Japan trip 2017

I started writing this post on like 5 separate occasions, and each time I stopped almost immediately because I was too lazy to get the photos from my phone… but today is different! Today is the day I remembered that it automatically backs up my photos to the cloud. So… yeah… here we go.

Nagoya

Basically just chilling and letting the jet lag pass by before heading up to Tokyo for WUG
Went clothes shopping and there was apparently an official iM@S store and an Animate on an upper floor of that clothing-centric shopping complex… sasuga Japan
Went to a Fireworks collab cafe despite not having seen the movie yet :thinking:
Apparently this is what the AoT crew does during their downtime
A short culture shock story, courtesy of Yodobashi Camera:
- As you may already know, the New 3DS doesn’t come with a charger (in NA at least). For someone who skipped the DSi and original 3DS (i.e. me) this poses a considerable problem… because no retail store where I live carries any and they’re below the $25 required for Amazon Prime shipping. Long story short, on the day I got my 3DS, it took another several hours to obtain a charger for it.
- Meanwhile in Japan, everything in this picture is a 3DS charger (and I totally picked up one of the snazzy USB retractable ones)
Starbucks drinks in Japan are not 80% ice!
Nomihoudai karaoke is dangerous

Odaiba – P5 Pregame

The WUG 4th venue was right under the ferris wheel from P5 so we decided to take a detour before the live
I wanted a choco pen to draw on my pancakes but only elementary school kids could order from the kids menu :'(
Headed over to Rainbow Bridge to try and recreate some P5… but there was no bench there!
- Ideal
- Reality
- The actual location of the bench ft. Blitz and Panda
- Who thought this was a good idea?
- I’m just imagining the devs going all the way over here (it involved walking around an entire beach and then climbing a tall hill; not gonna ask why Joker was dragging his friends so far) and being like “wow we can do better bench placement than this”

Odaiba – WUG 4th

Set List:

Yuki Moyou Koi no Moyou
16-sai no Agape
Tachiagare!
Bokura no Frontier
Koi? de Ai? de Boukun desu!
Heartline WUG ver. (day) / One In A Billion (night)
Character Song Medley 1 (day) / Character Song Medley 2 (night)
HIGAWARI PRINCESS (day) / Chikatetsu Labyrinth (night)
Sugao de KISS ME (day) / Kotonoha Aoba (night)
Beyond the Bottom
7 Senses
Shizuku no Kanmuri
TUNAGO

Encore:

One In A Billion feat. May’n (day) / Heartline WUG ver. (night)
Shoujo Koukyoukyoku
Gokujou Smile
7 Girls War

I love all WUG songs
May’n guest for One In A Billion was AMAZING, seriously omg, please put the daytime live on the BD
I’m glad they uploaded the video for TUNAGO so that I can learn the furicopy properly instead of on the spot
Tfw the soap bubbles falling during Beyond the Bottom get in your eyes and you’re crying for the wrong reason
My feet really cannot handle 2 standing lives in one day
I was 3rd row or so for daytime live, evening live not so lucky so I went to the girls-only section in the front right so that I could actually see, and made some observations there:
- There were only a couple rows of girls there when I got there, but I purposely stood further back so I could lean on the horizontal bar which ended up being around row 6-8. Thanks JP girls for being shorter than me so I could still see
- They were very chatty before the live began
- It got kind of packed in there but was pretty chill, obviously no pushing around
- It was literally RIGHT in front of a wall of speakers. During the daytime live even in 3rd row I didn’t need earplugs, but in the girls section I seriously could not have survived without them… later on in the live it was starting to get a bit painful even with them on. I didn’t see anyone else there using them though…
It was very rainy
After the evening live we went on the ferris wheel but it was raining and didn’t reflect the P5 version very well…

Akiba

Kotobukiya had a P5 exhibit going on
- I spent a lot of money here
- Came back here several times to farm cards <_<
- They ran out of Joker can badges on day 1…
There was also this thing, dunno what that’s about though /s

Akiba – Eorzea Cafe

Many things were ordered.

