Nana Mizuki Winter Festa 2014 Day 1

Okay, as promised, I tried to get this out as fast as possible. First, let me just explain how incredibly fated I am to be with Nana. There were several barriers to attending the concerts, which came up and were solved in differing orders. The most basic issue was getting tickets. As I explained and most already know, many of the tickets were sold through lottery tickets obtained via the Nana Clips 6 BDs. By some miracle (and a few friends), I managed to win the lottery to not just 1 but both days! If I had failed that, I would’ve had to rely on general sales. The site crashed when sales opened, as expected. By the time I could see it again, the tickets were all, unsurprisingly, sold out. Lucky me. The next issue came with timing of the concert and my biweekly reports. The Saturday concert started at 5pm, and my meetings that day generally end at around 4pm. Throw in the commute from school to home to concert, and there was no way I’d make it in time. Luckily, the concert fell on the weekend between my reports. So worst case I could leave the meeting a bit early and hope to arrive just as the concert starts. Unfortunately, it turns out this concert goods sales only started day of the concert. So while I had originally planned to queue lines on Friday, I now had to queue on Saturday. This meant I had to skip the entire day’s meeting(s), which although I could physically do, would’ve been kinda bad. Luckily, it turned out that on that day, there was going to be entrance exams. Apparently Japan is really strict about them, so everyone was actually told directly: do not come to lab on Saturday due to the exams. Suddenly the whole day was free! Truly nothing can get in the way between me and Nana. So with everything settled, I gladly went off to have a weekend full of Nana, goddess of all.

Goods Queue

So once again I got up at 4am to take the first train to queue for goods at Ariake Coliseum . The sun wasn’t even up yet when I arrived so it was really dark. It looked like I was fairly close to the front though, relatively at least. Anyway, it was pretty cold but I had literally bought clothes specifically for the purpose of sitting in the cold for 6+ hours. It was a little windy but luckily no rain. It was fairly uncomfortable but I can’t complain when it could’ve been much worse. Anyway, I just put on some Nana music and sat there for several hours, nothing much to say. But at 9am, the staff made us all stand up because they were going to open the sales early. Woah that’s an entire hour earlier than planned! So by 9:20 or so, the sales started and I got my goods by around 10:40. I do have a complaint about the amount of goods they were selling; it was far less than usual and there weren’t even any Nanaca. However, with the inclusion of a life size tapestry, I can’t really complain about that. So since I had actually set aside a specific amount of money for Winter Festa goods, and I ended up spending a lot less than planned, I decided to redirect that money into CDs. My collection is still pretty small but I do plan to own every release eventually, so it’s just a matter of money…anyway then I see a sign that they’re giving out autographed Nana pics for every 2k yen spent! Well, mass produced copied autographs but nonetheless, autographs. I’m not AFA lucky enough to get an actual autograph from Nana (and personalized too *o*). So I ended up buying 6 CDs. Should’ve bought 7 now that I think about it, because 7 and because it would’ve pushed the cost to 8k and gotten me another picture. It’s probably because I was planning to buy 5 then I realized I still don’t have Eternal Blaze and I added it last second so I was already like orz no money.

Nana Winter Fes Goods

Anyway, went back home and tried to nap but couldn’t sleep because Nana and then went back to Ariake. There was still a line for goods. There were also people asking to buy tickets. What dedicated fans. Sorry, I’m not selling my ticket for anything.

Nana Mizuki Winter Festa 2014 Day 1

So my seat on day 1 looked pretty good. I was in the 10th row but the stage itself was fairly small. This coliseum is mainly used for tennis so the stage wasn’t much bigger than a tennis court and had seats on all sides. The stage extended to the two ends (which obviously meant Nana would be running down them at some point) while the sides had room for the drums and keyboard. I was on a side rather than an end which meant I wouldn’t be nearly as close to Nana as some other people in the same row as me. Regardless, since it was lottery, it was a really great seat.

Ariake seating chart

I was getting restless as it had been around 10 minutes past the start time and then the music cuts randomly and the lights go off! A video starts playing on the screens which features several of her PVs such as Silent Bible, Junketsu Paradox, and Synchrogazer. It was really nostalgic to see so many PVs that I remember when they first came out. It was like reliving my Nanatard lifetime as the music kept changing to different songs. And then…

Dramatic Love

Nana appears wearing a light blue dress with pink/white hearts. While I’m not a big fan of Dramatic Love, it is a catchy song that makes for a good opening song to Winter Festa. And of course, just the fact that I’m seeing Nana live again is enough to get me excited.  Nana’s dancers took stage too and I’m just like no I want to see Nana stop blocking my view hehe. Afterwards, she went straight into the next song.

