素直な気持ち伝えるのさ

Back from Tokyo, and from seeing Shounentachi for a second time, and also the saien of *pnish*'s Samurai Mode! I'm going to try to write up Shounentachi this year (and also write up last year's for posterity, because I really enjoyed last year's more), but right now, I'm totally in awe of how great Samurai Mode was. Please forgive the non-Johnny's gushing and rambling... it's super nostalgic for me and I want to get all my feelings out XD;

( Spoilers for Samurai Mode! )

I know I'm really behind in stuff, but I needed to get all my nostalgic feelings out, ahaha ^^;;; And seriously, if you're into theatre and in Japan, I definitely recommend *pnish*'s works!

I always do the same 3 memes at the beginning of every year, so here's the first! This is the writing meme, where I link and talk about all my fics from 2015. It's always interesting me to look over all my work from one year together, so hopefully it's interesting to people who are not me, too. ^^;; So without further ado:

( Fics for 2015! )

While fic writing in 2015 had its ups and downs, I wrote some things I really like this past year. ♥ Here's to hoping I can continue to produce works I'm proud of in 2016, too!

First and foremost, NEW JUMP SINGLE!!! I was so excited when I saw the announcement. Rumour has it that it's going to be for a face wash commercial? But whatever it's for, I'm really excited and happy. ♥

But in terms of my life, this weekend was a lot of fun! Shounentachi was really good, and I enjoyed it a lot for a lot of reasons. The SixTONES guys were amazing; they clearly worked hard, and while, to my dancer's eyes, it was clear they weren't on the same level as Snow Man, I think they basically held their own. They were super cute and totally put their hearts into the show, and you could tell. I don't want to spoil anything here (I'll write a report after I see it for the second time), but Yugo and Jesse were seriously adorable. Hokuto was super super cute, too, and they were all really amazing. Also, new song!!! It was really amazing to see them in their own costumes made for them singing their own song made for them… ;____; Three years ago, when I first saw them live in concert in Bakaleya Summary, I never would have believed something like this would happen. They've come so far and I'm so proud of them!

Our tickets for this show (row E) were, as it turns out, the 8th row, because I didn't realize that the first three rows were XA, XB, and XC, and they were also all the way off to one side, but I was right next to the door to the hall, so I got to see some of the guys really close when they came in the door. We were also still really close to the stage and able to see the guys acting really, really well, so it was a great experience. The tickets I hit for, though, during Silver Week, are for row C, and also in the center section, and right on an aisle that a lot of the guys go down during various parts of the show, so I'm really looking forward to seeing what that's like!

For now, though, I have two weeks of downtime to catch up on everything that I let slide during the craziness that was the beginning of the term and the English Speech Contest. I'm really sorry if I haven't responded to people's messages and comments yet, I promise I'm getting there!!

Whew. This has been a really long week. Going to Nagoya was so much fun, but man was it hard to get back into the swing of things once I got back XD Having mini-orientations for the new ALTs has been really tiring, and I don't have any energy left by the end of the day. On the bright side, today my guy friend came over to watch more JUMP videos, and he seemed to continue to love Chinen, so that's good XD;;

I'm really sorry all my entries have been so sort and crappy recently; I do actually have real content to post, but because I'm so tired by the end of the day, it doesn't end up posted. But I have various photos I want to post, and I'm going to get done my reports one day, I promise, so just bear with me? I'm sorry I'm such a boring person.

On the bright side of small things I've managed, I updated my list of events with report links here, and I've gone to 57 concerts and events so far! Wow! I'm looking forward to adding Shounentachi in September and the last 3 shows of JUMPing CARnival in October!

Looks like I'll be seeing the Gamushara Summer Station from the balcony! I'm pretty happy with that; I like the balcony and there's less… claustrophobia and the feeling of being crushed? XD You're still really close, either way, so I'm looking forward to it!

In other news, I'm totally sad that new JUMP photos have come out in the shop and I won't be able to get them until after I get back from America T__T; I don't know if I mentioned it here before, but I'm visiting America to see my family and stuff in two weeks… and I won't be able to get to Tokyo before then, sigh. I also really want to get paparazzi photos from Waku Waku T___T; I guess it'll all have to wait until August.

