At the sign session...there was already a pretty large crowd gathered. I did my best to find a good spot, ended up maybe a couple people back from the front of one group of fans...which was actually a good distance from where the girls would be.
The line for people who had tickets to the session weaved back and forth directly in front of the stage the session would be held on, and the crowd I was in stood right against the fences/barricades for that line (in other words, in this order: girls, line for session, crowd I was in)...so there was a good 40-50 feet between the girls and myself, I'd say... (although I'm horrible at estimating that kind of thing lol, could have been way more...either way, it wasn't very close)
Eventually the girls walked out on stage and everybody cheered, etc...the girls waved, took their seats, and the session started. Anytime a member didn't have someone in front of them the crowd would go wild cheering and waving and screaming their name lol, and the girls would wave and do peace signs, etc back...I saved my energy for whenever Aichan freed up and did my best to get her attention. I can't remember if she waved at me during this time or not, honestly...she may not have, as I hadn't yet realized where the best spot to get her attention from was :P
After a bit, a Japanese lady came up and started speaking to me in French. After she finished what she was saying, I told her "I'm an American" in Japanese, and she asked if I spoke Japanese...to which I said yes, then she perked up and invited me over to the side really quick to a guy with a camera (another interview lol).
Like the sign session, everything here was in Japanese...
Once the camera started rolling...they asked me where I came from, how long I had been into Momusu, a few other questions that I can't remember at the moment (honestly I barely remember this interview, with the exception of a few small details...). At one point the camera guy stopped recording and said "excuse me...your Japanese is very very good, but...where did you learn to speak it?" lol...I just told him "at a private school" (should have pimped my Japanese program here, but didn't think to at the time >.<), and he started the camera rolling again. After a few more questions they asked me to give a message to Aichan into the camera O.O
I immediately said "ahhh...that's tough...", and they kind of laughed. I did the best I could...honestly it wasn't great, I was totally unprepared and just ended up saying that Aichan's really important to me like three times in a row lol...oh well...
Then they had me turn around and got a nice long shot, from bottom to top, of the back of my outfit...it seemed to take a VERY long time, and at one point I started to turn around but the lady yelled "stay! stay!" (in English lol), and I quickly turned back around...eventually the camera guy gave me an okay, they thanked me, I thanked them, and I rushed back to see more of the session haha
Got another spot in basically the same place as before, more waving cheering etc. Eventually a girl standing in front of me moved and I got a spot basically in the front...then ANOTHER Japanese lady came up and started speaking to me in French haha.
Like before, this was all in Japanese...
I told her, again, that I was an American, and she said "ah...we were looking for French people..." *thoughtful pause* "you can speak Japanese?" and I said "yes!" so she went ahead and took me along anyway lol
After a short trek...there stood Nakazawa Yuko, the original leader of Morning Musume O.O (she had come along for the trip) Even though I'm not a huge fan of hers, meeting her is a big, BIG deal...
I quickly gave a surprised "oh, hello!" to her and she said "hello!" back. The girl who brought me over told her "he's an American, but he can speak Japanese" and Yuko said to me, "ah, yoroshiku onegaishimasu!" (hard to translate, interpretively it means "please treat me well" and is said before doing basically anything moderately important with anybody in Japanese culture :P). I said "yoroshiku onegaishimasu" back and gave a quick nervous bow/nod. The girl told Yuko "now, don't ask him if he's an American...ask him where he's from". Shortly after that, the camera started rolling...
Yuko asked "Are you from France?", to which I said "no, I'm an American". Then she asked if I came specifically to see Morning Musume, to which I said yes...how long I had been into MM (for the curious, I got into another group under MM's umbrella company - Hello!Project - called Berryz Koubou in June of 2007, and ended up getting into MM around the end of that year...been pretty well consumed with the group, and various other Hello!Project groups, since then - told her that almost exactly)...Yuko asked who my favorite member was (LOL! clearly as a bit of a joke), and I said Aichan with a chuckle...she had me turn around and show the back of my outfit to the camera, made a few impressed remarks ("wow", "amazing")...
