Who can this be? She’s on an anison program and I found this picture on seiup.

Getting warmer…

It seems that it’s everyone’s favourite wardrobe malfunctioning, overweight, former seiyuu turned gravure idol, deko… Aya Hirano. What’s with that look, girl? I mean, flannel shirts are so out of date. And the hair? Get a stylist. AND MAKE-UP. THOSE EYE BAGS ARE HIDEOUS. The new Aya style perhaps? Cannot wait for the parodies of this.

Simply adooooore the hair in this one, darling. Hair extensions, maybe?

It all began just about a month before the concert itself. My dad had just told me that this year was the last time that I would have the chance to use his staff benefits of an SIA ticket to anywhere in the world. Determined to make full use of it, I decided that I would use this oppurtunity to attend Animelo Summer Live -Challenge- in Tokyo. Let’s skip all the inane parts and fast forward to the 30th of August, in Asakusa.

I was staying at K’s House, a budget hostel located in the heart of Tokyo, and most importantly, a twenty minute walk to Akihabara. As I stepped out of the doors, the sun was shining nicely. Quite a nice and cool day.

But the Fates would not have it. As I walked up to Asakusa Station, I noticed something that I was not hoping for. Damned rain clouds.

If there is only one way to describe the weather in Tokyo these few days while I am here, it’s wet, hot and humid, not unlike Singapore. But the humidity here is even worse. It actually hit 100% on the day arrived, going through two sets of clothes. My room mate a few days later confirmed that that Thursday was worst ever. And the rain, the goddamn rain. It’s always so sudden and heavy. It’s been flooding parts of the Tokyo Metropolitan. If you want to travel to Tokyo for leisure during this period, pack T-shirts and bermudas. Leave the jeans and pants at home.

Even Bandai’s mascot bundles up. Points if you know who it’s voiced by.

Before setting off for Saitama Super Arena, I decided to head to Akiba for some shopping  Lo and behold, Fate (mmmmmm) has a sense of humour. He (or she) decides to make it start raining just as I finish packing the stuff I bought in Ziploc bags. I highly recommend these when doing your shopping during this period of time. The last thing you need are your books soaked and unreadable, especially when you’re buying for friends.

Sunny one minute

Heavy rain the next

If there is one thing that the SAF taught me in BMT, it’s to be ready for inclement weather at any time. My dear Gore-Tex jacket was hanging in a pouch attached to my haversack. Apparently, the Japanese don’t believe in these and tend to use umbrellas. Me? I’ve since forsaken them after losing a bunch back home.

Back to the rain, apparently, this spell of rain in Japan is a big deal. It’s caused train delays and lots of flooding. From Akihabara’s JR station, I took the Keikhin Tohoku line direct to the venue, Saitama Super Arena. The train ride lasted about 55 mins due to all the rain and the trains had go slow of safety’s sake. Yes, the rain was that heavy. But as it headed north, it reached areas that had yet to be hit by the rain. I was scheduled to meet houkoholic of seiyuu3 at 1pm at the station to collect my ticket.

The station once you come up the escalators

The covered waiting area, a godsend

Once you get out of the station, the size of the arena just hits you. It’s just so massive. From the looks of it, it seemed to be twice the size of the Singapore Indoor Stadium.

Your first view of the arena

But business first. I had to collect my ticket from houko but I had arrived late. I frantically searched around the place for him, having given him my description a few days before. Thankfully, at about 1.50pm, I got a call from him, saying he had just arrived and was late due to all the train delays. He passed me my ticket for the first day and you cannot believe the euphoria I had within me.

THE TICKET

Although the rain had just ended, there were large numbers of concert goers congregated outside the venue.

You could identify whom the people came for by what they wore.

Nana Mizuki fans wore various t-shirts from her previous concerts, like Live Fighter 2008, with Red side and Blue side variations. Some had football jerseys with the number 7 and the name Mizuki printed on it. Nice puns, guys.

Yukarin fans were pink, to say the least.

