Japan Expo report day 5 (Sunday) + some final thoughts:
After the Japan in Motion event yesterday turned out to be pretty disappointing, all my hopes rested on the main event today: The Kalafina concert - or should I say "mini-concert"?
In order to secure a good place at the concert, I had planned nothing else this morning. I just took a short look at the tourism and arts area in hall 5 and then headed to the Live House to queue up for the concert. I arrived there at 12:00 (the concert was starting at 14:00), and there was already a small number of people waiting, possibly around 30 or so, including most of the CPM members that were in Paris today - so we actually, finally managed to meet in the end. We missed Martin at first, he probably came a bit later and stood somewhere behind us in the queue.
Time passed and the queue quickly grew, extending first through the hallway between the Live House and hall 5 and later well into the festival hall itself. At 13:00, I couldn't see the end of the queue any more - and it was still one hour to go before the concert started. But I could hear that they were either doing sound checks or rehearsing inside the Live House. At shortly after 13:30, the doors opened and the audience could enter the Live House. The entry procedure was exactly like yesterday: The premium/press ticket holders could get in first, then the rest of the audience was allowed in, so I used my premium ticket to get pretty much in front of the premium queue and in the end managed to get a place in the front row on the right side practically directly in front of Wakana. I lost the others while entering, but I think they ended up on Hikaru's side of the stage.
It took until 14:00 for all the people to get in (more that a thousand in total, I think - that was difficult to tell), the audience was significantly larger than anything I had seen at Japan Expo before. Shortly before the concert started, they showed a short intro video of Kalafina on the two screens to either side of the stage. But being right in front of the stage, I could barely see that. Still, a nice addition to the concert (they did something similar at AnimagiC, I think).
The concert itself was really amazing. I had brought a glow stick, but actually not used it all that much, being completely mesmerized by the performance. They started with misterioso and finished with a very energetic performance of sprinter. The setlist:
1. misterioso
2. Kimi no gin no niwa
- MC1 -
3. Hikari Furu
4. Lacrimosa
5. Magia
6. to the beginning
- MC2 -
7. Alleluia
8. sprinter
The sound quality was good this time and not as loud as yesterday, so even in the front row it was fine without wearing hearing protection. As I already expected, no photographs or videos were allowed before or during the concert, but there was a Japanese cameraman recording parts of the concert and the audience. I actually prefer it this way, since all the people holding up their cameras and phones really distracts from the concert experience. Oh, and they didn't wear the dresses from LisAni this time, but the new ones from the "君の銀の庭 Special Live".
The whole concert lasted for just 45 minutes, and both MC sessions were very short. MC1 was just an introduction, Wakana introduced herself in Japanese - probably by mistake, Keiko and Hikaru did it in French. During MC2 they talked a bit about different animes where their songs had been used, such as Madoka, Fate/Zero, Black Butler (Wakana or Keiko made some remark about Hikaru at this point) and Kara no Kyokai. There was no encore, and there wouldn't have been time for any. Which is a real pity, as they seemed to gain more and more confidence during the performance, no longer standing almost fixed on their usual positions.
Between some of the songs, there was a large crowd shouting "Kalafina" and the applause didn't seem to want to stop. It looked like they were really touched by this, and I think this - at least in part - is the reason why the latter songs (and especially "sprinter") appeared much more lively. Sprinter was absolutely fantastic in this regard, with Keiko running around on the stage - I liked this performance better that the one on the Red Moon DVD, in fact. So it was really sad that they had to end the concert directly afterwards.
I noticed on several occasions that the crowd was cheering up early, when the song wasn't finished yet - an indicator that a lot of the people there didn't actually know the songs well. Maybe it's true (as Daiima noted) that most of them actually wanted to secure a place at the moumoon concert and maybe saw Kalafina for the first time. This would also explain the huge difference in the number of fans attending the concert and the two Saiko! Stage events.
When the concert was over (all too quickly), we all left and hurried to get to the signing ticket desk. Of course, I lost again, but that was expected... Did I already mention that I have no luck at draws? And about 2 minutes afterwards, they closed the signing desk for Kalafina early. The only reason I can think of is that they wanted to only hand out a fixed number of signing tickets and this limit had been reached. But that doesn't match up with what happened at the signing booth later.
The next event on the schedule was the "Jaru Jaru x Kalafina x Moumoon mini event" Daiima already mentioned. Actually, Natsuko Aso and Toripi were also there. It started with another sketch by Jaru Jaru, then there was a short Kalafina panel (alas, I didn't unterstand what they said) followed by a quiz in which the guests - divided in two teams: Kalafina vs. Jaru Jaru x Natsuko Aso - had to guess which of the presented items were French inventions. Kalafina won by 5:1, I think. After that, Coooby joined them on the stage and they had to draw a picture of him (it?), with the audience deciding which one looked better - Kalafina won again. After a short moumoon panel, they distributed some gifts among the audience by throwing balls around, whoever caught it got the prize. Most prizes were not really interesting though, except for the "君の銀の庭 Special Live" signed pamphlet and shirt. Needless to say, I didn't get that. I could have won a Coooby iPhone case, but since I don't have an iPhone (and being not a Coooby fan), I ducked the ball. After about 55 minutes, the event finished.
