Renai Kinshi Jourei (25 May 2013) – 2nd POV from The Back

My sin confession : This is my first time watching team J on stage. After a few weeks of co-ordination with JKT48Stuff authors, we (RHKilis, Red, djt, me) met at last that day together with Melos‘ team along with WasshoiJ in f(X).

Truth to be told, the ticketing procedure confused me. We spend more time claiming our tickets than we expected with the queuing time went longer than what the time frame promised us. A fan we met at the theater claimed that this was something new and he -as a regular visitor- never experienced something like this before.

We got number 16 bingo number with RHKilis and Melos ended up with a very unique stamp on their ticket :

Yep, you read that right “Super Fap Seat”. I wonder if mine were stamped with “Super Schlick Seat”, but unfortunately not. (Thanks Raz for the picture!)

infzer0 from Passpo helped us with claiming the tickets while FHwang cheered up the queue line with his laughter. So yeah, even though we ended up like sardines waiting to be processed; the experience itself wasn’t that bad at all.

Inside The Theater

The show was 25 minutes late due to the chaos in the ticketing with Nabilah started the act as the Kageana. It was a very interesting Kageana to say the least. Nabilah was full of laughter with her Kageana that made me smile. She was laughing due to the audiences making fun of her lisps which I found insensitive at first, but hearing Nabilah’s laughter due to that made me smile instead of feeling annoyed.

The audiences were lively and I find the interaction between the audiences and members very interesting.

One thing to note is that sometimes I could smell a….very unpleasant aroma in the theater. I don’t know what kind of smell was that, but I really do hope for a Glade hanging on my nose at that time.

The Songs

Suffice to say that I love most of the songs in this Inspired-by-the 70’s-Vegas-Broadway set-list. Squall no Aida ni is my favorite among all while Hikouki Gumo got my pick for the most interesting bass line to play.

Switch is my pick of the bunch for the best song to see the girls interpretation of the lyric. I really love how they have this various interpretation of the song from their expression tones.

The unit songs were all good with Kuroi Tenshi got my pick for the most impressive expression from the performers that night (Gaby, Melody, Jeje). RKJ got my pick for the best dance performance in a unit song that night especially with Beby at the helm and Ve’s hip twist. I’m not so impressed with Heart Gata Virus tho’ but I still like it nonetheless.

The MC

Well…I truthfully don’t know what happened with the legendary team J MC that night. Some parts feels pretty boring for me and made me yawn. But thankfully that was just some small forgivable fraction of what I called a genius MC sessions with their remarkable MC skill.

I was pretty much surprised at how gullible Ve is. She really have this “Princess I want to protect at any cost” image. She was asked about a theme she wanted to make and she answered that she wanted the fans to become the members while the members became the staff for the fans including “wardrobe section” which makes the theater suddenly silenced with some deep.dirty.sickening.thought.

After a couple of seconds, Ve realized something and that made her face turned red and continues with a very soft voiced “Maybe..except wardrobe..,” a defining moment that makes me having some seizure on my seat.

Haruka is the MC star that night along with her “Dark-Side Mentor” Jeje. Haruka had this playful fights with Rena and ending with the usual “Sulking Rena Gag” after Haruka’s twisted version of Rena jikou, “I’m a dreamer, I’m Rena and I’m NUTS!”

I also able to know that the girls will have their best in MC when it comes to mocking at each others or doing some unconsciously self humiliation like your usual Japanese owarai duo or group. How Haruka’s pronunciation of Iron Man and her T-Shirt design which she mistakenly promoted as “Everyone! Please don’t buy! Okay?” really tickled us with “We want to bully this girl with love” feeling that night or Jeje’s fast reaction in mocking others or perhaps when Stella was kind of blushed when she was mocked with her coming soon Tokusatsu series. Perhaps Shania’s twisted fetish of…mutilation movies….is the only thing that makes us having this deep thought not to messing up with this 14 years old girl.

