Aozora Shoujotai Completion Event

Event: Aozora Shoujotai Completion Event
Location: Kudan Kaikan (Kudanshita)
Date: 1994.09.11
Time: 14:00 - 16:20
Guests: Hisakawa Aya (久川綾); Orikasa Ai (折笠愛); Inoue Kikuko (井上喜久子); Nogami Yukana (野上ゆかな); Miki Shinichirou (三木眞一郎)
Cost: free (need postcard)

Report version 0.7 by Hitoshi Doi, 1994.09.14
Report version 0.9 by Hitoshi Doi, 1994.10.17
Report version 1.0 by Hitoshi Doi, 1994.10.30

On September 11, 1994, the Aozora Shoujotai Completion Event took place at the Kudan Kaikan in Kudanshita. The Kudan Kaikan was a large auditorium that seated over 1100 people, which had second floor and third floor seats.

The event was very packed full, and I heard that the ratio of people who got accepted to this event was 2 to 1. I was 0 for 3, but I knew some people who got 4 tickets. All of the tickets were not numbered, so people went very early. They started passing out numbers at 9 AM, and at that point there were already 200 or so people lined up.

The event flowed as follows.

introduction of guests
Aozora Shoujotai Defcon-1
fashion show
slide show
intermission
live radio drama
Hisame (by Inoue Kikuko)
Metal Fighter Miku
Dog Fight Survival Game and presents
ED song (by Hisakawa Aya and Orikasa Ai)
good bye message

introduction of guests

As the event began, the emcee called out the guests, and they all came out from the left side of the stage as everyone cheered. They stood across the stage, and from right to left it was: Miki Shinichirou, Hisakawa Aya (wearing an Aozora Shoujotai T-shirt, Aozora Shoujotai hat, and jeans), Orikasa Ai (wearing a pink and black dress), Inoue Kikuko (wearing a long white one piece dress with black poka dots), and Nogami Yukana (wearing a cute blue, shoulderless dress).

Each guest introduced themselves.

Miki Shinichirou: I'm the one who does Isurugi Takuya's voice. He is the main character.

Hisakawa Aya: Hello everyone! I'm the one who does Haneda Miyuki's voice.

Orikasa Ai: Last night the typhoon was coming and I was worried about those who were waiting outside. But as the title says, it has become a blue sky! Have fun today.

Inoue Kikuko: Hello everyone! I'm the one who does Haneda Miyuki's voice..

[Kikuko made a mistake! Then she started laughing and couldn't stop laughing. So they went on to Nogami Yukana.]

Nogami Yukana: I'm the one who does Shimorenjaku Yoko's voice. Next to me is Saginomiya Sakura.

Then there was a simple question and answer session. Some of the highlights were:

emcee: How is Isurugi? He seems to be well liked by the girls.
Miki: Isurugi is very kind to women and he gets in lots of trouble because of it. Maybe he isn't very smart.

Inoue: Nogami Yukana made her clothes herself.
[Everyone was surprised. The outfit that Yukana was wearing was one that she had made herself.]
Inoue: Even if she looks this way..
Nogami: What? What!?
Inoue: She's very smart.
Orikasa: I'll explain. The role that she plays is a girl with a very low IQ.
Inoue: She does it very naturally too. Sometimes she makes cakes and desserts and brings it to us.
emcee: It seems like Shimorenjaku Yoko's becoming more childish in each episode.
Nogami: That's probably my fault.
Inoue: But they always tell her to lower her IQ.
Nogami: Yes, when I do it in a normal voice, the director tells me to lower the IQ.
Inoue: Then Yukana-chan says, "Yes!" and goes into low IQ mode.
emcee: So Nogami Yukana is a very smart person.
Inoue: Maybe that's true.

emcee: Actually Shimorenjaku is older than Mitaka and Haneda. I was surprised.
Nogami: Yes.
Orikasa Ai and Hisakawa Aya were surprised.
Orikasa: I have to change my acting from now on.

emcee: What's the difference between the radio dramas and OAVs?
Miki: It's basically the same, but we have to make the voices match the pictures in the OAVs.
Orikasa: Both are very interesting. With the OAV, you can actually see things. With the radio drama, you can imagine things.

emcee: Are there any parts to watch for in the OAV?
Miki: The OAV has beautiful pictures and nice animation.
emcee: But with current anime, it's all that way..
Miki: Well.. this is something you can enjoy, that is different from the radio drama.

