I’m a con(cert) woman

May has been the lucky months of many concerts for me!  S and I were lucky enough to land not one but two sets of tickets to Sexy Zone’s Japan Tour concert in Yokohama Arena, and I also hit for a ticket to Hey! Say! JUMP’s Tokyo Dome show, where Sexy Zone would also be appearing to celebrate the creation of their new fanclub!  We also were lucky enough to win tickets to a Johnny’s Livehouse Ginza in the tiny Crea theatre, seating only 600! That show will be on May 26th, so I have yet to see what it will be like, but I’ve been to the other three now, and after talking about concerts in passing for a while, I figured I’d take this opportunity to explain just what going to a Johnny’s Entertainment concert is like!

The first confusing thing about Johnny’s concerts is how one comes about these tickets.  Unlike in America or for a concert by a non-idol group in Japan, you can’t just call up a ticket office and purchase a good seat (or a decent seat, or a bad seat).  You can’t use the internet to buy a ticket, either.  Instead, you must be a member of the Johnny’s “Family” Club (fan club) designated for the group whose concert you wish to attend.  A membership costs ~¥5,000 per year, and once you’re a member, you can use Japan Post money orders to ballot for tickets.  In essence, the way tickets are awarded in a lottery; whether or not you get a ticket is random and how good your seat is is also random.  Everyone pays the same amount for tickets, usually between ¥5,000 and ¥7,000, though sometimes stage shows in theaters are more costly.  They mail the tickets to you about a week before the show in order to try to avoid resale; because some concerts have less availability or the group is very popular, resale tickets can go from anywhere from base price to ¥80,000.  On an average scale of $1 = ¥100, that’s around 800 US dollars for one ticker.  So really, that ¥5,000 membership fee isn’t so bad!  

And then, at the venue on the day of the show, you can buy goods before the show!  Usually, there is a much wider variety of goods for Johnny’s concerts than one might expect at an American show.  ~4 x 5 inch photos of the idols, plastic folders with photos of the idols on them, uchiwa fans with the idol’s faces printed on them, a pamphlet book with interviews and photos of the idols, and posters are all common goods, along with tote bags, T-shirts, scrunchies to be worn around the wrist or in the hair, and penlights.  The penlight is something I hadn’t heard of before coming to Japan; in America, people seem to use their cell phones, other electronic devices, or glowsticks in concerts, but in Japan, basically battery-powered light sticks like glowsticks replaced actual glowsticks.  Johnny’s took this one step further and makes penlights specific to each group and concert.  Generally, it’s not expected that you buy a new penlight at each concert, but it’s odd to use a penlight from the wrong group at a different group’s concert.  

Aside from a penlight, the other item of must-have concert goods is an uchiwa, which I talked about in this post a while back.  Every good fan has at least one (more likely 4 or 5, or even 20) stuffed into her bag, along with her goods and everything else she’s brought along with her.  All this gets looted through at the door the venue, because for some reason, staff are required to check for cameras, even though, at this point, every phone is equipped to audio and video record, as well as take still photos.  But for some reason, the staff still glance inside every concert-goer’s bag and asks politely, “Do you have a camera?”  Once you say “no,” they let you in!  From there, you can usually spot the display that will always be set up to showcase the various flowers the performers receive from magazines, TV stations, producers, and various other related companies and people who had worked with the idols.  In Japan, flowers are a necessity in all sorts of situation (such as a new business opening), and there will almost always be flowers on display before a performance! 

Next it comes time to find your seat, which can be harder than you think!  Obviously seating in every venue is different, and differences in shape (like an arena versus a dome) and size (how many floors, for example), as well as changes in the setup for the concert inside the venue can really change your concert experience.  For example, we were at the very end of the catwalk and in a very close row for our first Sexy Zone show (in the photo it’s a bit hard to tell since I was surreptitiously taking the photo with my technically illegal camera… ) This gave us a great view whenever they did anything at the end of the catwalk, but a really crappy view of the stage (or rather, we could easily see the stage, but the idols on it looked like tiny specks!) However, for our second show, we were right next to the stage– like the people on the far right of this photo– and a little bit farther away.  That made it a little harder to see everything, but we could watch the stage quite easily!  Both of our seats were really not bad, but definitely gave two very different experiences, even in a concert with a typical setup of a round catwalk around the arena, a main stage at one end, a small stage at the other end, and a center stage in the middle.  

Everything was completely different for the Hey! Say! JUMP concert, however.  It was in Tokyo Dome, which, being for baseball, is shaped in a circle, rather than ovular, like arenas.  In the past, I’ve felt that this leads to a better view for everyone, but this time, the setup of the dome was very odd.  The stage was small, and there were seats almost all the way around behind it (I happened to be in one of these unfortunate behind seats.  There was an inner and outer catwalk, and then a center stage, as well as other stages attached to the catwalks.  I’ve never seen a setup like it, and apparently the band members designed it themselves.  I feel like perhaps it was good in theory but less good in execution: I was only on the second level, and yet when the members were on the center stage it was hugely difficult to see them, and because the screens were so far away, it was hard to rely on them.  Overall, not the best seats I’ve had, but in terms of my most recent concerts, it’s hard to compare Tokyo Dome to Yokohama Arena, anyway, considering that Yokohama Arena seats around 15,000 people and Tokyo Dome seats around 45,000!  

So… now you’re all prepared to attend a Johnny’s concert on your own!  I’ll see you there~

Tokyo Tower

Anyone who has ever watched the popular anime Sailor Moon might be familiar with the large, red, Eiffel Tower-esque structure that stands in Minato, Tokyo, Japan.  Or at least, this was my experience as a child; I was unsure why Sailor Moon and the other characters in the show visited a red, Japanese Eiffel Tower in the series, but at age six, I didn’t ask too many questions.  But Tokyo Tower continued to appear in many of the anime shows I liked as a child, and so as time went on, I became more and more interested in this broadcast tower in my youth.  

