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blodeueddDream Live 7th was over a week and a half ago, and I haven't said anything about it yet. Shock! Horror! Disbelief!
In keeping with the trend, I will start by explaining how tenimyu changed my life. It wasn't that I saw a show and BAM! I was in love, or that suddenly made me want to do, or become, or learn, something I'd never thought about before, but it set things in motion.
I started watching The Prince of Tennis (anime) back at the beginning of 2008. I'd been in Japan for nearly a year and a half, had left G almost a year previously, was working, but had precious little social life except for my friend C, and the company of the ladies of the Tokyo Stitch 'n' Bitch, when I managed to gather the nerve to go. I wasn't sure where I'd be six months from then, as I was starting to tell myself it was really time to move on, that I didn't want to work at the Embassy much longer (and thus be sort of dependant on G), but where to go? I liked Japan, sure, but there wasn't anything holding me there.
And then... the musical tennis happened. I saw some screencaps of the very first myu on a website I stumbled upon, couldn't believe that such a thing actually existed, then found myself downloading it to find out more, and couldn't stop giggling about it. I mean, guys dancing with tennis racquets! *rofl* It was so incredibly cheesy! Some of the songs were catchy, though. Then I realised that not only had they made more than one show, the shows were still going on. In fact, I'd just missed the Higa show! But thanks to various lj comms, I found out that another show would be happening in May, and thought, "Hmm, maybe I should try to get a ticket..." Again, thanks to the tenipuri comms, I figured out how to trick the Loppi machine into giving me a ticket.
Since I didn't know anyone, I bought a single ticket, telling myself I'd post on a comm to see if anyone else was going that same day. But the show was a month or so away, so there was no rush, right? As usual, I ended up procrastinating until a couple of days before the show, I believe. I feel stupid about it now, but I really was incredibly nervous about posting. Not because I was afraid nobody would reply, or that nobody would be going to the same show, but what if someone replied, and we met up, and things ended up being awkward because I'm socially inept? I'd become so used to being on my own and to not meeting new people outside of a professional context, or a very casual, semi-anonymous group setting (Stitch 'n' Bitch), that I had little faith in my ability to make new friends. Or, what if the person or people I met were obsessed with nothing but tenimyu and I, the newbie, had no idea what they were talking about?
Luckily, my fears proved groundless.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
tayles and later_uk offered to meet up with me in Shibuya before heading down to Yokohama, and I was relieved to find out that I wasn't a total loser who didn't know how to talk to people.
And the show? Good lord, there were flying pirates, Tezuka up in the rafters, and Masa dancing on the small stage two rows away to convince me that I ought to care about Rikkai a bit more than I had been doing. How could I not love it?
The most important thing, though, was that meeting some new people gave me the confidence I needed to go out and meet more. When the PoT friending meme popped up around that time, I deliberately sought out Tokyo-area people, thinking that maybe I could eventually hang out in person with them, even if it was only at the next myu. And you know what? It turned out that many of them knew each other already! And through them I met more awesome people, and now I've got an amazing group of friends who I can do lots of cool things with besides watching guys dance with tennis racquets. <3 So having come full circle, starting and ending at Yokohama Arena, I'm incredibly grateful for the silliness that is tenimyu. No matter where it goes from here, and whether or not I keep following it, it helped me lay the groundwork for a life I love.
Dream Live 7th was huge! I saw it twice: Saturday at noon (regular Rikkai, Shitenhouji B, Rokkaku's Davide, and Seigaku 4th gen as guests) and Sunday at noon (switch Rikkai, Shitenhouji A, Rokkaku's Kisarazu Ryou, and Fudoumine's Ishida, Sakurai and Tachibana, as well as Rokkaku's Aoi as guests). I got the pamphlet and the t-shirt, but they'd sold out of penlights and posters long before I set foot in Yokohama. Though that's perhaps not all bad, as I don't really have any room to put up another poster!
At Saturday's show, we were in block C, in the middle, so we had a good view of both stages. On Sunday, we were right beside the end of the thrust stage, so while we couldn't see the small stage at all, pretty much, we had a great view of the front. Fuji spotted us within five seconds of coming out on stage at the very beginning of the show. XD
Here are the salient points, because I don't feel like writing an actual review. And you've either seen it yourself or read a better write-up elsewhere already, anyway. (I go by character names for the most part, it's easier for me that way. ^_^;)
- Compared to DL6, this one seemed to have even less talking -- 1st cast and guest bits excepted -- and I thought DL6 had way less than DL5 did.