Sorry that 90% of my posts are boring life updates lol. Summer break starts in two weeks and I'm so ready. Once I get recharged, hopefully I'll be more interesting. |D;

Unrelatedly, I love this song liek woah. Kitty Ino-chan. ♥

And here's the report for the Sunday show of Gamushara J's Party Vol. 7! It's been a long time, so my memory has faded some, but here's what I remember. It was a really cute show ♥

( Gamushara J's Party Vol. 7! )

Whew. That took more effort than I expected |D;;; I didn't get much done this weekend, did I? T__T;;; Oh well, now that I'm well rested I'll try to keep up my productivity over the next week!

I'm going to try to get my quick write up of Crea done now before my memory fades! Because 1) the show was extremely short (an hour and 15 minutes, plus two encores, making it about an hour and 30 minutes total), 2) I went alone, so I don't have anyone to help refresh my memory, and 3) I honestly don't have that much to say about it, this is going to be a short bullet-point writeup, rather than full report. As always, the focus is the experience for me, not the setlist or every detail, which you can probably find on twitter. Also, seeing as it's me, it's going to be pretty Reia-focused, because Reia is who I watched. That being said, I included information about other guys, too-- just a warning that I had my Reia goggles on while watching.

( Johnny's Ginza @ Theatre Crea, 2015.5.12 )

Sorry that was sort of short and lame, but it was sort of a short and lame show XD; I hope it was at least somewhat informative and amusing, though.

Just a quick drive by post to say I'm going to Nara and Osaka for 5 days for Golden Week, so I'll be away from my computer! I'll be checking my email and (hopefully) getting comment and PM notifications, so you can still reach me, it might just take a while for me to get back to you!

Also, congratulations to the former Bakaleya6 on getting an official group name! 6 Tones~ I hope this means good things for them in the future!

Only an hour until Reia turns 18! ;___; I can't believe how much he's grown! It doesn't seem like so long ago when he was just a little kid in the background of Snow Prince, and now he's all grown up. He's accomplished so much in the past 5 and a half years, both as a performer and as a person, and I'm so proud of him.

Since I'm going out of town tomorrow and might not be able to post about it, I figured I'd do his birthday post a few hours early.



Happy birthday, Reia! ♥

Happy birthday to a hardworking and dedicated junior, a loyal and wonderful friend, and a talented performer who simply exudes love and joy every time he's in front of an audience. You've come so far, and no matter what the situation, I know you'll find a place to shine. I feel so lucky that I've gotten to watch you grow and become a brighter and brighter star over the past few years. Your existence is a gift to everyone around you, but I hope you get some nice thing for your birthday, and are able to spend the day with the people you love. Your fans are all thinking of you and supporting you. ♥

( Some more images and gifs in celebration! )

I'll be having cake to celebrate tomorrow! But I'll be out of town, so I may not be around LJ much. I hope everyone has a good Reia's birthday, anyway~

Because I just want to address this and get it out of the way and out of my life, here's what I was moaning about yesterday:

Nakajima Kento, Kikuchi Fuma, and Sato Shori of Sexy Zone have been announced as the supporters for the 2015 FIVB Volleyball World Cup (source). Yes, that does have the implications that you think it has-- they're apparently in the place of what should have been the new 2015 volleyball debut.

In case this isn't something that's common knowledge, just a little history on the volleyball debut: It's a tradition that started in 1995 with V6 and has happened every four years since then. The FIVB World Cup is a big deal Olympics qualifier volleyball event that happens in Japan every four years, and since 1995, Johnny's has been supplying the popular media "support group" and song for this event. V6 was followed by Arashi (1999), then NEWS (2003), then Hey! Say! JUMP (2007), and finally Sexy Zone (2011).

Up until this year, the FIVB Volleyball World Cup has always happened in November. This means that all the volleyball debuts have been announced in September and their debut single dropped in November. For that reason, we celebrate these groups' anniversary in September even though their debut date is actually in November. I don't really understand this tradition (debut is debut imho), but either way, end of September and mid November are the key time periods in (almost) every volleyball debut. This is something that's gone on for the past 20 years now.

