PASSPO’s 2nd Anniversary @ Akasaka Blitz: Part 3

The moment the encore ended a group of fans attempted a second encore. It seemed hilariously inappropriate at the time considering they had just performed for two hours, not to mention had a concert and event earlier in the day. But what had PASSPO done for us lately? And what if “second encore” was when they were planning on singing Sakura Iro!

Then all the lights came on. The dream was over. There would be no second encore. Which of course meant there wouldn’t be a third encore! Kaho and Naomi were going to rap during third encore! And they will never perform Sakura Iro again, time to “Let it go, let it go, let it go”.

Some people would argue the after concert event is better than the actual concert. There is no such thing as a wrong opinion, but those people are clearly wrong. And insane!

The After Flight – 9PM-midnight
While the girls were back-stage, the staff set up tables on stage and put up barriers near the stairs for crowd control. There was an announcement that pre-dia was at the entrance for their “high touch” (high touch? More like hot touch, amirite? I don’t get it. Me neither, moving on). I’ve never done an idol “event” before so I was pretty much clueless as to what I had gotten myself into. Well I did go to a pre-dia event in July, but that was on a much smaller scale, so let’s ignore that.

While the staff was finishing up the staging area, Naomin snuck on stage, waved to the crowd and said hello. I felt bad when she was greeted by silence. I remember thinking how weird it was that no one waved to her or had any reaction. She had a decent amount of fans at the concert, mostly girls, so it was a little strange. Fortunately she’s a “pro” and was unfazed by the blank stares. She was soon joined by Anna. Anna is too cool to wave. We’re all just pawns living in her world :). The rest of the members then joined them on stage.

Anyone who wanted to do the high touch was told to line up near the stage. A “high touch” is basically giving the girl a high five as you walk past them. It’s super quick and you only have enough time to say “hello” as you walk by. If you wanted to say “I love you!” to your favorite member, you’d only have enough time for “I love-” and the “-you” would be said to the next girl in line. That would be lame even by wota standards.

The high touch costs one “flight ticket” (for every 1,000 yen in CDs purchased you receive one flight ticket). I think it’s mainly intended for fans who only have one ticket total, or for those that don’t have the time to stick around for the later events. About 50 people did the high touch and everyone else just watched. It was fun vicariously high-fiving Shiori 50 times! Her hands are soft *blush smiley* <- totally kidding

Anna and Kaho oblivious of the wotas about to touch them!

While most people were just casually watching the high touch, the more experienced passengers took the opportunity to start a line for the individual handshake. The “individual handshake” allows fans to talk to a single member for about thirty seconds (which is coincidentally the amount of time it takes to confess your love to an idol). Individual handshakes also cost one flight ticket.

I had three tickets, so I had to make sure my calculations were correct. I wanted to shake Shiori and Makoto’s hand, and take a photo with Shiori. I knew photo’s cost two flight tickets, so after a few minutes of college-level addition and multiplication, I determined that I was a moron. I actually thought that the handshake would be the “standard” style (i.e. the girls line up and you shake their hands as you walk by, but unlike the high touch, the line goes slow enough for you to talk to each member). This is the type of handshake I did at pre-dia’s event and at the Idoling concert I went to in July. So I thought I would be able to shake all of their hands with one ticket and take a photo with Shiori with the remaining two. I wasn’t expecting the high touch. Damn you high touch! Anything bad that happens in my life I am now blaming on that high touch! (Even if it was my fault, since their blog did explain it was a high touch. Ok, I’ve written “high touch” way too many times in this paragraph.)

Although the high touch (last time, hehe) went by quickly, the individual handshake was really poorly organized and took way longer than it should have. There were only two staff members who were in charge of coordinating several hundred people. Instead of doing the logical thing which would have been to create ten lines (one for each girl), they created one massive line which bottenecked at the stairs leading to the stage.

Another floor plan? This is too nerdy, I’m outta here!
Wait, come back! I didn’t get to explain that each colored dot represents 3.8 passengers!

