Your AKB48 Experiences

CK: I bow down to you, sir!

Awesome, awesome stuff [clap]

Tenkun: Same as above

karles: Thanks for writing about your DC experiences! Too bad I wasn't in town for longer than the concert.. it would have been nice to hang out for a bit. It was short, but sweet! [rock]

sikanwan: Thanks for the report and photos!

 

Ah you still got to see a show, that is good to know... i read Tenkun's tweet about the theater cancelling the show that tuesday, you are so lucky!!!!

 

^^ cancel machi and you end up with Super Enpou seating

Awesome reports - glad you had a great time at the events and were able to see the show after all.

So jealous now...

 

As if the rest of your trip wasn't awesome enough:

...now I'm officially jealous!

 

I've been to two events in Hong Kong (where I currently live) and I've written up both experiences:

Kashiwagi Yuki Handshake in Hong Kong
http://melosnomichi.blogspot.com/2012/03/kashiwagi-yuki-taiwan-hong-kong.html

This event was awesome because she is my main oshi and it was great to see her in person. I spent a total of 12 hours waiting (9 to get the ticket, and 3 on the day of the event) in line to shake her hands for 5 seconds.

Maeda Atsuko, Nakagawa Haruka and Masuda Yuka in Hong Kong for "Genki Japan" event
http://melosnomichi.blogspot.com/2012/03/hong-kong-genki-japan-in-hong-kong.html

I had tickets to both days and was able to shake Acchan's hand twice! She is not my oshi but it was nice to finally see the famous Acchan in person.

 

Crossposting from another thread since I forgot about this one:

Last night I went to the Music Japan TV show recording in Shibuya. Guests were AKB48, SKE48, NMB48, Warota7 and a ton of other Japanese & Korean acts. They record 2 shows at these so it appears there will be an upcoming episode featuring only the AKB related groups sometime in May.

Since I don't blog, I'll share my experience here. So much stuff happened that I may have gotten some things wrong but here is what I remember, skipping all the non-***48 performances:

AKB started it off with "Iwake Maybe" and they were wearing the red plaid uniforms from that era. Most of the usual senbatsu girls were there but my Miichan was not present. Since they did such an old song, I knew they would be back!

SKE came out and did "Aishite Raburu", again with most the the girls you would expect for a TV appearance like this. The host asked Jurina about her health an she said she's fine. She looked to be in good health anyway.

NMB did "Nagiichi" and talked about how it was embarrassing to make a swimsuit PV.

AKB came back out in pastel costumes and introduced their new single and new members Jurina and Milky. Then they performed "Manatsu no Sounds Good"

At MJ, between each song they darken the stage and do an MC or have a DJ playing and you can see the staff preparing for the next act. We saw they were building a big multi-level stage for the next song. Then SKE came out with musical instruments. They performed "Give Me Five" with Harugon on drums! They did a pretty good job of it too.

Then it was back to AKB for "Heavy Rotation" with live instruments and SKE & NMB as back dancers. [clap]

Lastly Warota came out on the darkened stage and I counted 7 members so, yes, Cindy was there! They did an MC segment, mostly about Cindy joining. She is still the same old Cindy and she actually seems to fit in with them very well. Of course the original Team B girls love her to death. Then they performed "Shounen yo Uso wo Tsuke!" Very cute!

Some other notes: There were a lot of wota present, as expected. SKE got the loudest cheering all night, not that there was any lack of enthusiasm for the other idols. I was disappointed by the wotas total lack of respect and good manners during the other muscial acts. You could barely hear the MC segments thanks to wota all over the theater screaming the names of idols who were not even on stage. Also there was a lot of "sarcastic" and mocking style wotagei during the songs. Ushers had to come in and make some of those idiots sit down.

The MJ ticket is good for two people so I took a Japanese girl with me (a friend, not some random person lol) She only knows AKB casually, mostly through her friends singing songs at karaoke. She knows the "Kami 7" thanks to them being all over the media. She really enjoyed all of the performances and said she wants to learn to wotagei. She thought Warota7 was totally adorable. She thought it was cool to see all of those idols from TV. She also helped to educate me on some of the non-idol acts we saw.

Anyways, overly long post thanks for reading.