Ten plus years later, Tokyo Tower is fondly nostalgic to me.  As the second-tallest man-made structure in Japan, second only to the much more recently constructed Sky Tree, which was created to replace Tokyo Tower in its function as a broadcast tower, Tokyo Tower is a popular landmark and tourist destination in Tokyo.  It reminds me of my childhood, and so, when I studied abroad in Tokyo in 2010, it was one of the first places I chose to go.  It’s usually packed with tourists and can get quite hot when the sun shines in the windows on the observatory deck, but really, the view makes up for it.  It’s not the tallest point you can look out in Tokyo, but it’s still a pretty nice view.  You can see across multiple prefecture, include into Tokyo Bay/out to Chiba, as well as to Yokohama and even Mount Fuji, on a clear day.  The view of Mount Fuji, in particular, is quite spectacular, but unfortunately, it doesn’t photograph well.   However, I highly recommend it for anyone who’s planning to take a trip to Japan in the near future!

Another really fun feature of Tokyo Tower is the look-down windows on the first floor of the observatory deck.  These are simply small glass windows made so that one can look directly down inside of Tokyo Tower, but they’re pretty effective at showing off how high one is when one is in Tokyo Tower.  Unfortunately, they’re also a popular attraction for small children with a death wish to jump on, so it’s almost impossible to get a photo without the feet of small children in it.  Oh well.  

Another fun thing about this trip to Tokyo Tower was that it was decorated for New Year’s!  Last time I went, it was August, so there were no major holidays for which to decorate.  But this year, the place was decked out for the New Year, and the first floor of the observatory deck was decorated with a kadomatsu!  These popular New Year’s decorations are basically all over the place as soon as Christmas is over, but the one in Tokyo Tower was particularly fancy!  Usually the bamboo is green and unpainted and the decorations are not quite so elaborate, so I particularly liked the Tokyo Tower kadomatsu.  

Tokyo Tower was only one stop on my trip to Tokyo with my sister, who I was showing around.  We had a great visit, but after two days looking around the city, we headed out to Yokohama for the final event of our weekend: seeing the Sexy Zone New Year’s Concert!  My sister had never been to a large concert before, so I was excited to be able to take her to one, especially when going to concerts is essentially my hobby right now.  I think she enjoyed it, so I’m really glad I was able to take her!

And then, after our exciting trip to Tokyo… I came back and almost immediately got really sick.  Alas.  

Happy birthday to me!

Despite the fact that it’s much less exciting now as an adult than it was when I was a kid, last weekend was my birthday!  To celebrate, S and I naturally headed to Tokyo for a fun weekend.  We had essentially nothing lined up for Saturday and planned to spend the day shopping and eating (who wouldn’t want to spend a day like this?) and then on Sunday, we had tickets to see a play, Johnny’s World.  Despite it’s… more-than-odd name, Johnny’s World was supposed to be a play to celebrate the fact that Johnny Kitagawa, president of Johnny’s and Associates, has recently achieved three Guinness world records, and both Sexy Zone and Hey! Say! JUMP were to appear in the show, so… of course, S and I got tickets.  Additionally, since a member of Hey! Say! JUMP shares my birthday, we had hoped that there would be a little something special– often, at concerts, on members’ birthdays, the other members bring them cake or some other surprise.  And so, it was with high hopes that we headed to Tokyo on Saturday morning.

We first headed to the Johnny’s Shop (naturally) and spend an obscene amount of money on photos before crashing at the McDonald’s on Omotesando street in Harajuku.  We go to this McDonald’s essentially every time we’re in Tokyo, but this time was the first time we managed to get a seat near the windows, and we were surprised and pleased to find that there was a very nice view. Omotesando is a much more ritsy area of Harajuku than, say, Takeshita street, and it looked quite pretty with autumn leaves on the trees.  It was nice to enjoy the view… despite the fact that it was, classily, from a McDonald’s.

From there, we headed to Ikebukuro, where I picked up some Christmas gifts for my little sister, who will be coming to visit soon, and some supplies for work.  We meant to look for a winter coat for S, but by the time we made it to the mall, we were so exhausted that we ended up sitting in Starbucks for an hour instead. After that, we remembered that we needed a birthday gift for C, so we browsed the mall for a while, but came up empty handed.  Eventually, we gave up, and instead hit a Mexican restaurant in the Sunshine 60 mall– yes, there are Mexican restaurants in Japan.  They’re fairly rare and, in my experience, overpriced, but I was craving it, and even if it was overpriced, it was delicious.  At this particular restaurant, it seems as if they make the tortillas and such on site, because they’re always really good, and this time was no exception!

After dinner, we headed back to our hotel!  We usually stay in Otsuka, just outside of Ikebukuro where there are a lot of cheaper hotels.  I’ve heard a lot of horror stories about hostels and super cheap hotels with only one bathroom on the whole hall or cockroaches everywhere, and I am definitely not the sort of person who can deal with that, so S and I go for slightly more expensive (~¥4500 a night) places that have their own bathrooms and no bugs.  The rooms usually have complimentary tea, a TV, a blow dryer, and a shower/tub, and the rest is sort of here or there (sometimes you get weird art on the walls, sometimes there’s a radio, sometimes there are more or less mirrors, sometimes there’s a desk lamp, etc) They’re not exactly beautiful to look at and some seem like they haven’t seen renovation in quite a few years, but they’re always clean and perfectly livable, so for one night, we like them.

The next day, we went to see Johnny’s World!  It was being held at the Imperial Theatre… and sadly, it’s probably the only play I’ll ever see there, since I don’t go see big mainstream plays or musicals all that often.  The place was decked out with decorations heralding Johnnys’ 3 Guinness world records, including a lovely almost-life-sized image of two representatives from Guinness giving the records to a particularly popular Johnny’s idol, surrounded by the rest of the cast of the show.  This photo is particularly hilarious due to how uncomfortable basically everyone in the photo looks, and to make things better, quite a few girls were posing with their favourite member for photos.  Oh Johnny’s.  It doesn’t get any classier than this.

