>>>KENICHI ITO in TSUMAGOI (First THE GLIMMER Fan Club Event) (2005.03.19~20 @ YAMAHA Tsumagoi Hotel)
Upon arrival we were briefed on the schedual, and sent to our rooms. My room featured myself, Haruka-who-I-had-no-interest-in-looking-at-her-stupid-face, some other girl, and two other girls. Five of us. I wonder if any of them thought, "Perfect, I'm in the gaijin's room." We all headed downstairs again in big clumps for the first event... PHOTOS WITH KEN! We were herded outside in our group clumps (of course I'd signed up with Haru, so she was not ONLY on my bus and in my room, but in my group, so we ended up doing EVERYTHING TOGETHER and it was basically difficult to deal with the awkwardness). Kenichi APPEARED!!! He completely blinded us with his bright yellow suit that he wore for most of the first day. Kennnn where do you get your awesome fashion ideas from? I told Kaede and Haine who were completely panicking that Ken looked like a giant banana. They laughed.
After the photoshoot was the live. We went back to our rooms for a short time beforehand, I believe, and everyone who is girly did their makeup and obsessed and whatever the heck. Then again, we all herded down in big stupid Kenichi fan herds. So far so good for me - I got an awesome photo with Ken, and how could anything at his live possibly suck? Kenichi's lives are never short of stupid jokes, great music, and awesome guitar. So onto the second event... KENICHI LIVE!!
Ken: Do you from Japan?
Ken: (in Japanese) NO PROBLEM means no problems, right? I wonder what it means if there's problems. (looking at me) In English...The best part about this live is that, I caught Kenichi's pic... the new SEXX pic design. It has been nestled into my wallet with my Kansai pic, where the Iceman pic I caught from Daisuke should also be, but is not. (T_T) After the live was...
Not only was I the same table as Haru, but she arrived last and the only seat left was one next to me, AAAARRGH. It was okay, because, THERE WAS DELICIOUS FOODS! Kenchi came out sometime afterwards and chatted with us (he'd also come out earlier to tell us to eat all the food), then introduced his buddies, Mizue and the group. Then they decided to sit down and enjoy the karaoke and shiritori contest. They sat down at the table right next to me. Like, Kenichi Ito was sitting right next to me. He had to look over my head in order to look at stage. I could have shifted over a few feet and sat in his lap. Then he started smoking. I was squirming. It was like being in a restraunt where people can't even stop their addiction to enjoy good food, and I wanna slap them for making bad smells towards me as well, but this was Kenichi, and as much as I wanted to slap him, I also wanted to grip his face in my hands and shove my tongue down his sexy throat. Er... I mean.... moving on, only three people applied to do Karaoke. Well... three "contestants" lets say. One girl was cosplaying Yohei from E-Machine. She looked AMAZING and sang The Super Star. She was damn good. The next girl was so-so singing IROAI. Then... a group of about 10 people, some Ken cosplayers, some just looking cute, got up there and sang MA KA FU SHI GI!!...they were hilarious. In the end, Yohei-Girl won, and Kenichi gave her a prize... I think it was a new IPOD, or a new PSP game system... one of those. Whichever it wasn't, was given to the winner of the Shiritori, a Japanese game based on having a mind like a thesarus and thinking in hiragana. Oh yeah - after the girls did Karaoke, Tohru, Ken's dumbass friend, got up and sang S.W.E.E.T. very very badly, forgetting the words and flapping around like a big dumbass. Kenichi got miffed at him and climbed on stage to sing the song himself, NOT forgetting the words, but dancing in the same really stupid, faggoty way. Awesome.
KENICHI ROOM VISIT AND MORE PHOTOS! We all tittered around like schoolgirls, panicking and the girly ones obsessed over makeup and hair. You had two choices: take a photo with Ken using your cellphone, or let them snap a polaroid. Of COURSE I was going to use my amazing Vodafone that was brand new and has an amazingly awesome camera! The staffer who came in before Ken appeared told me to take a ton of "Rehersal Shots", because I was the only one in my room using my cell phone and I would only get "one chance". The staffer helped us fold one girl's bed into a couch, and oh yeah - I had my moment of supreme kindness, because Haru'd left the room when the staff came to let us know Ken was coming - she'd assumed our room was last. I called her phone number and told her briefly "Ken is coming NOW" and she didn't say a word back and hung up on me, but still appeared. Woulda missed him if I hadn't called - but declined to say thank you at all. This is one of many examples of this girl being a complete asshole. Can anybody tell her presence really was the one bad thing going on? Despite wishing I hadn't been nice, I was ecstatic when Kenichi walked in and commented that we were dorks for lining up and going IRRASHAIMASE! when he walked in. I watched as he sat with the other four girls on the couch...sat about a foot away from them on the couch, that is, as they had their photos taken. I was last since I was going with a phone. I sat down next to him and he SCOOCHED closer to me so our bodies were pressed tight together. I grinned and stuck my phone out in front of us, so we could peer into the preview window. I wish I wasn't so nervous so I could have taken a good minute with him to pick a good pose, but I hit the button - please don't let it blur - no blur! But we were both making the weirdest creepy people faces... yet it's normal for Kenichi! Captured in photo forever!!! AND IT'S MY NEW FAVOURITE PHOTO OF ALL TIME! Ken ken ken... thank you. When it was done I showed it to him for approval, and he was like "Ooh" at the high quality. Yeah bitch! Suck my phone! V (you can click the photo for a bigger size) V
