Day 17 part 1 - Mano Erina Hatachi no Otome live at Zepp Osaka 11/6/11

Bloody drizzling in Osaka on Saturday. Had a late night drinking on Friday at Gift and then woke up early and had breakfast at 9.30. Took the Osaka loops line to Bentencho and then the Chuo line straight to Cosmo Square, wherever that that is and arrived around 10. .

That`s the maritime museum. Cosmo Square is basically a harbour and lots and lots of housing flats with a couple of combinis. Wanted to go really early to have enough time in case I got lost and stuff like that.

It was pretty easy to find my way to Zepp Osaka. A queue had already formed at 10+ in the morning for a concert starting at 2.30! Something must be up.

Goddamn gloomy skies and constant drizzle.

Wait, what`s this, it looks like they are setting up stalls! Ah, so the line was to get first dibs at the merchandise! I think the merchandise stand opened up at 11.30 or so.

Horrible, horrible t-shirt that I should have not bought. Notice the matching wrist bands. Why can`t they just put her face on it or something?

The ultimate swag, a Mano Erina towel which I have yet to defile by wiping myself with it. They had posters, photos and stuff but I couldn`t be stuffed cause I already have her awesome 2011 calender.

Good thing they had glowsticks on sale. I had a couple of hours to kill so it was basically sitting down with an umbrella, smoking cigarettes and praying that this will be worth it in the end.

About 1ish the queues restarted. It doesn`t really matter cause I got a seat number anyway. You might be able to notice some ojisans who are old enough to be Mano Erina`s father and should be home playing with their kids on a Saturday morning. There are normal looking dudes like me but there are a lot of fans who look like they came out of Densha Otoko and some people who would be too extreme to be in Densha. I kept wondering about how Mano Erina thinks of her audience. If you are a small time idol, this is the audience you have to cater to.

More people coming to line up. Bframe5, if you`re reading this, I tripled checked before I pulled the key from the coin locker.

The anticipation mounts!

The view of the stage from my seat. I was at I-30 so 9 seats from the front and pretty close to the stage. The doors opened at 12.30 and I got in at 12.45 so it was a lot of fidgeting and going to the toilet twice to make sure I didn`t need to during the concert.

When Mano Erina finally appeared on stage, I had freaking goosebumps all over. The first thing that pops into my head is that she is a freaking goddess. Better looking in real life than in pictures and videos.

- Finally after so many freaking years of listening to Hello Project stuff, I finally get to chant L O V E Lovely Erina! and Erina, hey! (jump up)

- I didn`t know half the songs which I assumed were B-sides of her recent singles. I`m not that huge of a Mano Erina fan but I really like how she started as a piano playing idol with songs which don`t sound very HelloProish. There was this very nice retro-groovish tune that she sang where she touched the microphone stand a lot that I liked. Will have to look it up.

- At the Scandal concert, it was basically doing the chop or a variation of it to the beats of the song. At a Mano Erina concert, it is matching your glowstick waving/chopping to HER actions. The scary part are the dudes who knew all the actions.

- There were about maybe 8 girls at the concert. Big props to the girls who came without a boyfriend in tow.

- I was very happy when Mano-chan played her three piano songs, Mano Piano, Lalala Sososo and Otome no Inori. Bloody Tsunku stop making her into generic HP idol and get her on the piano/keyboard more! God, I love those 3 songs. I think if I had actually started my trip 1 week earlier to make it to the Dream Momusu concert, I would have died of happiness.

- I can`t believe she sang Sekai wa Summer party as part of a medley! Gah, I wanted the full song! At least she sang it unlike the bloody Scandal live that left out so many songs.

- In the middle of the live, she did some stupid skit playing this wanted cowboy like character called Eri with some fight choreography and jokes like impersonating Fujimoto Miki but ugh, can`t we just have more singing? I just don`t get the need to waste time with skits.

- Mano Erina has turned 20 and during one of the short videos in between costume change, she said that she wanted to visit Australia for the koalas. Note to self, buy koala costume.

- She was crying during one song but I can`t remember which one. Gah. So kawaii.

- There was an ojisan who was staring at her throughout the concert using his binoculars. They don`t allow cameras but they allow old men to zoom in on her body parts?

- Genki Mono de Iko is one awesome participation song. As much fun as Scandal`s Doll. Definitely worth the price of admission. They need to rerelease this song as a donation drive for the red cross or something. This song is pretty much impossible to Mano-chan to do well towards the end but it didn`t matter cause we were all singing along.

- She did her new song which hasn`t been released yet as the 2nd last one and some people actually knew the moves.

- Last song was Matsuge no Saki ni Kimi ga Iru which is an awesome song that should have been a single. Genki mono de ikou should have been the last one though. After the concert, we basically got a video montage of Mano-chan rehearsing in the morning and some highlights from the concert. Awesome stuff. After that was a video of some fundraising song with Tsunku, Hello Project members and people I don`t know. Oh, it also had the Sharan Q guitarist and he still looks the same.

This lifetime experience would not have been possible without Bframe5 who managed to secure me awesome seats. Okini! I think I need to go to a concert where I know every song like Dream Momusu or the Zone reunion in August. Gah, why did they announce that Zone thing so late? The only thing I could have asked for more from the Mano Erina concert was a full version of Sekai wa Summer Party. Can`t actually believe that I went to a Hello Project concert, lol.

Forgot to mention that Mano Erina is really pro at doing what she does now especially compared with her earlier nervous performances. I remember her second concert series where she screwed on the piano and started crying. Ah, so touching.