Kikkawa You - duo song w/Yoshikawa Mayu "Unfamiliar"

[rikkikow]

ENJOYED THE LIVE! And the whole Japan Expo in general. Superb organization.

[boinsie]

I'm exhausted and thrilled and just overflowing with all the positive emotions right now.

So, my day.

I went down to the lobby of the Hyatt at ~8am to eat some breakfast. As I sat there eating my muffin, I saw Fillipe (?) (the French UF* guy who's always at these foreign things and is one of Kikka's handlers) go over to the breakfast buffet area. "Oh, haha, I guess they are staying at this hotel," I thought to myself. The Japanese Kikka fans went to go to the buffet and we exchanged greetings. About 10 mins later I finished off my muffin and decided to head back up to my room for a little bit before going outside to wait for the con to start. I meandered somewhat blindly to the elevator area and who should I almost run into but Kikka herself. ^^;;;;; I think I managed a little wave--I honestly would have just left her entirely alone (because breakfast is her time, she's giving us so much fan time at this con anyway, best to let her have her down time to herself), but I was wearing my bright yellow Kikka t-shirt so the cat was already out of the bag--and then went up to my room to lol for about 15 mins.
Got into the con, got autograph coupon, then roamed around for awhile before going to hang out outside of the merch booth! There was an exclusive photo for today only! I'm not a fan of photos but I love Kikka so what the hell! I bought another of the shirts, but in S because the M I had gotten yesterday fits me kind-of like a bag, a copy of her first album (I'm sure I have it already, but I have the limited edition and this was only $10!!) also two of the photos. I roamed to the sidelines to put my things away when I saw that I hadn't gotten my photos! Cue me awkwardly going to explain the situation to Dragon Lady. ^^;;;; Many gomens and honto daijoubus between Kikka and I later, I got the pics. ^^;;;;;;;;
So another 2shot of us...


... I switched shirts into my new one and came back. Kikka took pics with a mom & dad & baby and it was all very cute. The Gamushara Ouendan cheer squad came by and we all did a huge Kikka chant. I know that video exists of this, but I don't have it at the moment.
... and then Dragon Lady gathered all of the fans who had stuck around for a group photo. She specifically grouped the girls up front, and kept emphasizing how we needed to squish close in together.


(She had us say "You!" instead of "Cheese!" which really doesn't lead to the best facial expressions for anyone ^^;; )

Because you're all wondering, she smells like some sort of mild-scented floral perfume.

Some more meandering until right before 11am, when her autograph signings started again! The guys behind me in line were new fans, so I gave them a set of the free pics they had been giving out with purchases to them so they would have something to have signed. They let me have Kikka sign the pic for a friend. Then I hung around for a little bit while erilaz regaled me with his morning terrible craziness that made him late (I'm sure he'll mention it here). Then they told us that we could go through again if we wanted to... and I decided to have my M shirt signed (I'm gonna make it into a pillow!). I asked Dragon Lady if presents were OK, and she said yes so I... gave her a JPlop lightstick. She said, "Ohhhh~" and I showed her how to make it light up and she waved it around and "Ki~kka! Ki~kka~!"-ed a bit. I should have had her pose and taken a pic, but I get nervous, so... yeah, I was happy just to have completed the task successfully.

I went back to my room to drop off my goodzu. Then I bought a $6.50 slice of pizza to avoid having to walk to buy food somewhere other than the con--at this point my feet were pretty upset with me. Played some 3DS. Though Kikka's concert wasn't until 5pm, erilaz had suggested that I go to the hall early at 2:45 and sit through the two events prior to the conceert to secure nice seats. In the end I decided this was for the best, but there was time to spare so I roamed around the vendor area collecting 3DS street passes. At one point I noticed that Kikka was just out roaming around with her handlers. She was obviously taking pics with several of the events for her Kikka Reporter gig, but then she just seemed to be legit shopping at one of the places. She must have hung around trying on pixel shades for 5 minutes. ^^;;;;;
Anyway, at ~2:40 I went to the music hall. The dancing group J'Deez was actually really good and had two songs of their own which they at least sang along with backing tracks to, along with two dance-only songs. They were very cute and their dancing seemed very on-point, at least to my untrained eyes.
Then there was a poorly organized chat with the creator of many anime, including Evangelion. It ran over by like 10 mins. Jeez.