One guy collected tickets at the staircase, while the second guy on stage informed the ticket guy which girl was available. The idea was to have a steady line of fans for each member. The system was a mess though because everyone was forced to wait in one giant, unorganized line. The individual lines for practically every girl was either too full or completely empty. There was about a hundred people at the front of the line waiting specifically for the m&m’s and Ai. Fans of the other members couldn’t get passed them without pushing them out of the way. The process was extremely slow and annoying. Unless you like pushing people, then it was paradise!

Everyone make a path for the Shiori fans! They’re cool.

And because the popular members were also set up close to the stairs, once you got on the stage, if you wanted to get to the left side of the stage (Anna, Kaho, Naomi, Yukki, and Natsumi), you had to force your way through another massive blob of humanity. The horrible planning resulted in the less popular members standing by themselves more often than they should have. The process to see a less popular member was a big hassle. By the time you got to the front to give your ticket, the guy in charge may have also moved on and started calling for fans of a different girl.

I decided to avoid the initial insanity and only get in line when the chaos died down a little. And then it would be “Shiori time”! Honestly, even though the staff were completely overwhelmed and idiotic, just the thought of meeting Shiori made everything tolerable.

Since Anna and Kaho were off to the side and often didn’t have anyone in their lines, I watched them a lot. And not in a weird stalker way! I don’t think Anna cares whether she is super popular or not, which contributes to her mysterious aura. Kaho on the other hand seemed more self conscious of her place on the popularity spectrum. She is really beautiful in person and I felt bad that she was alone so often. If I had an extra ticket I would have used it for her (and this has nothing to do with her graduation, since at the time I didn’t know her plan).

After an hour it became apparent that the situation was actually getting worse, not better. There was a last call for Anna and Kaho, and they soon left the stage to do their “2-shots”. Anyone who wanted to take a photo with either was instructed to go to the entrance of Blitz where staff members would be taking pictures. The lame part of this was there were still fans that wanted to talk to them, but couldn’t because they were also fans of the more popular members and were trapped in one of their lines. For instance if you were a fan of Mio and Anna, you would get in line for Mio first because if you didn’t you would literally have to wait two hours to see her. In the meantime you would be trapped in that line, because if you left to talk to Anna who was available, when you were done, you would have to go to the end of the Mio line. Fans were getting pissed, but the staff felt hopeless because there was just two of them, and they were idiots to begin with!

After half an hour, Naomin and Yukki also left to do their 2-shots. Natsumi followed about 15 minutes later. At this point, Shiori and Sako’s table was moved closer to the middle to allow more space for Ai, Makoto, and Mio. At this point even though 50% of the members had left the stage, probably only 20% of the fans had gone with them, since the majority were waiting for the popular three.

Shiori and Sako meanwhile were battling it out to see which of them was the 4th most popular! Around 11PM they announced the last call for Shiori, awww, this meant Sako was 4th. I forced my way through the m&m fans, and gave my ticket to the staff. Shiori Time!

While standing in her line I was really close to Mio and Makoto. They are so adorable. I noticed both have an army of girl fans. Mio kept encouraging this one little girl to do her best while holding her hand, it was hillariously cheesy.

There were two guys in front of me in Shirori’s line wearing identical personalized yellow shirts that said something like “We’re Super-fans!” in the “Superman” font (since Shiori is a fan of Superman). This is kind of a tangent, but I noticed that Shiori and Anna fans do the most to announce to the world who their favorite is. For instance a lot of Morishi’s girl fans wore giant yellow ribbons in their hair, resembling the ribbons from Shoujo Hiko. A lot of her guy fans wore yellow shirts, yellow wristbands, and random yellow accessories. Anna fans on the other hand carry like 20 purple glowsticks and several guys had purple glowsticks that were a meter long, the glowsticks were so ghetto lol. For Anna, I think her fans realize they have to work to impress her, and for Shiori fans, I think we just want to somehow contribute to her “genkiness”.

