Tokyo Reira Festival 2012

Spring quarter ended on Thursday and now I can start focusing on important things, like SUPER☆GiRLS cookies and Tokyo Idol Festival 2012, or as I like to call it, Tokyo Reira Festival 2012. Last night I booked my tickets for Tokyo and if you’re interested in stalking me, I’ll be there from July 26-August 7.

Please download this and make it your permanent wallpaper.

When planning a vacation, you need brain food, otherwise you might start writing stuff like “Tokyo Reira Festival 2012”. So I just ordered ten boxes of SUPER☆GiRLS cookies. Last week avex’s website sold out of the popular cookie, and I thought I was going to have to cancel my trip. And possibly cancel this blog… that’s how important those cookies are to me. Fortunately,  SUPER☆GiRLS came through like they always do, and I am happy to report the cookies are back in stock! I was actually thinking of bidding on a “pre-owned” box of SUPER☆GiRLS cookies on Yahoo auctions, fortunately it didn’t come to that. You’re probably thinking it’s weird that the cookies went out of stock, and then a few days later came back in stock. Sounds very… suspicious. Usually when limited edition items sell out, they are gone forever (like the limited edition Makochan robot), but somehow the cookies came back… like some sort of zombie cookie. There has to be a logical explanation and after thinking about it for most of the day, what probably happened was the bakery that makes the cookies got another order from avex (a special order of 2 million boxes). The only other explanation is the guy who bought the last box returned it. And that’s the box I bought. If there is one thing I know about Japanese people… they like to buy limited edition food items that are individually wrapped, take the food to their basement and unwrap them, look around suspiciously to make sure they aren’t being watched, lick the contents, meticulously rewrap them in the original wrapper, look around even more suspiciously to make sure they aren’t being watched, put them back in the box, and return the item for a full refund or store credit.

Tanaka-san: Hello, I would like to return this. *hands over SUPER☆GiRLS cookies*
George-san: Sure. Let’s see what we have here. *puts on glasses* Super Girls cookies. Interesting.
Tanaka-san: Upon inspection you’ll find all 8 individually wrapped cookies. They’re all there. You can count them.
George-san: You licked them didn’t you?

Blog improvements
In anticipation of my return trip to Japan I am going to implement a few changes:

Photos: My readers have asked for more photos. (“That’s a total lie and you know it!” – random reader) Actually I’ve been reading travel blogs and realized that photos are a pretty obvious requirement for a blog. I had no idea. What can I say, I’m new to the internet.

Contests: I’m going to start giving away official idol stuff like official group glowsticks and boxes of cookies. (“Bribing people to read your blog? I loath you!” – random reader)

“Third thing”: Normally lists have at least three things, but this blog is pretty good, so two improvements should be enough. (“Only two improvements?! I hope a sumo wrestler accidentally sits on you while you’re in Japan” – random reader)

Mio “Pic of the Week”™

I’m not updating my blog until Misa updates hers

Technically I’m just updating because there is important Maidoru news that has to be shared: The mobile site is undergoing maintenance and will be down on Monday for 12 hours.

SUPER☆GiRLS fans all over the world are like, “I’m not even going to bother waking up that day.”

Everyone knows the word “maintenance” is just a code-word for a massive, possibly SUPER, upgrade. I still log in everyday to vote for Reira, and then check out the random news, missions and quizzes, but I think there are several things they can do to take the concept to the next level. Hopefully their programmers can read my mind because I don’t feel like being a huge nerd and listing the improvements.

This week fans were allowed to vote on the photo that would be included with the group’s next single Puripuri Summer Kiss. You’re only allowed to vote for your favorite member, but that’s probably a good thing because it took me 73 hours to decide on photo “B”.

If you aren’t using Maidoru, just take a permanent marker and circle your choice on your monitor.

And for no particular reason here is a preview pic from their upcoming music video:

I guess that’s hot… if you’re into girls wearing bikinis. I’m more interested in the shopping cart! I think that’s the XQ 50 series. I wonder what’s in it? Probably just glow sticks and SUPER☆GiRLS cookies.

Hardcore  SUPER☆GiRLS fans are probably thinking, “SUPER☆GiRLS cookies? That is sooo last month. Right now it’s all about Puripuri Summer booty-shaking!”. They’re right though, this is old news. But it’s tasty, cookie-tastic news. No puns intended.

Each box of SUPER☆GiRLS cookies comes with eight individually wrapped cookies, two mini-trading cards, and a collectible box with trivia and fun facts. Six limited-edition boxes also contain a golden ticket to the SUPER☆GiRLS cookie factory.

