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anwo-prinz · 7 years

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Anime Expo Anisong World Matsuri ~kawaii live~ 2017 Post-concert essay

Okay so here’s my really long write up about the concert. Includes pictures and background info on call books I helped with. tl;dr I cried a lot.

pre-concert: I had already been planning to attend Anime Expo 2017 since I’m fairly local to the area (I live in Southern California) so it was easy for me. However, the moment AX announced WUG and Cinderella Girls for a Day 0 concert, I was so shocked! I never thought that WUG would return nor that imas would ever come to the US. I’ve been a fan of both since the WUG anime came out, and for CG through the original mobage (mostly rolled over from 765 animas though). Of course, most people know me as an ArisuP.

Once the announcement was official, I caught wind of people who wanted to organize creating fan call books for the live. I signed up to help as an artist for the imas CG call book and the WUG call book. I was happy to be able to contribute to those teams and was really excited about our books!

Here are the pages that I helped with. WUG chara chibis, Nanamin, Miria, and Arisu doing calls.

Bonus - I did the back cover for both of them!

https://twitter.com/suna_chika/status/876980186490601473

While signal boosting for WUG call books before the show, the WUG character designer, Sunao Chikaoka, noticed our book! He said the outfits were cute.

I was able to get a copy of all 4 of the call books that were passed out!

actual concert time:

CG Setlist:

Star!

Goin'

Yumeiro Harmony

Yes! Party Time!

Onegai! Cinderella!

Performers: Mika, Anzu, Kirari, Miria, Frederica, Kanade I couldn’t believe that CG was the opening act because they were the group I was most hype for. They opened with the first 2 songs, then did introductions, they did a short MC section where they showed the Cinderella Girls Theater clips and Cinderella Girls anime clips and had the girls voicing their lines. Mika/Miria was the first one, followed by Anzu/Kirari. Frederica and Kanade did theirs solo. I was really happy that the audience seemed to like it and new fans could put faces to the characters. By the way, I was pretty much crying through the entire thing and cheering as hard as I could being choked up. My favorite was Yes! Party Time! and that was SO HYPE! Seeing their outfits glitter up close, every girl was so cute. I especially loved Iidashi since I have a Cool idol bias haha.

Mika was also the designated leader & center, which I loved - felt very old-school CG (back before Mio became the poster passion idol). The only thing is that I wished they had done some solo songs (Hotel Moonside, Ankira, Tokimeki...) or some group songs like Orange Sapphire or Tulip. Ah, well. It felt really like it was a very safe approach.

Also, none of the girls tried to speak English to the audience if I’m remembering correctly. My Japanese isn’t fluent, but I can understand a bit. So the impression their act came off was kind of like “Well, to like iM@S, you should already know Japanese! Also, come to a proper live in Japan to experience us fully” haha. They didn’t bring a fully cohesive unit so I think that’s why they mostly stuck to the group songs, which did feel a bit generic. But that’s not to say I didn’t cry like a little baby because IMAS FIRST WESTERN APPEARANCE AHHH I LOVE ;_;

WUG Setlist:

Tachiagare!

Shoujo Koukyoukyoku

Koi? de Ai? de Boukun desu!

Beyond the Bottom

7 Girls War

Gokujou Smile

Performers: Full Group (7)

MY GOD WUG WAS SO STRONG. They were such a cohesive group. Mayushi and Yoppi’s vocals were AMAZING, I really loved them. The last time I’d seen one of their lives (BD, not in-person), it was one of the first ones they did so they were very unpolished. But seeing the difference in the 3 years that’ve passed... It felt very emotional, realizing that they had really worked so hard to become as amazing as they are now, and that there’s a 4th Live Tour (which I’m planning to see, hopefully!).

