Thank you again to all the participants! I’m very happy to be able to help act as a bridge between overseas fans and the seiyuu we love. You can bet that there will be more projects to come and I hope they’ll be just as successful as this one!

Here is a translation of the portion of tonight’s show where they read the letter. A couple lines were skipped because I couldn’t make out what was being said, but it should still suffice.

C: And continuing on… From British… Canada?
D: Eh? British? Canada?
C: A letter from Canada.
D: Ehh?
C: From Shana K_____-san.
D: Really? Like air mail?
C: To Ono-sama. Happy birthday!
D: Thank you!
C: Congratulations on being… in… a seiyuu for 10 years. I hope to enjoy… as… you… fu–*censor*
D: Wait wait wait, that wasn’t written!
C: Hm? What?
D: Right now you just said fu–
C: Fu–
D: No no! No no no no no!
C: Oh, was I wrong?
“For at that 10 years.”
D: I have no idea what you’re trying to say.
C: You are amazing!
D: Oh, amazing! Amazing!
C: Thank you!
D: Thank you thank you!
C: You are crazy.
D: Wait wait, it doesn’t say crazy! It says amazing but–
C: Amazing and crazy!
D: Amazing and crazy!
C: In a good way.
D: In a good way. OK OK
Thank you very much.
C: That’s it.
D: You’re taking too many liberties.
C: Hm?
D: “A seiyuu for…” Oh, “Being a seiyuu,” so they mean as a seiyuu…
C: They’re basically saying “congratulations on your 10th anniversary,” right?
D: *laughs* See, you do know what it means!
C: And something along the lines of “good luck for the next 10 years.”
D: Yes, yes. Like, “I’m sending my congratulations to you for being a seiyuu for 10 years.”
C: That’s very nice of them.
You’ve got fans overseas too.
D: Yes. I’m really happy about it.
This is a letter from Canada. A love letter from Canada!
C: Well I’m not sure there’s “love.”
D: No, there’s definitely love.
“You are amazing!”
C: And crazy!

*laughing*

C: But wow, who’d think that this show would come to the point where we’d receive letters from overseas.
D: I’m very thankful.
C: Thoughts of “Happy Birthday” for you are coming not only from within Japan but also from around the world.
D: This year I’ve really received a lot of birthday wishes from fans from overseas, of course from fans in Japan too, but also from people within the industry and the people I’ve been working with such as directors, and others.
C: Wow…
D: Man this year is… How can I describe it?
C: It’s totally different from what I’ve heard.
D: What do you mean?
C: If we listened to what you were saying earlier, it sounded like no one was celebrating for you.
D: I didn’t say that! I said I didn’t get any mails from female seiyuus!
C: But you did end up getting some, didn’t you?
D: I’m very grateful. It’s thanks to everyone that I’ve made it this far.
C: Well then, how about giving Shana K_____-san your thanks, in English.
D: *deep breath* Oh, Shana.. Shana K_____? How do you do? I’m Daisuke Ono. Pardon? How… How… How many… How many ii kanji (good feeling)?
C: We continue to look forward to everyone’s letters!
D: How many? How much? How much?

(Shana’s last name left out by request.)

The Kiramune 3rd Anniversary Fan Meeting took place in Okinawa City, Okinawa on April 29, 2012. My friends and I arrived a couple days early to do some sightseeing. We bought a day pass for the monorail in Naha (probably the only train in all of Okinawa) and hit up several locations. One of them was the touristy Kokusai Doori. Shops and restaurants lined the streets. Kamiya and OnoD went down this street for Kamiya’s seitansai episode earlier in the year. Found the restaurant where they had dinner and snapped a few photos. Unfortunately I didn’t have the time (or money) to eat there. My friends were staying at a hotel in Okinawa City, a few minutes walk from the event venue. If I may give some advice to anyone considering visiting the main island of Okinawa: Stay in Naha. There isn’t much to do in Okinawa City and the street we had to go down to get to our hotel was lined with bars and clubs where U.S. Air Force members hung out. Sine we arrived at the hotel on a Friday night, you can imagine how noisy it was. There were tons of Americans, many of them trying to pick up girls, etc. Um… Yeah. It’s not a street you’d want to walk down alone at night.

