And did I tell you that we got arena seats? This is the view from our seats…The crowd cheered when they heard the pump-up chant from below the stage. The lights dimmed and the stage lit up as 5 familiar figures rose from the stage in all their shinny shimmering splendor to the beat of “Sakura”. It was time to turn on our penlights…

They said their usual opening greetings. When it was Ohno’s turn he asked the men (and only the men) in the crowd to greet him a happy birthday. ‘said he wasn’t over it yet altho’ his birthday was two days old. The men indulged him and shouted back,” happy birthday!” That made Ohno really happy… Then it happened…I think it was when they were singing “Troublemaker” or was it “Make a Wish”? We suddenly realized that the stage was inching towards us. “OMG they’re coming!” I screamed. I couldn’t believe my eyes! Sho, Aibha and Nino were coming towards us; Ohno and Jun on the other half of the moving stage. Sky and J who was next to me were waving their self-made uchiwas. One was asking them to do an imitation of the Merlion (coz she’s from Singapore) and the other had an American Flag below Ohno’s name (coz she’s from the USA) while I was content to wave my penlight. We had to turn around coz they were now behind us…Sho looked uncomfortable on the moving stage. We were laughing coz he looked like he was calculating his steps (sorry Sho fans, no offense meant). I was told that the previous night, Aiba missed his place so he bumped into Sho but Sho would not move or adjust his position…Whenever the stage passed over us, we could see them through the clear plexiglass. They were so close we could almost touch them. 

The lights went out and then the spotlight was on Nino. He was in white and was holding what looked like a light saber. He did a brief tap dance segueing to” Music”, his solo. Towards the end of the song, the  stage changed into a dance motion videogame. Everytime he tapped on the circular lights on the floor he’d get a prompt saying, “Great!” or “Bad” if he missed it. I thought it was so apt, Nino being a gamer. When the song ended, he started to walk off the stage, making a squeak with every step. Black out again then there was Jun on the screen being chased by men in black. Then the light is on Jun lying on the couch like he has just awakened from a nightmare as the music to “Don’t You Love Me?” starts playing. He’s being chased again then he’s jumping from different heights and rolling over what looked like asymetric bars. When the song ends he’s lying down on the couch again, the light goes out and the spot is on Ohno seated on a high chair in another part of the stage singing the opening lines to “In the Room”.. then Sho appears in the middle of the stage, a big shiny blue ribbon tied around his neck…the spotlight finds each member as they sing their individual parts. They move towards the center stage. They’ve put on their shiny blue coats (’reminds me of those gothic/medieval men’s jackets) and “Masquerade”starts playing. J whispers to me that this was choreographed by Ohno so I was anticipating the hip thrusts and the body wave that are Ohno’s signature moves. Well…maybe not this time. When they sang “Happiness”, they took to the carts and went around: Ohno and Jun on one cart; Sho, Aiba and Nino on the other. When it came to the chorus part of “Guts” Ohno and Jun did the choreography together, their fingers meeting in the middle, their arms together, one on top of the other, mimicking hitting a ball with a  baseball bat much to the delight of the crowd. They went back to the center stage for “Ai wo Sakebe”. By this time, the crowd already had the moves down pat.

During the MC, the members were teasing Jun about his usual con greetings that he doesn’t say anymore. The one where he says, “We will make xxx of you happy!” Sho asked him what his crowd estimate was. “45,000?” Jun just shook his head, he seemed mildly embarrassed. They did an impromptu skit where Aiba pretends to be a fan who recognizes Jun on the street and asks him if he was Matsujun to which Jun curtly replies, “No I’m not!”…Ohno-chan joins in and cajoles Jun into saying his usual greetings but Jun walks out on them pretending to be pissed off. At this point they janken to see who would be left to do MC duty while the others change into their next costumes. The task falls on Ohno and Aiba but they soon run out of things to say so they resort to telling riddles. Sho later joins them onstage and they get scolded…Aiba attempts to copy Nino in a scene from Nino’s latest movie but he fails. He gets scolded by Sho because it was supposed to be a sad scene but he made it look like a comedy…they then realize that Jun has been sitting in front of them all this time…Nino joins them on stage as Aiba & Ohno leave the stage. The talk changes to the movie that Nino is doing and Sho makes an announcement: Nino is going to guest in Abunai Yakai next month. Nino hesitates saying, “Eh? Is it alright to announce it now?” Sho goes on to explain that Nino had work in Osaka and it just so happened that Oguri Shun was also doing a project in the area so they invited him to join the interview as well.

