NKDS

A photo we will treasure for the rest of our lives.

Bonkurasu and NKDS personnel were at the airport earlier for the experience of a lifetime: the chance to receive Ichirou Mizuki, Aniki himself, to our sunny island of Singapore. Words rarely fail me, but for now I have no idea how to describe the tension and emotion we all felt as we gazed upon the great man, while waiting for him to grace us with his presence.

Yes…the man who sang the opening song of my childhood hero, Mazinger Z, and the theme song of my favourite Super Robot, Mazinkaiser, is right there, in the flesh, but a few meters away. The man whose live performance I have yearned to attend since…well, I can’t remember when, but that hardly mattered. All that mattered right now was that he has arrived, and he is in Singapore. And of course, we would not shame him and ourselves by providing a tardy reception. No, we would give a reception that would match his status within our hearts.

It was an almost surreal experience. Our whole group was chanting “ANIKI! ANIKI! ANIKI!” and pumping our fists in the air as he stepped out of the gate, attracting curious stares from onlookers who no doubt wondered who it was that we were welcoming. Aniki himself at first looked surprised at the rousing welcome we provided, but graciously accepted and thanked us for our support, before being whisked away by security officers.

Aniki had wanted to take a group photo with us within the airport complex itself, but the security officers preferred to escort him to his waiting vehicle first, so we ended up taking the above photo outside the airport terminal instead. That explains the subpar lighting conditions within the picture, but our joy was unmistakable. Aniki gamely pulled off his “Z” pose for the photo, as you can see. The entire photoshoot probably took no more than one minute to conclude, yet it had that dreamlike quality that made it hard to tell the difference between an hour and a minute.

This was just receiving Aniki at the airport. His concert on Saturday…I have no idea how we were going to cope then, if we got this worked up by a simple reception. But hey, if I know Aniki, he would demand no less than our total and involved participation within his concert, and once again, we do not intend to disappoint him. Our hot blood rages within, calling to us, and we will answer.

This is Julius Firefocht, signing off!