Ouch, that almost hurts...
Don't worry, the signing draws are open until the signing session starts, that's the point of not doing "first come - first served".
Here is my report of Japan Expo day 3 (Friday):
Since there was nothing particulary interesting to me on the morning schedule, I used the time before the fist Kalafina event to look around the seller's booths - something I had avoided so far due to lack of time and being put off a bit by the large number of sellers. As Japan Expo seems to be mostly about selling stuff, you can basically find all kinds of merchandise you can think of: artbooks, manga, figures, posters, wallscrolls, pillows, cups and much more. I didn't find the stall Seasonreaper mentioned that was selling Kalafina CDs (or overlooked them), but saw the Kalafina Record at Culture Japon. They also offer lots of other interesting artbooks and magazines, but the prices are really crazy, so I didn't buy anything. Like 31€ for Kalafina Record - that one costs about 23€ at amazon.co.jp, including express shipping to Europe, and cdjapan is probably even cheaper. The selection of merchandise quickly became somewhat repetitive, and I stopped after the 40th booth or so (at least it felt that way). I also skipped most of the Kawaii Area, because I didn't feel "kawaii" today... ;-)
In the end, I only bought two lightsticks for the Sunday concert at the Rakuten booth. The ones I brought with me are not bright enough for the Live House - so I hope these ones work better. Fun fact: Rakuten would not accept cash and insisted that I pay 2€ with my credit card. When I arrived there, there was some kind of panel featuring Nogizaka46 (never heard of them before, some idol group) and they were offering lots of Nogizaka46 merchandise. I think the lightsticks were meant for their concert later today.
Next stop was the Saiko! Stage for the Kalafina mini-event. This was a collaboration with Tottori and Coooby the Run (that's the mascot standing behind Hikaru in the photo posted earlier), so that probably explains why the signings are organized there. The host spoke Japanese most of the time, which was also translated into French, as usual. The audience was fairly small (about 80 people or so, I would guess) so we could all get really close to the stage. The event opened with an introduction of the special guest: "Coooby the Run" and a promotion for a smart phone application for Tottori and Coooby (as far as I could understand).
That lasted for about 15 minutes, and after that, Kalafina made its long awaited appearance. They wore their dresses from LisAni! Live (as you can see from the photo), not the ones from the best album promo pics, but I will not get into fashion discussions here. They introduced themselves, greeted the audience and then the first game started. Each of the three was given a notebook and a pen, and the host presented a question for Kalafina. They were to draw a picture of the answer and explain afterwards what is was supposed to be :-). The text of the questions was in French and I only unterstood parts of it, so take the following with a grain of salt (or post a correction):
Question: What is a typical French food?
Wakana: Steak
Keiko: Macaron
Hikaru: Macaron
Quesition: Was is Japan famous for in the world?
Hikaru: Anime & Manga
Keiko: Anime
Hikaru: Anime & Manga
They declared some kind of a tie and did a third question, which I didn't unterstand. I only got part of the answers:
Keiko: Moon and Sky
Wakana: Planet
Hikaru: some kind of food (not sure any more)
The answer drawing session lasted for about 15 minutes, after that Kalafina left the stage and
Jaru Jaru came on stage - a Japanese comedy duo. I believe some people thought that the Kalafina part was already over, as several of them left the event at that point. Jaru Jaru performed for about 15 minutes, then Kalafina reappeared and joined them on the stage. Three members of the audience were invited on the stage and they formed two teams. And then the real game started, some kind of charade/pantomime quiz. The words they had to guess were preselected and written on sheets of paper - in French, so they had to be translated into Japanese for the guests, with sometimes funny faces. All in all, them seemed to have lots of fun with that. The two members from the audience in the winning team got small gifts (couldn't see what, though).
Afterwards, several rounds of their favourite game Jankenpon followed. Basically the same they did at AnimagiC, but the prizes were provided by Coooby and/or Tottori, I think. So, nothing Kalafina related, but a set of T-shirts was signed by Kalafina. I couldn't identify most of the other stuff. I tried the Jankenpon, yet had no luck - but I already knew that. The whole mini-event lasted for about 70 Minutes.
When I left the Saiko booth, I noticed that at Tottori they were already rearranging the tables for the Kalafina signing - so I just decided to stay there and join the (short) waiting line. I spent there almost an hour, and in the end it turned out they signed only on prepared cards (A4 size, with the logos of Japan in Motion and Tottori printed on them), any other items were refused. As far as I could see, it was the same for the Jaru Jaru signing session that started at Coooby the Run (in front of the booth, not inside) at the same time. So the rules for the Kalafina signing tomorrow at Coooby will likely be the same. That was pretty disappointing, since it leaves the signing session at Wakanim as the only real chance to get a Kalafina item signed. The draw on Sunday will not be favourable to me.
Next, I headed to the Live House. After reading the reports about the changed setup, I wanted to check this out myself today, and entered the Nogizaka46 concert mid-session and also stayed for the following Glowlamp concert. The audience area of the Live House seems to be divided into three segments, and when each one is full, they open another one. I was in the second segment for Nogizaka46 and in the first for Glowlamp. There is no way to get from one segment into the other during the concert, so if you want to get a place near the stage, make sure you end up early enough in the line to get into the first segment. The light effects and sound setup were completely different this time: Apparently, the Live House does have proper light effects, but they were simply not used much for the Shokotan concert. The sound was much better this time (bass was fine), but also considerably louder than on Wednesday, causing mild clipping every now and then. I hope they tone it down a bit for Sunday's concert. I will not say much about the concerts themselves, only that I'm still not a fan of idol pop.
I had planned to leave the festival for the day after my visit to the Live House, the lineup on the signing desk was not interesting for me, so I didn't even try today - saves me the disappointment at least. But on my way out I noticed that Satsumasendai Odori-daiko did another performance on the 15th Anniversary Stage, so I stayed for that one. This was a different performance from the one yesterday at the Cultural Stage, also including western music - like a taiko version of the Mission Impossible theme. Very nice, but I think it was their last performance at this year's Japan Expo.
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but at least the autograph session went okay ( basically, if you bought stuff at the Wakanim stall, you got a ticket). I was at least able to wish Hikaru a belated birthday before hurrying along to give the person behind me a chance!
. It happened before the signings started and being right near the front I could see what was going on in the signing area.
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Glad to hear you're all having so much fun