OrePara 2011 event report
A little late with the report, but this year’s OrePara once again took place on Christmas at Ryogoku Kokugikan. This year’s guests were Hirakawa Daisuke and OLDCODEX.
As usual, the live started off with the OrePara rap. For the noon event, OnoD’s performance was third, and for the night event, he was fifth. His set list was the same for both and included: DELIGHT, Ride On Funky Night, Netsuretsu ANSWER, and Daisuki.
My God, the screams when OnoD’s kanji for the live 継 (kei) showed up on the screen… The night event was especially crazy. The moment the kanji showed up, almost everyone in the venue broke out either a yellow glow stick or an ultra bright orange one. In any case, the venue was suddenly lit up quite brightly. OnoD came out on stage wearing a red suit jacket similar to the one he wore in the DELIGHT PV, but not the same. (Yes, he had black eyeliner on.) He also had a headset mic as opposed to a handheld one like everyone else. Why? Because he danced. And the dancers from the PV were on stage with him! At first it was just the two girls but then in the middle of the song the two guys came out too. The girls had different outfits but the guys were wearing the same red and blue shirts from the PV.
For DELIGHT, everyone yelled out “Delight!” and “Wo-oh!” etc. As for the hand movements, at the beginning of the chorus (“Mabayui mirai~”) everyone held their glow sticks up in the air and waved it in tune with the song. For the “delight” and “all right” parts, we all did the raise the roof motion. It was hilarious! During his MC, OnoD kept doing the motion for no reason and then everyone would do it too. He commented that it was funny when everyone does it together, hehe. They actually reenacted parts of the PV on stage, such as the dancing during the instrumental part. It was tons of fun.
Ride On Funky Night also had its own choreography. It was really cool! It’s hard to describe, but take my word for it… It was cool. For Netsuretsu ANSWER, of course everyone did the dance. I was sitting on the third floor so I had a good bird’s eye view of the entire venue and it was pretty amazing to see everyone dance in sync. The last song was Daisuki and this time they made up a little dance for it. OnoD explained it beforehand. It was kind of like hitting a taiko drum. The dance was for the “D-A-I-S-U-K-I daisuki!” part of the song. For “D-A” you would “hit the drum” to your left, alternating between left and right for each letter, and then “I-S-U” was on the right side. “K-I” was down below, and then for the last “daisuki!” you would “hit” with both hands above your head twice, once for “dai” and then once for “suki.” It was a lot of fun dancing along. Near the end of the song, Hirakawa, whose name is also Daisuke, came out on stage. It was cute.
At the end of the event they sang Nemuru Monotachi he and the new song Galaxy Bus. OnoD still had his makeup on and was wearing the gloves. For the noon event when they were doing the last jump, Iwata jumped and everyone else did the NAHA pose, which was opposite of what happened last year. (Watch the DVD for 2010 if you don’t know what this is.) Poor Micchan! XDDD The crowd was in the dark about this surprise too since they didn’t announce it beforehand like last year. Apparently they came up with the idea of doing it the night before. For the night event, they all surprised SuzuKen with a guitar signed by everyone and Yorke. of OLDCODEX painted on the case. It was a wedding present and the entire audience got to congratulate SuzuKen on his marriage.
The buzz on Twitter was that Kamiya and Sakamoto Maaya were at the noon event sitting in the middle section, front row on the third floor. I was 9th row and did not notice them. They say Kamiya was also at the night event. I was 3rd row for that one and again, did not notice him. ^^;; Ahh… So close yet so far. Obviously no one could squee about it since it would make things awkward. If someone squeed I think everyone would have realized he was there.
Anyway, the event helped me fall in love with OnoD all over again. We may laugh at his silliness but at the same time he can be so cool! I was reminded as to why I look forward to OrePara the entire year. This is definitely one of the best annual events out there and though tickets may be on the rather expensive side, the events are about 4 hours long each so you definitely get your money’s worth. Just when you think OnoD’s at his best, he outdoes himself again. I wonder what’s in store for next year. ^^