Exception to the rule of pink

This was one surprise gathering. This was for the Karen Girls, the youngest performers at Animelo ever, all of them being less than 15 or 16. This was more of an impromptu gathering, more to give the girls support at their first live performance.

This was the queue to buy the merchandise. The queue was quite long and I expected to be in it for more than an hour. However, it was fast moving enough that I reached the tentage in about fifteen minutes. Talk about efficiency. I got myself a programme booklet, blue Animelo t-shirt and the white muffler.

Now that that queue was out of the way, it was time to join another queue, the queue to enter the venue. Originally the doors were supposed to open at 2.30pm. However, the doors did not open until 3.15pm. This was probably to take into account that most people would be late to the venue due to the train delays. Thankfully, the weather was relatively cool.

If you notice, the barrier is open in some portions. Yet, you do not see people rushing into the open spots to get it, like Singapore. We still have a long way to go…

From where I was, it took about twenty minutes to reach the doors. That’s fast once you consider the fact the tickets were all being inspected and torn by hand.

Also a comment on the crowd. One would expect the crowd to be made of nothing of your stereotypical otaku. But standing in the queue for the venue said otherwise. I saw young people dressed up as though they belong in Shinjuku, rather in Akiba. I saw one or two in business suits with briefcases. All in all, anison has a very wide audience in Japan and not just a limited scope, not what some people think it to be.

My seat in the stadium was in the 214 sector. The seat was quite far away from the stage but it was way better than the balcony ones. The size of the arena was breathtaking. You have to remember that this indoor stadium can hold regulation NFL matches with ease. From the looks of it, the 500 level seats are about forty metres from the floor of the arena.

Before the concert, the organisers ran various ads. One was the promotion of Weiss Schwarz. Even niconico was in on the gig with their advertisement for Penguin Heart Musume. The audio-only announcement of sponsors was hilarious the first time around because the thing skipped halfway through, prompting a lot of laughter.

Then at 4.30 pm. The lights dimmed for the start of the concert. With the dimming of the lights, the concert could now start proper, after a half hour delay

As with every year, the introduction of the artistes by Motsu of MOVE, a recording though. Not surprisingly, the loudest cheers were for MIZUKI NANAAA followed by the Karen Girls. Yes, you heard right. From where I was, the Karen Girls got a very huge pop from the crowd, one louder than the one for Yukarin. With the introduction of the artistes done and away,the concert started with a huge bang.

Yukarin was the first performer. Interestingly, she kick it off with the Gokujo Seitokai OP, Koi se yo Onnanoko. Haven’t heard this song in a while. This was the show that got me interested in the world of anime seiyuu after a friend told me that both Pucchan and Rino were voiced by the same person, Yukari Tamura. How fitting that I would hear it here… More than that, Yukarin was wearing something that wasn’t pink.

Anyone who has seen Animelo concerts, starting from 2006, would know about the usage of elevators to bring performers onto stage. It was halfway through the first verse that I noticed that the middle elevator door on the stage was open. COULD IT BE? CAN IT BE? PLEASE LET IT BE!

*bam*

IT WAS! FINALLY! A NANA MIZUKI AND YUKARIN DUET (barring that Nanoha event at Budokan)! F**K YEAH!!!!!!!! What a great way to kick off the event! Many should be familiar with them being a ‘couple’ for their work in all three Nanoha series and this duet has been a long time coming. The crowd just went ballastic with Feito-papa and Nanoha-mama on stage together.

‘Let get married!‘ (^o^)

The whole time I thought they only did one song because of the transition was flawless and both songs sounded so similar, ie Nana was singing in her cute voice the whole time, something that we have not heard in quite a while. Her current repitoire songs utilise her mid to low range vocals. But the song was very energetic and had the both of them running towards the wachamacallit extended stage thing, hand in hand. The crowd was clearly very pleased with that. FYI the song was anone – mamimume☆mogacho, one of Nana’s songs from back in 2001.