Aoi Iro

YESSS I really like this song. I always sing along when it comes up on my playlist. It’s just too fun and catchy not to. I have to say, I was not even remotely thinking I would get to hear this. It’s not one of the songs I hope to hear but when it started playing, I was quite thrilled. Considering there was no way it would actually make top 10, it was a great way to start the concert for me.

Welcome to Nana Mizuki Winter Festa 2014!!! Mishi-P, Nana’s producer, comes out on stage and the two start talking. It’s been 7 years since the last Nana Festa in 2007. Back then, they never imagined they would have another festa in 7 years! This past year was quite fun with AFA and her debut in Taiwan. They ask who went and many fans had gone to both. Then they talk about how the audience is 360 degrees and it’s such a different feeling. Normally, the drums and keyboard are near the back but now they are close to the East side (my side). Then they bring up Kouhaku. Nana was super nervous during the performance. They talk about the super awesome dress color change and how there were problems during rehearsal. Apparently Nana just couldn’t get it to work and Nishikawa had problems with his change as well. So this is probably a factor into why they were both so offtune during the performance, but at least the costume change succeeded! Nana says how she was so excited when it worked on stage. Then they ask who watched the countdown special and a lot of us had. Nana’s like “sorry for making you stay up so late.” Mishi-P is like “so you left there around 5am and then where did you go?” Nana say, “oh I just went to New York.” Just going to New York, no big deal, how casual. Nana says it was okay leaving so late because she just slept on the plane. New York so lucky to be the first U.S. city to see her…After the talk, Nana left the stage to go do something.

Mishi-P is left alone and crowd immediately starts chanting mawatte. He does a spinning jump instead! Well that works too. Naturally, we ask for a mou ikkai and he does it again. I think he got a little dizzy and is like okay that’s enough. He talks about how we all voted for the top 10 and how we will soon find out the winners but first…a blast from the past, Nana Summer Festa top 10.

10. You Have a Dream 9. Suddenly~meguriaete 8. New Sensation 7. Super Generation 6. Tears’ Night 5. Heart-Shaped Chant 4. Crystal Letter 3. Eternal Blaze 2. Power Gate 1. Innocent Starter

He comments on the songs and wonders how that has changed over 7 years, although Eternal Blaze and Power Gate always rank high. So without further ado, the first song to make the top 10 is…

Nana #10: Power Gate

Some guy behind me was like “MAJI DE?” Mishi-P what a tease. I would’ve guessed this would be around #7 or 6 but it seems it has dropped even further than I thought. What a pity. If this is 10 what are the other 9? (Well, a few should be obvious) Nana comes out wearing an old blue and white dress from Live Sensation and asks if anyone remembers it. I take it this means she’ll be wearing a bunch of old, nostalgic outfits. Anyway, we got a really powerful song right off the bat. As always, Power Gate is super fun, and I busted out double penlights. That said, it’s pretty weird to start with such a high adrenaline song, but I guess it can’t be helped when the order is decided by voting. Either way, I think I’d be quite happy to get this at every single concert ever. During the song Nana went to one of the ends I described earlier and stayed there the entire song. Such lucky fans…Afterwards, Nana disappeared below stage without giving an MC.

Okay so as a forewarning, I had a lot of trouble picking up on Mishi-P’s Japanese. Whether that was because he used a lot of vocab I don’t know or just I’m not used to his manner of speaking, or I’m actually just terrible at Japanese (most likely reason), I missed out on a lot of what he said and other random jokes. Most of what I understood was very formulistic (introducing songs and commenting on them). As a result, I kind of just have a vague memory of certain things that were said and the order of those is probably all screwed up but I’ll try my best.

Power Gate is still popular! No, Mishi-P, Power Gate is less popular than it should be lol. He talks about the voting. I think #1 had around 73,000 votes while #10 had around 20,000 votes. I didn’t actually hear the words #1/10, so I’m not confident, but I definitely heard those 2 numbers. But before that…let’s countdown from 77!