TLDR; I went to see AKB/SKE/NMB/Warota record a TV show in Tokyo.

 

NMB48 3rd Gen Theater Performance
Aitakatta Stage
May 6, 2012 6:00PM Show




after being here in osaka since january of this year and applying for all possible nmb shows during the week-ends, which they had very few btw, i was finally able to win a show last week. the email came last thursday, and my mind almost exploded when i read the first few lines. after all this time, i was finally able to win a reservation. i had almost already given up on winning nmb shows at this point, and i was really getting desperate.

sadly though, is that i feel that i can't really do a good review since i knew nothing about the 3rd gen nmb members before this show, and it was impossible to pickup stuff about them since they only started appearing in the theater about 6 days ago. from experience, i knew that studying their profile photos and blog pics in an attempt to know the girls was just wrong, but i still did it out of desperation, and after today's show it felt like i wasted all those precious hours of trying to know them since everything changed when i saw them live.

i can't really map the faces of all the girls to their names yet, but the impressions i have of the songs and the show itself is just overflowing . as always, i will label the portions of the review so you guys can just skip to the part that you want to read. i will also be marking helpful stuff for foreigners with 3 red asterisks (***) for easy reference (although i will also probably be create a guide for entering an nmb show).


pre-show adventures
i arrived at namba at around 3:00pm. the show was scheduled at 6:00pm, and buying the tickets was scheduled to start at 4:00pm to 5:30pm. as it was still early, the entrance to the theater was still blocked, and since i had a good hour to waste before they start letting people in to buy tickets, i took the opportunity to again explore namba and nipponbashi... something i have been doing for weeks now actually.



i came back to the entrance of the nmb theater around 15 minutes before it was supposed to open. and at around 3:52pm, staff members started going up carrying additional barriers with instructions posted on them. this was when i confirmed that i was not the only one watching the show for the first time today. as soon as the staff members finished setting up stuff, a small crowd of people suddenly rushed-in to read the instructions posted. looks like i wasn't alone after all .

soon the staff members announced that they were going to start letting people in to buy tickets, and i found out one really weird thing: *** the staff people guarding the stairs are assuming that you brought either a printed copy of your winning email, or you are ready to show them the winning email in your cellphone . somehow this really confused me, because how about us gaijins, right? :-x those normally just visiting japan for a few days won't usually have a phone capable of accessing internet in japan, and not everybody can really print out their winning emails without exerting some effort like operating japanese machines in convenience stores. i had my winning email on my phone so it wasn't really a problem, but somehow it still didn't sit right with me . i mean, in donki of akihabara, staff members bring with them a list of winners when guarding the escalator, so you just need to show your ID (and say your winning number, but that is optional) and they immediately check your name against the list and let you go up.

and somehow it did not end there. when i got to the "lobby" of the theater, there was only one staff member in one corner where she had a table and a laptop , and was handling all the ticket sales for the show. ***now when i presented by alien registration card and my winning email, she tried her best to find a katakana equivalent of my name on my card . i asked her if she was looking for the katakana equivalent of my name, and when she said yes, i told her it wasn't on the ID, and passports don't usually have those either. she asked me if i had an ID that had my katakana name to which now i was really confused. was i the first gaijin to enter the nmb theater? i really don't think so. if not, then why are they behaving like it's their first time to handle such a case? i asked her politely if there was any other way since my ID was all i had (and according to theater rules, it should be enough), and she had to do something on the pc before she was able to verify my name. everything happened in less than 3 minutes though, so no harm was really done. ***she gave me a wristband (yes, wristbands are required), my ticket, there were free candies for everyone in the lobby, took a picture of the wall and went outside. apparently, you cannot wait in the lobby, and the only reason for you to be there was if you wanted to use the coin lockers of nmb.




theater entry style from hell

i asked one of the staff members in the lobby for directions on how the process for the entrance to the theater will be. he told me that people will gather again at around 5:00pm, and then staff members will be the ones to guide the ticket holders. with that info, i went up and spent most of my remaining time in the new akb cafe here in osaka where there are 2 really gorgeous girls in akb costumes [devil] . hehe.

