Last Full Day in Japan

So, I think I left off yesterday right before we left for Tackey’s show. Before I forget (because I keep forgetting to mention it)…
Mom: you know that song that you don’t like in NEWS because it starts with like “uno, dueh, tres, quatro” and you were unhappy because it isn’t a real language? Well at the concerts they changed it to “uno, dos, tres, quatro” so you can be happy now :]

Anyway, we went and took the Yamanote Line yesterday to Yurakucho and walked like 5 minutes to the Tokyo Imperial Theater where we met up with another one of Lisa’s friends. The theater was really nice and really small. We went inside and bought goods – I bought the pamphlet, shopping bag, and photo sets. Though our seats were way in the back of the bottom level (row X), it was okay since the theater was pretty small.

The play overall was apparently “typical Johnnys:” there was a very difficult to follow plot, randomness involving ships, whales, planes, storms…and the Juniors getting killed in sword fights, and Star Wars-like incest, and flying, and water, and Juniors wandering down the isles with inflated fish, and trampolines (lots of acrobatics), and dancing in boxes, and two random black backdancers, and ugly pink fluffy outfits, and random rapping (Koki’s brother, apparently). The music was pretty good though – a lot of singing of different renditions of Tackey’s new single “Ai, Kakumei.” I think the play is supposed to be loosely based off of Urashima Taro, but I didn’t get much of that in there except for the seishun (adolescence) box where when he opened it he became old or went into the future or something. The juniors were good though – A.B.C-Z and Kis-My-Ft-2 did very nice and I’m trying to learn all their names and stuff. There’s this weird new junior group that they introduced in the credits as Mis Snow Man which made us all go “huh?”

After the play part they had a nice medley with a bunch of good songs and then Kanjani8′s Yokoyama came and he was really funny because he was just making up the dances to Tackey’s songs and then he’d look back at the juniors and be like “oh shoot!” and start trying to imitate them. But then, he just danced right off stage and was never to be seen again :[

The water part of the play was cool because it can make letters fall "in the water." There's a clip of it in Countdown when Tackey says Happy New Years from the theater. Oh, and one of the members of Shounentai (nicknamed Nikki?) was also in the play as like the narrator and stuff.

So then, the play was like 3 hours long total, and then we took the train back to Shinagawa and ate at T.G.I. Fridays until about midnight. I had a bacon cheeseburger minus the lettuce, tomato, and pickles. It was pretty good! Then for dessert I had those little shotglass-size desserts - one was strawberry and the other was like oreo mint. It was good and just a perfect size.

After we ate and talked and concluded that it was getting late (though Lisa's friend was going to take a 4am train back home) we wandered back to the hotel and I made an Uchiwa for Okamoto Keito that says "Okamoto-kun *thumbs up sign* shite" which basically is asking him to do thumbs up. By the time I finished it was like 2 or something and the internet wasn't working either so I went to sleep.

Then Lisa woke me up this morning and was like "it's 11!" and so I got ready quickly and we went to the train station and bought express tickets on the Shinkansen (non-reserved) for Shin-Yokohama. We stopped at a convenience store for snacks - I bought an onigiri, water, and Toppo cookie-stick things. Then we took the 12:something Shinkansen to Shin-Yokohama and arrived at 12:15. Then there was the madness...

The goods line for Hey! Say! JUMP opened at 11:30, but by 12:15 the line was a 5 hour wait and the concert was at 4. So, there was no way we could wait in line and get into the concert on time. So we walked all the way around and decided just to wait to get in early. So then we waited for a bit and they made some noise about letting us in so everyone pushes like crazy in one direction, then they're like "oh sorry, go in the other direction" so everyone pushes like crazy in the other direction and that happens like 4 times, until finally they all decide to rush rush rush in one direction and it was really obnoxious. Then Lisa and I thought the line was to see Hey! Say! JUMP outside or something so we wandered out but then we heard a guy tell this woman that that was the line to get in so we had to get back into line and wait about 2.5 hours in line to get into the stupid building. It was cold and everyone pushed too much. NEWS fans are older and generally more polite - in other words, people have personal space. I guess jr. high kids or whoever they are don't respect personal space...

So around 3:15 they let us into the building - which only has one entrance, which is dumb - and we ran up the stairs to the right to get into the inside goods line and Lisa and I split up the stations - I got the pamphlets and the felt bags and she would get the photo sets. I got lucky with the pamphlet/bag line because I ran to the far one and there was barely anyone in line so I got it right away so I ran to the poster line and got a group poster. I saw this little girl trapped in the crowded back area and she was crying :[ Lisa got the photos and so we headed inside.