77. Yakusoku 76. Take a Shot 75. Transmigration 74. Naked Feels 73. Risouron 72. Mafuyu no Karansha 71. Bring it on! 70. UNBREAKABLE 69. Juliet 68. Aoki Hikaru no Hate-ULTIMATE MODE-  67. Silent Bible 66. Nostalgia 65. Darling Plastic 64. Nocturne-revision- 63. Stand 62. Justice to Believe 61. Mysterion

I immediately see Yakusoku at #77. WOW I am sad. I’ve said it before, but I really like this song and would love to hear it live. So seeing it all the way down at 77 is really conflicting…it’s not even top 50 but then again at 77, can I really complain about that ranking? I personally really like Take a Shot but it’s definitely not that great of a song.

Mishi-P talks about these songs and asks who here had voted for some of them. A few people answered, and he was like “you people sure have strange taste.” lol so cruel, just because they’re in the minority. He mentions Mafuyu no Karansha which came in at #72. The recording of that was all the way back during the Christmas Live Supersonic Girl in 2001 and it gets shown again. Back then, Nana had a different producer and he recorded it himself because there were no cameras? (something along those lines) Now there are so many cameras! Then he says how aside from Nana songs, we also voted for something else: our favorite Cherry Boy’s songs. So we are going to countdown their top 6 as well. First is…

Cherry Boy’s #6 Live Journey – Oretachi no JOURNEY

I honestly did not know what to vote for. I voted Circus because it was the only one I actually attended. I admit I don’t have much attachment to their songs even if they can be a fun interlude during Nana concerts. Anyway, they perform the song and they go around saying what they wanted to accomplish last year. I forget who said what and didn’t understand the other half but one wanted to climb Mt. Fuji and Yutapon wanted more Nana lives, heh. Mishi-P comes back and talks about how it’s already been 3 years since Journey and asks who was there (he ends up asking this like 15 times throughout the event every time a concert gets brought up). Almost everyone was. Then, for some reason, someone asks him to sing. This somehow triggers the entire audience to ask him to sing. He’s just like what no stop. “I don’t have call cards.” Well I guess that’s kind of a fair excuse? Quick, someone go write up call cards for him heh. He dodges more by announcing the next 2 top 10 Nana songs…

Nana #9-8: Tears’ Night and Bright Stream

Nana comes out and this time is wearing the yellow dress from Live Academy. The two remember how she had flown wearing this dress (I still need to see Nana flying, please, when?). Then Mishi-P leaves and the lights fade.

9. Tears’ Night

YESSSS Tears’ Night manages to maintain a top 10 position. I really didn’t think it could but it edges in at number 9. I am so happy I got to hear this. Especially ever since hearing the Live Grace full orchestral arrangement, I’ve loved it. I think it’s a really great balance between a graceful and powerful song. Some parts are just super pretty but then other parts actually have shouting involved, and it’s quite a fun song overall. That said, I wouldn’t put it on my top 10, but it was quite nice to get to hear Nana sing it. Her voice is just so clear and beautiful. Nana went to the other end of the stage this time for equal treatment but us side people just got the band members hehe.

8. Bright Stream

I am so happy Bright Stream made top 10. When I think about it, I’m not too surprised, but I really wasn’t expecting it at the time. I remember highly anticipating it when it first came out and watching the nico special and its premier of the PV. Good memories. As the “successor” to Eternal Blaze, I had really high hopes for it but unsurprisingly, it failed to top its predecessor. Nevertheless, I still thought it was a really great song and the more I listened, the more I fell in love it. Since it’s pretty unfair to compare it to Eternal Blaze, it’s definitely one of my favorite songs Nana has released in the last few years.  So yeah, getting to hear this was really great and as usual, Nana’s vocals make it even better than the recording. Afterwards, Nana goes back below stage through the center trap door which is going to get used a lot throughout the event.

Mishi-P asks Tom-kun what his favorite Nana song is (to play?).  “Uhh what was the name again?” LOL hahahaha gg no re. Mishi-P is just like so we’re cutting that from the recording, goes back on the main stage and asks the question again like that didn’t just happen. Oh the things we see without the video editing. So I guess there was a re.Tom-kun still struggles and is like “uhhh Eternal Blaze?” okay yeah sure let’s go with a safe and obvious one. Then Mishi-P asks Yutapon the most difficult song to play on drums. He says probably Next Arcadia or maybe Etsuraku Camellia. He asks him to try playing it on the drums and the crowd just yells to Mishi-P UTATEEEEE. Mishi-P is just like “what’s wrong with you people!?” and announces the next 10 Nana songs.

