Berryz in Kawaguchiko

It’s time for round two of Berryz in Yamanashi: トラベリーズ.com2 Berryz Kobo Fanclub Tour in Kawaguchiko. Not a complete rundown of the bus tour, but as I do, a few highlights follow.

From Tokyo station we traveled to Saiko Lake. Berryz Saikou! That just seemed funny, and appropriate.

First on the schedule was the 8 shot. Yurina came out and said hello just as she did in the last tour, said a few other things and then the rest of the girls followed her shortly thereafter. Happy to see my girls again~!

Was warmly welcomed by everyone when it was my turn to take my picture. I guess it’s not so much of a surprise when I show up anymore, but it’s a relatively rare occurrence in any case, so there’s always a little bit of that sort of an atmosphere when we meet and greet.

The girls were all supposed to be doing the pose that Captain and Miya are doing, but that didn’t happen, lol. It’s fitting though, seeing as I was trying to replay a little something from the Gag 100 opening dance. In the MV, it is Captain and Miya who are doing that move, and they stick it in this shot. Check out the first few seconds of the MV here for reference.

Skipping ahead to the concert that night, it was a lot of fun. Chinami and Yurina performed Nicchoku ~Geinoujin no Kaiwa~ together. They performed that one back in 2007 and it’s quite memorable if I do say so. After the concert, we walked out as the girls were waiting for us to just give a little wave and goodnight. “See you tomorrow,” Chinami said to me, can always count on her to put in that little bit of something.

The morning of the second day, we got to see some monkeys perform. Berryz joined us in the audience and also went on stage a few times before, during and after. The act was really cute, and it was fun to watch on stage and also watch Berryz’ reactions to things. After the morning event, we’d head to our next destination, and before getting off the bus a group of Berryz would board and say a few words to us. As luck would have it my three favorite Berryz, Chinami, Maasa and Captain hopped on our bus. They weren’t there for any amount of time before they took off and we were left alone until the fan meeting and handshake later on that afternoon.

At the beginning of the fan meeting, each Berryz picked a ball with a number that corresponded to one of seven columns of seats; Chinami picked the column I was in. Lucky~ Go Team Chinami!

Next up, let’s play some games. For the first game with the newly chosen teams, each Berryz would come into the crowd and pick a wota to play for them. You can guess where this is headed, yes? Chinami came off stage and walked straight over to me, pointed with both fingers and indicated that she wanted me to go up there with her. I pointed to myself, surprised as if to say “me, really?” Yes really. The surprise was more like love, happiness and excitement that she came right over and picked me first.

So I made it up to stage. A few of the other girls were still picking their reps, so Chinami and I got to talking for a bit. She asked a few questions and I answered as I could. We talked about the game, said good luck and stuff, but it was more about me and her than anything. Amongst the things I told her, “I came from America just to see you. I always come to meet you.” She was really happy when I said that, and confirmed as such by saying so, that she was very happy. I of course was happy to hear that she was happy and, yeah… Ugh, I love this girl, heh. Thanks again for making me feel special.

So the game was a competition to see how many times you can hula hoop, or, um, hula, or whatever the verb would be. I have not done this in like 20+ years, I don’t even know when was the last time. Ready to make a fool out of myself, yes I am! For Chii I would do anything! I’ll also mention that the hula hoop was small, or to say it another way, I am big, both statements true and point to the difficulty I was going to have regardless, haha, not enough space too to really give it a good swing. So they let us practice for a little bit. One loop, then drop, pick it up, loop and drop again. When it got to the real thing, we’ll, same turn of events. After a drop we were allowed to pick it up however, so I did get some credit for my embarrassing efforts. I think I got 3 points for team Chinami, second place for that game? I didn’t get a really good look at the score chart, which was on the opposite side of the stage to where I was sitting (I perhaps got nothing for my efforts, well, besides some Chii time, heh).

So anyway, there were a few more games and competitions and our section continued to cheer Chi on. We didn’t win however, but that’s alright, I definitely felt like a winner, yeah.

Alright, so one last highlight, this time involving Risako. Risako is usually pretty shy when I talk to her, one-on-one, face-to-face, but this time was different. The reason being, she spotted my Rilakkuma tattoo(s) peeking through the top of my shirt collar. After I finished saying what I had to say to her, she pointed and asked “What is that?” (in Japanese). “Oh!” I responded, it took me a split second to realize, I told her it was a tattoo. “Kawaii” she said, her face was lit up. “Rilakkima” I told her and she followed up with another “kawaii” and a “chou kawaii.” I said thank you, a big smile was on her face and as I walked away, her eyes followed me out as she turned towards me, waving enthusiastically with both hands, saying, “bye bye.” So, yeah, like I said, I usually don’t get that much out of Risako during the handshakes, so this was nice. Just another special moment to put into the bank of interactions I’ve had with her.

So that’s it for the highlights. Obviously there was a bunch more that went on during the tour, and a lot of little moments with Chii and the rest of the girls, but this was the stuff that stood out.

Until next time, see you, at Budokan.