On the day of the event, it rained. *sigh* Namikawa…

It was coming down pretty hard when my friend and I headed off to the venue. When we arrived, there were many other girls waiting under the roofed area. About 15 minutes before opening time, the staff gathered everyone and had us line up by number. For the noon event, my friend and I had pretty low numbers and were able to nab second row center seats. Very close! For the night event we were a bit further back in 8th row but on the edge so we had a pretty clear view of the stage. The screen was showing old Kiramune PVs. It was nostalgic seeing the PV for My diary. They also showed the PV of Mirai Sketch from Okamoto’s upcoming mini album, Palette. Included with the little packet of fliers and stuff we received at the door were a postcard with the Kira Characters on it, and a piece of paper that we could write a question on. When we were done we had to give the paper to one of the staff people who were collecting it.

Finally the lights went down and out came the boys in their Kiramune 2012 shirts. On the stage were couches and tables with snacks (chinsukou and beniimo tarts– Yum!) on them. After introductions, they sat down on the couches. The drinks were self-serve and were the same ones available at the drink bar. The drinks were as follows:

• Sanpin MEN (Sanpin Cha/CONNECT)
• APPLE–BOAT! (apple juice/Irino)
• Harezora Coke (Cola/Kamiya)
• UTAO no Ginger Paradise (ginger ale/Namikawa)
• Orange Breaker (orange juice/Kakihara)

They were going to do a kanpai but Namikawa had already taken a sip and the boys wasted no time in poking fun at him. Iwata actually drank a bit too but the others were so focused on Namikawa that they didn’t notice. ^^; They had a free talk corner where they looked back on the past three years. Unfortunately it’s been a while since the event so my memory is quite hazy and I don’t really remember what they talked about. During the night event, Miyu drank too much and had to go to the bathroom! Kamiya went first, followed by Miyu, so for a while it was only the remaining four guys on stage!

After the free talk was a question corner and then a photo commentary. For the question corner they read several questions submitted by the audience before the event began. For the photo commentary, they put up on screen several photos from various events, photo shoots for magazines/CDs, etc. and talked about them.

Last was the live corner! Miyu was up first with Hoshizora Weekend, and then Kamiya with Mirror World. I really, really, REALLY like Mirror World so I was very happy to be able to hear it live once again. Next was Kakihara with Hikari, one of my favorites by him, and then Namikawa with UTAO. OMG, UTAO… If you have not seen the PV for this, watch it. (Part of it can be seen in the short commercial on the Kiramune website here.) Yeah, so in the middle of the song, Kamiya and Miyu came out and did the background dancing! They did the meishi koukan (business card exchange) scene and all! It was HILARIOUS!! Miyu had a straight face the entire time but you could tell that Kamiya was trying so hard to hold in his laughter. He had a strange grin on his face the entire time. It was so funny! As you can imagine, the audience went absolutely nuts. Some photos from the rehearsal and the event itself can be seen on the Kiramune Staff Blog. (The first entry about the event is here.)

They later explained that it was Miyu who came up to Kamiya to tell him that KAmiYU was going to do the dancing for UTAO. Apparently this hadn’t actually been decided by the staff but Kamiya didn’t know that, and Miyu was tricking him. They practiced at night in Kamiya’s hotel room in front of the mirror. Miyu suggested that they turn off the lights, which they did, but then Kamiya pointed out that they wouldn’t be able to see themselves. It turned out that Miyu just wanted to see the stars outside! LoL. In the end it was a huge hit though so all’s well that ends well.

The last song they sang was, of course, Ever Dream. For the noon event during the ending salutations, Namikawa reported that the rain had stopped. Maybe it had stopped when he was looking out before the event ended, but when we went out, it was totally pouring! LoL. He apologized for the false report during the night event. After the night event it wasn’t too bad, but it was very humid.

Some photos can be found on Namikawa’s blog here and here. It looks like they were able to have some time to themselves for sightseeing. By the way, it was quite sunny the day after the event, but of course that was the day I was going back. *sigh* It was kind of funny though because when my friends and I were checking out of our hotel, a couple girls came out and one of them said to the other, “Namikawa probably went home already.” LoL.

Sorry my report isn’t as detailed this time around. I didn’t get a chance to write it up while the event was fresh in my memory since I was swamped with work after returning and then swamped again after Golden Week. ^^; Unfortunately there were no video cameras so we can assume there will be no DVD or streaming of the event.

Speaking of streaming, they’ve announced that Kamiya’s Harezora Party event will start streaming on Bandai Channel at 12PM on May 30. We can probably expect it to be a paid stream, but you can bet it’ll be worth every yen! My Harezora Party report can be found here.