60. Synchrogazer – Aufwachen Form 59. Takaramono 58. Gimmick Game 57. Hikari 56. Metro Baroque 55. Jikuu no Sapphire 54. Mugen 53. Don’t be Long 52. Ano Hi no Yume Mita Negai 51. WILD EYES

Gimmick Game in the 50s…can’t say I’m surprised but it really is a personal favorite now since it’s the first song I heard Nana sing live. I will always treasure this song. Wild Eyes came in at 51 so I was hoping its sister song Hime Murasaki would at least be higher. I thought Metro Baroque would be a little higher like 40s but I guess I’m just partial to piano pieces.

Cherry Boy’s #5 Live Union – Koi no Rock’n’Roll Story

Mishi-P comments how this video was difficult to do but one of the Cherry Boys says how it was quite fun. I do enjoy this song too. After they perform it, I’m surprised to hear we are getting 7-5 next, 3 songs at once!

Nana #7-5: Innocent Starter, Ai no Hoshi, Pray

This time Nana appears wearing the a blue dress from Live Games Blue Side. It’s a suiting costume for Innocent Starter and Ai no Hoshi. I was also really happy to see the order of Innocent Starter and Ai no Hoshi because I feel like these two complement each other really well, so getting them together is super cool.

7. Innocent Starter

Okay, so I kind of heard this “live” at the live streaming for Live Circus+ but hearing this live is just completely different. Nothing compares to hearing Nana sing live. And like I said before, Innocent Starter is just such a meaningful song in addition to being so simple yet pretty. Nana’s voice is so beautiful in this song. And even though it’s been 10 years since the original Nanoha series, it still remains a fan favorite. This is definitely one of Nana’s favorite songs so the emotion she puts into it is definitely noticeable and I was just so grateful to get to hear the legendary song which sparked Nana’s popularity. Also at #7, Innocent Starter actually wins the entire poll.

6. Ai no Hoshi

So happy this made it, and even #6 too. Maybe it’s partly the bias of being a new song and partly because Yamato, but I didn’t think it’d get this high. But I am really happy it is. Ai no Hoshi has risen to one of my favorite Nana songs of all time. Every time I hear her sing it, it’s just like pure bliss. Language barrier doesn’t matter when it comes to this song; I can completely feel the emotions Nana pours into this song and it makes me cry every time. Tears of sheer joy, Nana is truly the best. Even though I still want to hear Yakusoku, I just can’t complain when I get to keep hearing Ai no Hoshi instead. Also, getting this right after Innocent Starter is like the two most emotional songs thrown at me at once. So emotionally moving.

5. Pray

Nana please, I’m still crying from Ai no Hoshi and you go straight into Pray? I’m not ready for this. Pray at #5 is hardly surprising. It continues to be one of the most popular Nana songs and for good reason. This song is so epic, and it’s pretty much the song I wanted to hear most at Winter Festa. During this song, Nana went around the perimeter of the stage on a really low tech stand. She was probably about 10-20 meters away from me when she passed by. In terms of the singing, yes this is everything I wanted, although I’m serious when I say I wasn’t ready for the quick transition from the most beautiful and graceful ballad to a high energy, epic song. But by the time the latter half started, it was just so much fun. I love this song.

50. Orgel to piano – holy style 49. Miracle Flight 48. Hoshizora to Tsuki to Hanabi no Shita 47. Karen Moyou  46. Shounen 45. Replay Machine – custom 44. ROMANCERS’ NEO 43. SCARLET KNIGHT 42. Trickster 41. Soradokei

Hmm nothing too surprising from this set. Got to see Hoshizora Live Union performance on the screen which is just a tad bit closer to those live fireworks that happened. So many regrets. Mishi-P makes a comment on Karen Moyou and people start asking him to sing again. Lol yeah not going to happen. I guess this is just going to be a running joke.