Our seats were very very awesome. We got arena (called center seats) seats in block 8 but they're the second to last row in the block so if we turn around we're the second row from one of the side stages and we have a really good diagonal view to center stage. The concert was AWESOME. It opened with a thing where they're like filming a TV show and the members are part of it like Yabu's director, I think Nakajima and Chinen were second camera, etc.

There was a cute Hyakushiki segment where they had a school-like setting and Morimoto was so adorable because he was wearing one of those yellow caps (he's in junior high) and stuff. And so then the first question was like, "What does JUMP stand for?" and then I think it was Yaotome who raised his hand and was like "Juice Umai Mou Ippai!" and then Okamoto said something weird like phonetically and then I forgot who it was but maybe it was Arioka who said "Johnny's Ultra Music Purikura!" and then Takaki being all conceited and stuff was like "johnnysultramusicpower" and he had this smug look on his face. Then the next question was when they debuted (11/14/07) and then after that it was like "Whose picture is this?" and it was Chinen's baby picture. Then it's like "Who's the coolest person?" and it had all their pictures -_-

I was also second from the aisle, and a couple of times they came on the small carts though the isle so I saw like Yabu, Inoo, and Takaki like 7 feet away in the upwards direction.

Through the whole concert Lisa and I were trying to get their attentions by doing a hand sign which is like having your pinky and index finger up and your thumb is out. We first did a variation of it to Nakajima (the kon hand sign that Yamapi does in Nobuta, which Nakajima acted in), and he was about 12 feet in front of us and so then we thought he didn't see us and besides that he was busy dancing to Mayonaka no Shadow Boy but then at the end, the last two beats like "dada" he did the hand signal twice straight to us with both his hands and I like screamed.

Then during the rest of the concert we successfully got Chinen, Inoo, Yabu, Okamoto, and two random Juniors to sign back to us. Chinen kind of half did it and Inoo did it to Lisa and Yabu and Okamoto did it to me. The first junior and Okamoto had trouble doing it because they were doing like the rock sign, then they kind of looked at it, then looked at their hands, then had to adjust their hands until they got it right then they showed it to us and it was really awesome. So like, we got "love" from half of the Hey! Say! JUMP members and that really made me happy. That's better than getting signboards/signballs because then you know that they're doing it directly to you!! Nakajima's was the best because he ended his dance with it.

There was a Gokusen-type segment in the concert and Arioka and Yamada were wigs and the red jumpsuits like Yankumi does in Gokusen and they were yelling at Takaki (who was in Gokusen3) and there was B.I.Shadow there too, who were the bullies in GokusenScrap Teacher. Sorry. Fail. Then they were all wearing their school uniforms through a lot of it and stuff. Oh, and they also sang Summary, which was nice.

So, yeah, except for the goods line, the day was incredibly awesome <3!! They were all so close!!

After the concert we stopped at a yakitori place and had dinner which was nice. I also ordered calimari and I had ginger ale. Then after that we went to a mall near the Shin-Yokohama station and I stopped at a store and bought a large photo album for all my Johnnys photos. Then we wandered down and took the shinkansen back to Shinagawa, which was pretty crowded.

We wanted to get another purikura done so we decided to go straight from Shinagawa to Harajuku so we transferred to the Yamanote Line. At Harajuku Lisa had to help this black guy figure out whether or not he successfully put 20000 yen on his Suica card (like $200). He was really grateful. Then we wandered and went to the purikura place that plays Johnnys music in the background and did a round of purikura. Then we stopped on the way out and got crepes - I got a double chocolate strawberry crepe which was really good :] All of the places closed by 9 so Takeshita Dori was practically empty. Then we took the Yamanote LIne back to Shinagawa, but the train we got on didn’t go straight to Shinagawa – It stopped at Osaki, which is one stop prior – so we had to get off at Meguro and wait for one more train that would take us to Shinagawa. Weird.

And now we have returned and I am packing and stuff and I am leaving very happy about our trip and I really really really don’t want to go home :/

Seats for the third and final NEWS concert

Poster outside of theater for Tackey’s show

Actually got an arena shot! There’s the center stage right diagonally behind me to the left and there’s the side stage behind me too :]

COMMENT! This is probably my last post ._. boooo