We found our seats fairly easily; we were all the way in the back of the balcony, but we had a good view of the stage anyway.  When we got there, a screen showing the Earth was the only thing on the stage (perhaps “Johnny’s World”?), but throughout the show, there was basically nothing that didn’t happen.  They basically seemed to want to use really involved sets and props, turn tables, waterfalls, wires, etc just because they could… and so they did.  The story of the thing (or… somewhat lack thereof) was ridiculous and hard to follow; a guy who kept messing up a show was taken away to some magical land to be taught the importance of going on (or something?) by his magic-using producer, who eventually died in a tragic waterfall accident, and whose actor came back playing himself.  The Titanic, the Hindenburg, Moses parting the Red Sea, outer space, the 47 ronin, and angels were all involved, and unnecessary English (spoken by the one idol in the show who’s fluent, thank god) abounded.  That, and Johnny’s invented “Tricember” aka the month after December.  Yeah, I really don’t know.

But! It was fun to watch anyway, and we saw the member get his birthday celebrated (sadly without cake), and we went home happy.  So all in all, even if the show was incredibly bizarre, at least we had fun!

More adventures in Tokyo

After a long break (read as: two weeks) S and I headed back to Tokyo last weekend to meet with friends!  We’d both been busy doing various things when we went in (you know, important things like seeing concerts and plays and shopping) but this time, we specifically went with the purpose of seeing friends.  We wanted to meet with some of S’s friends from her time doing study abroad, but one of them was busy, so we were only able to meet with one of her friends, unfortunately.  Also, I wanted to meet up with a friend from Bryn Mawr, who is studying abroad at Temple this semester.  So, we gussied up and got up early (a feat for me) to head into Tokyo last Saturday morning!  In terms of gussying up, recently, braided hairstyles have been in here in Japan, so I’ve been perfecting my braid pollyanna.  I think it looks pretty good!

We were meeting my friend for dinner on Saturday, so we moseyed around Ikebukuro for a while first before catching up with her at Meijiro station, from where we headed to go grab CocoIchi!  As I (may have?) mentioned, CocoIchi is my absolute favourite fast food chain in Japan, and I eat their curry as often as possible.  We don’t have any close to me in Kiryu, so I have to get it in Tokyo while I have the chance!  Also, my friend, B, had never been to a CocoIchi before, so of course, this situation needed to be remedied.  She enjoyed it, and I’ve finally reached a point that I don’t feel like I have to order my absolute favourite curry (chicken katsu curry) every time, and I branched out to try beef and vegetable curry.  It was delicious!

After dinner, the three of us headed to Shibuya to nose around.  There’s tons of shopping in Shibuya, but S and I prefer Ikebukuro so we can get our fashion and our idol goods all in one hit, and so we hadn’t been in a while.  When we arrived, we were surprised so that that Johnny’s had essentially taken over Shibuya crossing!  Not only did they have their normal billboard and a half, but they also had expanded to cover two more!  The two largest billboards were advertising Johnny’s World, the show they’re putting on to celebrate getting two Guinness world records last year, and the half-billboard and another one slightly farther away were advertising Sexy Zone’s new(ish) single (the one I bought for S’s birthday).  All in all, S and I were surprised and delighted, and being the cool kids we are, we had to take a photo.

After shopping, we crashed at a Dotour in Shibuya to chat and eat deserts.  Unfortunately, my dislike of sweets struck and I didn’t get to eat much, but chatting was fun and my matcha latte was delicious! With that, we bid B goodnight and headed back to Ikebukuro, where we were crashing at P and R (the friends who had the live in Gunma)’s apartment while they were away.  Thanks P and R!  It was awesome of you guys to let us stay while you weren’t around.  It meant we got to sleep in instead of waking up for a hotel’s early check out time, and we also got to watch morning TV!  All in all, a good night and morning.

From there, we headed to Shinjuku to meet with S’s friend from Study abroad.  We were supposed to meet at the Shinjuku Station South Exit… but Shinjuku station is like a freaking labyrinth and we were unable to find it, so she had to come rescue us from the West Exit.  Sad.  From there, we went to the Shinjuku Lumine, where we decided to find lunch at the floor of restaurants there.  There were a lot of options, but we decided on a place touting itself as Hawaiian cuisine.  I’m not sure how authentic it was, exactly, all things considered, but the food looked really good, as did the desserts, which were fancy pancakes covered in various sweets like ice cream, whipped cream, fruit, cookies, and even cheese cake.  We waited obscenely long to get in (I don’t know why there was like a half hour wait to eat at like 2:30), but eventually, we were seated, and after we ordered, our food came relatively quickly.  I got an avocado hamburger… which turned out to be gigantic and impossible to eat either as a sandwich or with a fork or knife.  It was a mess, but it was also quite tasty… even if I was forced to remove the cheese sauce… which seemed to be mostly plastic, or something.

We also ordered two deserts between the three of us, but… that turned out even to be too much.  The pancakes were about the thickness of four or five normal pancakes, leading me to feel like they actually shouldn’t be called pancakes at all, but… regular cakes.  They had tons of toppings on them, as well, and while they were really delicious, there was just too much, especially after eating a huge burger.  The two that we ordered were the Hawaiian pancake, which had mango whipped cream, mango sauce, regular whipped cream, raspberries, and pieces of pineapple on it as well as a New York Cheesecake-topped pancake with strawberries, strawberry sauce, oreo cookies, ice cream, and whipped cream.  They were both amazing, and sometime, I want to go back and try some of the other flavors that they had, too!

