EPT
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/6VR4g.jpg)
Edit: Finally found poster hangers for my Nana loot from the concert.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/244Nr.jpg)
Notes: This is actually what I would consider the first concert ever that I’ve actually been to so some special effects used might actually be standard at a concert, but it was new to me. My only other thing that could be considered a concert before this was Video Games Live in Toronto.
One year ago if someone had asked me who Nana Mizuki was, I probably would’ve said something like, “Oh, isn’t she just some anime voice actress (seiyuu)? She sings some theme songs too right?” I’m glad no one asked me that, especially KazeHydra, because I probably wouldn’t be alive and here writing this blog.
I remember the first time I heard about the goddess that is Nana Mizuki. I was relatively new to watching anime at the time, and it was my second
(edit: yes it was year difference from what I originally thought the air date was, but I'd still consider myself relatively new watcher).
Fast forward to a few months ago, after watching Mahou Shojou Madoka Magica, I decided to check out other Mahou Shojou series to see what they were like. Nanoha was the big name that popped up when talking about Mahou Shojou genres so I decided to check that out, (that and Cardcaptor Sakura, but that’s another completely different tangent). After listening to the opening theme song for the first season of Nanoha (Innocent Starter) a few times, I had gotten hooked to the song. And guess who sang that song, that’s right, none other than Nana Mizuki herself. She was also the seiyuu for one of the main characters of the series, Fate Testarossa. Holy shit was that series awesome. I didn’t like the opening songs for the sequels as much as Innocent Starter, but lately, they’ve been growing on me again, partly due to hearing it constantly played in almost every store in Akihabara (Akiba for short) to promote her recently released album The Museum II.
A few weeks ago, I had been relatively depressed. I just graduated from university, and have been constantly job hunting with no success and just been stuck doing my shitty job at DQ for as little hours a week as I possibly can (I’ve grown to hate that place so much). My daily Facebook stalking of my friends had shown me pictures of them taking grad trips to pretty much everywhere outside of Canada, making me even more depressed because I had planned with my friends to visit Japan or Korea as our grad trip but that fell through and nothing came of it. After a couple days of thought, I said, “Fuck it, I need to get out of Canada if only for a couple weeks.” And so, I told my mom about it, and that day I had bought a ticket from Toronto to HK for a week to visit family in China I haven’t seen in 10 years, and then from HK to Tokyo for about 14 days.
While I was in Tokyo, I found out through KazeHydra’s blog that Nana Mizuki was going to be having a concert in Tokyo in December. I looked further into it, and realized it was going to happen while I was in Tokyo, Dec 3rd and 4th to be exact. By this time, the only full song I had heard from Nana was Innocent Starter, and knew a little about the extent of her popularity. I thought, “why not, since it sounds like such a big thing, let’s see if I can get tickets to it.” Long story short, I showed up at an Animate store and asked how I could buy tickets for it through some broken Japanese, their reply in broken English was, "sorry it’s sold out". Aw crap, oh well, guess I can’t go. I told my friend on MSN about the concert and he was like (exact quotes):
“U WANTED TO BUY TICKETS TO A NANA MIZUKI CONCERT HAHAHAHA TATS LIKE TRYING TO SEE THE QUEEN OF ENGLAND HERSELF. UR FUCKING FUNNY HAHAHA.”
Now I wanted to go even more. I had been looking up some more videos/songs of Nana, and her singing was just amazing, even live. And her appearing at Tokyo Dome was a big deal. She would be the first seiyuu singer ever to perform on a stage as big as Tokyo Dome. I asked about tickets in TLADT and Necrophantasia told me to try Yahoo Auctions, however the mark up could be as high as 3-5x original price. I decided against it since 1, I can’t read Japanese, so it would take me forever to go through the auctions, and 2, I wouldn’t be able to communicate with the seller. This is when I remembered my friend who had moved to Japan a few months ago talk about being able to get tickets to a Morning Musume Concert in Tokyo even though they were sold out. So I asked him about it, and he told me about this ticket reselling shop in Harajuku (~30min train ride from my hotel). Note: The date was Dec 2 by this time, her first concert, Queen’s Night, was the next day, and King’s Night the day after. I went to the shop in the morning (Dec. 3) and BAM! Right at the front of the store, were tickets for Nana Mizuki’s King’s Night (Dec. 4) for 10000yen (regular price was 7777yen, cute play on Nana, which means 7 in Japanese, at least that’s what I think they tried to go for). Excellent, 10000yen was exactly the upped price I was willing to pay for. Being ecstatic of acquiring tickets to such an amazing event, I couldn’t help but semi-brag about it on TLADT, sorry guys. I told my friend on MSN about it too, it went something like this:
Me: So, about those tickets to see the queen of england? *link pic of Nana Mizuki ticket*
Friend: Who’d you rape?