***contrary to the entrance lottery that happens in the akb theater, the number on the tickets determine the order of entrance to the nmb theater, and you get the ticket with a number corresponding to your winning number sent in your email. it takes out the fun of not knowing how lucky you will be in the entrance lottery, but at least if you get a really low number (like #5 maybe), you can go full battle gear with probably a million glowsticks since you are 100% sure that you will be sitting in the friggin front row.

i went back to the place at around 15 minutes before 5:00pm, and tried my best to read the signs posted on the railings.and from the order of entrance that we will be lined up somewhere at the other side of the stairs. now naturally, one would think that we will be lined-up here:



but nooooo. when the time came for us to line-up, one of the staff members opened a door to the fire escape of the building right behind the stairs, and told us to go inside and line-up there. this came as a really big surprise for me since i had no idea how we would fit in such a small place. i went in and in one glimpse of the poster that was in front of me, i knew this was not going to be good. here's what i roughly remember:

6th floor - cancel macchi
5th floor - cancel macchi
4th floor - tickets #181 - #200(?)
3rd floor - tickets #121 - #180
2nd floor - tickets #61 - #120
1st floor - ticket #1-#60



sy:

i'm only about 75% sure of the distribution, but that's about 4 sets of stairs PER floor with no escalators and no elevators. and since my ticket was #178, i had to go all the way up to the 4th floor, and by the time i got there i was already sweating.



you could see people really exhausted from climbing the stairs, and at first i found it a little funny since it proved that practically everyone was out of shape, but when i started seeing girls in heels climbing the stairs all the way to cancel macchi... it just wasn't funny anymore. and even around 50+ year old mothers were seeing the show! we were told to stay there until it was time for us to enter the theater at aorund 5:30pm.

at around 5:40pm, the line started moving and we all started moving towards the theater. it was kind of funny that it felt like hell up there, and we were all now going down to the basement to enter heaven. haha. the last security check was at the door before the nmb hallway, and upon entering the hallway, we were treated with the pictures of all the girls on the wall ala akb48 style (which.. umm... nvrmnd XD). since the wall of pictures was behind closed doors, there was no way for me to take a photo of the entire thing. oh well. and in no time, i was already taking my first step into the theater itself. :nasty:


first impression of the nmb theater

as i entered the theater for the first time, holding ticket #178, i was ofcourse expecting to see people standing up at the back and i was even ready to have a standing concert for this one. much to my surprise, nobody was standing up. everybody was seated, and there were still a lot of seats available. and with NO PILLARS unlike akb, i could probably say that all seats were good seats. the worst seat you could probably get would be the 8th or 9th row at the extreme right, but that would still put you in the same distance as if you were in the front row of a tokyo dome concert.

then i saw the signs around me which pretty much confirmed what i was thinking at that moment. in an nmb show, everybody is seated. there are no standing spots. but they had rules that said that when cheering for the girls with glowsticks or uchiwas or your bare fists, you should try not to raise them any higher that your own head. upon reading that my instinct was to think of kagami no naka, and how that rule would FAIL so hard as the whole theater would wave their arms to the song. let's not even think of korogaru.

gonna skip a little to describe the theater as much as i could, but all in all i could say that the nmb theater had more of an "open" feeling. no pillars of death, the ceiling was waaaaaaaay above your head (you could shoryuken the lights in the akb theater if you wanted), you were underground so it had more of a feeling that you were in a gig place instead of a theater, and they had movie theater seats with smaller backrests and no arm rests. as for the lights and sounds, i personally think the acoustics of the theater was a bit off though the speakers were really good, and the lights were awesome especially as they made full use of the laser lights they had, and the entire stage wall was actually made up of lights that they used to add more effects to the songs (like big NMB letters during the namba48 song), and the stage floor could actually be divided in more segments compared to that of the akb theater.

i took the left-most seat of the 6th row of the right group of chairs. i chose the spot over some scattered seats in the middle portion of the 5th and 6th rows cause i wanted to f***ng dance!! almost 1 year and 6 months without a show... i was so ready to let everything out.


performance and audience impressions

the first clue i had that the show was going to be different from the ones i am used to was when the staff member said that people can now go to the bathroom if they wanted to. i saw around more than 20 people stand up and go to the bathroom. wtf?! maybe it was the only time for people to check the wall of portraits? not sure, but there sure were a lot of people who left the theater that moment, and it just felt weird for me. i was already shaking with excitement, and these guys actually just leave their seats?