So what did I say to Shiori?

I’ve only taken two years of Japanese, so I just know simple sentences. “I’m a huge fan. I’m from America. I’m not a stalker. Will you marry me?” The basics (kidding).

The first thing I said was “Smiling!”, which is her old catchphrase. I kind of started laughing at that point because that was the last of the English I would be able to use. I told her I’m a huge PASSPO fan and huge Morishi fan *I showed her my yellow silicon bracelet and glowsticks* I told her my Japanese is bad and I’m American. (She was shocked when I told her I was American. I think she figured I was a halfie – which I am, but didn’t think I was from America). She asked me where I was from and I told her Los Angeles. She asked me if I went to both shows that day. I told her I’ve been to three flights, the Shibuya AX flight in July and the two that day. I also told her I was going to the pre-dia concert the following day. I then asked her if PASSPO could come to America. At this point the staff told us our time was over so we said goodbye. After a few more people talked to her, she left to get ready for her photo session.

Sako also finished her handshakes at that time, so she was going to the front as well. Sako is really pretty in person, and super nice. Most of the girls walked off stage to the sides and then headed to the front from backstage, but Sako actually walked through the standing area, meaning she walked directly through the area everyone was waiting in line. She smiled and waved at everyone as she walked by.

Before I recap the photo, here’s my solution for the handshake event:

Form 10 lines and implement a system where you can hold your spot in one line and jump into another line if there was no one waiting (represented by the “x”). After redeeming your ticket for that less popular member, you could then return to the larger line without losing your spot. This would avoid fans having to sacrifice seeing their secondary member and also ensure that the less popular members get to meet more of their fans.

*Back to the recap* When I got to the front, there was no one in line for Morishi, or for anyone really. It was kind of weird considering how busy the other room was. I gave my two flight tickets to the girl taking the photo and handed her my iphone. I didn’t need to reintroduce myself, we were like real friends now! She asked what pose we would do. I didn’t want to do a peace sign, so I taught her the *L.A. sign*.

The rain killed my hair, which happens to be my “appeal point”. So I’m borrowing the perfect face of Ken (you know Barbie’s boyfriend/ brother/husband/slave).

After our photo, since there was still no one in her line, I was able to talk to her more :). She didn’t have time to answer me before, so I asked her again if PASSPO would go overseas. The answer she gave me was a little surprising… *suspense build-up*… she said they weren’t going overseas anymore! *dies* She said it would be very difficult. She then apologized. I thought she would say something like “Maybe” or “That would be fun”, but instead she gave me an honest answer. Of course it’s still possible they will do a concert overseas, but I don’t think it will be anytime soon.

After seeing her I felt like an android who just experienced “love” for the first time. In a robot voice: “So this is the human emotion of love” *self destructs*

Well that’s basically it. PASSPO day was officially over.

I can’t wait to see them again in 2012. And I already know the next pose I want to do with Shiori!

The End

Hey this isn’t pre-dia related!

It’s been done before. But has it been done with 110% more masculinity? (So it’s 110% more inferior, amirite?) Hey, guys are cool! *crickets chirping*

Have I mentioned that I saw the Kiss=Suki PV when it was debuted at their 2nd Anniversary concert? (Yeah, only a million times!) When I saw it my heart screamed “Chooooo kawaiiii”, and my brain was like “Choooo kawaiiii and 1+1=3”.

But what did I actually do? I played it cool and casually said “It was alright… but needs more Mako-chan”.

Before the video was filmed, in order to determine the front girl, each member wrote her name on a piece of paper and placed it in a giant sombrero. Makoto’s name was randomly selected… eventually. The process was as random as Mariko winning at jan-ken-pon.

Kiss=Suki Recap
The video begins with a close-up of Makoto.

Which can only mean one thing: wotas kissing tv screens. That should have been the name of the single “Makoto Close-up = Wotas Kissing TV Screens”.

