Avex Mode Anime Rave 2001
This was a long, 4 hour live event by many seiyuu and singers. I met up with Stephen Lee at around 13:00 in Akihabara, got some food, then go to Ariake Big Sight through JR Yamanote-sen and Yurikamome. From the Yurikamome station, we walked to Big Sight. I saw no queue enroute so I think maybe the event would not be too successful on a weekday. After we go inside Big Sight, we found the queue. It started from the entrance of Hall East 4, along Hall East 5 & 6, and about a hundred meters outside the building. When we queue up, we found there was quite a few cosplayers, all of them were cosplaying Sakura Taisen character. A girl cosplaying Sakura was just a few person in from of us. She was practising the hand gestures of the Sakura Taisen OP, which I knew quite well. ^_^ Upon entrance, after the usual camera check, a white bag and a pack of cards were handed to the each audience. The bag contains tons of pamphlets and a uchiwa (paper fan). The pack is the Avex Mode promotion card set : cards of several anime/game related to Avex Mode, such as Sakura Taisen, Angelic Layer, One Piece, Dangaioh, Enomoto Atsuko, Vampire Hunter D, Chance, Initial D, etc. The hall was divided into 12 sections (4x3 : 4 in front, 4 in middle, and 4 at the back). Our tickets were of section D, which was the right-most section in the front. No seats, as it was supposed to be an all standing event. The show started at around 15:35. Emcee Souguchi Akihisa and Ueda Kana came out. The emcee list also had Seki Toshihiko, but he did not appeared at that time. The emcee introduced Sakura Taisen Hana-gumi. All the Hana-gumi came out, introduced themselves, and sang 3 songs
As usual, they cosplayed as thier respective characters during the talk and the song. As there was a Sakura Taisen Kayou Show that night, all the Sakura Taisen Hana-gumi members excused themselves and left. Many Sakura Taisen fans also left the event at that time. Inside those who left, there was a bunch of guys wearing yellow Iris yukata. Very scary. ^_^ Next came the Sakura Taisen Paris Hana-gumi. All 5 members came out and sang Hana no Paris. They were also cosplaying their respective characters. Lobelia was very, very cool. She did not even smile once. Coquelicot was having a too heavy maku-up. Erica was OK. Glycine had a non-natural yellow wig. Hanabi's black wig did not fit her face. Lobelia was taller than the rest of the crew, so I borrowed Stephen's binocular to try to see if Kikuko was wearing a high-heel boot, but her outfit covered her leg very well and I could not see her boot clearly. Their introduced themselves after the song, then sang Voyage. Lastly, they sang Mihata no Moto ni, OP of Sakura Taisen 3 game. During the songs, it was obvious that they had not practise much with the dance steps as they were horribly out of sync. Mainly, it was Lobelia who had the wrong move most. Also, there was a long pause between every single people spoke their dialogues. The dead silence was obviously caused by lack of practise together. However, we would not expect them to be as good as the original Hana-gumi in stage performance. All 5 members started to go back to backstage. Lobelia forgot to took back the ribbon-ball (a property used during the songs) she placed on the floor. Coquelicot tried to remind her but Lobelia already walked away. Coquelicot then went to pick up Lobelia's ribbon-ball and went backstage. As the emcees were walking out to the stage, Erica suddenly came out again to perform her short Ohayou Dance, starling the emcees. She went backstage after the dance. After she left the stage, many Sakura Taisen fans left the event at that time to attend the Sakura Taisen Kayou Show that night. Stephen and I were among those who left then. When we were leaving, they were showing promotional clip of the upcoming Sakura Taisen movie. My prime objective of going to this event is to watch Inoue Kikuko cosplaying Lobelia, so I did not feel bad having to leave early.
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