Towards the end, the two of them and their dance crew broke out in the monkey. When the second song ended and both descended down the elevators together, I was very disappointed that there wasn’t an MC period when the both of them would just talk with each other and work the crowd.

After a short break and costume change for her, Yukarin reappeared in her normal concert wear (read: pink frilly dress). OH YEAH, DOUWA MEIKYUU! This was followed by Bambino Bambina, her latest single. Quite standard Yukarin fare and easy on the ears, with the cute factor being toned down slightly.

Just before the MC period, Yukarin went to the band area to retrieve something and hid it behind her back.To much fanfare, she revealed it to be THE WAND. Cue wand wave thingie.

After Yukarin, it was Yoko Ishida’s turn. Not surprisingly, it was the OP of Strike Witches (no Pantsu). Somehow, the two ball things dangling on her shoes caught my eye. After her own MC, she did one of her more powerful ballads, Towa no hana, the OP of Ai Yori Aoshi. Her vocals were simply staggering.

After that it was yozuca* and CooRie. Both did Da Capo OPs and their own songs. I didn’t know what exactly the names of the songs are but I remember CooRie’s last song being Sonzai (existence). Quite slow paced shows compared to what was coming up.

Yozuca

Coo Rie

The lights stayed out for a while longer than normal but it was very obvious who was coming on next with roadies moving out a platform with two keyboards and the Initial D Extreme Stage PS3 game’s intro video playing on the screen.

Motsu is perhaps one of the craziest performers at Animelo and this year was no exception. He came onto stage on a mountain bike and rode all the way to the front dias and showed off his beefy arms (and unshaven pits).

As their first song started, the first error of the night occurred. As the song started and moved into the lyrics, Yuri still had not risen upon the elevator. Experienced performer as she is (this lady sang on a track while two cars did donuts around her at a recent D1 event), she started her lines while still at the bottom of the stage. You really got to hand it to her for not missing a beat under such a situation. And Yuri was dressed a lot more sexy this year in a short dress and knee high, unlike last year’s hippie get up. After Dive Into Stream, they went into Gamble Rumble, something that never gets old.

Now was AAA’s turn to impress the crowd. And impress they did with their high energy dance routines. For the record I would like to say that their lead female singer is quite the looker. I was hoping for them to do a song together with move, both having the distinction of the only groups have done Initial D openers (AAA did the theme for live action movie in Japan. YES I DO LIKE THE LIVE ACTION MOVIE. ANTHONY WONG WAS AWESOME.) and their rapping portions of the songs being similar.

All were dressed in bright red clothes that somehow look very restrictive but somehow weren’t, judging from their routines. This bright red clothes would be sort of fitting later when they performed Climax Jump, the Kamen Rider Den-O OP.The cameras were in very nice positions to get some ‘nice’ shots, judging from what turned up on the video screen.

AND HERE THEY COME! THE KAREN GIRLS! When their song played, the whole lighting in the arena changed. For those who had them, these ultra bright orange lightsticks were taken out and replaced their current ones. I swear those alone lit up the entire arena. This, I assume, was their very first live performance in their entire lives but they held up very well against the pressure of performing live in front of such a huge and energetic crowd.

I guess it goes without saying what song they performed and still had the co-ordination to do their PV dance routine. These girls were the ‘newest’ group in the lineup and still got cheers rivaling that of JAM’s and Nana’s. The crowd was really behind them for their first performance.

After the high that were the Karen Girls, what came next came from nowhere.

YAMANI YAMANI YAMANI. I haven’t found exactly what the exact spelling is but yes, the opening of fiction Junction YUUKA’s nowhere, an insert from Madlax written by the brilliant Yuji Kajira, started playing, with the lights still out. HOLY SHIT THEY ACTUALLY GOT YUUKA TO MAKE AN APPEARANCE AT ANIMELO! Then the hopes were sort of dashed when the lights went up againto reveal Minorin, Aa-chan of Savage Genius and Yozuca*. They pulled off the song very well though the chant was not done by them but a recording. As with most of the hit songs, the crowd got into the chant as well. Quite a surprise to have to do a song of an artiste who was not present. During the MC period, the three of them called themselves the Yamani Girls and struck a Charlie Angels’-esque pose.