I love subtle product placement. I don’t really like PASSPO’s choice of cereal though. Everyone knows KIX are wannabe Corn Pops.

PASSPO limited edition KIX
Ingredients: Corn, sugar, artificial corn flavor, artificial sugar flavor, Makoto goodness, and Mio stardust.

The production quality is clearly the highest they’ve had thus far, so I’m all for whatever it takes to increase their budget. Wait, KIX is an airport? Of course I knew that… and no I did not spend 20 hours shopping that KIX box. That would be pathetic.

KIX was the perfect location for the video shoot. It’s almost as if it was built specifically for a pop group to film a music video. I would love to see PASSPO flying spaceships in their next PV. Japan better start prepping their space program.

Anna: No you cannot have an aisle seat! And no you cannot have a vegetarian meal!
Yukki: According to my computer you’ll be sitting next to a fat slob who will invade your space, selfishly take both armrests, and steal your pillow!
Anna: The fat slob also has a baby!
Yukki: And the baby’s fat! Next in line!

The video transitions from the PAL☆ ticket counter to individual shots of the girls singing. The director (who was wearing an adorable “I <3 Mako-Mako” t-shirt) randomly started the montage with Makoto and randomly ended it with what’s her name.

I love this shot because with the bonus reflection, it’s like a two-headed Makoto creature. Hot!

The fan-service is impressive. First a two-headed Makoto creature and now Mio standing next to a giant stripper pole.

Have you noticed that PASSPO is all about the number “3”? Three popular members: Makoto, Mio, and Ai, three dancers: Anna, Shiori, and Sako, three vocalists: Shiori, Kaho, and Ai, and three short girls: Makoto, Mio, and Yukki. (yeah, that punchline needs work)

The first group shot shows off their new outfits. Although I love PASSPO more than every other group I’ve ever liked, combined, times ten, I don’t consider myself a biased fanboy. With that being said, I think these outfits are the cutest of all time. The color, the accessories, the boots, the white lacey part – they’re PASSperfect!

The girls taught the choreography at the 2nd Anniversary concert, which revolves around tracing a special shape in the air. It’s really easy if you break it down step by step:

Point upwards.

Trace a line downwards at an angle.

Draw the line across your body.

Trace the line upwards at an angle.

Draw the line straight down.

Complete the shape with a circle. And what do you get?

A satanic pentagram PASSPOgram!

The first time was super cute.

The 138th time? Still cute. Achievement unlocked, Aipon.

After dancing, the m&m’s sneak off for a quick chocolate milk break. And immediately find themselves hopelessly lost.


They should have changed the color of the handrails to light blue. Doesn’t the director care about continuity?

Mio: So this is what an airport looks like.

The search party:

Kaho: my favorite halfie who isn’t a halfie.

Morrissey: obviously not using her “indoor voice”. Does Morishi have an indoor voice?

*Smiling*™ <3

Socrates: taking a break from school work.

ViVi Natsumi: Fun Fact – she was my very first favorite member. I was 25 at the time and didn’t know any better *kidding*.

Anna’s telling me to come up with something witty that is worthy of her. Sorry, until you bring back your glasses you’re dead to me!

That’s not light reflecting onto Yukki’s face… she’s almost touching the actual sun.

Even a blind brain surgeon would think this pic is adorable.

Although the crew found Mio, they were distraught that Makoto was still missing. Yeah they were talking about hair, fashion, and shopping, but that’s just how girls cope with stress. It’s kind of the equivalent of guys talking politics, philosophy, and the perverted arts.

Makoto: Here I am! I was just napping in one of the luggages. Can it be hugging time nao plz?!

Natsumi: Meh, it’s just Makochan. I only get up for ice cream.

Lol, someone’s excited! And I’ve seen that expression before.

Earlier than that…

Never change Mio!

This video is sooo perfect… wait a second, please tell me they aren’t going to do that… oh no they are, dear God no! Make it stop!

