The Osaka Serial Card Event was today and I lucked out again. Will update this post later with a small report but one big thing that happened was we finally got to hear Sakura's Suki na Senpai.
EDIT:
It's been about a year since the last time I went to a Serial Card event (The Password is 0 one where I ended up being accosted by another wota who wanted my LINE which in hindsight was a little creepy). It was at the site of my first ever one, however, so I was pretty excited to go back and feel all nostalgic.
Like the Country Girls event I went to, there was a "Girls Only" area sectioned off again. Whatever opinions anyone may have about there being a section in the first place, I was happy for it. There's a higher chance of getting close, and I feel a lot less claustrophobic in the seats since everyone around me is about my size (also I don't have to worry about the many Guy Wota who STRIP THEIR SHIRTS OFF AT THEIR SEATS to change into their wota shirt).
I got 7th row which is really good. One of the girls next to me had to be in High School. She was really excited about being close, the girl on the other side was wearing an excellent Ima Koka Kara Riho Cosplay. I meant to get a photo of her, but didn't see her post-event.
MM'15 Opened with Seishun.
After that they introduced themselves. Mizuki had the 12th Gen also say something that had the feeling of "youth" (seishun). Ogata's involved eating a lot at McDonald's, but the winner was Akane, who said those moments where it's raining, and you don't have an umbrella, so you put your school bag above your head. It was really cute, especially since she was mimicking the shape of the ELEMENTARY school bags rather than what they use in Middle School.
Mizuki then introduced what today's little MC event would be! She starts off by talking about Suki na Senpai, and how every generation has sung it when they had had their first tour. Sakura is frowning and then starts being very dramatic with her arms on her hips and her foot tapping. Mizuki continues to wax on about the greatness of this song (Maachan, as she's next to Oda is cracking up). Sakura starts going: Hey! What a minute, what a minute! I definitely have never gotten to sing that song! Mizuki finally notices but just gives her her a quick and dismissive "Ah, sorry" before going on. The rest of the girls crack up.
So pretty much the winning generation of the next game will get to sing this song while the rest of the girls leave the stage. What do they have to win? The infamous "manbos", pretty much shaker pedometers, come out. Two from each generation will wear one on their wrist and one on their ankle and between the two of them try and get the highest count. Sakura begins to open her mouth again when Mizuki tells her not to worry and that she's been accounted for. Sakura will get to wear the manbo on both wrists and both ankles.
Our Teams:
12 - Ogata, Maria
11 - Sakura
10 - Ayumi, Haruna
9 - Kanon, Riho
Kanon and Riho start "flexing their muscles" and attempting to intimidate the other girls. Maachan sweetly calls out "20 year old, good luck!" The others join in in poking fun over the fact that Haruna is the oldest of the group now. They start off. Something flies of Ogata's within the first ten seconds. Haruna and Ayumi, however, were the most entertaining to watch. They both fell to the floor once which illicited angry WHAT ARE YOU DOING!? from MaaDuu. When they are finished the counts are taking.
Maria does pretty well averaging at about 120 for her wrist and 150 for her ankle. Ogata gets really high on her wrist as well, but only gets like 50 for her foot.
Maachan attempts to help Sakura take her count but after screwing it up twice (and being accused of being a hentai since she took a long time reading the ankle ones, and her head was perfectly below Sakura's skirt (they were wearing the Ima Koko Kara outfits)), Haruka takes over and they finally get a decent count. She has about 150 for one wrist, 120 for the other, one ankle is 120, but the other got over 200.
Next are the 10th Gen. Ayumi has a decent 120 for her wrist but only a 90 for her ankle. Haruna's is truly sad as she only has about 80 for her wrist and 50 for her ankle. She swears that she tried her very best though. ((I've used these shakers in an ALT activity before and they can be really weird sometimes. I've shaken one really hard for ten seconds but only gotten '2' )).
Kanon has her's off already and quickly calls out her numbers as 130 and 110. Riho's are in a similar range though she might have gotten an 80, I don't remember.
As you can probably guess, the winner was Sakura.
The rest of the girls left the stage and Sakura finally got to perform the one song that she was denied due to not being a four-person generation. There was a sea of Lavender and since this song has a LOT of name chanting, so much "Sa~kura!" was called out. It was really good (of course, it is Sakura), and I felt really lucky to have been able to hear it.
When she finished, I was shocked, but excited to hear the beginning instrumental for one of my favourite Colorful Character songs, What's Up? Ai wa Dou na no yo~. I'm both surprised and happy to announce that Haruna got ALL of Sayu's singing parts. So now she centers the song with Mizuki (and has an actual solo). She did really well with it too (though honestly her voice is tonal-y VERY different than Sayu's).
Next was Yuugure, which is one of my favourite live songs now. I adore the dance and the singing. The Mizuki solo is so chilling live.
We cut for MC again. Our goodbye messages come from Ogata, Sakura and Haruna. Ogata shares her Osaka love, Sakura comments on how she finally got to sing Suki na Senpai and Haruna mentioned that she had gotten Sayu's parts.
They finished off with Ima Koko Kara, which is a great ending song.
Setlist:
1) Seishun Kozou ga Naiteiru
MC - Pedometer Shaking Battle (Sakura Winner)
2) Suki na Senpai (Sakura Solo)
3) What's Up? Ai wa Dou na no yo~
4) Yuugure wa Ameagari
MC - Comments on Today
5) Ima Koko Kara
Handshake Tidbits:
-Sakura's handshake is suddenly better. I'm really glad for it.
-Nonaka got excited to see me and used English, but surprisingly, Ogata got EVEN MORE excited and also tried to say "Thank you" instead of "Arigatou"
-Akane is now the weak handshake link. She barely touched my hand.
-I somehow got out to Maachan that I had drawn her illustration and I saw the lightbulb go off in her head and she smiled as I got shoved to the next girl, so I feel rather victorious there.
-Haruka has passed Haruna for me as the best handshakes. She gives you perfect eye contact and either she is always that genuinely happy to see me or she is so good at making it seem that way (which is talent).