AND THEN KIKKA OMG.
Loved all the songs The first 4 were all kind of melded together but were all their full length? So not quite a medley, but awesome and non-stop. I always forget how amazing cheering and seeing the girls and doing all the chants and stuff with an audience is. She sang my favorite song, Zutto Zutto Zutto Kimi ga Suki da, which was SO GREAT there's no way I expected that. SHE ALSO SANG SAN SAN GO GO, complete with star-shared tambourine! She also sang Romantic Ukare Mode and Resonant Blue. Crazy. She singled out audience members to translate some harder bits of English for her, and I mean, she crouched down and got all way close up to them for it.
She seemed to have a great time, too.
She sang her last song. We called for an encore. She came out and actually gave us one. (I know that this is normal practice, but I still have flashbacks of MM's Anime Expo) Then it was over, and we left the hall. The Japanese fans wanted to get a big group pic, so we Kikkake wa YOU-posed for that.
And then Fillipe was there and interviewing people and I think he pulled me aside first to do it and I screwed up on pronouncing a song lyric so look forward to that if this stuff ends up on UF Licks. ^^;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; He also ended up interviewing maybe 4-5 other (including erilaz) people as we were all ushered out of the building by Japan Expo staffers. We stood around outside for awhile, chatting and stuff, and maybe 5-10 mins later I heard a "Hello~" from above and I looked up and there was a camera and then there was Kikka and she said thanks and goodbye one last time from the balcony. :wub:

Afterwards I ended up going out to IHOP with a group of JHippers (and others). We talked a bunch about our favorite things and people and appearances and whatever in H!P and it was all over a nice ending to the day, a good way to cool down.

Except I'm still pretty pumped. And I've been writing this for over an hour.

[boinsie]

As an aside from all of the ramble, here's KIkka doing some wotagei.

[youtube]qKCWOItxWiQ[/youtube]

rikkikow, from the looks of that pic, you were sitting like, in my lap. Were you the guy getting down hardcore to Romantic Ukare Mode?

[erilaz]

Then I hung around for a little bit while erilaz regaled me with his morning terrible craziness that made him late (I'm sure he'll mention it here).

Yeah, thanks to BART and Amtrak not having their shit together at Richmond Station, I got to the convention two hours later than I'd originally intended. The way Richmond Station is set up, you have to go through the BART station to get to the Amtrak platform. Even though my train was scheduled to depart at 7:05 a.m., the gates to the station (downstairs) still weren't open at 7:00, 7:01, 7:02, 7:03.... I went upstairs to the wall/fence/locked gate that separates the bus plaza from the train tracks and platform. The train pulls up, and a conductor and a couple of passengers get off. I yell over to the conductor, "The gate's still locked! How am I supposed to get over there?!" The conductor shrugs his shoulders, gets back on the train, and the train leaves. I should have climbed over the wall, crossed the tracks, and got on, but this was ridiculous. Now I had to wait two hours until the next San Jose train.

One of the passengers who had gotten off the train was just waiting to transfer to another, but a woman whose destination was Richmond was stuck on the platform for who knew how long, so she crossed the tracks and climbed over the wall to get out. After seeing my ordeal and not knowing when the gates would be opened, an older gentleman who needed to catch a 7:40 train climbed over the wall to get to the platform even though he was walking with a cane. It turns out that they open the gates at 7:30 on Sundays, so he at least could have waited, but that didn't do me any good. At least the BART agent who opened the place up gave me a complaint card to send in.

But I'm definitely going to write angry letters to both BART and Amtrak. Now that I know that I missed out on an exclusive photo, the letters are going to be even angrier.

Once I finally got to the convention center, things were wonderful. I had missed the merch booth meet-and-greet, but I was just in time for autographs, so I went through two more times and got Best of YOU! and a shikishi signed.

boinsie has already covered the afternoon's events, but I just want to add that today's concert was much better than Friday's. Better set list (Romantic Ukare Mode, hell yeah!), bigger audience, better audience participation and energy. This one felt like a real Japanese concert. It was SO much fun!

Afterwards I ended up going out to IHOP with a group of JHippers (and others). We talked a bunch about our favorite things and people and appearances and whatever in H!P and it was all over a nice ending to the day, a good way to cool down.

If Idiot Boy had had his brain plugged in, I probably could have gone to dinner with you guys after all. It occurred to me too late that instead of catching my 8:04 Amtrak train, I might have been able to get a ride to some BART station or other from one of the JPHiP folks after dinner, since a couple of them live within the reaches of the BART system.

Anyway, here's my two-shot from Saturday:



And all the stuff I got signed Saturday and Sunday:

[kikkawame]

That train incident is just fucking stupid! Even with the crap network where I am from the platform is at least open if a train is scheduled to arrive there! I'd be as angry as you about that mate, ridiculous! Still great collection of goods acquired ^__^

[boinsie]

The Gamushara Ouendan cheer squad came by and we all did a huge Kikka chant. I know that video exists of this, but I don't have it at the moment.

No video atm, but Kikka team tweeted a pic...

[kikkawame]

Haha she looks to be enjoying it and that is what matters most

[boinsie]

Pics from the concert from the official Twitter~

[rikkikow]

She is a real sweetheart. I miss Milky Way now.

[boinsie]

Seriously, where were you sitting and why didn't you say hello? T^T

[youtube]1Lkqq0SgYjU[/youtube]
Video of the merch table from a Japanese fan I never got the name of~ http://ameblo.jp/kikka2525/