They’re kissing the screen! Idoling x AKB already did that (and they pulled it off better, sigh). Anything that reminds me of AKB is auto-fail territory.

Oshima Mai’s kiss in the Idoling x AKB single.

Not only do I love Mai, but she’s also an honorary crew member!

I love this video! The patented and exclusive “PASSPO magic” was in full effect.

It’s hard to overlook the making-of not being included in the DVD though. The making-of was about seven minutes long and featured Makoto and Mio, Natsumi and Sako, and Kaho and Naomi pairing up and kissing. The kisses only lasted a few seconds; most of the footage was the embarrassment the girls had to endure leading up to the kiss. Why were they kissing in the first place? Don’t look at me, ask the guy wearing the “I <3 Mako-Mako” shirt.

That reminds me, the ViVi Natsu making-of wasn’t included with the ViVi Natsu single either. I guess the making-of is considered a perk for going to their live show. If that’s the rationale it doesn’t bother me as much. Unfortunately this isn’t exactly fair for the overseas fans.

Well… that’s *kind* of like kissing. I’ll take it!

The End

Kiss=Suki gets

4.75 PASSPO planes out of 5!

PASSPO’s 2nd Anniversary @ Akasaka Blitz: Part 1

Akasaka, Tokyo
November 19, 2011

It was a dark and stormy Saturday night. And morning… and afternoon. Airplanes in Tokyo were grounded and every flight out of the city was cancelled. Well every flight with the exception of two. PASSPO Airlines, the cutest airline in the world, had no intention of cancelling Saturday’s departures. During the storm Captain Aipon peered out the window of Akasaka Blitz Travel Agency, and upon seeing the 1200 cold passengers standing in the pouring rain, exclaimed: “We have to take off! Look at all the passengers waiting to fly into outer space with us”. Naomin wasn’t convinced, replying, “But it’s like super-duper dangerous!” as she twirled her hair. The crew talked for hours and hours until everyone was in agreement that the Flight would go on! Well everyone with the exception of Mako-chan, who was later found napping in an overhead compartment.

In September I began plotting a return trip to Japan so I could attend PASSPO’s November concert. Although at the time I didn’t realize it would also be their 2nd Anniversary Flight, I wasn’t so clueless that I didn’t know it was Makoto, Sako, and Shiori’s birthdays. Everyone knows that birthday concerts are way more awesome than the typical concert because they are birthdaytastic and full of birthday-goodness!! Eventually I remembered that their 1st Flight was on 09/11/17. After an hour of *math* I concluded that the November concert would also be their 2nd anniversary. Anniversarytastic!! Multiple birthdays plus an anniversary is multiple PASSPOgasmic. Since the concert was so far away I considered cryogenically freezing myself until the concert. My friends told me that would be idiotic, so I dropped the idea and just took a really, really long nap instead.

Flight #1 – 1:30 PM
I arrived at Akasaka Blitz, a two story concert hall owned by the tv station TBS, at about 1 PM which was an hour after I had planned on getting there. I forgot that on the weekends there are less trains running and they don’t always stop at every station like they would on a weekday. Because of my poor planning I had to backtrack a few times because the train I was on was skipping Akasaka station (didn’t they know there was a super important concert that day?). I could have just gotten off at the next station and walked 1 km back to Blitz, but it was raining, I didn’t have an umbrella, and like all normal humans I’m allergic to walking. I couldn’t believe another concert was being complicated by more poor planning. I was having flashbacks to being late for the Idoling concert I went to in July. For that concert I literally got to the venue one minute before it started. For the PASSPO concert, in addition to being late, I still had to find an ATM because I only had 900 yen in coins on me. There was a 500 yen drink cover, so I needed a more money to pay for the second concert’s cover and to buy cd’s in order to participate in the after Flight event.