Then she asked what my favorite Morning Musume song was, and I locked up for a second because I don't have one! Just told her my favorite is a song called "Mikan" (I really loved that one in Anime Expo's concert last year and was really looking forward to it at that day's concert)...but honestly that was kind of a crappy choice cause that song isn't normally considered to be a Momusu song with much "depth" to it, if that makes sense...just a good concert song, a crowd-pleaser of sorts. Anyway, she kind of laughed at that like "oh, really?"...I said "cause it gets the crowd riled up, you know?" and she just kind of said "that it does" ("sou desu ne"...basically just an all-around neutral agreement statement in Japanese, a good response to almost anything, really...literally means "it is, isn't it" but tough to translate in this context >.<) and laughed. Not my best moment, but oh well...my answer to the next question made up for it...
Yuko asked me what I thought Morning Musume's charm point was...what makes the group special. I said "For me, I think the member's dedication and hard work is amazing" (that doesn't sound too impressive in English, but the words I used in Japanese definitely had some impact to them). She seemed kind of taken aback and stood there for a second, said "d-dedication and...ah, thank you so much" and bowed. I guess she didn't expect that kind of thing from a foreigner haha
I can't remember much of the interview beyond that, those may have been the only questions she asked...anyway, after it was over she thanked me and shook my hand (big deal with MM members or idols period, normally handshakes are limited to special events in Japan o.o), I thanked her and the staff and scurried off back to the sign session.
Photo 1
Now, a quick note...for the sign sessions at Japan Expo, they had a big long table up on stage with chairs for each member, and Aichan was all the way to the left side of that table, first one people walked up to. Moving on...
After the interview with Yuko, I got settled back into my same spot in the crowd...then noticed a small group of Morning Musume fans (including Carlos and some other fans I knew) standing in the area for the next event over on the side where Aichan sat, leaning against the fence/barricade between the two events. This put them almost directly to the side of the stage Momusu sat on, maybe 15-20 feet from Aichan, with no obstructions and few other fans nearby...so I jumped out of the crowd I was in, ran over into the next event and got a good place up in front leaning on the fence/barricade with them. Couldn't have had a better spot, clear view of Aichan (most of the time, anyway...one of the staff got in the way every now and then) and, even better, she had a clear view of me...and thus began the real fun~ (my apologies if I kind of ramble on a bit here, this was pretty exciting for me...)
Whenever she freed up, I'd yell her name and wave the same as before...within a couple minutes she waved right at me! I could have died... ;_____;
And it just got better from there, clearly my outfit helped a LOT here (and perhaps what I said to her at the FNAC sign session helped, or the fact that I said it in Japanese? or that I had been in EVERY place Momusu was so far and stood out like a sore thumb haha) because there was a marked difference whenever she waved at me compared to waving at other people (I'll upload a video from the Saturday sign session to prove it :P). After a bit, Paul Elliott came up and set his camera directly on my left shoulder...I looked back at him and he said "just keep going!", so I did haha...he took quite a few pictures (quietly saying "yeah, that's great!" and "shout her!", etc in his awesome British accent the whole time lol - a true cameraman, or something like that :P), and amongst them were these... (some of you may have already seen one or both of these...but they're worth looking at again~)
Photo 2
Photo 3
This was one of those moments that made the whole trip, and all the preparation I put into it, worth it for me...having your favorite member of Morning Musume (and one of the most popular ones, no less) pick you, out of a crowd of hundreds, to wave at - several times, even - is really something special >.<
Soon enough there were a decent number of people gathered over in this area, a good portion of which were Aichan fans haha. At one point Carlos (who was behind me to my right) pointed to me, himself, a female Japanese Aichan fan to his left and another Japanese Aichan fan over to his right (one of her most well-known ones, this guy has been following Morning Musume around the world for several years now...), then said to the girl "koko wa Aichan-gumi da" - "this is the Aichan team", basically. Kind of a cool moment haha
Eventually the session ended, more cheering as the girls walked off stage and that was that.
Photo 4
A random guy who had been near us taking pictures of Morning Musume caught my attention and showed me one particularly cute picture of Aichan that he got...I melted a bit, I'll admit (she's just too cute ;____;), kind of held my hand to my chest and made an "ah-! my heart~" face/motion lol. He just smiled haha, I thanked him and he said "you're welcome! see you back here at tomorrow's session?" or something like that in a French accent (turns out he was French :O) and I said "yes!". I know there was more to the conversation than that haha, but I can't remember anything else >.<
Regardless, we went our separate ways and I started to make my way back to the concert line by myself...
Okay, so one more post before the concert itself...my bad :P
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