Happy 33rd birthday, Ono Daisuke!!

OnoD’s birthday episode will be airing on DGS this week. Wonder what they’ll be up to this time. =) Last year OnoD’s birthday was celebrated at the DGS4LO event.

Thank you to everyone who participated in the OnoD Birthday Project! The letters and presents were shipped on May 1st and successfully delivered on May 2nd. Here are some photos:

Edit 5/20: The letter that was read on DGS 267 is the one in the big brown envelope. =)

BIG News!

The 4th and final volume of the Dear Girl ~Stories~ Hibiki comic was released today!

It was announced on the obi that the third DGS Hibiki drama CD would be released this fall. It will retail for 2940 yen.

We can probably assume that this will be the last drama CD since the announcement talks about the “final season” of Hibiki being dramatized.

This past weekend was KiraFes 2012 at the Makuhari Event Hall. There were two performances, one on the 17th and one on the 18th. I was hoping that since they were having the performances on different days that the set list would be different but unfortunately they were the same.

It rained all day Saturday and I stood in line for 2.5 hours in the rain for goods. Not fun. By the time I was finally able to buy the goods I wanted, doors were already open for the event. My seat for the day was in arena block 9 near the back.

When the lights went down, everyone broke out their pen lights and glow sticks. First up, surprisingly, was Kamiya! He wore a pink jacket that was very sparkly. It was funny because while waiting for the bathroom before the event began, my friend and I were wondering what Kamiya would be wearing for the event. We came to the conclusion that since he wore pink in 2009 and was sparkly in 2010, this year he would be a combination of the two–pink and sparkly. And we were right! XD

Kamiya sang Nijiiro Chouchou, Dual Wing, and For myself. Of course for For myself, everyone sang the “oh-oh oh-oh oooh oh” part. I’ve noticed that Kamiya tends to sing For myself on a bit of a higher note when singing live. It sounds good either way. He danced for For myself and it was the same choreography as when he sang the song for Harezora Party. Adorable! When Kamiya said his greeting, he said, I just said ‘good afternoon’ right now but by the time this event is over, we’ll all be saying ‘good evening.’”

There was a talk corner after all the main Kiramune members sang the first part of their set. Kamiya showed off his order-made outfit. The sparkles on the jacket were actually Swarovski crystals and when SuzuKen asked him, “What kind of jewels are these again?” Kamiya had a hard time saying “Swarovski.” It was very cute. On the back were the letters “Hiroshi K.” spelled out in the crystals and on the front were star designs. Near the bottom there was half a star on each side so when he zipped up, the star would become one. They also talked about Miyu kun’s blog entry that showed Kamiya’s gaudy rehearsal pants (also seen here in the staff blog). Apparently Kamiya received those pants from the Kiramune staff at the Harezora Party event and was told to wear the pants during rehearsal. Kamiya was all, “You want me to wear this during rehearsal? Okay, I’ll wear them during rehearsal, but don’t make me wear them outside.” XD And as always, they talked about food.

The new Kiramune members, Trignal (Eguchi Takuya, Kimura Ryouhei, Yonaga Tsubasa) and Okamoto Nobuhiko sang their sets and then had a talk with Iwata and SuzuKen of CONNECT. Next up was KAmiYU. Kamiya and Miyu kun came out from the second floor singing Taiyou no Sympathy! They were wearing checkered shirts and got pulled along between the 2nd and 3rd floor stands. They went all the way around and ended back on the main stage. Next they sang Sting of Love. The choreography was the same as the one during KAmiYU in Wonderland 2.

For the second half of Kamiya’s set, he sang STYLE, Silica Gel, and Mirror World. He changed into a stylish all-black outfit. It looked very good. He sang STYLE at the center of the main stage in front but for Silica Gel he sang from the left side. He was on a crane and lifted up high. As expected, the crowd yelled out “Hey!” during the song. It was very fun, and everyone was much more into it on Sunday. After Silica Gel was Mirror World. Kamiya started singing it from the left side but when the crane came back down, he was carted to the back of the arena where there was another stage. For Sunday’s performance I was in the last row of block 8, which is in the middle, so I had a very clear view whenever anyone stood on the back stage. I absolutely love Mirror World so I was very glad to finally be able to hear it live. I was hoping that he’d sing it during Harezora Party but he didn’t, so I figured maybe he was saving it for KiraFes. In any case, it was a great performance of a great song.