- Tezuka's put on weight! At least in the face; he doesn't look like a scary skeleton anymore. Not sure about his legs, as he didn't come out in shorts at all.
- Rikkai got the best songs, and I really, really love this Yukimura. He had the incredibly difficult task of convincing us that the guy everyone's in awe of actually IS that good, and he pulled it off. He's got the perfect look, the presence, and even better, he can sing!
- Masa was great, as usual, and his imitation of Fuji was hilarious. On the other hand, I came to appreciate the other Niou, and he had crazy chemistry with Shiraishi A.
- Likewise, switch!Kirihara was really good. I can't really say much about switch!Yagyuu, since he didn't do all that much.
- Speaking of Rikkai, the next time I talk to my brother I can reassure him that "Everybody still really likes the tall guy in yellow." Oh, Kane...
- Shiraishi's video was all kinds of love. And Shiraishi B sticking his rose in his pants... XDDD
- Shitenhouji in general was the embodiement of all that is fun and good and cracky in the world. I can't wait for the DVD, if just to see their little jaunt through the audience. Maracas! *dies laughing*
- They sang all the classics. "V.I.C.T.O.R.Y!"
- The captain's bitching session was great. Saturday's was funnier ("Gekokujo, gekokujo, that's all the guy ever talks about!" "Oh yeah? I hear nothing but 'Koharu-kuuuuun!' 'Yuuji-kuuuun' all day long, they're impossible to pry apart!" and Yukimura finally admitted to hating the sound of Marui chewing gum), but Sunday's show had Atobe imitating Kirihara's demon laugh, which was just about the scariest/funniest thing ever.
- 1st gen Seigaku's bit was nice. Tezuka's "I'm a third year," was still perfectly deadpan, and Inui was adorable, of course*. I'm glad that they had an Inui juice bit on Sunday. It was much more interesting than what they did Saturday (which was just talking about what they did in their spare time, iirc).
- Nagayama totally out-femmed Kimeru in looks, which shouldn't even be possible! Kimeru's make-up was inexcusably bad on Saturday, but he looked good on Sunday.
- 4th gen Seikagu's talk bit was amusing, and not only because of Daisuke's hair (it gets larger every time I see the guy!) and Kachirou's pyjama pants. Missing were Momo, Echizen and Mao ("He's sorry he can't be here, he's busy protecting the world!"). 4th Kawamura is so cute and smiley, I just want to keep him in my pocket. <3
- The guest bit on Sunday was quite funny, featuring an Ishida family reunion ("I'm so happy to see you, brother-I've-never-met!"), a Rokkaku reunion (Aoi looks like an elf with that longish hair), and the worst clothes I've ever seen on a tenimyu guy (a t-shirt with black and white polkadot sleeves under a vest -- the only decent part of the outfit -- baggy capri pants with a scroll pattern that I at first mistook for feathers, layered over silver lamé leggings, and brown motorcycle boots; I'm sorry, Mamo, but your outfit needs to be dragged out and shot. Still, as hideous as it was, what Shirota Jun wore back at Pati*Nights was worse. XD;
- 5th Echizen has won me over. First of all, he's the only one who managed to make me care about the character** (though that's partly because of the script, since he got what amounts to the only bit of character growth Echizen ever gets, and even then, the realisation that "Tennis is fun!" is not character development, Konomi!), and then on Saturday, he was standing in our section of the stands, and he maintained eye-contact with me long enough to give me a sort of bemused smile, like he was wondering how on earth three foreign girls and a guy had come to be at the show. Sunday was even better, because we were right by where his cable was hooked up, so I got to see the look on his face as he prepared to soar over the crowd: his expression was an adorable little grin, like, "I can't believe I'm getting paid to do this and thousands of girls are squealing about it."
Am I forgetting anything? This is long enough, I think.
* I realised that the reason I think of my ballet teacher as "Inui-sensei" is because he reminds me an awful lot of this version of Inui. ^_^
** Unless you count all the incarnations of Echizen, not just tenimyu, in which case I love the Chinese one to bits.
Thank you, tenimyu, for the crackiness and the fun times and the great friends I've made.