soon the show started with the usual announcements from one of the members. (i really wish i could already remember all their names). announcement finished, and it was my first time to hear the nmb48 overture. somehow i still find the akb overture a lot more "hardcore". the nmb one had more of a party feeling. overture ended, and the show was definitely on!

this remake of a classic stage started with the four girls as figures and the lights turning on to reveal who they are one by one. it was just sad that i didn't know anybody. 2-3 fans shouted the name of one of the girls, but that was about it for the cheers. the song started and it felt so good to hear nageki no figure again. the girls had props on their hair, and the costume of nmb for this song had a lot more gold. the white skirts looked like they were slit open in the front to reveal a golden skirt inside... a nice touch that make the girls look more like anime figures. now i noticed right away that people in the theater were just waving their glowsticks towards the girls, without even extending their arms, for the entire song. i told myself it was only normal as there aren't really prominent hand movements for the song, so i guess it's ok for people to just be doing that.

but it was during the second song, namida no shounan that i was really given me a wake-up call that this wasn't the akb theater. for the entire song, people were still waving their glowsticks at the girls, and i saw around 2 people trying to copy the hand movements then immediately go back to waving glowsticks. all that was happening while here i was, doing almost the entire hand movements for the song as it just felt so natural. the guy beside me even gave me a weird look when he saw that i was copying the hand movements of the girls. but who cares about him. i was doing the hand movments AND singing to the song, as i never thought i would be a able to do this again inside a theater.

next surprise that came was when the girls got out for aitakatta. i have always associated the song to girls in blue dancing on stage, but when the girls got out for the song, they were in their seishun girls outfit (yup, outfit from a different stage), or at least their version of that outfit. it still worked though.

the introduction mc was kind of forgettable. since today was only their 5th show in the theater, all the girls did for the introduction mc was.. well.. introduce themselves. but at least i was able to know the names of the two girls i had my sights locked onto. somehow, for me, they stood out in looks and in height. honorin (azakawa hono) somehow was just owning the stage for me. i had a hard time believing it was her in her profile pic when i checked at the official site as she looked sooooo different on stage from her pictures, and even from her sousenkyo campaign video. the girl is just stunning. i just hope she gets promoted immediately as i have learned my lessons in rooting for kenkyuuseis. and the other one is sora (sora togo) who looked like she was the tallest member in the entire stage, and she's just friggin 13 years old. the girl was towering above everyone else.

for the unit songs, i was hoping to see one of the girls i found cute to perform in nagisa no cherry, but instead they made another member perform in the center position. it was nice i guess, but the song is old. acchan was singing about being 17 when she was still 15, and now she's already 20. *shrug*. next came glass no ily, and the costume of nmb for this one had a lot more fur and it was sparkling NEW. and in this song, my eyes hardly left honorin. their skirts looked a bit tighter, and for a cutesy outfit, i was surprised to see how beautiful honorin was for this song. and from this song onwards, my eyes were pretty much stuck on honorin.

skipping a bit to the mc before the gold outfits, they revealed that even though today was the 5th performance of the 3rd generation members, it was actually the first day for sora and antan (ijiri anna). i guess the girls were granted a little more freedom since this isn't on LOD or anything, so they were able to say that all this time they were actually just in the backstage, and were nervous and at the same time jealous at the other members who were already performing on stage. tears fell as they revealed these, and sora wasn't even able to finish her story as she was already on the verge of breaking down. the girls turned the mood around by poking at antan and saying that she was DO-M, and somehow that really helped but things back in a lively mood.

now onto the songs with the golden costumes. when senaka kara dakishimete started, first thing i noticed was how the costumes, even with their sparkly gold color, had even more sparkly red lines all over them that stood out way more than the gold portion. this was a big contrast to the almost pure gold costumes with traces of red, blue, and green that i used to remember. then came rio no kakumei, and it meant two things for me.. insane dancing time.. and waiting for whoever will say the friggin english line in the song. . i was so excited to find out, and was even already praying (next song was jesus, so why not ) that it would be honorin who would be saying the english phrase of the song, but it turned out to be another member. as for how well she did, of the 3 girls i know who were assigned to say those lines, i would say she would be ranked 3rd against nozofisu and matsuyuki. next stop would be jesus, and when the 3 variants of the gold costume converged on the song, i let all hell loose as i was doing hand movements like crazy. overall performance of the girls for the song, it felt like even with their combined energy, cindy would still win. it was somehow clear that nobody really "loved" the song.