Cherry Boy’s #4 Live Diamond – CherryBo Seven G no Theme

Heh the Live Diamond one huh? Well that was a fun one especially with me seeing Circus last year. The next Nana song is…

Nana #4 –  Kakumei Dualism

Uhh what, Kakumei Dualism? I feel like this is a combination of TMR and new song bias kicking in. Personally, I didn’t like this song at all. It’s fun to sing with Nana and it’s fairly adrenaline heavy, but I just don’t like it so seeing it at #4 was a big meh. Anyway, the center trap door opens again and Nana comes out wearing….areeeeee? Nanette??? Nana is nowhere to be seen but in her place is a Nanette plushie. This probably means one thing. Mishi-P asks where Nana is and we hear her “I’m here. At the toilet!” Screen shows the female toilet and then we see Nana wearing the Live Circus green swordwoman outfit! She’s like “it’s so cold!” Lol the outfit is designed for summer tour not winter live. She’s outside the stadium but inside the building. Mishi-P casually brushes it off and introduces the song as always. The song starts and we’re basically like WHERE IS NANA. She actually messed up and didn’t sing the first one or two lines which was even more confusing. AND THEN SHE APPEARED IN THE AUDIENCE. She entered one entrance down from where I was and then started moving in the wrong direction D: I kind of had a feeling she would do this because she did it at Summer Festa too so I had actually laid out potential paths in my mind where she might pass by. Unfortunately, she chose to go a level above me anyway so none of it really mattered anyway. The fans who were literally a centimeter or two from her are so lucky…security was swatting away all the hands but Nana was still waving to everyone within arm length reach. She covered roughly 1/6 of the perimeter before exiting after the end of the song. I can’t comment much on the actual song because the entire time was like OMG NANA IS IN THE AUDIENCE!!!

Moving on, the next set of 10:

40. Kiseki no Melodia 39. You Have a Dream 38. Hoshikuzu Symphony 37. NEXT ARCADIA 36. Synchrogazer 35. Heart-Shaped Chant 34. FEARLESS HERO 33. BRAVE PHOENIX 32. Thermidor – Vingt Sept 31. Preserved Roses

Brave Phoenix at 33. I guess that made me fairly happy since I know it’s not a super popular song even though it’s one of my favorites. Preserved Roses came in at 31 which was just disappointing after seeing Kakumei Dualism at 4. Mishi-P mentions how Synchrogazer is in the 30’s even though Aufwachen form was like in the 60s. Yeah uh that Rockbound Neighbors version was pretty dumb. I don’t know why they felt adding some random intro was a good idea, but I guess it made for good hype in pretending it was some improved version. Same thing with Sacred Force remix.

Cherry Boy’s #3 Live Academy – Dear My Princess

I’m curious to know whether this is a gender favored song…anyway, the next Nana song was:

Nana #3 – Crystal Letter

Nana appears from the center again this time wearing the Live Museum butterfly outfit. So cute. This outfit triggers a mawatte call and we get butterfly Nana mawatte! She obliges to a mou ikkai quite easily too. And then the song begins. So Crystal Letter is still a favorite. It’s certainly one of her better ballads but after all this time, it’s still #3. I really like this song too but it’s not one of the ones I point to as something I want to hear. Partly since I’m not a ballad person I guess. Regardless, it was here that I was reminded Nana’s ballad voice is simply godly. Even though I’m in love with Ai no Hoshi and because I have a penchant for fast paced songs, I sometimes forget Nana sings ballads with the greatest beauty and grace possible. Crystal Letter is such a soft and pretty song and hearing it now when I wasn’t really expecting it was just so beautiful. I kind of preferred to hear Yume no Tsuzuki but since I’ve still only heard a few ballads from Nana, they’re all so overwhelmingly beautiful @_@

Nana the butterfly leaves the stage and Mishi-P announces the top 30-21!