And that was the second of three promised posts! Will I get the last one done before I leave for Korea? *suspensesuspensesuspense* Who knows, but in less than 48 hours, I'll be in Korea! :D
In keeping with the trend, I will start by explaining how tenimyu changed my life. It wasn't that I saw a show and BAM! I was in love, or that suddenly made me want to do, or become, or learn, something I'd never thought about before, but it set things in motion.
I started watching The Prince of Tennis (anime) back at the beginning of 2008. I'd been in Japan for nearly a year and a half, had left G almost a year previously, was working, but had precious little social life except for my friend C, and the company of the ladies of the Tokyo Stitch 'n' Bitch, when I managed to gather the nerve to go. I wasn't sure where I'd be six months from then, as I was starting to tell myself it was really time to move on, that I didn't want to work at the Embassy much longer (and thus be sort of dependant on G), but where to go? I liked Japan, sure, but there wasn't anything holding me there.
And then... the musical tennis happened. I saw some screencaps of the very first myu on a website I stumbled upon, couldn't believe that such a thing actually existed, then found myself downloading it to find out more, and couldn't stop giggling about it. I mean, guys dancing with tennis racquets! *rofl* It was so incredibly cheesy! Some of the songs were catchy, though. Then I realised that not only had they made more than one show, the shows were still going on. In fact, I'd just missed the Higa show! But thanks to various lj comms, I found out that another show would be happening in May, and thought, "Hmm, maybe I should try to get a ticket..." Again, thanks to the tenipuri comms, I figured out how to trick the Loppi machine into giving me a ticket.
Since I didn't know anyone, I bought a single ticket, telling myself I'd post on a comm to see if anyone else was going that same day. But the show was a month or so away, so there was no rush, right? As usual, I ended up procrastinating until a couple of days before the show, I believe. I feel stupid about it now, but I really was incredibly nervous about posting. Not because I was afraid nobody would reply, or that nobody would be going to the same show, but what if someone replied, and we met up, and things ended up being awkward because I'm socially inept? I'd become so used to being on my own and to not meeting new people outside of a professional context, or a very casual, semi-anonymous group setting (Stitch 'n' Bitch), that I had little faith in my ability to make new friends. Or, what if the person or people I met were obsessed with nothing but tenimyu and I, the newbie, had no idea what they were talking about?
Luckily, my fears proved groundless.
tayles and later_uk offered to meet up with me in Shibuya before heading down to Yokohama, and I was relieved to find out that I wasn't a total loser who didn't know how to talk to people.And the show? Good lord, there were flying pirates, Tezuka up in the rafters, and Masa dancing on the small stage two rows away to convince me that I ought to care about Rikkai a bit more than I had been doing. How could I not love it?
The most important thing, though, was that meeting some new people gave me the confidence I needed to go out and meet more. When the PoT friending meme popped up around that time, I deliberately sought out Tokyo-area people, thinking that maybe I could eventually hang out in person with them, even if it was only at the next myu. And you know what? It turned out that many of them knew each other already! And through them I met more awesome people, and now I've got an amazing group of friends who I can do lots of cool things with besides watching guys dance with tennis racquets. <3 So having come full circle, starting and ending at Yokohama Arena, I'm incredibly grateful for the silliness that is tenimyu. No matter where it goes from here, and whether or not I keep following it, it helped me lay the groundwork for a life I love.
Dream Live 7th was huge! I saw it twice: Saturday at noon (regular Rikkai, Shitenhouji B, Rokkaku's Davide, and Seigaku 4th gen as guests) and Sunday at noon (switch Rikkai, Shitenhouji A, Rokkaku's Kisarazu Ryou, and Fudoumine's Ishida, Sakurai and Tachibana, as well as Rokkaku's Aoi as guests). I got the pamphlet and the t-shirt, but they'd sold out of penlights and posters long before I set foot in Yokohama. Though that's perhaps not all bad, as I don't really have any room to put up another poster!
At Saturday's show, we were in block C, in the middle, so we had a good view of both stages. On Sunday, we were right beside the end of the thrust stage, so while we couldn't see the small stage at all, pretty much, we had a great view of the front. Fuji spotted us within five seconds of coming out on stage at the very beginning of the show. XD
Here are the salient points, because I don't feel like writing an actual review. And you've either seen it yourself or read a better write-up elsewhere already, anyway. (I go by character names for the most part, it's easier for me that way. ^_^;)
- Compared to DL6, this one seemed to have even less talking -- 1st cast and guest bits excepted -- and I thought DL6 had way less than DL5 did.