They did a couple more songs together (okay, so I don’t know all the songs in the album…like I said, I’m late to the party) then it was time for Sho’s solo. At first he’s playing the drums alone and is soon flanked on both sides by Johnny’s JRs beating their drums to “Rolling Days”. Another set of JRs join in, holding out drums in front of Sho and the JRs beside him. They skillfully exchange their drum sticks at one point during the song. I was afraid Sho would lose his concentration and drop his sticks but he was completely focused. The lights go out and when the spotlight turns on we see Aiba hanging from a silk cloth tied to an air balloon. He looked confident enough in a gold bolero jacket. I thought he looked liked a genie (a gorgeous genie, that is. LOL!). He got off from the silk cloth on the stage and was joined by Johnny’s JRs some may be as young as ten (?) dancing to “Mr. Funk”.  Towards the end of the song, the JRs help him take off his gold jacket and his socks to change into a white shirt. Then he climbed up on the silk cloth (tbh, it was scary watching him). Once he was on top, he wound the silk cloth around his arms and legs. There was a collective gasp from the audience when he tumbled down and was now hanging upside down on the silk cloth… Soon after they were back on the carts egging the crowd to dance to the music of “Funky”.. I was amazed at how the audience was in perfect sync in their movements (Darn! I should’ve studied that instructional video!).

The moving stage came back again when they sang “Bolero”. I thought their costumes were really colorful and iridescent. Then Nino started dancing like he was showing off his moves to Jun who seemed taken by surprise and reacted with an, “Oi!” Jun followed with his own improvisation and the crowd cheered at their impromptu dance off (I think there were fotos of this Matsumiya moment on twitter the next day). When the stage moved back Jun and Nino ran towards each other and did a chestbump then the lights went out. The crowd roared! (sadly no one was able to capture that priceless chestbump…I had to ask J later whether it really happened or we were just imagining it).

When the lights come back there is Ohno on center stage in a traditional japanese costume with a mask on…he takes off his mask to reveal another mask. He takes off his robe to reveal another colorful costume…I was waiting for him to pull out a katana at this point but instead the JRs pull up a colorful cylindrical cloth over him and when they drop it he’s gone…much like David Copperfield’s illusions, instantaneously we see Ohno running on the 2nd level behind the stage. Lights off. And he appears on the center stage in another costume with a different mask. He takes off one mask after another before finally revealing his face…Ohno’s “Akatsuki” had all the flare and drama of his theatre  days in Kyoto. I thought it was gonna be the highlight of the evening but there was more to come…

When the boys came out again they were garbed in colorful traditional japanese costumes. I had seen images of this perfomance from their Nagoya & Sapporo tours on twitter but I was nonetheless awestruck by how beautiful it all comes together: the colors, the music, the choreography with the fans and the umbrellas, the background screen that looked like a quaint japanese painting. After “Japonesque” the lights are dimmed again. Then the lights are on two men playing shamisens behind the stage, then there’s four of them…another pair is beating on taiko drums and we recognize the opening strains to the music of “Kokoro no sora”… the boys are in the zone in their black and gold costumes and we are spellbound by the intensity of their performance.

I’m not sure whether it was in “SUNRISE Nippon” when all the JRs who joined them this time appeared on three levels behind the stage (Jun later revealed that some of them were Kansai JRs) while Arashi danced on stage…you kinda get that sense of the passing of an era…so it was only fitting that when they sang “Bokura ga tsunaideiku” the images on the giant screen behind showed the young Arashi (perhaps as they appeared when they were JRs?) and their birthdates moving forward to the images they have now…at the end of the song, it would show a clock ticking from the time of their debut in Hawaii on 1999.09.15 to the current time (whoever thought of that? it  was pure genius…Jun, was it your idea?). It was the most poignant moment of the whole concert.

The moving stage was coming our way again as I prayed that I would survive the “goodbyes”… it stopped behind us so we turned around again to face it.  One by one they say their good byes, the spotlight following as they move to the center of the plexiglass stage while the other four wait in the shadows (with J patiently translating to me the phrases). I can’t recall everything… Ohno was saying he felt Japonism was like going back to his roots. I think Sho mentioned this concert as being sort of a reflection on what it meant for them to be in Johnny’s…Jun spoke last and said something about trying to be a good role model for their juniors…they had their backs to us… then, in what seemed like a surreal moment, Jun turns around in our direction and he “appears” to be looking at us. I’m incredulous and I say to J and Sky, “He’s talking to me!” I whisper back to him, “it’s okay Baby, I know…you have to go..”

They’re singing “Yume ni kakeru” while the stage is moving back to its position. They sing “Love so Sweet” and we see Ohno and Jun on one side of the stage angling for the camera. Ohno leans on Jun and the audience goes, “Kyaaaaaaaahh!”

They wave their goodbyes but we would not let them go until they come out again to sing “ARASHI” for a final encore. They held hands and raised their arms before taking their final bow. There was a sudden burst and silver ticker tape was flying all around us… It was over. 3 hours went by so quickly…on the way back to our hotel we laughed at how Sho’s wave looked like a “politician’s wave”–kinda restrained and well, calculated. We recalled the Juntoshi moments that might not appear on the DVD..then ofcourse I was giddy like a schoolgirl as I recalled the moment when Jun “personally” said his goodbyes to me. We promised to write it all down lest we forget…