Since “boarding” time was at 1 PM, I decided to just “check-in” and find an ATM after the concert, which meant I wouldn’t be able to do the first concert’s event. (Of course there was a chance that there wouldn’t be an event after the second concert, but if that happened I could just travel back in time. Japan has that technology right?) Passengers enter the venue based on ticket number, ticket #1 letting you into the venue first. It’s not exactly that precise, a staff member calls out numbers by tens, i.e. 10, 20, 30, 100, 110, etc. My ticket was #507, which although seems high, was much better than the #718 I had for the July concert. Because of the horrible weather there must have been a lot of people that arrived even later than I did, because when #500 was called, I walked in, paid for my drink, redeemed it for a shot of tequila (jk, it was 1PM, I got a bottle of water), and walked to the stage and was surprised by how few people were inside. I went to the closest point to the stage that I could get which was about six rows back. So freakin exciting! Sixth row is like the new front row! I noticed that there were a bunch of barriers in place at set intervals on the floor (to prevent moshing), and also on both sides there was an enclosed area designated for girls. I remember AKB48 doing that at their concerts, but for them it was done because girls were being harassed, at PASSPO concerts I think they were just getting annoyed (or possibly injured) by the insanity.

Because every recap needs blueprints. The blue lines represent the barriers and the numbers indicate my location for the 1st and 2nd concert.

Before the concert began fans handed out light blue glowsticks. I didn’t know the specific instructions, so I was just going to activate them when everyone else did (I’m such a follower). As the concert venue started filling up I noticed the second floor seating, where the group’s staff, media, and family members usually sit. On the second floor wings were the 10,000 yen seats that allow you to take photos. When I learned about these “limited edition” seats I didn’t realize the ramifications of them. That’s right, “ramifications”! I could have used my Lumix dslr to film the concert in HD and make my own live concert video to share with others! I know that they technically only allow photos to be taken, but outside of them checking your memory card, it shouldn’t have been too difficult to be slick and film the concert, or at least parts of it (i.e. the new songs). If you really wanted to be like James Bond, you could swap out the flash card, swallow it, put in a decoy card, and then take a few innocent photos to confuse them *kidding*. I noticed they are still doing the 10,000 yen seats, so I’m interested in trying this option for the next Flight I go to.

The 10,000 yen seats are circled in blue. Their choropgrapher Natsumi was on the second floor, the girls waved at her during the concert.

Finally it was HIJACKING time! The lights went out and pre-dia took the stage wearing their yellow Honey-B dresses. They sang Dia Love, Honey-B, Kimi Mitai ni, and Diamond High Heels. I love pre-dia, love love love. I wrote “love” four times because I love them, but this is a PASSPO recap. Therefore moving on, PASSPO took the stage (I noticed that this was the second time that they didn’t do the “boarding intro” where the girls come on stage after Ai’s introduction). Not a big deal, but this is the type of detail that hardcore PASSPO fans would notice. I was a little disappointed that they weren’t wearing their new CHECK-IN/Kiss=Suki outfits, but the overwhelming excitement tends to drown out petty stuff like that.

D’oh! Not these costumes! I actually thought/hoped they would wear their original costumes

I have to admit, that for pretty much the entire concert I would be staring at Shiori the entire time. I noticed when I saw Idoling that if you have multiple favorite members (in my case Ami, Erica, and Rurika), seeing the group live helps your brain decide who your real favorite is. For me, Shiori and Makoto battle it out for supremacy, but I pretty much new from the beginning of the concert that Shiori was my favorite. The first song was ViVi Natsu, which I started liking a lot more recently because of Shiori and Mio’s solos. It’s super dorky, but screaming “Morishi!!!” during her solos was ridiculously fun. They followed up with my all-time favorite live song, Natsu Sora Dash! It felt like it was summer again! What’s unique about PASSPO is they can take an average song and make it amazing with their choreography and all-out energy. This song causes people to go temporarily insane with their glowsticks and handkerchiefs, awesome!