For the encore, Kamiya sang from near the middle of the arena. It was kind of funny because before it was his turn, you could see his shadow being carted to the middle near the end of the song. He wore the KiraFes 2012 t-shirt but it was purple instead of grey. Kamiya sang Happy Hour and everyone sang parts of the song, such as “Let’s join!” “Hey!” and the lyrics in parentheses. I was kind of expecting him to sing Harebare Heart but it seems they deliberately chose songs that he hadn’t sung live before. Aside from Dual Wing and For myself, all the songs had never been performed at any events.

Last was the new group song Get Together and then Ever Dream. All the guys were singing from different areas of the venue. Of course I kept my eye on Kamiya the entire time. ^^ For the final greetings, Kamiya told everyone to look at their watch and said, “See? Didn’t I tell you it’d be ‘good evening’ by the time this was over?” The event was about 4 and a half hours long (and very tiring on the feet ^^;).

As I mentioned, the performances on Saturday and Sunday were exactly the same. It was the same set list and in the same order. This was how it was in 2010 too when they had 3 performances that were exactly the same. I do kind of wish they’d shuffle things up a bit, either by having a different set list for each performance (preferable) or at least by having the guys sing in a different order, especially since the event it quite expensive. The only thing different was the talk corners, though sometimes they talked about the same things. Still, I had a great time both days and because the performances were the same, on Sunday I knew when Kamiya would be up.

Since this is a DGS fan site, I didn’t write about any of the other members, but let me say that Miyu kun is so cool. He’s such a great singer and dancer and I look forward to seeing his performance again on DVD. The KiraFes 2012 DVD will be released on August 24 and retail for 8190 yen. A bonus CD with Get Together will be included in the first edition and the DVD will only be available at Animate and .ANIME.

SET LIST

Kamiya Hiroshi
01. Nijiiro Chouchou
02. Dual Wing
03. For myself

Kakihara Tetsuya
04. adrenaline
05. Good Luck

Namikawa Daisuke
06. Only Love
07. Wonder fool world

Irino Miyu
08. Try Again
09. ABC
10. ZIP ROCK!

CONNECT (Iwata Mitsuo, Suzumura Kenichi)
11. SWEET or SPICY
12. Amai ze!

Talk Corner (1)
CONNECT, Irino Miyu, Kamiya Hiroshi, Namikawa Daisuke, Kakihara Tetsuya

Trignal (Eguchi Takuya, Kimura Ryouhei, Yonaga Tsubasa)
13. PARTY*Beat
14. Towards the tomorrow

Okamoto Nobuhiko
15. Mirai Sketch
16. Asphalt no Hana

Talk Corner (2)
CONNECT, Trignal, Okamoto Nobuhiko

KAmiYU (Kamiya Hiroshi, Irino Miyu)
17. Taiyou no Sympathy
18. Sting of Love

Kakihara Tetsuya
19. Chaos Breaker
20. Labyrinth
21. Bible of Heart

Namikawa Daisuke
22. Oh My Friend
23. Natural

Kamiya Hiroshi
24. STYLE
25. Silica Gel
26. Mirror World

Irino Miyu
27. overture
28. Zero
29. High Drive

Kakihara Tetsuya
20. Hikari
21. thank you & smile

Namikawa Daisuke
32. JAM packed TRAIN
33. UTAO

CONNECT
34. CRYMAX*LOVEMAX
35. Burai Dreamer
36. Sakurairo
37. Te wo Tsunagou

Encore
38. Continue (Kakihara Tetsuya)
39. Hoshizora WEEKEND (Irino Miyu)
40. Dreamer (Namikawa Daisuke)
41. Darling (Trignal)
42. nonstop (Okamoto Nobuhiko)
43. Happy Hour (Kamiya Hiroshi)
44. Say Hello (CONNECT)
45. Get Together!
46. Ever Dream

In the past, Kamiya has won Best Supporting Actor (2008), Best Lead Actor (2009), and Best Personality (2009). OnoD shared the Best Supporting Actor Award with Kamiya in 2008.

CONGRATULATIONS!!

