Momoi Expo, part 1

It has been over 3 days since the last Momoi concert has been over, and the residual effects have not worn off, but I figured this would be the time to write out the full trip report before I start forgetting things.

Our group, which I will affectionately call the Unofficial American Momoi cheering squad, consisted of myself and Mandichan from the east coast, Kouotsu all the way from Tennessee, and Chibitech from the California Bay area. In Momoi headbands and tour shirts, our basic objectives simply revolved around the goal of welcoming Momoi with our hearts: attend all Momoi events and cheer like hell, help the Japanese fan club hand out call books and explain them to new fans, and support any other Momoists who also wanted to show their love to Momoi.

Friday was a bad start for us, since we missed the opening ceremonies due to a 4 hour wait in line, and then an additional 3 hour wait in the premiere ticket line. Pretty much the whole day was spent in line and the only relevant news we managed to pick up was that Momoi would be a guest judge at AX Idol.

On Saturday, things began to pick up. We received word from one of the Japanese fanclub members that in addition to being a guest judge, Momoi was having a concert after the AX Idol event (6/30), which confirmed a previous report in m.m.m. that Momoi was going to do two concerts. We arrived at AX Idol and tried to get as close as possible in middle section, although we were somewhere around row 18 due to a wild goose chase at the "Meet The Guests" reception which prevented us from camping even earlier. We did manage to find the official Japanese fan club group that had followed Momoi overseas while waiting for AX Idol to start though (a meetup and plan to help distribute the call books had previously been arranged by mandichan on mixi). There, we experienced first-hand, the massive generosity and awesomeness of Momoi's fans when one of the fan club members and main editor of the call book produced a huge gift basket for us containing a mountain of Momoi CDs and DVDs. Some items I can recall in there were Cover Train limited edition, Momoi Quality limited edition, 21st Century limited edition, Haruko UP DATE Best CD, Haruko UP DATE DVD box set, Shibuya-O-East/Stellar shirt and DVD box set, Saigo no Rock and Yume no Baton limited edition Toranoana version, LOVE.EXE, Shokuzai no Rhapsody, a Komugi drama CD, and various other discs. We split it between the four of us and now I can proudly say I have filled up several gaps in my collection (I am especially happy about having the Toranoana slipcase).

After almost more than an hour of delay, the event finally started, When Momoi appeared on stage in her grunge-schoolgirl uniform and power glove, the front rows on the left and right sections, having been camped by the those Japanese fans, exploded into cheering while we tried to hold up our section. From then on, nearly every time Momoi gave any comment, a massive round of cheering from those areas erupted, and it surprised even her interpretor, who didn't quite understand how Momoi fans operated. During the judging of the ten finalists, Momoi gave ONLY positive criticism (as we all knew she would), and most of her remarks included some trivia about Japan's entertainment industry for the audience's enjoyment. After finding out some of the contestants could understand rudimentary Japanese, she markedly changed her entire style of speech to be much much slower and easier to understand, presumably so the contestants could receive and understand her praise directly rather than have it filtered through a translator (da..to..omoimashitaaa...) Being the lovable oddball that Momoi is, another interesting thing that she did was whip out her own marker/glowstick during all of the musical acts and cheer on the contestants from behind her table.

Because the event ran way overtime, after the winners were announced and everyone left the stage, Momoi immediately started the performance with almost no preparation. There was still a lot of space in the front so Momoi had called out to everyone to stand up and come closer. We rushed up through the rows as far as we could before security blocked us off. Despite our attempts to explain the situation, they did not budge on our request, so a significant section of of the very front rows remained empty. They didn't clear the stage or reseat anyone - it was almost as if Momoi was relegated to a mere continuation, a closing act, of AX Idol rather than someone with her own individual event. I was really annoyed by this, and even more annoyed by the fact that a lot of people in the crowd were still sitting down, but soon forgot myself as Momoi began singing. Surprisingly, she kicked off her concert with Komugi songs (Shooting Star, Ai no Medisun) and then the very classic TENBATSU ANGEL RABBIE! Man, I was so happy...I never thought I'd have to chance to hear those live after UNDER17 disbanded! In a mad rush for time, Momoi jammed through song after song with huge amounts of energy. She ran across the stage and even jumped up on the table. The only break she took was when Manzo (another awesome surprise) suddenly showed up in his construction gear and guitar. Unfortunately, we hadn't realized to bring glow sticks, a mistake we tried to make up for ten-fold at the later concert. Although the sound feeds were unsynchronized, I had personally had a great time. I am only sad that these technical problems prevented it from being even better

On Sunday, we lined up around 8:30AM for the Momoi panel, although PantsGoblin was nice enough to save a spot for us much earlier. We met up with the fan club and started helping them distribute the call books. After handing out a few books and talking with some of the people waiting on line, it soon became clear that last night's concert was almost entirely unadvertised as many people didn't even realize know about it, which slightly messed things up since we had hoped we could explain "CALL" by using last night's example from the Japanese fans. Apparently, news of the 6/30 concert and her appearance at AX Idol was officially mentioned only once, and only by Momoi herself during the opening ceremonies (which a ton of people missed anyway because they were in line for badges). A lot of fans were upset, though the worst was still to come. In a small act of redemption, AX (or possibly Avex) was at least smart enough to set up a small table outside the room selling CDs, DVDs, and T-shirts so fans could get tour shirts to wear for the panel (I got two of them, one for that day, and one for the concert).

When 10AM rolled around, Momoi showed up in her own concert shirt and Momoi wrist band. She started things off by apologizing for the lateness of the previous day's concert and began taking questions. As you now know, during that panel, Momoi made an announcement that she very unhappy with the way things played out so far and cancelled all events for the day to ensure the 7/2 concert would go as planned. Thankfully, everyone was considerate enough not to complain and still clapped and cheered the entire time. I can happily say that everyone in my group did get a chance to ask a question to Momoi. As a veteran radio host, Momoi pulled some slick professional bantering with each question, regardless of its simplicity or length, and would go on for minutes to answer things. Various interesting things happened in there: One fan had brought in pink flowers. When asked for her favorite "moe" characteristic, Momoi suddenly stood up on her chair and revealed "zettai ryouiki" (I would have gotten a picture of this but was in line and stupidly left my camera on my chair). Chibitech was able to ask Momoi for a collaboration project on her next Famison album and ended up singing along to a song with her. I found out that she based her schoolgirl outfit on Nanako SOS (the original Moai outfit is almost an exact copy), and that that she would love to do cosplay with Nogawa Sakura (please do! Nogawa is so talented as well). And finally, we listened to her say "TAISAN," "Luke-sama," and my personal favorite, "BUU~BUU~!"

Once time was up, everyone came up to the stage to give her gifts (Mandichan managed to give her two custom Momoi T-shirts, that she WORE the next day). When Priz, the original American Momoi fan (though his website is now down), came up to her, Momoi even reached out and shook his hand and announced to everyone "This person has been my fan for over ten years." As the gifts continued flowing in, she began to cry and thanked everyone profusely. An autograph notebook was left outside the panel so everyone could leave messages for her (while waiting in line for the autograph book, I was very happy to meet the legendary American seiyuu otaku catsspat who was standing right behind us - further validating Momoism especially if he of all people would choose to skip the SOS signing for Momoi).

Part 2 coming as I'm writing it...

Posted by Paranda at July 5, 2007 2:32 AM

Comments

Posted by: PantsGoblin at July 5, 2007 4:38 AM

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