That's when I heard a familier voice coming from my right. No, it couldn't be! I looked up and I saw the pinoy powerhouse himself, Mr. kuno_thunder! I was all "HOLY SHIT MAN, NO WAY!" The bastard decided to drop in on us unannounced. It was a great surprise that made me forget about being shut down at the autograph session.
- we had quite a few ideas on just how we'd bring him out and "punk" everyone. In the end we just tried to get as many HiPstaz in the same general area and just had him casually walk up to the group.
And MEOW YOU ASS! I GAVE AWAY YOUR BEAVER TO REINA!
This is so much more funny if you were part of the JPH!P party that went to Honda-ya izakaya on Saturday.
I ran to the washroom right after because I have been holding onto a long ass piss. Sev and Ping were waiting for me and when I got out, Sev was like, "Dude! You just shook hands with Morning Musume and you touched your penis with that hand!" I was like, "OH FUCK! INDIRECT HANDJOB! WOO!"
So epic it's not even funny.
Can't really add much in terms of reviews, as it has all pretty much been stated (one way or another) already by someone here. Still, I should jot down a few thoughts before I head to bed.
- KT and I actually landed in LA on Day 0, however we spent the day in Oceanside (about 2-3 hours south of LA if you're driving on the freeway) visiting relatives that we hadn't seen in like, 8-9 years. Spent the night there with them, then the next morning (Day 1) we drove back up to LA. KT was driving so I was able to periodically send texts to dai to let him know how far out we were and to find out what shit was going on. Arrived downtown and managed to meet up with dai and Tris-chan at Mayfair around 11:00am or so, which was actually earlier than I had expected to get there.
- proceeded over to the con and made it in time for the MM Panel. As has been previously stated, it ended up being a lot more lame than it needed to be. Janken dude got some chuckles, and the girls managed to squeeze in some cute fanservice moments, but the translator/dragon lady just really messed up and/or filtered a lot of the questions and answers so many people with the more "serious" questions got shafted. Ken's janken bit with Reina was a definite highlight.
- missed out on the GoH reception. Didn't even know about it until dai called KT's cell at like 6 or 7 in the morning the next day that it was happening. I was tired and a little grumpy because I hadn't gotten a decent sleep the night before we drove back to LA, otherwise I most likely would have gone.
- Before the concert began I spotted Jade Starr in the aisle. Told dai "Dude, Jade Starr's over there" and he proceeded to yell "YO JADE!!!" She then turned our way and dai went "JPHIP!" and she gave a big
.
- As for the concert itself, you won't hear any complaints from me about the girls' performance. You could tell that even with the jet-lag that they must have been feeling, they were still giving it their all during the show. Definite memorable moment here was when Jabronisaur nearly got kicked out because some AX staffer was doing a random ticket check and Jab's had temporarily fallen out of his badge holder. Fortunately, jaysonnj (at least, I think it was him; hope I spelled that right BTW) managed to find it on the floor a couple of feet from where Jab was sitting and showed it to the AX staffer.
- at the Hello!Party, like someone else here said (boykun? Ping?), it seemed more like a mixer than a "party". It was still pretty neat though, what with the playing of many of the old H!M games (burabura dangling game, "don't sing the last line" game, what I call "relay drawing", etc.). Also had some fangroups go up and do some performances. Definite highlight of this event for me was this little girl, probably about 2 or 3 years old, who'd run up on stage and dance along with the music! Dentists were needed for sure.
- I was much more impressed at the Tsunku panel. I arrived 10 min late to it, but fortunately they hadn't yet begun the audience questions. And as has already been said here by a few members, there were quite a few thoughtful/serious questions posed to the Soonk (along with a few chuckle moments tossed in for good measure). Dragon lady was there again, but to me it didn't seem like she was "filtering" as much in her translations as she was doing during the MM panel, which leads me to agree with some others here and thinking that she's more than just a translator (probably part of UFA, sent by the company brass to help "shelter/protect" the girls or something).
- there was probably no better way to put a cap on the whole trip than the JPH!P had at the izakaya and karaoke joints later that night. Awesome food and drink, the izakaya staff playing the MM songs for us, dai's loud, semi-drunken rambling speeches, what more could you ask for? Surprise of the night was when we found out the owner/boss of the izakaya was asking if he could get himself a JPH!P AX t-shirt!
When we found out and saw dai head to the kitchen, a bunch of us thought for sure that he'd literally give the boss the one off his back, if for no other reason than to thank him for putting up with our...shall we say...exuberance that night (which, BTW, had gotten us some funny/odd stares from some of the other customers that night
). On a personal note, I got to spend some time with the powerhouses/inspirations behind "the Miki haikus", the legendary
ComFen themselves.
I probably won't forget the look of astonishment on dai's face when he found out that Commie's Canadian.
And I swear that at the karaoke joint, KT and I usually do a much better job than what we ended up with.
With all the MM events and the craziness that happened during this trip, one thing that we all can agree upon, is that as sweet as it was to see/hear/meet MM, it was made all the more awesome by ALL of the people that FINALLY were able to meet face to face. The bonds shared at JPH!P are unlike any other. During the confusing shmoz that we went through, HiPstaz stepped up big time and managed to improvise some mad strategic ninja plans to try and make sure as many people could get as much out of this trip as they could get. When shit happened, we covered and helped each other as much as we could. When news came up, we were spreadin' it like wildfire to keep everyone in the loop. Even if we met people who weren't necessarily HiPstaz to begin with, we welcomed them in and treated them like our own. That's what makes JPH!P more than just a forum. THAT is what makes us family.
So to all the peeps that were on this trip with whom I managed to cross paths, dai, tenkei, dinny, boykun, rokun, Sev, Ping, Tris-chan, Davetron, Sayahchan, Canongirl, Commie, Fen, Rickker, OpsMonkey, arun, Flyp, adifferenstory, aewen, limitbreaker, Mugen, Jab, a_P, jaysonnj, Za_wolf, SacredCultivator, SITS, and anyone else that I might have forgotten...much thanks. Getting to see MM on this trip was great, but seeing the lot of you, seeing this family come together the way it did...that was even better.