Me: My wallet
Friend: rofl jelly!
Friend: Who’d you rape?
Me: My wallet
Friend: rofl jelly!
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/oqWt7.jpg)
Nana Mizuki Live getto!
Next, I was told that I should probably get glow sticks to further enjoy the concert. Not just any glow sticks, but those of the specific performer’s unwritten colours. For example, a Hatsune Miku concert, everyone should be using green/teal glow sticks and etc. So in order to not look like a complete idiot at the concert, I decided to look up Nana Mizuki’s colours. After watching a few videos of her past live concerts, it looked safe that the general consensus was that her colours were blue and orange. Great! I can just go to Akiba tomorrow (day of concert) and buy some glow sticks I’ve seen being sold at the stores there and then head to the concert right after. I show up at Gamers, a major retail store for all anime goods with about 7 floors to the building and one entirely dedicated to Nana Mizuki for the month, hoping to get some blue and orange glow sticks, and to my surprise, they just so happened to be sold out of blue and orange glow sticks. FUUUUUUUUUUU! I found ONE blue glow stick at the bottom floor, so I quickly grabbed it and left.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/lJxI6.jpg)
Heaven.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/PB5ih.jpg)
On the actual floor itself. Took this picture before they were able to tell me to stop taking pictures. 
I still had some time left so I walked around Akiba to see if other stores had orange glow sticks. I stopped by TORANOANA, another shop like Gamers, to find while they had slightly more blue glow sticks, they too were out of orange. I was running out of time, the concert started at 4, but they let you into the gates at around 2, so I picked up 1 yellow and a couple more blue glow sticks and headed for Tokyo Dome.
Upon arriving to Tokyo Dome, HOLY SHIT there were a lot of people lined up, and this was around 1:30ish, about 2.5 hours before the start of the concert. I was still semi hoping there would be people outside the venue selling orange glow sticks, but that didn’t happen. Instead there were official people selling this stuff
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/DFRxX.jpg)
So many humans!
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/NQmNh.jpg)
Had a moment of “shut up and take my money”.
Not being a big fan of posters and souvenirs like these because I know how overpriced they are, but this was Nana Mizuki, so what the hell. If I was going to own 1 poster, it might as well be of Nana. I thought at first it was 1500yen for only one of the posters, so I wanted the King’s Night one, the one I was attending, but turns out you get both!! XD. Also bought a key ring and a blue pen light. I ended up using this during the entire concert and wasted my entire time/money buying those glow sticks. /sigh. Cost still wasn’t as high as the pen light itself though.
The Concert
Now, onto actually going into the actual concert, sorry for making you guys read all of the above
. After passing through the security guard (who asked if I had a camera, I just showed him my iPhone and he let me through) and some ticket checkers, I found my way to my seat. Btw Ferrose, turns out it was Aisle 20 on the ticket, pretty much the same as Section . It was mostly about 1.5 hours of me sitting and just admiring the amount of people flooding in. I thought my seats would actually be closer to the stage having seen the seating map of Tokyo Dome. However, it would be close if it was a baseball game. The main stage was actually placed in the outfield near center field, while my seat was around the first base line. There was an usher walking around the whole time before the concert with a banner saying “No photographs” which will explain the crappy quality. That and I only had an iPhone 4s camera, and not an “$800 professional dslr camera with 200mm+ stalker lens”. I took the sign as meaning no flash photography (I keep the flash on my iPhone off all the time), since there was a camera with a bright flash picture, but just in case I was still quite paranoid about getting kicked out for taking pictures. I found out shortly after by looking at the crowds where all the orange glow sticks had gone.![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/xdp44.jpg)
This guy was nothing, the guy next to me had a stack of 20+ orange glow sticks, and blue pen lights from almost every Nana Mizuki concert that’s ever happened and pins too (at one point he used like 4 of the blue ones at once). Intense Nana fan! Also, these 3 seats next to me stayed empty the entire night, I believe they were the seats that the ticket shop was selling, but I guess no one else bought them.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/gTGv4.jpg)
The stage.