After lunch, we headed down a few floors to shop.  Specifically, I was looking for a winter coat, but every one that I had seen so far wouldn’t close– I tend to be a bit larger than the average size in Japan.  But finally, I found a peacoat style coat that fits me!  Hurrah!  It was expensive, but hopefully that means it will last me a while~ It was a productive end to a fun weekend.

things that make me really cool, part 46592048

As I mentioned in a previous post, since the last time I updated about it, I’ve been to see the Shiritsu Bakaleya Koukou movie four more times for a total of five.  And you know what?  I’m not ashamed.  It’s a really amazing movie for a variety of reasons, and is probably one of the least problematic pieces of popular media that I’ve seen in Japan, if not ever.  So I’m okay giving my money to that.  And honestly, if you get the chance, I would highly recommend it the drama and the movie.  The plot is… expected of a Japanese drama in its silliness, but assuming you can tolerate it and the first three episodes, which are less engaging as the characters and plot are introduced, I think the whole thing is very enjoyable.

But at the very least, I haven’t been going alone!  I’ve taken two of the other new Kiryu JETs (besides S, obviously; she’s gone with me every time) and am happy to report that both of the friends that I brought have liked it, as well!  It makes me really happy that I get along with the other Kiryu JETs as well as I do, and it was really fun to go to the movie and then go shopping or get food together afterwards.  I’ve hung out with this particular friend, K, a bunch of times before (she loves shopping for clothes as much as I do!), but I’ve always forgotten to take a photo of it, so I’m glad that I finally remembered!  I promise, I actually have friends other than S, I’m not making it up…

On the movie front, one disappointing thing is that my theatre has consistently been out of goods since opening day.  Yes, that’s right… in Japan, there are goods that come along with movies.  For less “popular” movies it’s usually just a pamphlet, but for movies aimed at young people or simply movies that make a lot of money, there are a variety of offerings.  For example, when I saw Harry Potter in Japan, there were shirts, keychains, jewelry, postcards, and a variety of things aimed at both kids and adults.  For the Bakaleya movie, the range was a little narrower; for both the female and male characters, there was a shirt, a set of stickers, a notebook, a pencil board (a popular item in Japan used for putting under the page currently in use in a notebook to keep the writer from making an indent into the page beneath) as well as the pamphlet. I had really been hoping to get some of these, so I was disappointed that there were none at my theater… but luckily, J is a lifesaver and picked some up for me at her theater in Yamanashi!  Hurray.

Also, while we’ve been seeing the movie, S and I have been able to try out a bunch of different restaurants in the mall, and we found a really great place with all you can eat bead!  What else could you want in life?  The restaurant itself is a generic yoshoku place with overpriced hambagu and the like, but the bread bar totally made up for it, and on top of that, they had another item I’d been craving: Caesar salad!  I’m a sucker for vegetables made unhealthy by fatty dressing and croutons, so I was really excited to see a Caesar salad on the menu.  It was pretty good and not something Japanese that goes by the same name but is actually completely different (this happens!), so I was happy.  It’s the little things in life, right?

Happy (really belated) Birthday, S!

This is like way out of date, so I apologize, but for some reason, I never (I don’t think) mentioned what we did for my bff S’s birthday.  Her birthday was at the beginning of October, and since it fell on a Saturday, we were able to go into Tokyo for a day of fun to celebrate!  A play that we wanted to see was playing on that day, so we got tickets in the name of birthday fun, and planned to meet up with J, who would also be in Tokyo that weekend, and our friends who had the live in Gunma back in September.  But of course, being the cool kids we are, the first thing we did was grab McDonald’s before the play!  I decided to try a yearly fall special in Japan, the Tsukimi Burger or “moon viewing” burger.  Tsukimi is a Japanese tradition (that, as far as I can tell, has basically fallen out of fashion) that is similar to hanami or “flower viewing” in the spring.  As far as I know, one drinks sake with friends outside in the evening and enjoys the beauty of the moon.  The Tsukimi Burger, however… has really nothing to do with moon viewing except for, as far as I can tell, that the egg patty thing on it looks like the moon.  Yes, you heard me right, egg patty.  I overcame my hatred of egg to try a McDonald’s seasonal special.  I’m a daring individual, what can I say.

After McDonald’s, we saw the play, which was funny and well done, and got to do a handshake with the actors afterwards, which is always a treat (even when they’re either terrified because you’re a foreigner or try awkward English on you), and we got to hang out with our various Tokyo friends.  But we weren’t done when we headed back to Gunma, because Sunday we had plans to party with our Kiryu friends!  But first, I had plans of my own; I had yet to give S her birthday gift, so I whipped up some homemade wrapping paper.  I’m a fan of making homemade wrapping paper– it’s much cheaper than buying, and it’s more personal that way!  True, it was a tradition I started in college when I was poor and didn’t have money nor time to buy wrapping paper, but I think it’s also nice to spend the time to make something, rather than just buy it. At any rate, I made her some Japanese-esque girly paper and a bow to go with, and then wrapped up her gift, which was a really special Sexy Zone single that she had requested.  Because I’m a lame friend and got her exactly what she asked for.

After I gave her her gift, we headed out to meet our Kiryu friends at a local izakaya.  Izakaya are a type of bar in Japan, popular for small parties and drinking gatherings.  Most of the food is snacky-type munchies like karaage (fried chicken bites) or kushi (meat and vegetables on small skewers), though there are also sometimes more meal-like dishes or things like sushi and sashimi.  We ate unhealthy food and chatted to our hearts’ content before heading to karaoke!  At the karaoke place in Kiryu, if you make a reservation for a birthday, they’ll give you a cake and “champagne” (which seemed to be chu-hi in a champagne bottle), so we got to indulge!  The cake was actually quite good, and all in all, it was a very nice little way to celebrate!  Perhaps we’ll go back for my birthday~

Let’s go to the movies~

On Saturday, S and I headed not to Tokyo but to Maebashi… and not for a boring orientation like last time!  This time, we were headed to a popular mall by the train station to see a movie!  You may remember that, a few posts back, a saw a movie poster in Tokyo for the Shiritsu Bakaleya Koukou movie.  This weekend was opening weekend for the movie, and so S and I went to go see it!  We loved the drama, and we were very excited (and a bit worried) for the movie version.  As it turned out, the movie was amazing, and we had a great time!  We also got the chance to get a bit of shopping, and now know of a new mall, so if we ever get tired of Takasaki, we can hit Maebashi instead!