dakedo came, and this was when it felt that the volume of the speakers were just too loud that it killed the mood for the song. that sentimental feeling i would usually get from the song was not there at all.

for the encore call, the guy who volunteered to lose his voice for that show dedicated his efforts to both antan and sora, who were having their first show that night. he was only helped by one guy all thru-out the encore call, and somehow i really started to pity him half way. the encore call got thru safely, and the lights opened for more songs.

now the next song, namba48, was the only song i really did not want to hear in the theater that day. not because i hate the song, cause my arms almost fell off as i cheered for the girls with everything that i had (and we were allowed to pump our fists as high as we wanted), but because the original song, akihabara48, really meant a lot to me in the sense that i knew almost all the places in the song, and i have been to almost all the places mentioned in that song (save for the real palette town, cause i was too late, or so i was informed). the rest of the remaining songs were just a blur up to skirt hirari where since i didn't hear an overwhelming "sekai de ichiban sukinano", i somehow lost momentum.


single songs barrage

and just when i thought it was over, somehow it was just starting for some of the fans. this was when i felt that it was already indeed the "recent" age of akb. the girls performed (couldn't remember the order very well) a medley containing heavy rotation, seishun no lap time, flying get, and other singles of akb and nmb. some (and i repeat, just some) of those audience who were pretty much dead during the show, started to cheer for the girls during this part, but it still wasn't as crazy as i had hoped for. but hey, i was really glad that i was able to experience this kind of an event in a theater show. i guess this is how they do things these days.


high five event

moving on to the next surprise. after seeing the girls just stand at the edge of the stage and taking a bow as compared to the usual walk backwards all the way to the stage wall and move forward again to the edge to take a final bow, it was time for the high five with the members.

first thing that puzzled me was why we had to exit the theater by rows, and strictly guided by the staff members, as opposed to the supposed freedom that we had on when to leave and just do a high five with the members on our way out. so ok, it wasn't really that big of an issue, and i wasn't really in a hurry (not at all, believe me), so i patiently waited for my row to be called to stand up and line-up to meet the girls.

as i approached the door, there was a staff member who was counting out loud as people left the theater one by one. when it got to my part, he said i was number 15. hmm.. i'm pretty sure 100+ people left the theater before i did, so... 15? do i win a prize?

i started moving in the usual high five pace that i was used, and when i got to the 2nd girl, the line stopped, and suddenly one of the staff members approached us:

staff: ok everybody, turn around
me: say what?!
staff: everybody face the wall
me: okaaaaaay... :dunno:

and i didn't have the slightest clue as to what was going to happen. i had my back towards the members, then suddenly the girls started hitting our backs to somehow massage us. rofl. honestly, i hardly felt anything, but wow was i surprised by what was happening.

and just when i was starting to enjoy the little massage, the staff announced it was over. loooool. it lasted around 5 seconds, and i guess that was all the time we had to spare anyways. on my way out, antan grabbed my hands instead of high fiving me and deep down i was like "hey that's not fair. if you're not gonna stop, you're going to be my next oshi!"

just kidding XD. that girl also stands out btw. when they showed us a few election video clips to which we all laughed our asses off when we saw maachun's, the fact that we were treated to the election videos of honorin and antan was just awesome. and when i was finally in front of honorin, and i was about to say something to her, staff members started pushing people so hard that i was only able to really do a high five. grrr. oh well.


conclusion

as i left the nmb theater that night, it really felt like a ton of problems just vanished from my shoulders. it really felt like the world was much lighter. nmb did a great job of duplicating that akb drug that i was once upon a time so addicted to. even if i knew that it will probably take a loooong looooong time before i can actually win another show, or that there is actually a possibility that this was my first and last show in the nmb theater due to their insane schedule and popularity, at that point in time i just felt like i was high. the feeling of having lost my voice... the feeling of going around the city with a wristband beneath my jacket sleeves....

and as for the performance of the girls, as expected they were still all over the place. although they have trained hard for 3 and a half months, as they mentioned in their mc, the real training for these girls will be from hereon. and even though it felt like some of the girls were still nervous as hell while performing, the potential for this team was definitely there.

it's just sad that i won't really have the privilege to follow these girls as they "grow". nevertheless, it was definitely fun, and i would really really have loved to see them become the potential aces that they could be in the near future.

p.s. as with the nmb tradition, they f***d up the sakura no hanabiratachi hand movements like they did with bird. i was doing the snappy type movements, while the girls were doing the more fluid version. i just had to mention it somewhere.