30. Last Scene 29. Avalon no Oukan 28. Junketsu Paradox 27. SUPER GENERATION 26. Koinoyokushiryoku – type EXCITER 25. PHANTOM MINDS 24. Trinity Cross 23. Aoi Iro 22. Zankou no Gaia 21. Etsuraku Camellia

how Super Generation has fallen. I guess it isn’t the best song but it’s one of those must hear Nana songs so it’s sad to see it’s in the 20’s. Etsuraku Camellia came in at 21 which was a surprise although it’s definitely one of the more unique songs in her repertoire. Right as the countdown ended, we hear Mishi-P singing a couple lines! Everyone cheers and calls for a mou ikkai but he manages to pass it off. Next is Cherry Boy’s #2 voted song:

Cherry Boy’s #2 Live Castle – Ai no Cherry Bo Knight

Thank you for reminding me I wasn’t at Castle orz orz orz What to do, I had finals? Any other weekend Nana, any other weekend and I would’ve booked tickets in a heartbeat but nooooo you just had to tease me and make me send Nagi there in my place. ANYWAY, after that was Nana number 2:

Nana #2 – Eternal Blaze

Nana appears wearing the Live Castle soldier uniform. I felt like I managed to get just a small taste of Live Castle which I’m still so sad I missed out on. Mishi-P comments how we really like EtaBure (lol no really?) as it always places top 3 in polls. Yeah, Eternal Blaze at #2 is hardly a surprise. It’s not a Nana concert without Eternal Blaze. I’m not sure what else to say other than wow how is this song so godly. Nana’s live vocals of this impress me yet again and the coordinated chanting is as epic as always. The pillars of fire were smaller than usual due to the limitations of the venue. While I wouldn’t say it was the highlight of the concert, it was the most exhilarating part as it generally is. Since I’m not a big fan of Kakumei Dualism, this was the best one since Power Gate in terms of crowd involvement. Ahhh how I’ve missed this.

20. Pop Master 19. Hime Murasaki 18. Undercover 17. Tenkuu no Canaria 16. New Sensation 15. DISCOTHEQUE 14. Suddenly ~meguriaete 13. Vitalization 12. Astrogation 11. Orchestral Fantasia

These 10 hurt me a lot. Because they were songs that “almost” made the top 10 but didn’t. Orchestral Fantasia at 11 was the worst. I knew it had a chance and I really love this song, so seeing it so close was saddening. I’ll have to wait longer to hear this live. Astrogation at 12 wasn’t as bad since I’ve already heard it, and rank 12 isn’t much of a surprise. New Sensation being here is really impressive though considering how old it is. Goes to show how the fans don’t always let new song bias take over. It’s definitely one of her better old songs, and I would’ve been quite pleased to hear it. Hime Murasaki at 19 was great. I think it’s a super underrated song but at 19, well, that’s pretty good. Suddenly~meguriaeta being at 14, I would’ve loved to hear that too.

Cherry Boy’s #1 Live Circus – CherryBo Seven G no Theme

Mishi-P asks how many of us were at Live Circus and finally I’m able to answer I was! Then he announces that there is only 1 song left. The crowd makes a lot murmurs. Mishi-P is disappointed as we’re supposed to be all “ehhhhhhh?” like we do when Nana announces the final song. So then the final song is…Hmm what could it possibly be? I don’t know. People start changing their penlight colors to white. Gee I wonder why…

Nana #1 – Shin Ai

Yeah so this should not be a surprise to anyone. Shin Ai, best Nana ballad of all time, winning the hearts of everyone in a short period of time. Nana appears wearing her black/gold dress from Live Grace. Mishi-P says something about it being like a kimono and Nana says something about an obi. All I know is Nana looks amazing in it. Mishi-P also mentions on how heavy it looks, so Nana starts talking about all her heavy dresses. The yellow dress she wore earlier was also pretty heavy but the purple one from Live Games was the heaviest (that one was so huge lol) until the Queen’s Night dress which is now the heaviest one she’s worn yet. And then the song begins. It’s not like I wasn’t expecting it but still, Shin Ai live. Oh. My. God. How amazing can Nana possibly get? She puts soooo much emotion into this song for obvious reasons and it shows not just in the tone of her voice but also her facial expressions. It’s just such a completely beautiful song. Honestly, Ai no Hoshi still wins in my book, but that might be closer to an emotional level whereas the sheer musical beauty behind Shin Ai is just so powerful. I really wish I got to hear Mika’s harp accompanying this but I guess such an experience will have to wait awhile longer. When the song was over, I was so sad because I wanted it to just keep continuing.