We started our day with lunch at a coffee shop in the mall.  There was actually a food court in the mall, something I hadn’t seen before in Japan, but I decided I didn’t want to deal with the crowds, and so we got lunch sets at a place the S knew had good chocolate croissants.  She had a hot dog, but I got something the was labeled “cheese and bacon French bread”… which, true to its word, seemed to be sort of like a bacon and cheese pizza-style thing, except on a baguette rather than crust.  It was actually quite good, as were the croissants, and was a good start to our day before hitting the movie theatre!

Also, while shopping at the mall, we got to show off our nails.  As I’ve mentioned before, I love nail art, and while we’ve been hesitant to do anything to extreme due to our jobs, I discovered really nice nail stickers at a local department store and couldn’t resist.  We did nail art in the member colors– Japanese boy bands often have colors associated with them, for whatever reason– and decked our nails our with jewels.  It was very exciting, since for whatever reason, in America it’s a lot harder to find ridiculously jeweled-out nail art stickers~

All in all, it was a great weekend!  The movie was really awesome, and we’re going to see it again today after work… even though we ended up seeing it twice on Saturday.  That’s just the sort of cool people we are~ We’ll probably see it again this weekend, as well, and are taking various friends with us each time… so if you live in Japan and were thinking of seeing the movie, we highly recommend it~

Idol Magazines

Because my life is just that interesting (as an update, I still have a cold, and am still bruised from my bicycle run-in, though I did get my bike fixed), I have another update unrelated to any of my current activities whatsoever!  In fact, this is probably not interesting to anyone but me, so I apologize!  But for anyone interested, here’s an explanation of the idol magazines I wait eagerly to buy every month.

I confess that I’ve retrograded over the years; I never read anything similar to an idol magazine in America, so I can’t even tell you if they exist or not, and I can’t compare the Japanese version to the American one.  I know it differs from things like Cosmo Girl or Seventeen (the latter of which they actually have in Japan) in that idol magazines are 100% focused on idols.  Every page is covered with photos of idols and the content is all either about idols or text transcribed from idols/written by idols.  When I say written by idols, I don’t mean the idols are journalists.  Rather, it’s easier to explain the situation in to say that there are 3 main types of articles in idol magazines:

❥ Block text format: These articles are usually literally that– a block of text.  Most of the time, they consist of 3 paragraphs or subsections loosely guided by a question or cue words, for example “What do you think of when you think ‘Summer’?” or “Something that recently shocked you.”  The idols will write 4 or 5 sentences about this topic, and the three topics are grouped together on the page of the magazine.  These can range from easy to read to full of slang that I don’t know to really really boring, depending on what the idols are rambling about.

❥ “Cross Talk” format: This is the Japanese name for what I can only assume is an article transcribed from a recording of what idols say when given a topic in a closed setting.  “Cross talks” are usually between a whole band or at least 3 members of the same group, and the sections of each “cross talk” are headed by a similar prompt to those used in the block text format.  For example, if the question were to be “What do you think of when you think ‘Summer’?” the “cross talk” might start with one idol saying “Summer makes me think of the beach!” Another idol might then respond “Remember that one time we went to the beach together?” and the conversation will go on from there.  These conversations are transcribed into the magazine like a script, with each line starting with an idol’s name to show who said it.  I find these less interesting and really difficult to read because they’re often full of slang and non sequiturs.

❥ “100 Question” format: These, as far as I can tell, are filled out like surveys and then handed in to the magazine to print.  Sometimes they’re 100 questions, sometimes 50, sometimes some other number, but usually, it’s a list of questions ranging in content from random personal things, like “favourite colour” or “food that you hate” to preferences, like “do you prefer beds or futons” or “do you shower in the morning or the evening,” or else hypothetical questions like, “What would you do if you won 3 billion yen in the lottery?”  These are the easiest to read quickly, since they’re mostly essentially lists.

Of course, there are other types of articles– these mostly appeal in the articles about specific idol groups, and the magazines often have articles about current TV shows and reports from concerts.  But the main content that I care about it what the idols have to say, because I’m just that cool.

And then, there are five idol magazines about Johnny’s that come out every month, which makes it very inconvenient for S and I to split them evenly.  For whatever reason, two idol magazines come out more than a month in advance, on the 22nd or 23 of the month two moths prior.  For example, in about a week, the December issue of these magazines will come out, I don’t know why.  The other three magazines come out around the 5th or 6th of the month prior, so about a week ago, the November issue of these magazines came out.  I seriously have no idea why it works this way, but that’s the way it works!  And so, here’s my brief showcase of the idol magazines, in the order they come out.

