Kiramune 3rd Anniversary Fan Meeting in Okinawa
The Kiramune 3rd Anniversary Fan Meeting took place in Okinawa City, Okinawa on April 29, 2012. My friends and I arrived a couple days early to do some sightseeing. We bought a day pass for the monorail in Naha (probably the only train in all of Okinawa) and hit up several locations. One of them was the touristy Kokusai Doori. Shops and restaurants lined the streets. Kamiya and OnoD went down this street for Kamiya’s seitansai episode earlier in the year. Found the restaurant where they had dinner and snapped a few photos. Unfortunately I didn’t have the time (or money) to eat there. My friends were staying at a hotel in Okinawa City, a few minutes walk from the event venue. If I may give some advice to anyone considering visiting the main island of Okinawa: Stay in Naha. There isn’t much to do in Okinawa City and the street we had to go down to get to our hotel was lined with bars and clubs where U.S. Air Force members hung out. Since we arrived at the hotel on a Friday night, you can imagine how noisy it was. There were tons of Americans, many of them trying to pick up girls, etc. Um… Yeah. It’s not a street you’d want to walk down alone at night.
On the day of the event, it rained. *sigh* Namikawa…
It was coming down pretty hard when my friend and I headed off to the venue. When we arrived, there were many other girls waiting under the roofed area. About 15 minutes before opening time, the staff gathered everyone and had us line up by number. For the noon event, my friend and I had pretty low numbers and were able to nab second row center seats. Very close! For the night event we were a bit further back in 8th row but on the edge so we had a pretty clear view of the stage. The screen was showing old Kiramune PVs. It was nostalgic seeing the PV for My diary. They also showed the PV of Mirai Sketch from Okamoto’s upcoming mini album, Palette. Included with the little packet of fliers and stuff we received at the door were a postcard with the Kira Characters on it, and a piece of paper that we could write a question on. When we were done we had to give the paper to one of the staff people who were collecting it.
Finally the lights went down and out came the boys in their Kiramune 2012 shirts. On the stage were couches and tables with snacks (chinsukou and beniimo tarts– Yum!) on them. After introductions, they sat down on the couches. The drinks were self-serve and were the same ones available at the drink bar. The drinks were as follows:
- Sanpin MEN (Sanpin Cha/CONNECT)
- APPLE–BOAT! (apple juice/Irino)
- Harezora Coke (Cola/Kamiya)
- UTAO no Ginger Paradise (ginger ale/Namikawa)
- Orange Breaker (orange juice/Kakihara)
They were going to do a kanpai but Namikawa had already taken a sip and the boys wasted no time in poking fun at him. Iwata actually drank a bit too but the others were so focused on Namikawa that they didn’t notice. ^^; They had a free talk corner where they looked back on the past three years. Unfortunately it’s been a while since the event so my memory is quite hazy and I don’t really remember what they talked about. During the night event, Miyu drank too much and had to go to the bathroom! Kamiya went first, followed by Miyu, so for a while it was only the remaining four guys on stage!
After the free talk was a question corner and then a photo commentary. For the question corner they read several questions submitted by the audience before the event began. For the photo commentary, they put up on screen several photos from various events, photo shoots for magazines/CDs, etc. and talked about them.
Last was the live corner! Miyu was up first with Hoshizora Weekend, and then Kamiya with Mirror World. I really, really, REALLY like Mirror World so I was very happy to be able to hear it live once again. Next was Kakihara with Hikari, one of my favorites by him, and then Namikawa with UTAO. OMG, UTAO… If you have not seen the PV for this, watch it. (Part of it can be seen in the short commercial on the Kiramune website here.) Yeah, so in the middle of the song, Kamiya and Miyu came out and did the background dancing! They did the meishi koukan (business card exchange) scene and all! It was HILARIOUS!! Miyu had a straight face the entire time but you could tell that Kamiya was trying so hard to hold in his laughter. He had a strange grin on his face the entire time. It was so funny! As you can imagine, the audience went absolutely nuts. Some photos from the rehearsal and the event itself can be seen on the Kiramune Staff Blog. (The first entry about the event is here.)
They later explained that it was Miyu who came up to Kamiya to tell him that KAmiYU was going to do the dancing for UTAO. Apparently this hadn’t actually been decided by the staff but Kamiya didn’t know that, and Miyu was tricking him. They practiced at night in Kamiya’s hotel room in front of the mirror. Miyu suggested that they turn off the lights, which they did, but then Kamiya pointed out that they wouldn’t be able to see themselves. It turned out that Miyu just wanted to see the stars outside! LoL. In the end it was a huge hit though so all’s well that ends well.
The last song they sang was, of course, Ever Dream. For the noon event during the ending salutations, Namikawa reported that the rain had stopped. Maybe it had stopped when he was looking outside before the event ended, but when we went out, it was totally pouring! LoL. He apologized for the false report during the night event. After the night event it wasn’t too bad, but it was very humid.
Some photos can be found on Namikawa’s blog here and here. It looks like they were able to have some time to themselves for sightseeing. By the way, it was quite sunny the day after the event, but of course that was the day I was going back. *sigh* It was kind of funny though because when my friends and I were checking out of our hotel, a couple girls came out and one of them said to the other, “Namikawa probably went home already.” LoL.
Sorry my report isn’t as detailed this time around. I didn’t get a chance to write it up while the event was fresh in my memory since I was swamped with work after returning and then swamped again after Golden Week. ^^; Unfortunately there were no video cameras so we can assume there will be no DVD or streaming of the event.
Speaking of streaming, they’ve announced that Kamiya’s Harezora Party event will start streaming on Bandai Channel at 12PM on May 30. We can probably expect it to be a paid stream, but you can bet it’ll be worth every yen! My Harezora Party report can be found here.