 

I am surprised that there is still problem handling foreigner. When I first went to a NMB show early last year, I won enpou. When I tried to get my ticket, the staff asked me for a letter to prove my address. While I understand that is part of the rules, I really didnt bring anything to prove my address (a foreign passport is more than enough to get you in in AKB/SKE/HKT theater) I told them I am from oversea and show them my temporary visitor stamp on my passport. They were not satisfied with that, after further discussion(argument?) they end up let me in cause I was able to produce my hotel key (which is in Tokyo) showing I am not from around the Kansai area. None of that really make sense to me (passport with immigration stamp is not good, but a hotel key is?!), but then I was able to get in and the fact it was early days of NMB I thought they just dont have much experience dealing with foreigner, so I didnt think much. If they are still giving a hard time to foreigner at this point of time, that is really unacceptable. But Youko your case could be an isolated incident, cause my subsequent visits to the theater never gave me any problem (all ippan win).

In any case, great to know you enjoyed the show and thank you for sharing your experience.

 

^ wow. somehow i really think nmb still has a lot to learn about dealing with gaijins.

but honestly speaking, i am willing to deal with all those problems over and over and over again as long as they let me win a show winning 1 show in almost 5 months is just too painful :lame:

 

ditto, i showed them my cancel machi e-mail on my iphone and they were ok with it, i was gonna show the app but i just played it safe with the e-mail

 

@christifari: you got to see Tanamin and you didn't remember what she wore?

rats: if I had known, you should have asked her if she got a chance to learn English from my letter...

 

I didn't have any problems at the NMB theatre (except trying to walk in with my bag on .. which they didn't like) the first time I didn't even print off the email I just showed the guy my Gaijin card and told him the seat number I won. (printed the email the next 2 times) Didn't have any issues at all otherwise.
Those stairs are a PITA though, middle of July they were brutal to stand in.. no air-con. 35 degrees surround by 200 other people. so hot..

Very glad to see some others have had a chance to go to the NMB theatre though

 

sorry, just asking from one fan to another

 

JKT48 1st Stage "PAJAMA DRIVE" shonichi
2012-05-17 Nyi Ageng Serang Hall, Jakarta

After waiting week after weeks, month after months, finally JKT48 debuted their theater show. On May 17th 2012, their first theater show was held on Nyi Ageng Serang hall, on the southern part of Jakarta, and I was one of the 300 persons lucky enough to be able to attend their first show.

When they announced their first show schedule, I was excited, the moment that most of us Indonesian 48 fans have been waiting is finally coming, but my heart was also full of worries: will the show be good ? will the management able to handle the crowd of fans well? will the fans behave well during the show?

Today all of the worries and questions in my head was answered.

PRE-SHOW
I arrived at the site around 1715, the time to claim our ticket was scheduled from 1500 to 1800. When I arrived at the ticket counter, I showed the notification e-mail on my phone and my ID to the ticketing officers, on Akihabara theater or Singapore theater that would suffice, but here, the officers asked me to submit a print out of the e-mail to them. I protested, saying that they shouldn't ask for the print out because it's not enviromentaly friendly, and by showing my ID and my ticket lottery number, they should have been able to check if my claim for the ticket is valid or not, but since they still insisted, I went to a nearby copy/printing service to print the e-mail. I got back to the ticketing counter on 17.55, just minutes before they start to sell the unclaimed tickets to the waiting list number holders.