You can purchase a box of your own at Avex’s online store:

http://shop.mu-mo.net/a/item1/?jsiteid=mumo&seq_exhibit_id=58110

There is only one review, but the guy gave it a perfect rating and commented “普通美味しかった”. I google translated that and got: “Usually was delicious”. I’m sold!

Unfortunately if you buy a box it isn’t guaranteed to include a cookie of your favorite member, since there are only eight per box. Theoretically you could buy a hundred boxes and not get the particular cookie you’re looking for. (I guess you could trade cookies with other fans to complete your collection. I can imagine fans taking their cookies to concerts or events and trading them. That seems like the kind of weird thing some fans would do). Even if you do get a cookie of your favorite member, would you eat it? Either way would be strange. What if they’re voodoo cookies and the moment you bite off the head, the same thing happens to your favorite member. I don’t want to live in a world where Reira can have her head bitten off. So the only other option is placing it in a vacuum sealed container and cryogenically freezing it. Of course if you’re a jerk and you change your favorite member every few months, you could unfreeze the non-“oshimen” cookie and then eat it. It would still be edible because the cookies are individually wrapped. And anything individually wrapped lasts forever.

I read a Japanese guy’s blog and he said the cookies were only “average” in taste, but were a “good deal at only 600 yen”. What a pragmatic assessment.

By the way, changing your favorite member every couple of months is perfectly normal behavior.

Speaking of SUPER☆GiRLS cookies, what’s up with the horrible quality of pics at Reiko’s blog. In February she was phone shopping and asked her readers for advice. I thought she would get an iphone because her best friends in the group, Akane and Rumina, have one, but she went with an android. I don’t necessarily care which phone she got, but ever since she did the quality of her photos has been really bad. It’s similar to when you read someones blog and you go back to their entries from several years ago and the pics are all small and low-res. That’s what her photos degraded to, for instance these are the new “style” of photos at her blog:

*Wait a sec… is this a rant? I’m outta here!*
*No it’s not, I’m going to write something hilarious in a second, just keep reading.*

In addition to being blurry and washed out, the photos are square-shaped. That’s crREIzy!I don’t know if it’s her phone’s camera or a new and horrible feature on ameblo, because I’ve seen the same style of photos on some other blogs. Anyway, I lied, this was a rant! It was just a mini-rant™ though. It’s not like I am going to write a 10,000 word entry on how big of a mistake PASSPO’s management made by not choosing Misa. Or how lame it was to then lie about the voting results.

Speaking of square-shaped photos, PASSPO is celebrating the 1 year anniversary of their major label debut on May 20. Predia is kind of operating one year behind them, so maybe they will finally upgrade to a major label. I think most predia fans would like this to happen, if only because this is probably something the members of the group want. I’m not really sure if it will happen though, or if being signed to a major label is actually a good thing. Honestly there are so many J-pop groups it seems like it’s only a matter of time until the whole idol group bubble bursts.

A very important message from Reira to her fans:

This was in my Maidoru message box. *puts on glasses to translate*

“Oshimen”… “very very Thank you”…  “ureshi desu”… “kite kudasai”… “SUPER☆GiRLS” … “kuru”… “ojisan”… “POWERFUL”… “korekara mo yoroshiku onegaishimasu”… “Reicheru”.

My Japanese is pretty bad but I’m pretty sure she just wrote that she loves me.

Last month I was ranked 549 out of the 1171 Reira fans.

Since then I’ve worked really hard and increased my rank to 245.

Maidoru Update: In a little over a month I’ve gone from a rank of #629 to #245. Since I’ve been stuck at this rank for a week, I think this implies that there are approximately 250 hardcore fans of hers using the site. There should be a Reira Festival for us! Reira could perform a mini-solo concert, followed by an autograph session! And there could be pony rides, face-painting,  a SUPER☆GiRLS cookie eating contest, and more!

“Reira Fes” will probably be announced when Maidoru upgrades on Monday.

Speaking of “Reira Fes”, I’m *kind of* thinking about going to”PASSPO Fes”, which is the free “Festival” that fans can attend if they purchase the DVD editions of their next single Next Flight. The concert is going to be held at Hibiya Outdoor Music Hall, which is a venue PASSPO has performed at before, and incidentally the location where SUPER☆GiRLS concluded their 1st tour a couple weeks ago.

This photo is from the SUPER☆GiRLS concert a few weeks ago. Even though the concert has been over for a while, all those fans in the photo are still there, patiently waiting for PASSPO Fes to begin! How lame is that?!