Minorin then handed off the stage to Aa-chan who then proceeded to belt out two of her songs. What was interesting for me was not the two songs but during the MC in between. Aa-chan was so overcome by emotion that she started crying on stage. I didn’t manage to catch what she said. For what reason I could not fathom but the crowded started shouting encouragement at her. Sure, it was not very professional but then again, for most of the artistes in the line-up, Animelo 2008 in Saitama Super Arena would be the biggest stage that most of them would be performing on for the very first time. She did, however, pull herself together for her second song which she did flawlessly.

Following savage genius came an interesting dance intro, not bad I would have to say. When they formed up at the middle elevator, I was wondering who would be up next. ALL THIS TIME THESE TWELVE THOUSAND YEARS, I KNOW AISHITERUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU. AKINO’S GENESIS OF AQUARION! This is one of the artistes whom I was really looking forward to perform. I really enjoyed Sousei no Aquarion but after a friend introduced to me this version, I instantly hooked by it. And yes, to hear them open with it brought tears to my eyes. I think in the whole arena, I was the only one who was singing along to the english lyrics.

A pity that they did only the first verse but it did transition into Sousei, one of the best OPs in recent times. I had always wondered how a Japanese group could have done Genesis in such perfect English since the first time I heard it and my question answered in the MC session. Akino spoke in perfect English with a hint of an American accent and her Japanese had a heavy Western accent. This held true for the rest of Bless 4, who proved their talent when they did a short accappella introducing themselves, including a beat boxer. Their second song, without a surprise, was Go Tight, the second OP from the same show. Not as great a song as the first but a great performance nonetheless.

Next up was the duo of Gran Rodeo with two songs. Their sounds were more rock from wha t I remember and it was sort of fitting that I was reminded of the Rolling Stones by their performance. For those who don’t know, Gran Rodeo is fronted by Kisho Taniyama, who is known for voicing roles such as Takayuki Narumi in Kimi ga Nozomu Eien and Kittan in Gurren Lagaan. This guy can really rock it out and those gold pants he was wearing, well, really reminded me of Mike Jagger. Another thing to note is that Masaaki Iizuka, the guitarist of the duo, is also the guitarist in the next performer’s band.

And speaking of KimiNozo, Minami Kuriyabashi was the next performer. Every year, she never fails to astound us with a her outfits at Animelo. 2006 had this purple number that exposed her ample bosoms down the middle and a white dress for her female medley performance. 2007 was slightly more conservative with the only stand out being hotpants. This year, it was a gold dress that showed off a lot of leg and some furry material hiding her lower modesty. She did Love Jump from Kurenai, Next Season from the current KimiNozo OVA and Shining Days from Mai Hime. Somehow, I was hoping Taniyama would pop out during Next Season and Chiaki Takahashi would interrupt the proceedings, something the crowd would have loved to see.

Then came suara who belted out two ballads, which are her forte, rather than fast paced songs like most of the line-up.

MINORIN! MINORIN! MINORIN! MINORIN! MINORIN! MINORIN! MINORIN! MINORIN! Her first two songs were no surprise, from her album. But the next one was quite interesting. Normally, there is an embargo on character songs at Animelo but this year, an expection was made for her. When Minorin announced that she was doing one complete with in character voicing, I was hoping that she would do Chiaki’s Kado na Kitai ni go Youjin, from Minami-Ke. The reason being that there is one version of the song that has Touma in the background giving comments and Nana Mizuki voices Touma. AND I WANT TO HEAR KONO BAKAYAROOOOOOO! LIVE! So I was a bit disappointed when it turned out to be Yuki Nagato’s song from Haruhi. Not that I don’t mind the song. She kept true to her promise by doing the dialogue portions of the song. And yes, the crowd went wild at the last phrase.