It was just slightly past 4 and I was kind of worrying what was taking so long, everywhere else I’ve been to opened/started eerily on time, down to the last second so I wasn’t exactly sure how much longer I’d have to wait. Then around 4:15ish, all the lights darkened except the castle, and I was expecting Nana to show up at the bottom door, but no, she showed up at the top of the balcony, in a royal king costume and she flew, that’s right, FLEW! from the balcony and descended to the main stage at the bottom. I had seen some videos of her past concerts of her on strings and flying down, but it was still breathtaking seeing it in person (she started singing as she was descending too, and it still sounded amazing). Sadly I didn’t recognize the first 2 or 3 songs she sang. After the first 3 songs, she started talking to the crowd. From the little Japanese I know, she said how yesterday, she was a queen, and now today she’s a king, and so she feels very cool. She then said something about a kid and a prince. The next song she sang was one that I recognized from her Museum II album, Shin Ai. She was singing and walked on one of the platforms that moved in an arc around the front of the stage. Next song was also one that I had heard of before but wasn’t sure of the name. It was most likely
After
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/dKXJy.jpg)
Probably the clearest picture I have of that
When she got off the balloon, she was talking to the crowd again. She said that when she had first heard she was going to be performing at Tokyo Dome, she was pretty scared/nervous. She was like “Here? Here?! Here?!” She said some other things but I didn’t understand it. She sang 2 more songs, one I believe was Pop Master and another I, again didn’t know the name of. After that song was another costume change, with the songs being done by what I believed to be a girl group, however I think it was her backup dancers. I found it amusing that during the balloon part, her backup dancers were still on the stage dancing while Nana was in the balloon. However, the dancers could’ve literally done whatever they wanted and no one would’ve paid them any attention because everyone was looking at Nana. This time, Nana came back in a bunny costume!
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/Mxsx4.jpg)
Blurry, but super cute blurry
She came back looking super cute with bunny ears and sang a couple songs, but I don’t think I recognized any of it. During her talk with the crowd this time, she mentioned something about a bunny mansion/house? I don’t know. But she did spin around twice while acting as a bunny (different poses each time too nonetheless). Chouuu kawaii! XD. Nana sang another song afterwards, which may have been Junketsu Paradox, since I recognized it from hearing it in all the shops in Akiba.
Another costume change, this time it was the bands turn to fill time. They did some guitar stuff that I probably wouldn’t be able to explain properly. But it involved some cool solos and at the very end, they grouped together to make the ends of their guitars shoot sparks out. Pretty sick! She comes back after that in a knight costume, sword in one hand, microphone in the other, so awesome. It may have actually been a prince costume since there was a crown involved but it was still awesome nonetheless. It was around this point I started to lose track of how many songs she sang because I was too busy trying to follow the motion with the glow sticks, more on that later if I have time. One of them I think was Scarlet Knight, the other sounded familiar from her Museum II album, and the last one I think was from Nanoha,
Costume change after that song and this time, they showed a little clip at the top of the dome, with Nana in a princess outfit staring at the night sky of a castle balcony. There was some lion thing that looked like Red XIII from Final Fantasy 7 and it acted like some bad guy. Some random person in the video gives Nana a sword, and she uses it to “befriend” the lion, and it turned into a White Lion with wings. This is followed with the real Nana, in the same princess outfit riding on that White Lion. She flies around and sings a couple songs (again sorry didn’t recognize it). She talks to the crowd again, this time barely holding back tears. She says how this was like a dream to her. Fans around me were shouting back at her how this was real, and not a dream. Nana looked really happy about it and announced her next song being Innocent Starter! The one song I was 100% sure of when she sang it mainly because of how well I know that song compared to everything else she sang. That song pretty much held #1 most played on my iTunes for a relatively long time, passing even songs that were added before it. I personally loved her timing to sing Innocent Starter. After the speech which sounded like one about how far she has gotten, from starting at the bottom to being the first seiyuu singer to sing in Tokyo Dome, it felt appropriate to sing one of the first songs in the series that really helped kick start her popularity. This could all have just been me putting words in her mouth, but that’s what it felt like to me when listening to her speak.
At this point, it almost felt like the concert was over, but even I knew better. The fans were chanting "Nana, Nana" after she finished Innocent Starter and she exited the stage. The fans were especially ecstatic in their cheering too. One person behind me kept shouting "Nana, Nana, Nana", and I can basically hear this throat pretty much give out but he kept chanting. She had exited to do another costume change, however this time there was nothing to fill time with the exception of the constant chanting of the fans. Of course, it wasn’t over, Nana came back in a float and sang a couple more songs, these ones I definitely had no idea what they were =(. She announced something for 2012, but that was about as much I had gotten with my knowledge of Japanese. Everything after she said the date was a complete blank for me, but it sounded like good news judging from the reaction of the crowd. (Edit: It was an announcement for a summer tour in Japan for 2012, thx KazeHydra!) She sings Astrogation and exits the stage again. More Nana cheering ensues and she returns to finish by giving presents to fans via a massive air cannon (gun would be an understatement). A couple more songs later, the last few of which, were actually sung by the fans and not Nana because she was too busy being awesome shooting gifts, it’s finally over. She ends in the same fashion in began, not flying but she did go back on the balcony (which was an elevator) and exited via the top floor of the castle.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/wDy4G.jpg)
She looked so sick holding that gun
The Crowd
The crowd was awesome in itself. They were so organized and energetic throughout the entire event. The use of the glow sticks was another form of art all together. They knew exactly when to use what colour glow sticks and for which songs, and how to wave them around. It wasn’t your simple left and right waving of your hands either. Some of that shit was complex as hell, and jumps involved. As KazeHydra had explained to me, the waving patterns followed the melody pretty well, however it was still something else to behold. I was really amazed during the concert just seeing all the colours move so in sync in the dark.