The project this time will be slightly different as presents and donations will be accepted. Donations will go towards shipping and the purchase of this, which is a plush coin block from Super Mario Bros. When you hit it, it makes coin noises, and once in a while there will be a level up. It’s pretty fun. Also, as this is OnoD’s 10th year as a seiyuu, I thought it would be kind of cool to give him 10 cent coins from different countries. (eg. For the U.S. it would be a dime, in Japan it would be a 10 yen coin, etc.) Letters for Kamiya will also be accepted, but only if you are sending something for OnoD.

So! Here is the rundown…

The premise
Send fan letters, fan art, and/or presents to Ono Daisuke to celebrate his birthday. All letters, art, and presents will be shipped together to Bunka Housou.

What is allowed
Letters, art, 10 cent coins, presents (for OnoD only), donations. Presents will require a 200 yen donation to help cover shipping.

DEADLINE
All submissions must be received by APRIL 30, 2012.

Guidelines

• Please HANDWRITE letters, if possible.
• OnoD and Kamiya only understand Japanese, though they probably also understand simple English.
  It is recommended that letters be written in Japanese, but letters in any language will be accepted so feel free to write in whatever language you feel most comfortable. It’s the thought that counts!
• Do not write anything that could be considered rude or too personal.
  ie. No marriage proposals.
• If you will be submitting a letter to Kamiya, you will also be required to submit something for OnoD. Remember, this is OnoD’s birthday!
• Please draw art on paper no larger than A4 size.
• Keep all art PG.
  Any fan art that I consider inappropriate, such as those with BL tones, will not be accepted.
• If you will be sending a present, a 200 yen donation will be required to help cover shipping.
  Only presents for OnoD will be accepted.
• No large presents, please.

Submission

• Submissions will be accepted via postal mail only (no email).
• All letters should be sealed in an envelope and mailed within a larger envelope.
• Art can be mailed as-is without being sealed in an individual envelope.
• Write your name (nickname is OK) and country on the envelope with the letter/art inside.
  If you are only submitting art, please include your name and country somewhere on it. (The back is fine.)
  Please do not include your address, except on the outer envelope you are mailing everything in.
• Please write your email address under your return address so I can let you know when I’ve received your submission.
• Clearly mark on all letter envelopes who the letter is addressed to.
• Donations will be accepted in Japanese yen via PayPal.
  If you will be submitting a donation, please specify the amount (in yen) in the message area. Everyone who donates will have their name written on a separate card.
• If you will be sending a 10 cent coin, please tape it to the inside of the mailing envelope near the opening.
  Please try to select a nice-looking coin, and not one that is dirty. Bonus points if it’s from the year 2002!
• Please keep presents relatively small. It would be nice to wrap them and include a little label with your name and country.

Wanna join?
If you are interested in participating in the project, please fill out and submit the form below. I will respond with my address for you to mail everything, and my PayPal address if you are donating. Please help spread the word about this project! Tell your friends, write on forums, Twitter, etc.! Thanks!

Studio Coast

Yesterday was the Harezora Party event at Shin-kiba Studio Coast. Of course, the event was held on Kamiya’s birthday. It was a very nice day, except for the wind and cold. It was very cold. I arrived at the venue a little after 12 and already there was a long line for goods. It took about an hour for me to get to the front of the line where I bought all the goods they offered, which included a hand towel, mascot cleaner, and bromide set. It looks like they were giving away Harezora promotional posters to those who bought the CD.

Goods

At 2:30, they opened the entrance doors. I was in the A group in the 400s. Got a spot sort of near the front to the right side of the stage, perhaps 6 or 7 rows back. They were playing the tracks from Harezora in the background. For the night event I was in the B group in the early numbers. My friend and I decided to take a spot in the back behind the staff. We were in the center and had a very clear view of the stage. (It was sort of interesting since I could see the staff controlling what’s displayed on the main screen.) When an announcement of the event rules and such came on with Kamiya reading them, everyone jumped. The announcement was played several times before the lights went down and everyone screamed as Kamiya took to the stage.

A spotlight was cast on Kamiya, who was wearing a black and white striped shirt and black vest. The noon event started off with a Q&A in the style of the Doumoto Ichimon Ittou corner from the variety show Doumoto Kyoudai, complete with narration by Kobayashi Toshio who does the actual narration on the show and is also affiliated with Aoni Production. The corner was instead titled Kamiya Ichimon Ittou and Kamiya was asked to do a self-introduction, and there was a quick Q&A, which included the following:

Q: What’s got you excited recently?
A: The announcement of a new model of the New Beetle. I’m wondering if I should change cars.