[Myojo] Myojo is currently having its 60 year anniversary, and I’m puzzling over what the heck it published back in 1952, before Johnny’s even existed.  The name “Myojo” comes from the Japanese 明星 or myoujou, which means either morning star (Venus?) or, as far as I know, in 1950s Japanese, a famous person (I’ve never heard anyone use this term currently; if you’re not an aidoru/idol or a serebu/celeb, then you’re a yuumeijin or, literally, famous person).  Myojo is published by Shueisha, a prominent company that Americans might recognize as the publisher of Shounen Jump, probably the most well-known manga magazine in America, and the owner of the American publisher of manga, Viz Media.  Shueisha has, as far as I can tell, an exclusive agreement with Johnny’s, as all of Johnny’s calendars and photobooks are published by Shueisha via Myojo, and as a result, Myojo seems to be the more “legitimate” idol magazine out there.  Myojo is, best as I can describe, the more “real” magazine as well; while it’s still filled with shamelessly large posters of Johnny’s groups and every page plastered with photos of these talents, the interviews at least contain semi-substantial content.  While it’s hard to justify that as “real” content… compared to the other magazines, believe me, it is.  Myojo is also awesome in that it gives out the best free stuff; once a year, it comes with stickers and a cardboard CD case in its New Years issue in February, and at least once a year, it comes with a bag of some sort (I’m the proud owner of an NYC mini-tote, an NYC makeup bag, and a Sexy Zone pencil case from Myojo).

[Popolo] Popolo, I think, is Italian for “people” or something like that?  I’m really not sure.  There’s a really rad explanation of Popolo on the inside cover though!  Popolo, opposite of Myojo, which comes out on the same day, is the absolute pits of idol magazines in terms of any respectability whatsoever.  Most pages of Popolo articles have no text at all, but are simply huge photos of idols’s faces.  Often, the themes of these articles seem to be “idols laying shirtless on sheets covered with flowers” or “idols standing in dark rooms having awkwardly had water poured over them.”  Articles tend to be about 5 or 6 pages of just photos to 2 to 3 pages of text, often asking the idols ridiculous questions about romance.  All in all, I have approximately zero respect for Popolo… but somehow, either S or I buys it every month nonetheless.  The ice on the sketchy cake for Popolo is that it doesn’t have a real cover, but one that somehow resembles a tabloid.  Real classy, Popolo, real classy.

[Potato] To this day, I have no idea why Potato is called Potato.  The Japanese pronounciation guide (furigana, which often exists to clarify to readers as to how to read kanji in regular Japanese text) informs me that it should be read like the English word “potato,” rather than how a Japanese person might first pronounce those syllables, “po-tah-to” (you say potato, I say po-tah-to style).  However, the magazine has nothing to do with potatoes and everything to do with idols, as Potato is probably the second most “real” magazine, as much of its content is similar to that in Myojo.  However, Potato doesn’t have the deal with Johnny’s that Myojo has, and so it doesn’t have the “legitimacy” that comes along with it.  Also, not as much free stuff, sadly.  Still, it’s a reliable source of good content every month.

[Duet] Surprisingly, Duet, like Myojo, is publshed by Shueisha.  I’m not really sure why they need to have two idol magazinesin one company, but Duet has a hugely different feel than Myojo and probably (?) caters to a slightly differen audience.  While Myojo is Shueisha’s “real” publication in that it forcuses on good and interesting content about idols, the purpose of Duet seems to be fan service.  I’m not sure if I’ve touched on fan service in this blog before, but essentially, in a nutshell, fans like to see idols be close with one another, and so fan service is a strange phenomenon that, in Johnny’s, means that idols occasionally will say or do things with one another that dance along the line between friendly and more than friendly.  This can be anywhere from hugging to holding hands to saying in a magazine how much time they spend alone with the other person or how important the other person is to them.  Two members of Arashi, currently the most popular idol group in Japan and a cultural phenomenon so impressive that I can’t really find a good comparison in American pop culture, are known to stage kiss during concerts and have proposed marriage to one another in magazine articles… and Duet is the sort of magazine that prints that sort of article.  Many of their articles are rankings of the “best pair” (an ambiguous term) out of a group based on fan votes, or members writing their feelings about other members in block text-style articles.  For this reason… I’m a fan of Duet.  Also, since it’s Shueisha, Duet also sometimes comes with stickers, a plus!

[Winkup] Finally, there’s Winkup.  Winkup has a special place in my heart (despite its name being a very strange smash of English words) as the magazine that, most of the time, does what Duet does but better.  Winkup is also full of fan service, and has a special section called dengonban or “message board.”  In this section, idols write notes to one another that the other idol replies to in the next month’s issue.  In essence, it allows for, essentially, conversation between these idols in a public (and obviously staged) forum.  The marriage proposal between the two Arashi members occured in Winkup’s dengonban, and idols talk about everything from going out to meals with other idols to looking forward to starring in an upcoming drama with other idols to expressing their admiration for their idol senpai.  In essence… Winkup is really bad and yet really great at what it does.

So, now you know more than you ever wanted to know about idol magazines and can totally judge me about what I waste my time reading.  But hey, I’m getting a lot better at Japanese this way, at the very least.

Fun in the… rain?

Shock and surprise, I spent last Saturday in… you guessed it, Tokyo.  S and I went in primarily to eat
Japanese barbecue or 
yakiniku at a restaurant that offers reduced price all-you-can-eat deals one day of the month.  Since it happened to be a Saturday, we had the chance to make it into Tokyo from Gunma for delicious beef.  Yay!

We decided to do some shopping in the morning, however, and so we headed into Tokyo bright and early and headed to Ikebukuro.  First thing, as we passed a movie theatre, we happened to see a giant column-covering advertisement for the the Shiritsu Bakaleya Koukou movie, which was very exciting to us!  As I mentioned, Shiritsu Bakaleya Koukou was a drama a few seasons back that was popular enough to land a movie, as well as to gain the Johnny’s Juniors who starred in it enough popularity to be chosen as the main group for a few Summary performances.  I loved the drama, I love the Juniors, and I’m really excited for the movie, so, of course, I had to take a photo of the advertisement before we were on our way.

As expected, we hit Otome Road first to grab some second-hand idol goods, but we also wanted to head to Sunshine 60, a giant mall across the street from Otome Road, to go shopping for fall clothes!  As I’ve mentioned before, I’m a huge fan of Japanese fashion, and I’ll never give up the opportunity to shop for clothes!  We had been to the mall two weeks previous, with our Tokyo friends, but because we had been short on time and they had been looking for specific things, we didn’t end up buying much.  So, this time, we wanted the chance to go wild!

