妖精帝國 YOUSEI TEIKOKU

Hi everyone.  I'm feeling good.  Why?  Because dreams do come true.  We'll get to that soon.



I woke up early and went with Wesley to Tokyo one last time.  Here's the shot of my last ride into the city.

We went to Akihabara first, and these guys were outside the station.  They're wearing complicated male-cheerleading outfits for members of the idol group SKE48.  Even if I don't care about SKE, these guys were great.

One of the stores had a Nana Mizuki display on the elevator doors.

They also had one in a corner that had a TV.  REALLY LOOKING FORWARD TO THIS ONE.

See the Akira and Trigun figures there?  I took this to prove a point.  Because they both got popular in America, most Americans seem to think that these are just very popular anime.  What they do not know is that no one in Japan cares about either very much.  These are the only pieces of Akira or Trigun  merchandise I have EVER SEEN in Akihabara, the world capitol of that sort of thing.  It's fine if you like them, just know where they stand.

We each had this drink made from red beans.  It wasn't bad at all.  After that a strange man offered us a peanut butter sandwich, which we of course turned down.

After Akihabara, we went to Harajuku and had lunch at Yoshinoya.  Here's what I had.

After that, Wesley went home, so I headed off to Shibuya-AX to wait for the concert to start.  On the way I saw this festival happening.

And this spooky house.

Here's the back of the venue!

Here's the front of the venue!

It was really, really hot, so I got Orangina.  It helped so much.  I wanted to die.

THEN THE FUNNIEST THING HAPPENED.  This old guy came up and started talking to me, and it turned out he was also there for Yousei Teikoku.  After speaking with him for a while, I found out he's Tatsuo, the fan I've been talking to online for around two years now.  I knew he was pretty old, but it was still a bit surprising.  DOesn't give off a creepy air or anything, though.  Mostly he's just into music most people his age aren't interested in.

He also brings this flag, signed by Yui-sama, to every Yousei Teikoku event.  It is awesome.  I don't even care how bad I look here.  YOUSEI TEIKOKU.

YOUSEI TEIKOKUUUUUU

I GOT TO TOUCH THE SIGNATURE.

Did I mention he also brings a collapsible flag pole?  Because he does.

And I had a good time with it.

Even though it was super hot.

This picture turned out much blurrier than I thought, but it's some of the flower stands for this event.  I took a picture of the Lantis one specifically because that's Yousei Teikoku's agency.

Here's a picture I snuck to show just about how close I was.  I managed to get a little closer later by way of Tatsuo seeing me and calling me to the middle.  It was a good place to get noticed.

Yousei Teikoku was the first to perform, and they did two songs (Kuusou Mesorogiwi and Egoist) before leaving.  I forgot the order of the event, but it was hosted by the voice actors for some of the main characters of Mirai Nikki, the anime this event was for.  One of them was one I've known for a long time, Minoru Shiraishi, and he was still just as entertaining as in 2007.

As for the performers, Faylan really blew me away.  She has a way of moving around on stage that is half BoA Kwon and half Kyo from Dir en grey, and that doesn't make sense.  I hadn't listened to her before this, but I'm definitely going to start.

I hadn't heard Rokugen Alice yet either, but I was looking forward to doing so.  I was NOT expecting what I got.  The singer came out dressed like royalty, and the bass player had sort of a knight-ish thing going on.  And then, for no reason, they had a guy in Renaissance clown makeup who spent the song having seizures, dancing, and being bizarre in general.  It was great.

OLDCODEX was... weird.  It was a very heavy rock ban that felt totally out of place at this sort of event, but there they were.  They were gimmicky like the last one in a really weird way.  They had a board on which the band's name had been painted repeatedly, and during the song one member's only job was to jump around and use this board to make art.  He painted on it and wrote words and stuff.  First time I've ever seen anything like it.

Every group sounded great live, but on of the voice actresses suffered from her lack of musical training.  Everyone else did a really good job.

Yousei Teikoku came back and closed the main set with "Herrscher" and "filament".  It was around this point that I lost my voice, but I am NOT going to let a silly thing like personal safety keep me from Yui-sama.  They left for a bit, then there was an encore where they did a new song called "Kyouki Chinden" and  "Kuusou Mesorogiwi" again.  The new song is super good oh my god

At the end, the whole cast gathered for speeches and bows.  It was during this time that Relu, Yousei Teikoku's drummer, noticed me and gave me a humorous wave.  Even more exciting, Yui-sama noticed me and gave me a smile that said "I'm trying not to break character, but I'm so happy to see a foreign fan I want to smile even bigger".

As they all left, Relu and I had a brief conversation with hand gestures that meant he wanted me to catch the drum stick he was going to throw.  I was super ready, but it ended up with three hands on it.  Me, a girl, and the most stereotypical, waste-of-space nerd all played rock paper scissors to get it, which was a nice idea,  but that stick was MINE.  Relu went out of his way to give it to me.  It doesn't help that the fat guy took.  it's even worse that when I offered him a lot of money for it, he was super rude and said he "needs a souvenir" as if I'm not from America or going home in a day or anything.  I hope he chokes on a chicken leg during his inevitable nightly food frenzy, because that's the only sort of drum stick he deserves. One that's cutting off his air supply.

Here's a poster for the event at the event.  Just because.
After this, I met with some other subjects (that's what Yousei Teikoku fans are called) that Tatsuo introduced me to, an we joined small group of people waiting for the performers to leave the venue.  No, we didn't see Yousei Teikoku,  but Minoru Shiraishi did walk by and I got to talk to him and shake his hand.  Faylan walked past, too, but I was too afraid of missing Yousei Teikoku to do much more than say "おつかれさまです!" , which is a thing you say after you do something exhausting, usually a concert.  Yoshihisa Kawahara (another of the voice actors) also dropped by and had a nice conversation with a group of us.
Once I found out Yousei Teikoku wasn't there anymore, I went with some of my new acquaintances to Harajuku Station to go home.  I got some contact information, so I'll have a lot to talk about when I get home.  The ride home was uneventful.

Are you guys aware that Yui-sama is the most beautiful woman in both the Human and Fairy Realms?  Are you aware of that?  You should be.  It's true.