Q: Tell us a secret that even the Kiramune members don’t know.
A: I recently bought a new bed that was quite expensive, but I’m not very used to it yet so I can’t decide if it’s comfortable or not. My poor (binbou) body is used to cheap beds.

For the night event, it started off in a similar way, except it was in the style of OnTama, another well-known variety show and narrated by Terase Kyouko, again a seiyuu affiliated with Aoni. The corner was KamiTama and again Kamiya was asked several questions.

Q: What kind of student were you when you were in middle school?
A: I was an idiot. I never studied and left all my textbooks at school even though we were supposed to review at home. Make sure you all study and don’t become someone like me!

Q: What gesture done by a girl makes you instantly like her?
A: I like it when girls say, “Iyaa mou~ (Oh geez~)” while lightly pushing me on the shoulder.
Q: That’s certainly cute. Let’s see you face the camera and do it one more time.
A: “Iyaa mou~ Kamiya kun~”
So cute!!!

After the corner was finished, there was an announcement by Kamiya saying he wanted to hear everyone’s voice. When he said “Harezora!” the audience yelled out “Party!” We said it a bunch of times.

Kamiya: The people in the front! Harezora?
Audience: Party!
K: The people in the back! Harezora?
A: Party!
K: First floor! Harezora?
A: Party!
K: Second floor! Harezora?
A: Party!
K: All the girls! Harezora?
A: Party!
K: All the guys? Harezora!
A: PARTY!
K: In a high voice! *high voice* Harezora~
A: Party~
K: In a loooow voice. *low voice* Harezora…
A: Party…
K: In a sexy voice. Ha-re-zo-ra.
A: Par~ty~

There were actually quite a few guys in the crowd! For the last one, everyone hard a hard time saying it in a sexy voice. ^^;

For the next corner, again the lights were off when Kamiya’s voice was heard on the speakers. “There’s someone in this venue whose mind is not clear. Yes, it’s you who’s standing alone on the stage!” The spot light turned on and there was Kamiya standing in the center again.

Kamiya: Who the heck are you?
Psyche: I am Kamiya Hiroshi.
K: What!?
P: I am another you. I guess you could call me your deep psyche.
K: What are you, chuu ni?
P: What date is it today?
K: January 28th…
P: And what day is that?
K: Well, it’s my birthday…
P: That’s right! Everyone’s here to celebrate for you! Yet what’s with that attitude!? All right everyone, we’re singing that song!
K: Sorry everyone, he’s very selfish. Please play along with him.
[cue psyche!Kamiya singing "Happy Birthday" really badly and the crowd singing along while holding back their laughter]
P: How old are you now?
K: 37… Anything wrong with that?
P: When Einstein was 37, he published the General Theory of Relativity. When Tomino Yoshiyuki was 37, he created Gundam! And what about you? You’re totally third class! C-rank! We’re going to find out if you have what it takes to become a real adult. Surely someone who’s reached #2 on the Oricon chart can tell the difference between low-class and high-class, right!? We’re going to determine all this in Mirror World.

First, Kamiya had to find the door to get to Mirror World and knocked on invisible doors.

K: *knock knock*
Door: *knock knock*
K: Hey, there’s someone in there!
P: It’s the next door.
K: Tell me a little earlier, won’t you?
*knocks and opens the next door*
Girl: Kyaaaaaaaaa! Hiroshi san no ecchi~
K: *quickly closes door* What was that?
P: Just some fan service for you.
K: I would have liked a visual.
*knocks and opens the next door*
Inside door: Kokoro no tobira wo hiraite~
K: *closes door* What the heck?
P: That was the kokoro no tobira. KAmiYU’s mini album Link-up is currently on sale now!
K: What’s with the promotion?
P: The door to Mirror World is the one in the back.
K: *knocks and is about to open the door*
P: Wait! …That one’s a sliding door.
K: *laughs and slides the door open*
*sliding door noise*
K: What a cheap sound!