Mishi-P announces Winter Festa is over (ehhhhhhh?) and then one of those party balls descends. They pull the string to show the winner of Nana songs, Shin Ai! Yay! They reminisce about Summer Festa some more as it’s already been 7 years. Back then, they weren’t planning to have another one in 7 years but this time, they want to prepare for Nana Festa 3! 2021 gogo! Look forward to it! Nana and the band make a outward facing circle to face the entire crowd and she’s like lol this is so weird and then she thanks everyone as usual. After the thank yous, Nana exits the stage via stairs but her huge dress makes it a very slow exit lol. Mishi-P then shows that vote difference between males and females. Girls really like Kakumei Dualism (no surprise there) and Ai no Hoshi whereas guys liked Bright Stream and Crystal Letter more. Interestingly, Undercover was #10 for girls while Power Gate was for guys. As a guy, I’m glad we managed to push Power Gate to the top 10 instead of Undercover (not that I dislike the latter). The rest of the songs were fairly similar and Shin Ai took #1 for both genders.

Okay, so Mishi-P sucks at math and says it’s almost been 2.5 hours (you mean 3.5?). But before we leave, we obviously have to ask him to sing again, since Nana’s part is done and all. Still not happening. However, there is another special event! What could it be? I was praying for more songs but then the words on the screen prove me otherwise: M no Sekai! Could it be? They are going to…do a live recording of M no Sekai!!! Nana comes back out and then she introduces Mishi-P and does the normal M no Sekai introductions. In the corner, the audience sees some strange blue-green bush…thing, moving….wearing some cheap character mask, oh god is that supposed to be Tsubasa? That is one scary Tsubasa-san. Anyway, Nana says there is another guest…who could it be? It’s Kyogoku Natsuhiko, who I didn’t actually know but Nana is fangirling so hard. Turns out he’s a writer. He comments on being surrounded on all sides and Mishi-P and Nana mention again how unique the 360 degree audience is. He gives Nana some flowers and asks if we know what it’s for. “Well today is the 18th. That means tomorrow is the 19th.” Crowd: ohhhhhhhhhhh “So the day after tomorrow is the 20th.” Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh. “And the day after that is the 21st!” Yaaaaay HAPPY BIRTHDAY NANA HIME SAMA. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to sing for her. Mishi-P is like she’ll be 17 years old. haha 2×17 at least!

Okay, so I didn’t understand a lot of what was said and you can always listen to the radio show yourself. Natsuhiko talks about Nana’s new paperback release of Shin Ai and how there is an important difference between hardcovers and paperbacks, mainly that some people will only buy one or the other so they don’t even give your book a chance if it’s one or the other. “Your fans…they buy both.” Sounds about right. “You can release anything, and your fans will buy it.” Sounds about right. Then they go into Zachou Kouen talk. Nana reminisces about the first 2 and then doing the 3rd one and then how she wants to go all the way up to 7. Only 4 to go! She asks Mishi-P to go start planning and he agrees haha wait really? A lot more doable than 7 Nana Festas at least, 2049? Natsuhiko says something about the Zachou Kouen acts and how assassinations are done through the back…or something along those lines. He’s teaching Nana the correct way to kill people or something heh. Anyway, lots of things I didn’t understand/remember were said. Then they decide to do some voicing! I think it’s a scene from one of his books. They are about to start, and then he tells Mishi-P “uhh this is a bit erotic. Is it really okay?” lol what does he mean by that…they start the lines and I didn’t understand most of what he said. I think I got confused because he did both narration and the boy’s lines whereas Nana just did a girl’s lines and the lines were the easy part to follow. Anyway, I got to see Nana do live voice acting! What a treat! The girl though, she was soooo S lol. And Nana did a really good job acting it out too. The facial expressions she made while laughing and her voice…umm I admit to nothing. ANYWAY, afterwards, they discuss it and he mentions how Nana used a mature voice even though the girl is only in middle school. Lol what? That’s disturbing but sasuga Japan. Nana explains how the lines seemed mature so she used a more high school, mature girl voice. Then Nana did another script but it was really short and I can’t recall it over that erotic scene she just did. She makes the movement for the sword piercing sound that always plays but it doesn’t and everyone just laughs. After like a minute of more talking, the sound clip gets played randomly and we’re just like IMA GORO?! Someone is trolling Nana. I don’t recall much else, and I admit I was super sleepy during this time. Since I was up since 4am for the goods queuing and my nap wasn’t a nap and I’m the type of person to get 8 hours a night and never rely on caffeine/energy drinks/etc. and I was hoping Nana concert adrenaline would carry me through but M no Sekai lacks adrenaline rushes. So yeah, I’m sorry, but you can listen to it later and realize I actually have terrible Japanese!