We tried to wait for Kalafina leaving the booth, but had already missed them (they must have left immediately), so after a while we went on to the signing area. The queue for Kalafina was much smaller than the one for moumoon, by the way. It took only about 12 minutes and the Kalafina queue was completely empty - then they closed the signing room and Kalafina first got up for some kind of video comment (probably for a report of the Japan Expo visit on DVD) and then seemed to leave. But shortly thereafter Kalafina returned and they reopened the signing room again. Apparently, they had given out much fewer signing tickets then expected, either due to closing earlier or some technical problems during the draw, and now invited people for the signing that did not win in the draw. But they did not properly annouce that anywhere, it was only by chance that nearby people noticed that.
I was hanging around the signing room for most of this time, but even I didn't notice that - otherwise I had used the chance to get my Christmas Live book signed that I had carried around all day. So I missed out on another chance at a Kalafina signing. I'm still not sure if it was only open for people buying more stuff at Wakanim, though (I wouldn't have done that). By the way: I took a closer look at the Toko Media release of Consolation on Saturday, and the special edition is missing the DVD, so it's just CD + box + mini-photobook.
After the signing session was over, we left the festival together, spending some more time talking in the lobby of PeachPitt321's hotel and then finally parting ways. This ends my report about Japan Expo 2014.
I want to close with my overall impressions of this festival:
The event was big - far too loud and crowded for my taste, bigger than any other festival I have been to before - except for the CeBIT trade fair I went to years ago, but that one doesn't count. The concerts were great, but simply too short. The organization was fine for the most part, execept for three things that really bugged me:
- Announcing major guests only after the premium ticket sale is completely over. The only reason I still got a premium ticket was that Shokotan's appearance was announced back in March.
- Almost no places to sit down inside the halls or outside.
- Complete goof up of the official Kalafina signing!
Travelling to France without speaking the local language was actually easier than expected, but that is probably due to the large number of international visitors and would have beed different in a smaller city. Going by train, it took me about 7 hours to get there.
I'm a little bit depressed that none of my attempts to get a signing ticket at the draws worked, and I perhaps missed the chance right at the end. But complaining about not getting one more autograph is really silly - in the end, that is nothing more than a piece of paper. What counts is remembering the moment it represents. I came here for the two concerts (Kalafina and Shoko Nakagawa) and actually got a lot more than that, seeing parts of Paris, meeting with people, getting some new merchandise (including a big Kalafina poster), getting my Consolation Tour book signed, seeing Kalafina closer than ever before and generally enyoing the time here in Paris. Last week, I still wasn't sure whether the trip to Japan Expo would be worth all the money and effort, and was considering to cancel the whole endeavour - now I'm glad that I took the opportunity.
So, considering all the expenses and trouble, at the end of the day... was it worth it?
To quote Sheridan from the B5 episode "And Now For a Word": Yes. But not for any of the reasons that you've probably been told.
The most important point in my view is to show your support - show the artist that there is someone knowing them over here and liking what they do. That they won't find the concert location mostly empty if they dicide to hold a concert over here. I once read in an interview with Perfume shortly before their first European tour last year that they wondered "How on earth do they know us, and why on earth do they want to see us?" And I think that is a question every Japanese artist is asking themselves before even considering a concert here - or anywhere else abroad, actually.
I was at the May'n concert two years ago in Germany, with the full band, merchandise sales and all. There were only about 90 people attending, and around 15 of them were Japanese fans that seemed to travel to every May'n concert, whereever that was. The location was truely intimate, the concert fantastic, but the really small audience was disappointing. Now, Europe seems to have been dropped from the 2014/15 world tour - although there was no official statement on this. She said in an interview in Singapore that she would like to return to Europe, but it was up to her management to decide that. And they will not do this if they expect to lose a lot of money on it.
About the sound system, I was really in front of the stage, on the left side, so maybe my opinion won't be the general one. At the beginning it sounded a bit saturated, with music too loud for their voices, but I quickly dealt with it and that became a real pleasure, better than at AnimagiC in 2012 where the manipulators totally failed. When the girls began to sing, all the audience was all in communion with them. They seemed a bit shy, unsure at the beginning but when they felt how happy and excited to watch them in person, they got really confident at the point where they couldn't do their MCs well: Keiko forgot which songs they sang, Wakana the French words to greet us... We felt they were really touched by the way we welcomed them, and I really hope that they weren't faking this.
). But if I remember well, it was only during one and only one song. Oh, and I just remind her watching at the audience, laughing when we cuckooed her... so cute! 
What I'll remember too is that they all three were so powerful on some songs. On Hikari Furu, they are really impressive at making the note last very long. And we all applauded, we applauded, we shouted, as long and as loud as we could, because that was so M.A.G.I.C.A.L.
Wakana noticed my coloured contact lenses. I gave her my present (I made three custom "Kalafina in France" t-shirts with Spreadshirt) and she was very happy, so she showed it to Keiko who was impressed too. Wakana thanked me. When I gave Keiko her t-shirt she thanked me so many times, in Japanese, English, French, that I just couldn't find what to answer, only smiling and crying of happiness for a good minute or two (hopefully we were only between CPM members!). I literally melt on the spot. Then Hikaru gave me back my book, I gave her her t-shirt, she thanked me and I left quickly, only thinking after two steps to turn back toward them and say "bye bye" moving my hand, and they all three answered me the same way. Now I realize that everything was so fast, I would have liked to talk to them longer, especially with my sweet Hicchan (she's always last in line, so as Wakana and Keiko are quite talkative, we don't really have time for her 
...), maybe take a picture... We were in such in intimate situation that I now retrospectively feel that we could have done all of this! But the emotion was so high!
, awesome pics Daiima 
, however it seems like they had some rough lines here and there but overall not bad.