The Girls

Some fans, knowing me as an innocent first timer assured me that I will have this change of heart once I see the girls and will started doing things such as vigorous name calling and suddenly have an oshi-men. What they didn’t know is that since the formation of JKT48, I don’t have any particular favorite members as I like them as a whole group. Perhaps this is due to the feeling I got when my favorite Morning Musume member graduated (Yoshizawa Hitomi/Yossie).

But knowing some fans were assuring of the fact mentioned above, I was hoping I would find my oshi-men after the show and if possible do some vigorous name calling too.

I was particularly amazed at how Stella is the only one singing live that night. I was hoping Sendy will singing live too but unfortunately she’s not, understandable since I just found out that she’s not feeling too well that night. Although some fans said that it is impossible just to open a single microphone line, what happened that night is the exact opposite. The only opened microphone channel was Stella. Theoretically, it is possible and the most likely to happened since it is mostly impossible for the theater to have 2-channel only mini-mixer. My experiences as an FOH operator telling me this. Hats off to Stella that night.

Shania’s expression was..boy oh boy she really have this what I called..flexible lips. Perhaps Shania was the only girl whom I was able to have an eye-contact with that night. I don’t really know since all that I could see from my seat was mainly heads and fans’ hand with light stick going so high like they were ready to fly some rockets out of the sky, a view I rarely see if not for Independence Day. I really like and prefer RHKilis method of swinging his light stick low below and not having his light stick going over his head.

I was barely able to see Melody at all that night due to my height disadvantage compared to a couple of audiences in front of me. I have to “leave” my seat a little bit (Read : Half-sitting with my ass hanging on the mid-air with some wizardry) too see her performing Kuroi Tenshi which was amazing. Both Melody and Jeje really nailed their part, especially Jeje. While Gaby.., not so much. Her dance was good but she really needs to work on her expression. Overall, my effort to leave my lazy ass hanging in mid-air and resulting in me having some back-pain was not in vain.

Beby’s dancing ability is above the average. She really deserved to be up there among those best dancers in 48 Group. Her endurance and stamina is unquestionable. Her sharp break-dance like movement is the exact opposite from what I’ve seen so far from other 48 groups videos including her own group. I saw her gently bites her own lips a couple of times in MC Session while gasping for air as if telling herself not to gave up yet from the exhaustion. (They have two shows in a row that day with short break time)

I wasn’t able to gave attention to all performing girls since the view from my seat is not so great, but I’ve been able to spotted Ghaida with her new hairstyle and her surprisingly not too tomboyish accentuation to the dance which actually gave colors to the overall performance.

Unfortunately, I still wasn’t able to find any oshi-men. I think of them all as an equal and I love them all truthfully from this smoke filled heart and lungs.

Final Verdict

I was glad that I was able to watch the show that night. Even my view wasn’t that great at all, I was lucky enough to be able to see their expression and some of their dances. I also lucky to see the legendary Team J MC Session which gave me a lot of laughter that day.

It might not be their best performance but for me, that night show already more than satisfying enough. You may call this an exaggeration but in some session of the songs I was full of man-tears and luckily not a single eye gave any attention that night to my tear drops. For a group I’ve been supporting through many discriminating and degrading comments from in and outside of Indonesia, that night show really gave me an unforgettable moment that will always engraved in my short life.

One thing to note was that at high-five, some of the girls eyes were changed when they saw me (My bad habit of looking into my mates’ eyes while conversing). Not in a “Happy to meet you!” kind of change but more like “Awareness/Scared” one. I’ve had this terrible experience when an old nice lady who sat beside me in a public transportation that panicked, stop the bus and run away from me when I asked her politely about the time and route for the public transportation. I still remember very well her eye and how others stared at me at that time, and that was the exact kind of stare I got from the girls that night. Perhaps I need to have some features of my Shrek-like face under the Operation table

Special thanks to Red and Arief for helping me with the ticket.
Special thanks to all of the mates I met that night. It was a fun night thanks to you guys!
And djt..where the heck are you? I’m sorry, I lost track of you that night when queuing .