Once inside “Mirror World,” Kamiya was given some quiz questions where he had to determine which was the higher class item. For the noon event, first up was hamburg steak. One was a 100 yen hamburg steak and one was a hamburg steak from a very high-class restaurant. Kamiya ate each of them and you could hear the noise as he chewed. ^^; He said both tasted good and then made his guess. He was wrong and smoke blew into his face, similar to what happened at the KAmiYU in Wonderland 2 event. The second test was calligraphy. He was shown two “一番星 (ichiban boshi)” written in calligraphy. One was written by a professional calligrapher and the other was written by a manager at Aoni, LoL. Again, Kamiya guessed wrong and was blown smoke in the face. The last question tested his ears. He had to determined which guitar was a vintage million-yen guitar, and which was a beginner’s 200000-yen guitar. The melody played was a little part of Kamiya’s song Basil. For this question, Kamiya guessed correctly! The answer was given via video message and it was by Irino Miyu! Miyu kun was the one playing the melody and he talked about a wooden wind chime he bought for Kamiya and showed it, saying he’ll hang it in the green room. Kamiya laughed and said that something like that really was hanging in the green room and that he didn’t need it.

For the night event, Kamiya had to tell the difference between cake, “晴れ空 (harezora)” written in calligraphy, and there was another guitar test. This time he got all of them correct! The guitar melody was really weird and was played by Namikawa Daisuke. Namikawa promoted his upcoming mini album in the video message. ^^;

The next corner was a live reading. The setting was Harezora Cafe where Kamiya was the owner. He was dressed up in a waiter uniform. Sorry, I’m going to skip the story summary. ^^; During the whole time though, there was a professional pianist playing piano arrangements of songs from the Harezora album. They were very pretty.

Last was the live part! The set list included Dual Wing, For myself, Ashita he no Baton (noon), Hello my shadow (night), Ichiban Boshi, and Harebare Heart for the encore. Sooooooo gooooooood!! For the first two songs and the encore, there were a couple male dancers. For all those songs, Kamiya danced with them and there was some kind of choreography throughout the songs. During For myself, the crowd sang the “Oh-oh oooh-oh” parts. During the noon event, Kamiya was pretty out of breath after singing Ashita he no Baton. You could tell that he was quite tired while singing Ichiban Boshi as it really showed on his face. After the song, he ran off stage and cue the chants of “encore.” After a few minutes, the chant changed from “en-co-re” to “Hi-ro-shi,” which was funny. (During the night event, the “Hiroshi” chant started a lot earlier.) Finally the lights went up and Kamiya had changed into a very spring-like outfit. The top was cute, but I have no idea what was going with the bottom half. It was like shorts over black spandex half-pants. Not to mention both the top and bottom were a spotted pattern, which was kind of… yeah… LoL. However the dance for this was incredibly cute, and the crowd yelled out “Viva hare otoko desu!!” and “Mada mijuku mono desu!!” For the night event, during the riff, Kamiya ran around with a smoke gun kind of thing and blew it into the crowd. I’m not sure if it was just because I was in the back and couldn’t get as good a look as during the noon event, but Kamiya didn’t look as tired when singing during the night event. That was a relief.

Overall the event was very enjoyable and I had a great time. I only wish he also sang Mirror World, which is one of my favorites on Harezora. But other than that, he sang all the songs I wanted to hear most. Also there was a project on mixi to sing “Happy Birthday” after the event ended but since they kept playing Harezora in the background, there was no chance to sing. =( This was my first time attending a Kamiya-only event since I’ve never won the lottery for any of his release commemoration events. I hope he’ll have more in the future and at a larger venue where there are seats since all-standing is rather tiring and there’s not a lot of room to move.

Harezora Party was recorded and Kamiya announced during the event that the event will be streamed online in the future. This announcement can also be found on the Kiramune website. Some parts of this report might be a little off and I know I left out some parts since it’s hard to remember all the details, but you’ll be able to watch it all for your self when the stream is up.

Looking forward to KiraFes 2012!!

Project 2012

HAPPY 37th BIRTHDAY, KAMIYA HIROSHI!

Today is the Harezora Party event at Shin Kiba STUDIO COAST. Thank you to all who participated in the birthday project! All your letters will be put into the present box for Kamiya at the event.

SYLPH 2012/03

Just announced in the latest issue of SYLPH was the release of the next DGS Hibiki tankoubon volumes! Vol.3 will be relesed on March 22nd, and vol.4 on April 21st. Both will retail for 630 yen. There will also be a big announcement included with the comics.

The next issue of SYLPH will include a bonus booklet featuring DGS Hibiki illustrations by Iwasaki sensei, as well as her comments on drawing the illustrations. This month’s issue was supposed to include the concluding chapter of the DGS Hibiki manga but they were not able to fit the entire chapter in one issue so next month’s issue will be the real end.