Unfortunately, since the mall is so huge… we actually ended up somewhat overwhelmed at first.  Still, eventually we found a nice (if rather expensive) shop where S managed, despite her crazy indecisiveness to buy a few things she was looking for, and I found things I liked too!  Still, what I was really looking for in this whole ordeal was boots.  After all, it’s the time of year when every girl in Japan starts wearing cute boots, and after my successful purchase of the most comfortable heeled boots I’ve ever owned last time I was in Japan (my beloved cowboy boots that, alas, are in America right now), I’ve been wanting to get a new pair. The search, unfortunately, took forever; I wear about a size 5 in American sizing or a 21 in Japanese sizing, and often, Japanese “S” sized shoes are a 22 or 22.5, which makes it hard for me to find shoes sometimes (yes, even in Japan!) But finally, at the end of the day, I did manage to find some cute boots, hurrah!  Maybe one of these days I’ll do an ~autumn fashion~ themed post and post photos of all these things.

The next stop, before we headed to our delicious dinner, was Skin Food!  Those who know me in person know that I’m a huge fan of makeup, and I was saddened at the thought of being separated from my favourite brands while in Japan.  However, one brand totally makes up for it: Skin Food!  Originating in Korea, Skin Food’s shtick is the use of food or otherwise natural products in their makeup.  I originally started buying their nail polish and loved it more than anything I’ve ever used in the states, and have recently started buying their makeup, as well!  Their eyeshadow is quite nice, and I enjoy the shimmer that’s so popular in Japanese eye makeup.  Recently, they’ve started a line of eyeshadows that can be put together in a make-your-own palette, so I wanted to give that a try, and I have to say, I haven’t been disappointed!  I also grabbed a few nail polishes, because I had to leave most of mine in America, and one can never have too much nail polish.

Next, we headed out to meet our friends for yakiniku!  Like many varieties of Asian barbecue,
yakiniku involves cooking meat on an open grill.  The Japanese incarnation of barbecue (taken originally from the Korean tradition, I’m told) involves a small, round grate over an open flame in the center of a table.  Patrons at yakiniku restaurants cook their own meat, placing the food on the grill with a pair of tongs and flipping it and removing it at their leisure.  Most meat comes in two varieties: tare or sauce, and shio or salt.  Deceptively, the salt is also a sauce… it’s just a salty sauce.  Don’t ask me, I didn’t make the rules.  I just enjoy eating meat.

Meat is a popular pastime between S and I and a few of our friends, and while in America, S and I found a yakiniku place in New York that we went to a few times.  It was really delicious, and while in Japan, we had let our friends take care of the grilling, I managed to learn some grilling techniques while being in charge of the grill ing New York.  Still, nothing quite compares to the real deal in Japan, so we were quite happy to get to indulge in delicious meat without spending huge amounts of money.  Also, the friends we went with this time like to eat a variety of things, so we also got to try grilled chicken and vegetables!  It was good… but not as good as the beef. Because, come on, what’s more delicious than grilled red meat?

After dinner was regrettably done, we headed home for the evening.  The next day was supposed to be a typhoon, so we wanted to get inside before the rain came.  As it turned out, most of Sunday was, in fact, dry, though ominous clouds were looming on the horizon all day, and naturally, it didn’t start to rain until we went out briefly in the evening.  But regardless, we stayed in on Sunday watching TV, because Sunday morning lineups include a few shows with the idols we follow, but there was also supposed to be something special on TV on Sunday: a documentary about Johnny’s Juniors!

Yes, you read that correctly.  When we heard about it, we were quite excited, but what made it even more exciting was the fact that it would be narrated by an actor from the small theatre group that we like, *pnish*.  This particular member is especially special (look at my lexicon) because, due to my winning a contest at a fan event he held, he knows (or knew, two years ago) my name.  And here he was narrating a documentary on Johnny’s Juniors.  It was pretty mind-blowing to hear him (very overdramatically) educate us on how hard it is for Juniors to work all summer during Summary.  The documentary itself was really interesting, too, and I’m always really intrigued to see how everything goes backstage.  As someone who danced all her life at a pre-professional level, I find seeing how shows are put together really interesting, and getting to see behind the scenes of a show that I saw from the audience was really interesting to me.  If the show ever airs again, I’d highly recommend it!

And then Monday was supposed to be more typhoon… but on my way to work, I was greeted by blue skies and no clouds… and unfortunately high temperatures.  Alas… since I bike to school, at least I managed to avoid getting rained on!

Left my heart in Tokyo

Like, um, almost every weekend, last weekend, S and I headed to Tokyo.  But this weekend, our goal wasn’t a concert… it was a play!  While recently, we’ve been more interested in the idol units under Johnny’s and Associates, S and I used to be equally devoted to the Tokyo small theatre scene, particularly a small acting group called *pnish* (don’t ask about the name).  We still love a lot of the actors (who are quite talented) associated with small theatre and we definitely still love the guys of *pnish*, so when we heard that my favourite member would be appearing in a play along with one of *pnish*’s longtime collaborators, we jumped at the opportunity to go.  Also, the opportunity to hit up all of the shopping and fun Tokyo has to offer (and, of course, McDonald’s… our love for Japanese McDonald’s is undying!)

The play was on Saturday afternoon, so we headed down Saturday morning, grabbed our McDonald’s for lunch, and then met our good friend C, who lives in Tokyo, to head to the theatre.  The show was in Aoyama Round Theatre, a smaller theatre attached to the large and well known Aoyama Theatre.  Aoyama Round Theatre was named aptly; the stage is a round platform in the center of the room and the audience sits around it on all sides; in essence, there’s no front or back and no wings.  The actors leave and enter through the aisles perform for an audience that surrounds them 360º.  It’s an interesting venue… for a very interesting play.