Having them open with the 2 very strongly anime-based story songs, and having come right after CG, I had NO TIME to recover at all, so I was really a huge screaming sobbing mess during WUG’s performance. During the intro segments, I was again crying as I cheered on each girl. It was really cute, they told us their nicknames as well “Please call me Ai-chan!” or “Please call me Yoppi!” (though, in Japanese mostly)

I felt that most of the audience wasn’t very familiar with WUG when they first started, but by the end of it I could feel that so many people had become fans of theirs. Their choreography was absolutely stunning to see, and hearing them perform live was a whole different experience to seeing their lives on a computer screen. Not to mention the emotional bond of following them as the underdog idol series, it was truly an amazing experience I’ll never forget.

Walkure Setlist:

Koi! HALATION THE WAR

Ikenai Borderline

Bokura no Senjou

Ichido Dake no Koi Nara

Rune ga Pikatto Hikattara

Performers: Minori Suzuki, JUNNA

Thank god we had an intermission before Walkure or else I may have gone through cardiac arrest right on the spot. I was able to collect myself a bit though I spent the entire intermission still sobbing and reeling from the two groups I regarded the most highly. Anyway, I’m not familiar with Macross but I did listen to a lot of Walkure songs since they’re very catchy. It was really something to be able to see it performed live.. with just 2 out of 5 members present, Minorin and Junna really captivated the theater and you could feel their amazing presence. The songs were incredibly hype, really pumped up the audience and not to mention Junna’s talent is just... I’m really speechless!

Walkure was really cute because Minorin interacted a lot with the audience (”Do you like ANIME? Do you like WALKURE?”). They asked what countries people had come from to see this concert, so of course USA, but also Canada (”Ah, that’s right! It’s near America!”), China, and they even heard Dis shout out “SCOTLAND!” at which they were very surprised. They also asked where was the best place to eat burgers, so everyone shouted in unison IN-N-OUT! and it was very cute.

The last song being Rune ga Pikatto Hikattara made me extremely happy! It’s my favorite song by them. Minorin taught the audience how to do the Woa-woa, whoa-whoa-whoaaa call before they performed it. She wasn’t satisfied with us at all! She kept making us repeat it at least 3 times! She is so cute, and her acapella singing for the chorus part was great. I definitely cried and now I feel very emotional whenever Walkure songs come up on shuffle.

Also it was adorable how Junna wasn’t allowed to say the good-bye because she’s 16 and can’t work after 10pm hahaha.

Aqours Setlist:

Aozora Jumping Heart

Kimi no Kokoro wa Kagayaiteru kai?

Koi ni Naritai AQUARIUM

MIRAI TICKET

Yume Kataru yori Yume Utaou

Performers: Full Group (9)

I have to admit here: I am a fan of Love Live’s μ's but I have very, very little emotional bond with Aqours and Love Live Sunshine, nor am I familiar with their songs. However, that’s not to say they weren’t great! I thought they really were stunning live. It was amazing how in sync they were with each other, not to mention the seiyuus are sooo pretty. During their songs, in the background screens it showed the animated scenes of the songs and their dancing matched up perfectly. It was really cool to experience! Plus, the audience was really hyped up (of course, I’m sure that’s what most of the people were there for). However, by the end of the concert I was already tapped out of energy so it was a bit hard to enjoy, and I felt that the Aqours songs were about the same generic, safe sort of songs like the CG full group songs, and that their vocals were weak and not very distinctive in comparison to Walkure and WUG. But I’m also glad they were the last to perform since all the Love Live people were forced to stay until the very end and experience every other idol group. lol. They also had the most English of each group, I think? Iirc, Riko was pretty fluent almost.

Overall, it was a seriously amazing live and I can’t believe I still survived the remaining 4 full days of Anime Expo after that. I really truly hope that this concert showed the Japanese industry how much of a western audience there is for idols, and that there were lots of new fans for WUG and CG after that concert!

Also: I was able to sit quite close up and in the center since my friend snagged an orchestra seat for us! I was happy to get seat 315 because I love SideM.

Lastly, there are no pictures or recordings allowed DURING the live. However you can usually find stuff from staff twitters of the performers and behind-the-scenes pictures from them. That’s pretty standard and mostly why you’ll only see drawings or tweets from people after JP lives.

#personal #anime expo #anisong world matsuri

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