- Tezuka's put on weight! At least in the face; he doesn't look like a scary skeleton anymore. Not sure about his legs, as he didn't come out in shorts at all.
- Rikkai got the best songs, and I really, really love this Yukimura. He had the incredibly difficult task of convincing us that the guy everyone's in awe of actually IS that good, and he pulled it off. He's got the perfect look, the presence, and even better, he can sing!
- Masa was great, as usual, and his imitation of Fuji was hilarious. On the other hand, I came to appreciate the other Niou, and he had crazy chemistry with Shiraishi A.
- Likewise, switch!Kirihara was really good. I can't really say much about switch!Yagyuu, since he didn't do all that much.
- Speaking of Rikkai, the next time I talk to my brother I can reassure him that "Everybody still really likes the tall guy in yellow." Oh, Kane...
- Shiraishi's video was all kinds of love. And Shiraishi B sticking his rose in his pants... XDDD
- Shitenhouji in general was the embodiement of all that is fun and good and cracky in the world. I can't wait for the DVD, if just to see their little jaunt through the audience. Maracas! *dies laughing*
- They sang all the classics. "V.I.C.T.O.R.Y!"
- The captain's bitching session was great. Saturday's was funnier ("Gekokujo, gekokujo, that's all the guy ever talks about!" "Oh yeah? I hear nothing but 'Koharu-kuuuuun!' 'Yuuji-kuuuun' all day long, they're impossible to pry apart!" and Yukimura finally admitted to hating the sound of Marui chewing gum), but Sunday's show had Atobe imitating Kirihara's demon laugh, which was just about the scariest/funniest thing ever.
- 1st gen Seigaku's bit was nice. Tezuka's "I'm a third year," was still perfectly deadpan, and Inui was adorable, of course*. I'm glad that they had an Inui juice bit on Sunday. It was much more interesting than what they did Saturday (which was just talking about what they did in their spare time, iirc).
- Nagayama totally out-femmed Kimeru in looks, which shouldn't even be possible! Kimeru's make-up was inexcusably bad on Saturday, but he looked good on Sunday.
- 4th gen Seikagu's talk bit was amusing, and not only because of Daisuke's hair (it gets larger every time I see the guy!) and Kachirou's pyjama pants. Missing were Momo, Echizen and Mao ("He's sorry he can't be here, he's busy protecting the world!"). 4th Kawamura is so cute and smiley, I just want to keep him in my pocket. <3
- The guest bit on Sunday was quite funny, featuring an Ishida family reunion ("I'm so happy to see you, brother-I've-never-met!"), a Rokkaku reunion (Aoi looks like an elf with that longish hair), and the worst clothes I've ever seen on a tenimyu guy (a t-shirt with black and white polkadot sleeves under a vest -- the only decent part of the outfit -- baggy capri pants with a scroll pattern that I at first mistook for feathers, layered over silver lamé leggings, and brown motorcycle boots; I'm sorry, Mamo, but your outfit needs to be dragged out and shot. Still, as hideous as it was, what Shirota Jun wore back at Pati*Nights was worse. XD;
- 5th Echizen has won me over. First of all, he's the only one who managed to make me care about the character** (though that's partly because of the script, since he got what amounts to the only bit of character growth Echizen ever gets, and even then, the realisation that "Tennis is fun!" is not character development, Konomi!), and then on Saturday, he was standing in our section of the stands, and he maintained eye-contact with me long enough to give me a sort of bemused smile, like he was wondering how on earth three foreign girls and a guy had come to be at the show. Sunday was even better, because we were right by where his cable was hooked up, so I got to see the look on his face as he prepared to soar over the crowd: his expression was an adorable little grin, like, "I can't believe I'm getting paid to do this and thousands of girls are squealing about it."
Am I forgetting anything? This is long enough, I think.
* I realised that the reason I think of my ballet teacher as "Inui-sensei" is because he reminds me an awful lot of this version of Inui. ^_^
** Unless you count all the incarnations of Echizen, not just tenimyu, in which case I love the Chinese one to bits.
Thank you, tenimyu, for the crackiness and the fun times and the great friends I've made.
And that was the second of three promised posts! Will I get the last one done before I leave for Korea? *suspensesuspensesuspense* Who knows, but in less than 48 hours, I'll be in Korea! :D