Overall Impressions
The concert was amazing. Period. However I did feel that I could have enjoyed it more if I was a bigger Nana fan, and knew more of the songs that she had sung. Most of them I had only actually heard for the first time, or at least, only parts of it while I was shopping around Akiba, and even then, I only knew how the chorus sounded like, and was lucky to even remember the name of the song. My only disappointment was that she didn’t sing Secret Ambition. That was one of the songs I had listened to the most the day before the concert, and heard the most in stores and was looking forward to it the most next to probably Innocent Starter. If she did sing it, I have no idea how I missed it, but I’m almost 100% sure she didn’t sing it in King’s Night.
Edit: Thanks again KazeHydra!
+ Show Spoiler [ Set List for King's Night] +
Queen's Night differences in [square brackets], translation in (round brackets).
01. Next Arcadia [Brave Phoenix]
02. Stay Gold [Romancer's Neo]
03. Silent Bible [Transmigration]
04. MASSIVE WONDERS [Secret Ambition]
05. 深愛 (Shin Ai) [Mugen]
06. POWER GATE
07. アオイイロ (Aoi Iro)
08. POP MASTER
09. 7colors
10. PRIDE OF GLORY [Dancing in the Velvet Moon]
11. Gimmick Game [Inside of Mind]
12. 迷宮バタフライ (Meikyuu Butterfly)
13. 純潔パラドックス (Junketsu Paradox)
14. SCARLET KNIGHT
15. PHAMTOM MINDS
16. Synchrogazer
17. ETERNAL BLAZE [Wild Eyes]
18. Don't be long [Unbreakable]
19. ROMANCERS' NEO [Stay Gold]
20. UNCHAIN∞WORLD [Tears' Night]
21. Orchestral Fantasia [Zankou no Gaia]
22. innocent starter [Eternal Blaze]
-アンコール- (Encore)
23. アノネまみむめ☆もがちょ (A no ne Mamimume Mogacho)
24. song communication [Discotheque]
25. Astrogation [Take a Chance]
26. -ダブルアンコール- (Take a Chance)
27. SUPER GENERATION -MUSEUM STYLE- [Anohi Yumemita Negai
01. Next Arcadia [Brave Phoenix]
02. Stay Gold [Romancer's Neo]
03. Silent Bible [Transmigration]
04. MASSIVE WONDERS [Secret Ambition]
05. 深愛 (Shin Ai) [Mugen]
06. POWER GATE
07. アオイイロ (Aoi Iro)
08. POP MASTER
09. 7colors
10. PRIDE OF GLORY [Dancing in the Velvet Moon]
11. Gimmick Game [Inside of Mind]
12. 迷宮バタフライ (Meikyuu Butterfly)
13. 純潔パラドックス (Junketsu Paradox)
14. SCARLET KNIGHT
15. PHAMTOM MINDS
16. Synchrogazer
17. ETERNAL BLAZE [Wild Eyes]
18. Don't be long [Unbreakable]
19. ROMANCERS' NEO [Stay Gold]
20. UNCHAIN∞WORLD [Tears' Night]
21. Orchestral Fantasia [Zankou no Gaia]
22. innocent starter [Eternal Blaze]
-アンコール- (Encore)
23. アノネまみむめ☆もがちょ (A no ne Mamimume Mogacho)
24. song communication [Discotheque]
25. Astrogation [Take a Chance]
26. -ダブルアンコール- (Take a Chance)
27. SUPER GENERATION -MUSEUM STYLE- [Anohi Yumemita Negai
Random musings:
KazeHydra's opinion on the crowd months later.
[22:56] <KazeHydra> i imagine king's night only had really hardcore fans + this one random canadian who only knew innocent starter
Additional pictures can be found here: http://imgur.com/a/0NTcl#368
Note: The picture quality obviously isn't the best, I think I said it in the post, but for those that skipped it, it was all taken with my iPhone 4s, and there was a guy before the show walking around holding a "no photos" banner. Also, half way during the show, a random usher showed up just a few rows in front of me for pretty much the rest of the concert, so I was semi paranoid of them being on to me, so I didn't take any photos near the middle part of the concert.
tldr; Nana Mizuki and King’s Night in general was fucking awesome!