As it was time to show the OAV, the emcee asked the guests to say the keyword. However some of the guests had forgotten it! The emcee quickly reminded them that it was "film start". Then they all said "film start" and left the stage.

Aozora Shoujotai Defcon-1

fashion show

For the fashion show, each voice actor came out onto the stage wearing the orange flight suits (overalls) and black jackets and black cap. (The jackets can be bought at Animate for 10000 yen, and the cap for 3000 yen.) Everyone came from the left of the stage, walked to the middle, turned around, took off the jackets, and then walked to the right of the stage.

Shimorenjaku Yoko (Nogami Yukana) came out first. Then it was Saginomiya Sakura (Inoue Kikuko). Ah.. Kikko-sama looks good in anything! Then it was Mitaka Arisa (Orikasa Ai), Haneda Miyuki (Hisakawa Aya), and Isurugi Takuya (Miki Shinichirou).

slide show

After the fashion show, the voice actors went to the left side of the stage and they began the slide show. The slides were of the pictures taken when Orikasa Ai, Hisakawa Aya, Nogami Yukana, and Shimizu Toshimitsu (the author of the Aozora Shoujotai manga) went to the real air force base in Hamamatsu. Miki Shinichirou acted as the narrator and the voice actresses added comments as they showed the slides.

There were pictures of the three girls in the orange flight suits inside the airplanes, listening to lectures about planes, eating the curry rice lunch, etc.. Some of the highlights (^_^;;) were..

When there was a picture of one of the JSDF officers putting the name badge on everyone's flight jackets, Hisakawa Aya said that he was a little ecchi. He put the badges on the pressed it around like "Gunyu.. gunyu.." although I don't have that much.. Then he peeled it off and did it again.

When there was a picture of the three girls in flight suits saluting, Inoue Kikuko said that it looked like an omiai [Japanese arranged marriage] picture. She added, "Please pick the one you like."

There was a picture of the girls putting on G-suits. Nogami Yukana explained that people had to wear it to protect their body from the high pressures and that it was very heavy and they couldn't move well. Then Inoue Kikuko asked, "Why do you have to wear that?"
Orikasa Ai answered that it was for protection from the G forces in the airplane. Then Inoue Kikuko asked, "Oh, but if you're inside the plane.."
Miki Shinichirou said, "Let's go on to the next slide."

There was a picture of the girls trying on oxygen masks. Then Inoue Kikuko said, "I've never tried one of these, but does it feel good?" The other girls said that it wasn't connected.

When they were looking at F15 fighter jets, they said that the cost was around 9 billion yen ($90 million). Then Inoue Kikuko said, "Oh, that's about the same as 1 million yen." She meant that 9 billion was so much, just like 1 million was to her.

live radio drama

After the intermission, there was a live radio drama type show. All of the voice actors lined up with scripts in front of the microphones, and they read the lines to a short drama. [This drama is very similar to episode 24 of the radio drama.]

The basic story of the drama was that it was raining and the people of the 801 TTS were bored. They were thinking of something to do. Saginomiya Sakura suggested that they drink russian tea. She explained that they get 6 cups of tea and put poison in one of them. The others declined, even when she said that the poison wasn't strong enough to kill them.

Eventually the decided to play cards. Sakura quickly took out some cards and she wanted to play for money. But everyone was against that. Shimorenjaku Yoko said that she wanted to play some simple game. Mitaka Arisa accused Sakura of using a marked deck, but Sakura said that her marked deck was in her other pocket.