Most of the artistes up to this point did only three or two songs but all this was thrown out of the window when Rinbu Revolution started playing. Minorin covered this song on the Buddy Masumi Okui tribute album. And we all know what’s coming up, A DUET WITH MAKKUN!

After the duet, Makkun continued off with Insanity, the theme from the new Muv Luv: Alternative game, Total Eclipse. The song was a lot more rock sounding than her usual sounds. You would never know that she was not feeling well. More on that in the day two’s post.

Victorian music being played? It can only be ALI Project! Her set basically consisted of what she has done since the previous concert. During the last piece, Waga Routahi Aku no Hana, Arika was brandishing a short sword and waving it around. Her dressing this year was more in tune with what we are used to. But her new album’s cover is mind bogglingly different.

Most of the stage preparation to this stage was done in the dark but for the next set, it was done in full view of the audience with lights on. And going by who had already performed, it was time for the climax performance for day one.

OH SHIT! CELTIC MUSIC! ZANKOU NO GAIA! I believe this is one of the songs that Nana doesn’t often perform live. I think the last time I seen it on the set list was in the concert she did back in 2004 (the source of her awesome pink meido uniform). I have seen most of her live performances on DVD but seeing her live is something to truly behold. After ZnG, she followed up with Dancing in the Velvet Moon, with a dance number added in. Sometimes I wonder why this was chosen as the ED to Rosario Vampire. It has more of an OP feeling to it with its pace. But, hey, it’s Mokka performing on stage!

During Dancing in the Velvet Moonlight

During the MC period, she started introducing her band. But she did not stop at two guitarists. She ended at SIX. YES, SIX GUITARS FOR HER NEXT SONG. The last guitarist drew a lot of laughter because he was wearing this funny scowling face.  An artiste is only as good as her band when doing a live performance and Nana is no exception to this rule. Over the years, the Cherry Boys have been backing her up very well, not to mention her dancers as well. And PRAY with six different guitars sounds truly great and the individual guitar solos were a sound to behold.

Remember Nana’s duet last year with ALI Project and how Arika said she wished to reciprocate by doing a song with Nana? And reciprocate she did with Eternal Blaze.

And all things have to come to an end. The day’s lineup came out and performed Yells It’s a Beautiful Life. It’s a great song but it was utterly let down by some mikes not working. Poor CooRie had to make do with a dying mike. She looked very upset with the mike but still pressed on with the performance. Akino took over May’n’s solo portions and they did sound very similar to each other.

After Yells, the line up left the stage to change into the concert t-shirts. Even after close to four hours of constant jumping up and down, lightstick routines and shouting, the crowd still had the energy to chant encore for ten minutes. Me?I just  sat down and drank the remainder of my Pocari Sweat. I think in the days I was there, I consumed about twelve one litre bottles of the stuff, with three on each concert day. There’s something about the water here that doesn’t quench my thirst as well as the water back home.

As expected, the line up came back out and performed Generation A’s, with Motsu doing his rap routine again, and, finally, Yells again. At one portion, poor Kisho Taniyama forgot his part and had to rush to the mike to cover himself. By the time the line up finished thanking the crowd, it had already hit 9 pm. The concert had lasted four and a half hours.

On the way out, I took some shots of the floral arrangements sent by well-wishers to the various artistes.

All in all, it was a very good concert for me. I will admit that I was unfamiliar with about half the songs but I did enjoy myself a lot. The bad sound system did not do anything to deter my mood.

To end off, here’s a translated set list.