Anyway, this time the event really was over…not. Mishi-P says there is actually one more thing…the lights go out and the screen shows 4/16…NEW ALBUM RELEASE!!! OMG YES! 2013 was such a sad year. We got Vitalization and some Symphogear songs but then there was the collab with TMR which I didn’t like all that much and…nothing else. It was a relatively dry year of Nana releases. That said, I was expecting an album in the first half of the year since aside from Rockbound Neighbors, she basically releases an album every year or so (including compilations). But still, with only 1 actual single released, I wonder how many new songs we’ll get. There might be legal issues with Preserved Roses and even Kakumei Dualism, although released under Nana’s label, might have issues, but we’ll see. They mention a few things about it. The recording actually started back in October and they’ve already recorded 10 songs! I assume that means 10 new songs. It will also be a very varied album? Something about having many different composers, I think.

Then Mishi-P is like “you guys don’t want it to end here right…” ohhhhhhh? “So how about one more song.” YESSSSSSS “How about…a song from the new album?” YESSSSSSSSSS. Nana introduces the song as one that’s a bit erotic (lol this last hour is so erotic). She introduces the title which I misheard as Lady Striper.

Lady Spiker

Okay, so I feel as one of the few foreigners who got to hear this song, I’m obligated to give a detailed explanation of it…but unfortunately I am terrible at this sort of thing. The closest thing I can compare it to is Get My Drift? It isn’t nearly as catchy, and honestly I’ve already forgotten the tune because it lacks catchiness and Dramatic Love playing when everyone is leaving easily overwrote my brain. However, in terms of a sort of punkish rock song, I think it’s similar. Nana also uses a slightly…I guess erotic voice (yo her words not mine) or more mature one, so it’s also similar to Get My Drift? in that sense. At one point the music shifts toward a calmer and slower part before going back to its rock-like feel. The latter parts get more exciting and Nana busted out some microphone stand action that reminded me of Minorin. Overall, I have to say it wasn’t anything special. It was fairly unique for her type of music which was the nice part but there wasn’t anything that made me super excited about it It was just average (for Nana), but at least I got to be there to hear it first! She said the name again and this time I heard Lady Striker, which made me think of a play on Nanoha Strikers but I was pretty sure was still wrong.  A lot of the Japanese people misheard it too and it was funny reading twitter to see all the guesses like Lady Spider or Lady Sniper or Lady’s Fighter. Turns out the actual name is Lady Spiker.

This time, the event was really over. The standard shassu and kakatekoi calls are made and a bunch of silver strips are shot out to the audience. I managed to pick up a few, making for a nice souvenir to the once in 7 year event. Nana goes around the perimeter again waving and thanking everyone as usual. After Nana left, I rushed out to try and beat the crowd to the trains. I was super hungry as the event was about 4 hours long (at the end, Mishi-P had said it was 3 hours but then I checked the time and it was past 9, so that’s 4 hours).

And thus day 1 of Nana Winter Festa came to an end. I was disappointed at only 13 songs, but I knew it was going to be like that based off Summer Festa. I was just living in denial hoping to get closer to 20 like a normal live. I have to say I don’t like how the countdown worked though. Because of all the breaks and the introduction of the songs, the countdown was less exciting than I had hoped. I would’ve preferred if Nana just started singing the songs instead of formal introductions but I guess that’s just a personal preference. I’m also kind of sad at the severe lack of props. I thought for a once in 7 year event, they would have some sort of surprise or something special but aside from the M no Sekai live recording, there was nothing worth noting. Anyway, I’m going to write a separate post for day 2. Partially so I can get this first half out ASAP and partially because day 2 was…more interesting. Actually this post is long enough anyway wow. And I have 2 huge presentations to prepare for but I’m spending my precious time writing these Nana reports orz

P.S. Since it is barely still January 21st in Japan, an official happy birthday to Nana Mizuki-hime-sama the goddess! I of course celebrated with some Nana SP Curry for lunch. Let this be another wonderful and successful year, and I hope to do as many Nana activities as I can as my first full year in Japan. Happy Birthday Nana!!!