The play we were to see is called Corpus Christi and was a passion play… about Jesus being a homosexual man in modern-day Texas.  It was written in 1997 and first performed in New York City, but apparently, somewhere along the way, it was translated into Japanese.  Interestingly, the program had a section helping Japanese audiences, who are likely largely unaware of the culture surrounding Christianity, understand the play, including an explanation of passion plays, biographies of each of the apostles, and  a history of Christianity in Japan.  The play itself was really quite interesting, with each actor playing an apostle a piece as well as whatever other parts were necessary, including Mary and Joseph in the scene of Jesus’s birth, Jesus’s high school teachers, Pontius Pilate, and the voice of God himself.  Jesus and Judas were the only characters whose actors played only one role, appropriately, though everyone was dressed in generic white clothing.  I had difficulty understanding more than 10% or 15% of the dialogue considering that is was rather artistically presented and in difficult Japanese, but the portrayal of Jesus as a confused and conflicted teenager growing up into a driven and confident adult with a mission was quite well done.  The end, as one might expect, was serious and depressing, since the play ended with Jesus getting crucified (er, not sure how that works in modern day Texas, but whatever?), but the actors all did very well with the material.  There were a lot of rather uncomfortable sexual bits (uncomfortable since we were in the first row and had actors practically making out in our laps) but they definitely added to the play.  All in all, it was quite an interesting play to see in Japan due to its controversial gay themes and religious nature, but I quite enjoyed it!

After the play, C, S, and I headed to Ikebukuro, where we met our friends to whose live we went last weekend, P and R.  The five of us grabbed dinner and shopped a bit in a gigantic mall in Ikebukuro, where I splurged a bit and picked up some cute jewelry I had been wanting.  Japan is full of cute and pretty girly accessories, and since I have a huge weak spot for cute, pretty, and girly things, it takes all my will power not to go wild.  However, I did get a few items I really like, including a new watch and a pinky ring that fits me!  Rings in America are almost always too big for me, so being in Japan definitely has its perks for me on that front, as well.
Once we got tired of shopping, S and I bid farewell to our Tokyo friends before headed back to our hotel one stop from Ikebukuro, in Otsuka.  It’s a cheap place at which we’ve stayed before, City Hotel Otsuka, and as a result, seems to have parts of it that haven’t been updated since the 80s, but despite being old, it’s generally clean and an easy and cheap place to stay that’s right in the heart of Tokyo.  Our room this time was a bit less new than our room last time, but on the bright side, we scored two beds this time and didn’t have to squish in together like last time.  There was also air conditioning and TV… so what else could one need out of a hotel?  I’m still trying to figure out if the tea they leave in the room is complimentary or if it’s an additional room charge, though…

The next day, S and I headed out on our own to Harajuku.  I don’t know why I end up in Harajuku so much recently; as I mentioned in a previous post about Tokyo, I’m really not a huge fan of Harajuku on a whole.  But S and I wanted to hit the Johnny’s shop again, so as soon as we arrived, we headed to a small park area on the corner where on begins the Johnny’s shop process by taking a ticket from the worker standing there.  That’s right– the Johnny’s shop is so popular that you can’t just waltz right in, you have to take a ticket with a time written on it.  At the time on your ticket, you can come back to that area and queue up to be let in.

We arrived in Harajuku around 11 am; our ticket was for 2 pm.  Seeing as it was a weekend, that wasn’t so unexpected, and so we headed off into Harajuku to spend our waiting time.  First, we headed to a shop called Skin Food, which is my absolute favourite cosmetics store in Tokyo.  In the past, most of what I’ve bought from there has been nail polish, because their nail polish is actually the best polish I’ve ever used before, hands down, but this time, I also wanted to pick up some eyeshadow and nail polish remover.  I haven’t tried the eyeshadow yet, so I’ll see how it works, but the nail polish remover was great; it took the polish right off without drying out my skin.  Skin Food, you’re the best! ♥

After Skin Food, we hit a few places selling cute accessories and grabbed lunch before it was finally our time for the Johnny’s shop!  We queued up in the park with all the other girls with 2 pm tickets and were finally led across the street and down the alley to the Johnny’s shop, where we were let loose to weak havoc… upon our own wallets.

The Johnny’s shop, essentially, sells one thing: photos.  Photos of idols either in concert or doing photoshoots for CD covers or recording music videos.  There are thousands of photos in the Johnny’s shop, all in glass cases on the wall, grouped by unit and numbered.  Customers take sheets of paper provided by the shop and write the name of the group (eg Hey! Say! JUMP or Sexy Zone) and then mark how many of each number photo they want (eg 1 each of photos 10, 45, 79, 200, and 349).  S and I like around 5 groups if you include Johnny’s Juniors and it takes us about an hour to go through the shop and choose what we want, just to give you some idea of the process.  Though that time isn’t all spent deliberating how many photos of our favourite idols we want; the room is quite crowded with girls all trying to see into the same cases, so some waiting, pushing, and shoving is inevitable.

After one finally finishes with the photos, one gets into line for the register.  It usually takes a good 15 minutes to get through the line, depending on the people in front of you.  Each photo costs ¥150 and I’ve seen girls spend upwards of ¥10,000 (more than 100 US dollars) on photos, meaning that it takes the register a while to find all of the photos and bag them.  While one waits in line, there’s a small case of various goods, often which seem to be leftovers from concerts or other events, to pick from, in case customers haven’t already spent enough money on photos.  I happened to be one of those people this time, and ended up with a tote bag as well as my photo purchases.  For the record, the photos in the picture only make up a fraction of my total purchase… yes, this is my life.

After the Johnny’s shop, we rested and regrouped in a coffee shop before heading back to Kiryu.  We were exhausted, but luckily, today is a Japanese national holiday, so no work! I got to sleep in before heading back tomorrow for another full week of students.