Material Girl was the first of the new songs. I’m going to try to refrain from giving my opinion on the new songs until I listen to CHECK-IN. I’ve noticed from experience that if I read something online from a fan who went to a concert and if they say “The new song rocks!” or “This $#!+ sucks”, it unfairly influences your expectations. By the way I am using my favorite blog’s recap for the songlist http://snsdlyrics.wordpress.com/passpo-2nd-year-anniversary-shows/ – as if my brain could remember the order of the songs. ROCK DA WEEK and GPP followed. I’ve seen so many recordings of live performances of GPP and I’ve noticed that despite the girls efforts to get people involved, passengers can sometimes be lazy during this song. So I was decidedly un-lazy and probably looked like a dork. The first MC segment was called News Negi (or was it vice versa), anyway Ai Negishi came out on stage… and then realized she forgot her script and left the stage to retrieve it! She then said some stuff in a language that wasn’t English. After she left the stage, Makoto came on and talked about her birthday and her new catchphrase since she wouldn’t be able to use “eien no seventeen” (eternally seventeen) anymore. She was sooo cute, and sooo nervous (her had was shaking as she held her script and read from it).

Beginning with Ai and Mokoto’s “corner” the concert started to drag just *a little* because it was then followed by a long segment with Zombeats (the winner of their summer “battle of the bands” contest). I voted for Zombeats though, so I was glad they won. First they played their original song, while the girls sang vocals. And then they sang Jaa Ne with the band backing them again as they did vocals. The effect was cool, and I’m sure someone who has been to a lot of PASSPO concerts could probably appreciate the originality of the collaberation, but I love Jaa Ne and I love the choreagraphy. Since they were singing with the band, they cut all the choreography out *Why couldn’t they have collaborated on ROCK DA WEEK instead! jk*.
After the Zombeats segment concluded a projector screen rolled down and the Kiss=Suki PV making-of was shown for the first time, which involved six of the girls pairing up and *drumroll* kissing. It was very tastefully done (I guess). After the video ended, the girls came back on stage wearing their new CHECK-IN outfits for the first time and joked about the video. The crowd wanted a certain pair of girls to kiss again and started an embarrassing “Mo ikai” chant that fortunately did not catch on. Kaho in particular was completely embarassed by the whole thing, but Sako was totally willing to kiss her partner, or any one of the girls. I *think* she eventually kissed Yukki or Nastumi, but it was kind of a blur. Before they sang Kiss=Suki they taught a short lesson on the songs choreography (I don’t like learning, so I just tuned it out, jk). I was so hyped for this song, and it didn’t disappoint.

After the awesomeness of Kiss=Suki, was the non-awesomeness of another corner *sigh, another corner… and this one was really long.* Anna, Shiori, Kaho, Naomi, and Sako did a skit where they were cheerleaders attending “Raspberry Gakuin”. Their cheer “rivals” were pre-dia members Rumina, Terumi, and Reiko. During the skit both groups did cheer routines.
Reiko and Rumina wearing their cheerleader outfits. Let’s pretend Terumi is in this pic.

Eventually this corner ended… it felt like it lasted an hour. They made up for it by performing Pretty Lie and the third new song Street Fighter. It’s difficult to remember details of something you’re seeing for the first time, but the song had really good choreography involving street fighting moves. The helicopter kicks, hadukens, and sonic booms were amazing *kidding*. Next up was another awesome live song UHAE and then my favorite new song Hello. Super catchy, super fun, super awesome. I love this song.

During the encore everyone activated their light blue glowsticks *crack splash kerplunk kaboom* (that’s the sound of the glowstick activating). The girls were confused by the choice of color and asked if it was Mio’s birthday again. Someone yelled out that it was for Yukki, LOL. I think it may have been to match the new costumes which are the same color. The concert ended with Let it Go. After the song was over I had to go, because I needed to find an ATM! It’s scary being in Tokyo without having money on you.

Part Two will recap the night concert which absolutely blew away the afternoon concert and the handshake/2-shot event :) They didn’t perform Sakura Iro during the first concert, but they would absolutely have to at their night concert, right??