I slept well. The next day was mostly a wrap up day. We got breakfast at the hotel's restraunt - it was so-so. I sat with my rapper bus buddy and she showed me her polaroid - another one looking identical to the girls in my room. I decided I was officialy very, very happy I hadn't gone with the polaroid. After breakfast we headed back into the hall where the live had been. Kenichi came out and chatted with us, then unveiled his GIFT TIME! Old stuff he'd bought and wanted to give to us as prizes instead of keeping. He gave away lots of stuff - a sweater, a ring, even a guitar, among others. The girl right next to me got the ring - and she let me try it on! Kenichi said that Yoshihara-san, who I call the Possum, a hairdresser with SMOKER, had bene wearing the same ring - so Kenichi bought one too, but they found it didn't fit his fat fingers and decided to give it to his slender young girl fans. Gosh, it barely fit on my fat fingers either. We have so much in common. He also gave away another weekend stay free at the Tsumagoi resort... I woulda hit it. Too bad I won NONE of the raffle draws. Afterwards we lined up to get our gift from Ken - a MAKEUP CASE boooo I don't USE makeup! Even Ken uses more makeup than me. Because I use none. Maybe I'll use it for pencils or something someday. Anyway when I got up to him, he smiled and I told him in Japanese, "Do your best with English, Ken-chan". He paused, struggling for a moment as if he wanted to reply in English, before finally just going in Japanese, "I'll do my best.". On the way out we picked up our photos from the day before, from the first photo shoot. Nice times. Shortly after that, we were boarding the bus and heading for another six hour ride back to Shinjuku... Overall? I started this report about how nervous I was, how the breakup with Haru had made me wary, how fans disliking me in general made me wary... but in the end, despite some awkwardness I would have done anything to avoid, it was amazing. I have only good memories, and good photos, and a makeup case that... I'm not sure what I'll ever do with. Dunno what to say... this trip was extremely expensive and worth it just for those two shots. I waited so long for them. Thank you, Ken-chan. <3
Photo Special!
Cosplayers, fans, friends
and stuff!
Sunday 20th
Set List
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I
woke up very early and headed into Shinjuku alone the morning of the fan
club event I'd waited so long for. Truth is, I really am disliked by Ken's
fans, and I freed myself from the tyranny of Haruka, so I had somewhat
lost my interest in spending 2 entire days by myself surrounded by people
who just flat out don't like me being alive. As I found the bus stop and
waited as far away from the other fans as I could, I pondered the itinerary
and wondered if I'd be able to enjoy myself... Ken, were you going to give
me a fun time? I knew nothing of Shizuoka, or this Tsumagoi Hotel, but
I was familiar with very long, boring trips in cramped buses - as much
as I dislike bus travel, at least I have gotten used to it.
I
could describe from this point on how boring the bus ride was, with the
minor exceptions of my buying new sunglasses, but you can figure out how
bored I was just by looking at the photos of Gin to your left and right.
Booooring. I can't recall exactly how long the bus ride was... six hours?
Something like that. Not as bad as eight hours each way to Osaka, but still
bad. I did get to know the girl sitting next to me, who looked like she
wanted badly to be a rapper's girlfriend. She was also going it alone,
so I admired the two of us. Kaede and Haine were on the same bus as me,
and although they sat far back, we giggled and sent eachother little pictures
of ourselves making kissy faces.
We
slowly, group by group, were led to pose with Ken for photos. The arrangment
was: Ken sat in the middle chair. Two people sat on either side. The rest
stood behind him. You got whichever spot you could get to fastest. For
my group, I chose to stand behind Kenichi so I could feel tall. Before
the shot was taken, Ken looked at me and slowly leaned towards me, tilting
his head in my direction. Away from you-know-who. It's an awesome picture,
to say the least, you guys, even though the wind was blowing like a bitch
and I forgot to take off my googly pink sunglasses.
I'm
not going to go into serious details about this live, because I wanna write
a short and sweet essay on this fan club event, not ten pages on why every
song moves me and makes me bounce and scream and dance. However I do want
to mention Kenichi did TAKE ON ME, by Ah-ha. Oh, god. I'd been hoping for
so long to hear him since this live, since I knew he'd performed it at
another banquet and I'd missed it... and he did it! He did it live!! Along
with lots of other English songs.. his English was almost getting better,
or so I thought. During his MC (Mic Chat? We still don't know what this
means) he first was trying to figure out who had come the farthest and
spent thirty minutes or more forgetting where places and towns are located
in Japan, forgetting whether or not Kansai is still called Kinki or what
is called Kinki anyway? Where is this town? i forgot what that place is?
So on and so forth. Finally he said of course! We have someone from overseas
here. And pointed at me (I've become so used to this!), thus initiating
intelligent conversation:
BUFFET
STYLE FOOD at the PARTY!
So
we headed back to our rooms to wait for....
Schedule