01 Koi se yo Onnanoko and anone – mamimume☆mogacho (Yukari Tamura and Nana Mizuki)
02 Douwa Meikyuu (Yukari Tamura)
03 Bambino Bambina (Yukari Tamura)
04 Merun no Theme (Yukari Tamura)
05 STRIKE WITCHES ~Watashi ni Dekiru Koto~ (Yoko Ishida)
06 Towa no Hana (Yoko Ishida)
07 Sakura saku mirai koiyume (yozuca*)
08 Morning – sugar rays (yozuca*)
09 Sentimental (CooRie)
10 Sonzai (CooRie)
11 DIVE INTO STREAM (m.o.v.e.)
12 Gamble Rumble (m.o.v.e.)
13 ZERO (AAA)
14 Climax Jump (AAA)
15 Over the Future (Karen Girls)
16 Nowhere (savage genius, Minori Chihara and yozuca*)
17 Just Tune (savage genius)
18 Omoi wo Kanadete (savage genius)
19 Sousei no Aquarion (AKINO from bless4)
20 Go Tight! (AKINO from bless4)
21 Doukoku no Ame (GRANRODEO)
22 ケンゼンな本能 (GRANRODEO)
23 LOVE JUMP (Minami Kuriyabashi)
24 Next Season (Minami Kuriyabashi)
25 Shining☆Days (Minami Kuriyabashi)
26 haunting melody (suara)
27 星座 (suara)
28 詩人の旅 from Contact (Minori Chihara)
29 雨上がりの花よ咲け (Minori Chihara)
30 雪、無音、窓辺にて。 (Minori Chihara)
31 Rinbu Revolution (Minori Chihara and Masumi Okui)
32 Insanity (Masumi Okui)
33 Kotodama (ALI Project)
34 愛と誠 (ALI Project)
35 Waga Routashi Aku no Hana (ALI Project)
36 Zankou no Gaia (Nana Mizuki)
37 Dancing in the velvet moon (Nana Mizuki)
38 Pray (Nana Mizuki)
39 ETERNAL BLAZE (Nana Mizuki and Arika Takarano)
40 Yells ～It’s a beautiful life～ (Whole cast – Day one)

After the success of his previous album, covering a whole multitude of anison including Muv Luv and  Ai wo Torimodose! (YOU WA SHOCK), Masaki Endoh’s back with another one, called Enson 2, for obvious reasons. Yes, to some , this may be a week late but I’m stilling do this nonetheless.

First thing’s first. The track list

1. ETARNAL (sic) BLAZE(TVアニメ『魔法少女リリカルなのはA’s』)

2. アンインストール(TVアニメ『ぼくらの』)

3. 空色デイズ(TVアニメ『天元突破グレンラガン』)

4. ゆずれない願い(TVアニメ『魔法騎士レイアース』)

5. 鳥の詩(TVアニメ『AIR』)

6. キン肉マン GO FIGHT!(TVアニメ『キン肉マン』)

7. GO TIGHT!(TVアニメ『創聖のアクエリオン』)

8. やつらの足音のバラード(TVアニメ『はじめ人間ギャートルズ』)

9. God knows…(TVアニメ『涼宮ハルヒの憂鬱』)

10. ウルトラセブンの歌(特撮『ウルトラセブン』)

11. スケッチスイッチ(TVアニメ『ひだまりスケッチ』)

12. 銀河鉄道999(劇場版『銀河鉄道999』)

13. Good-bye to Yestearday[sic](TVアニメ『魔装機神サイバスター』)

I would go abut how awesome the track list is, but first, for those who cannot understand the language.

1. Eternal Blaze (Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A’s)

2. Uninstall (Bokurano)

3. Sorairo Days (Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagaan)

4. Yuzurenai Negai (Magic Knight Rayearth)

5. Torii no Utau (Air)

6. Kinnikkuman (Duh)

7. GO TIGHT (Genesis of Aquarion)

8. Dunno lol

9. HARU… I mean, God Knows (Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya)

10. Same as 8

11. Sketch Switch (Hidamari Sketch) [No I am not joking]

12. Galaxy Express 999 (duh)

13. Goodbye to Yesterday (Masoukishin Psybuster)

Yes, you are reading the tracks right. Masaki Endoh will cover Eternal Blaze, Sorairo Days, Torii no Utau, God Knows and Sketch Switch. I am so getting this CD. Item is now up for pre-order on Amazon and CDJapan. Grab it!

And to end off, the album cover.

YUUUUUSHAAAAAAAAAAAA OH! TANJOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOU!