My personal reunion – Renai Kinshi Jourei (25 May 2013)

So a couple of friends and I flew over from Singapore to Jakarta again this last weekend to catch JKT48 again.  It was the best time to come over because my college’s summer break just started and it was a long weekend back home. And fortunately enough, my own oshimen (Beby) had a performance lined up during this trip.

To see Beby again must have been the most personal goal in my JKT48 fandom so far. It was nothing short of pure agony to have been that unlucky to have missed seeing her since the theater’s opening in September. In November, I missed her when she was all out of communications during her 6 days in hospital.

In January, she was still in her recovery stage and when she came back during February/March, she was a whole lot skinnier then. In April, I couldn’t catch a show with her in it. By the time it was for this May trip, it had been 8 to 9 months already.

Once all the members appeared after Stella’s solo opening in Nagai Hikari, my eyes searched frantically for her and boy, was I so glad to finally see Beby again. She had seemingly grown taller (?) and her hair is sooooo long now, so different from her shorter ponytail days from the last memories I had of her. But she looked beautiful. She looked fine and healthy. She looked happy and she still had the best dance movements among the members. I couldn’t really think of anything, or maybe there was supposed to be nothing to think of all. Usually I paid my full respects to the performers by looking only at the ones in front of me, but this time, it had been mostly a Beby only “solo” view.

Apparently in team J’s shows, fan audiences would sing~ members names after their individual jikou shokai. But I didn’t know that and got too excited and just screamed Beby’s name right after her bow, to much laughter and ridicule from my friends for spoiling the timing.

Beby performed in Renai Kinshi Jourei and not in Kuroi Tenshi, which was my only other regret. So many people have raved about how she is the goddess in Kuroi Tenshi, it would have been perfect if everyone there could have witnessed the tue descent. But it was great to shout and chant her name when she sang and it was certainly a different, reuniony- feeling this time round. As if God was smiling down on me, my 2nd gen oshi, Dellia also popped up as a backdancer during this show. It was also hard to see her because they kept rotating the 2 trainee teams around. But seeing both Beby and Dellia together certainly made me feel whole in JKT fandom again.

(Both Angga’s and Richardson’s reports have already covered so many details about the show that, so do take a read to find out more about the other things that were in the show)

And to end off this very personal story, I just wanted to share some thoughts.

I recognize that it is difficult being an overseas or even a far fan, and even harder if you had been an original team J supporter. The girls just seem to be getting further and further away from us as they chase their dreams.

Things have changed since last time when we were able to tweet and interact. But these days, members can go for days without tweeting, and the only way to interact is through a theater show or the rare public event- things that require you to be physically there. Although, I am sure, that everybody is grateful to be able to share 10 seconds of life in the upcoming handshakes.

Close friends and I have begun to lose interest sometimes, while other friends have turned to the 2nd gen for being more attentive and energetic. Some have turned away from the theater because of the lack of fan service and the loss of interaction. Others turn to other idol groups. I wonder if this is a true part of the fandom process, for both the members, the old fans and the new fans. Will other friends also turn to the 3rd gen when they appear?

I have been supporting many idol groups from Japan casually but JKT48 has decidedly been the group I wanted to spend more time, effort and energy on. And I’ve reached this stage where I wonder how far can we overseas fans go.

We all need a reason to keep coming back to the theater.

For Angga and Richardson, it was for a  first time meeting with Redranger48, djt and me, the other JKT48stuff authors.

What is yours?