They did janken to decide who would go first, and Yoko won. When they were saying the janken lines, Kikuko was actually doing it with her right hand, and putting out the "choki" (scissors). (^_^) [In her latest album, Kikuko wrote a song called Choki no Kamisama, where she says that she only uses the "choki" when playing janken.] So Yoko went first, and ten minutes passed as she was deciding which card to take. (not 10 real minutes) Arisa got impatient and said she didn't want to play any more. Then Sakura said that they should sing.. (which leads to the next portion of the event.)

Hisame (by Inoue Kikuko)

Inoue Kikuko sang the enka song Hisame as Saginomiya Sakura. VERY NICE! Saginomiya Sakura was a character who loved gambling and singing enka. [enka = traditional Japanese song]

During the interlude between verses, Kikuko spoke some lines, but she wasn't fast enough and just barely finished before she had to sing again. (^_^)

Metal Fighter Miku

After the song, the emcee and Inoue Kikuko were talking about the Aozora Shoujotai drama CD (which is on sale now), and that the song Hisame was on that CD. Then all of a sudden, four girls in metal fighter suits came out onto the stage. They were dressed up as the Pretty Four, a group of four girls who were a professional wrestling team in the TV anime Metal Fighter Miku.

Orikasa Ai and Miki Shinichirou were regular cast members on Metal Fighter Miku, so they came out onto the stage and did some advertisements for that show. There were going to be videos/LDs coming out.

Dog Fight Survival Game and presents

After the advertisements for Metal Fighter Miku ended, all of the voice actors came out, and they went onto the Dog Fight Survival Game.

This was a one on one game where each person drew one card from a stack of three. There were three cards marked attack, flight, and crash, with attack being stronger than flight, which was stronger than crash. All of the voice actors fought against each other, and the one with the most wins was the overall winner.

The audience got to participate as each person's ticket had a name of a voice actor on it. The people with the winning voice actor's name would get a prize.

The results of the Dog Fight Survival Game were as follows.

Inoue Kikuko - 3 wins
Miki Shinichirou - 3 wins
Orikasa Ai - 2 wins
Hisakawa Aya - 1 win
Nogami Yukana - 1 win

Then they had a final game between Kikuko and Shinichirou. Kikuko pulled an attack card and Shinichirou pulled a crash card. So Kikuko was the winner, and everyone who had a ticket with her name got a poster as a present.

After that, Kikuko, Shinichirou, and Yukana stayed on the stage as they had 10 cels from Aozora Shoujotai as special presents. They pulled 10 numbers from a box, and those 10 people got the cels. Most of the cels were of Haneda Miyuki and Shimorenjaku Yoko. There were none of Saginomiya Sakura.

Later Kikuko mistakenly called this dog fight game, the dog race.. (^_^)

ED song (by Hisakawa Aya and Orikasa Ai)

After the drawing for the cels were completed, Hisakawa Aya and Orikasa Ai came back onto the stage, wearing fancy clothes. Ai was wearing a fancy dress with pink flowers, and Aya was wearing a long blue one piece dress.

Aya was concentrating very hard on the lyrics. When someone spoke to her, she said that she was busy trying to remember the lyrics.

Then they sang the ED song to the OAV, Taiyou ga Atatameta Kimochi - The Sun Warms My Heart -. But as always, Aya forgot a part of the lyrics. (^_^)

good bye message

After the song, it was time to say good bye.

Miki Shinichirou: Thank you for coming. I think you all discovered how fun this anime is. I like it a lot. We are having fun doing the voices and we will try our best. Thank you very much.

Nogami Yukana: [in a very cute, slow, low IQ voice] Thank you for lining up in this heat from so early in the morning. We tried out best. We will do three videos, so please enjoy those. Thank you very much.

Inoue Kikuko: I'm happy to be able to act in an anime that is so fun. The members are so great. I like both the CDs and OAVs, and I'll try hard.

Hisakawa Aya: Messing up the lines in a song is my "promise". I'm sorry. Thank you very much today!

Orikasa Ai: It was a great event. Thank you very much. I'll be going to Yamadera Kouichi's radio show [the one that plays the Aozora Shoujotai radio drama], so please listen to it. Also there is a fan club forming, and there are people passing out flyers. Please get it from them. Thank you very much.