However, this year, for reasons unknown to me, the FIVB Volleyball World Cup has been pushed up to August. That would mean, for a new group to be supporting it, the debut announcement would have to happen at the end of June and their debut would be in August. That's a whole three months earlier than every single volleyball debut for the past 20 years.

But for reasons also unknown to me, instead, the front three members of Sexy Zone have been announced as the supporters of this year's world cup. This breaks with 20 years of Johnny's tradition and is, for a variety of reasons, pretty surprising and alarming to me. First of all, Johnny's tradition is pretty good. I like Johnny's for a reason-- that it's Johnny's. Them changing their formulas and breaking long-standing, important traditions is not something that particularly comforts me or makes me happy. Second, the volleyball debut is a big deal, and an important chance for juniors. Not knowing when it will happen or if it will happen at all is highly concerning. And of course, third, all those Sexy Zone-related issues. But that's another matter for another post that I am almost certainly not going to make.

Still, perhaps it's a personal flaw or perhaps it's because we all want to find some sense of security in the craziness that is Johnny's, but it's all I can do to give a few options of what may happen from here. Note that in the past 20 years, there have been some changes in the pattern of the volleyball debut, so this does not necessarily signify the end of an important tradition.

Therefore, with no further ado, my hypotheses for what might happen:
① A support group may be announced in June at Johnny's West's Kobe shows (for a Julie group) or at a yet-unannounced Sexy Zone, Kis-My-Ft2, or ABC-Z performance in June (for an Iijima group). Having two supporters, one from a previous volleyball unit, is not unheard of; Sakurai Sho was a supporter along with Hey! Say! JUMP in 2007.
↳ ⓐ Therefore, a new group may debut on an expedited timeline of June → August and present along with the Sexy Zone members, perhaps with Sexy Zone's presence to draw interest for the new group.
↳ ⓑ An alternate theory is that, like NEWS, the new group may be a Junior unit, perhaps presented as secondary backers to the Sexy Zone members. NEWS so far is the only volleyball support group that was considered a Junior unit at the time of the FIVB World Cup, but that doesn't necessarily rule out something similar happening again, with a debut following in the year after.
↳ ⓒ A third option is that Sexy Zone's participation may be an out-and-out lie, as with Johnny's strange fake announcement of ABC-xyZ back in 2011.

② The agency may be choosing to keep the new group on the same timeline, September → November, regardless of support opportunities. The FIVB World Cup itself has little to do with the debut besides it being the supposed reason; Johnny's debuts non-volleyball groups with equal frequency, so there's no actual legitimate necessity for the "volleyball debut" to actually be a debut with relation to volleyball. It may still follow the same formula (the timeline, the age gap, the "fresh" members… see my post here, and then the following two here and here for more details) but simply be unrelated to this year's World Cup.

③ The agency may choose to have the group support the 2016 summer Olympics instead, either having them debut in the same September → November time frame, or perhaps pushing back the debut into 2016. This would be odd to me, but I don't necessarily think it's impossible. It might also fall into the same category as option ②, if the group were to debut in November and then just happen to do the support for the Olympics.

④ Perhaps there will be no volleyball debut at all, and Johnny's will, once again, completely thwart my continued attempts to understand it.

Frankly, I don't see how the agency could possibly benefit from breaking with tradition. The volleyball unit is a carefully and very intelligently concocted formula: it creates interest from a wide range of fans with members with a wide age spectrum, it draws the support of Junior fans while still keeping them paying for Junior events as well by splitting up popular Junior units and leaving some popular Juniors behind to continue to head up the Junior fandom, and it captivates fans for a long period of time to watch the completely new group come together, form a bond, and grow. This method has been a great success in the past (considering Arashi is a volleyball unit), and is, in my opinion, an integral part of contemporary Johnny's as a subcategory of popular entertainment. I really can't imagine how not having such a debut at all could be seen as a positive from a marketing or image-branding standpoint.

But at the end of the day, I don't work for Johnny's, and I can't really make any statements with certainty. So for the time being, I'm just going to leave it with this and hope for the best.