Shibuya – P5 Tour

The Shibuya and Yongenjaya part of our P5 tour was streamed by our friend Chun! Check out the spotty vods at https://go.twitch.tv/chunandrice/videos/all (it got broken up into several parts due to poor signal/bandwidth, look for “Anime Location Spotting! PERSONA 5 and Your Name”)
Didn’t go looking for P5’s cut of Shinjuku but did go to the Capcom Bar which was really neat! They had a lot of fun gimmicks with the food
Also hit up the Kimi no Na wa stairs, where I had an extremely disorienting tri-lingual exchange with some other tourists
We autographed our hideout photo because we’re a bunch of losers like that
Bonus Falcom cuties
Tour will be presented in slideshow form (click pictures to enlarge):

Other P5 Locations

Other Misc Tokyo Things

Visited Kanda shrine aka the Love Live shrine, except it appears to have expanded its collabs…
Can we talk about how there is no Uzuki here… seriously… there is no Uzuki…
It is only when I am sick and my voice is shot that I can unlock my true karaoke potential… ikemen songs
Watched NGNL Zero and it was great
Watched Fireworks and it was… not so great. But the ED song was great
Hit up the Square Enix Cafe!

Sendai

Naturally I did the WUG pilgrimage as well! Another slideshow:

Edit: Omg I can’t believe I forgot to mention LUVYA, LUVYA was amazing

Tokyo Game Show 2017

Rolled in late on both days because I definitely wanted to casual-mode this
Bought scalped seiriken for the iM@S event for just 1000 yen w
- Was totally worth it, good seats and got to see Mingos live for the first time!
- Cast was Nakamura Eriko (Haruka), Imai Asami (Chihaya), Shimoda Asami (Ami/Mami), Abe Rika (ML Mizuki), Hirayama Emi (ML Reika), Ogasawara Saki (ML Akane)
- Set list was (ML Trio) Brand New Theater! / (OG Trio) ToP!!!!!!!!!!!!! / (All) THE IDOLM@STER
Seiriken for the FFXIV booth ran out super fast (15-30 mins) but I got one from a kind stranger on Twitter for day 2
- Lost the Feast match because we had a total newbie on our team so I didn’t get a t-shirt, but I did get a wristband ;;
SE had a booth for one of the FFXV mobages where if you installed the game you could do a free gacha… I won the top prize! A FFXV t-shirt! Not the t-shirt I wanted from this TGS but I’ll take it w
Still really disappointed that there was nothing for P3D/P5D.

FFXIV Orchestra Concert 2017

Set list:

Part 1 (A Realm Reborn)

希望の都 / A New Hope
静穏の森 / Serenity
極限を超えて / Breaking Boundaries
絢爛と破砕〜クリスタルタワー：シルクスの塔〜 / Out of the Labyrinth & Shattered ~Crystal Tower: Syrcus Tower~
究極幻想 / Ultima
試練を超える力 / Calamity Unbound
白銀の凶鳥、飛翔せり / Rise of the White Raven
Answers

Part 2 (Heavensward)

不吉なる前兆 / Ominous Prognisticks
彩られし山麓〜高地ドラヴァニア：昼〜 / Painted Foothills ~The Dravanian Forelands: Daytime~
逆襲の咆哮 / Revenge Twofold
Dragonsong
メビウス　〜機工城アレキサンダー：天動編〜 / Moebius ~Alexander: Creator~
忘却の彼方〜蛮神シヴァ討滅戦〜 / Oblivion ~Shiva~
英傑〜ナイツ・オブ・ラウンド討滅戦〜 / Heroes ~Knights of the Round~
Heavensward

Pretty much everything you’d ever hope for from a FFXIV orchestra (i.e. it was amazing)
Shiva’s theme was a special melancholic arrangement with a string quartet! That’s why it’s in the HW section instead of the ARR section… because this one is Ysayle’s theme… ;_;
They did a time stop in Moebius! …Where Yoshi-P came down the aisle banging a giant drum, with Uematsu on the triangle and Soken on the xylophone behind him. It was hilarious
Yoshi-P’s MC was great; after the Coil songs played he told us about how it brought bitter emotions because he mains BLM and no one wanted to bring BLM instead of SMN for SCoB… “I’ll do my best with lethargy and blizzard ;-;”
- I sympathized immediately but I’m not sure how many other people in the audience got the joke w
Soken hilarious as usual
Susan Calloway lovely singing as usual
The choir struggled with the English opening verse in Answers w
All four sessions of the concert sold out!
…The music boxes also sold out! OTL
The pamphlet for this concert was the most impressive concert pamphlet I have ever seen. Despite being a typical price of 2000 yen, it was hardcover with glossy pages…