Around 1815, we entered the inner building and was given a queue number from 1 to 10, I got number 3. The show goers was told to queue according to the numbered queueing lines, and then the staffs randomly picked numbered cards from a bag to determine which queue line would go first, second, and so on. The queue number 10 was called first, and my queue was called just 2nd to the last, and I got a seat in the center part of the 7th of 8 rows. Over all, I liked this system better than the ones on the Akihabara or the singapore theater. kudos to the JKT48 staffs who were able to handle the queueing crowds excellently. m(_ _)m

Before the show begins, some fans asked me if they would be allowed to stand behind the seat rows so they can do crazy moves without obstructing and disturbing other fans during the show, so I asked one of the japanese staff about the matter. Surprisingly, the answer I got was: everyone is allowed to stand, even on the seating rows. I protested, saying that since the floor was flat and the stage was not high enough, if the people in the seating rows were standing, the ones behind will not be able to see the stage, but the staff insisted that he wanted the show to be lively so he wanted everybody to be standinng during the show. Fortunately, even though the staffs allowed the fans to stand, the fans decided to stay seated so everyone can watch the show. kudos to the fans ^_^


THE SHOW
OPENNING SONGS
The stage set list was Pajama Drive setlist, translated to bahasa Indonesia.

"Shonichi" kick-started the show. While I'm always reluctant to see the song performed by other than the original Team B, and being translated made the song sounded a little bit weird, the performance was actually enjoyable. But it was Hisatsu Teleport that made the crowd sound excited.

After the 4 openning group songs, the girls started the intro MC. I was not familiar with most of the girls, so I really paid attention the the intro MC. I didn't take note of what the girls said, bit one thing really caught my attention: ghaida has a screechy talking voice XD Over all, it was very nice to hear the girls introduce themselves in a more relaxed way than the scripted catch phrase they usualy said on the TV performances.

UNIT SONGS
Tenshi no shippo
The members: Nabilah (rabutan position), rena, dhike.
Overall the songs was performed cutely, although I feel that dhike is a little bit out of her place in this song, because she's not really cutesy type member. Nabilah being herself sometimes put a little bit too much force on her movements, rena was very cute. One thing I noted, the cat tail on the costume seemed a little bit too small compared to the skirts they wore. They should either make the tails bigger, or the skirts shorter, I prefer the later option

Pajama Drive
The members: Shania (Mayuyu position), Sendy, Ayana.
I have too high expectations for this song (it's mayu's, harugon's and nacchan's song after all) so I will say that they didn't meet my expectation for this song. But that's not saying that they performed badly, it's just that I am too biased when it comes to this song

Junjou Shugi
The members: Sonya (haachan position), Stella, Ve
Now, although this is not the real Team B junjou shugi, I must say this: SONYA IS HOTTTTTTT !!!!! Stella and Ve also performed well, but SONYA IS JUST TOO DAMN HOT!!! (eventhough according to my friend who is haachan's fan, her pace is too slow )
I really really think Sonya should be put on Nacchan's role on the set list, she's hmmm.... I don't know what how to say this in english, but in bahasa indonesia, her body is "padat berisi" just like nacchan, and although she doesn't have nacchan's stamina (yet) she also has the same movement type as nacchan. And that made me wonder how much hotter Junjou Shugi would be if Nacchan performed it.


Temo Demo no Namida
The members: Melody (yukirin position), Jeje
hmmm my mind was still full of sonya's hotness so I can't say much about this song performance other than it's not as cold and precise as it was when it was performed by yukirin and mikachi.

Kagami no naka no Jean D'arc
The members: Kinal (ayarin position), Bebi, Cleo, Ochi, Ghada
Well, it's not as powerful as the original song, but I think it was to be expected, given the nature of the song and this was the first show. Just give the members some more time to practice the song, and they would be able to perform it more powerfully next time.


GROUP SONGS

2 years later, Inochi no tsukaimichi, Kissu shite son sichatta

I was really-really waiting to hear the translation of the Inochi no tsukaimichi, because of the song's risque nature. In the translation, the "ojisan" words were removed but surpirisngly the other risque parts were left intact. When Ghaida was asked to explain what this song was about by the other members during an mc after the song, she could not find words to describe it, and finally she gave up and just said "girls are always too anxious about things" XD

Kissu shite son shicatta, was very very very enjoyable, given the song's beat was very similar to "PopDut" beat, a music genre popular among indonesian grass root.

Boku no sakura is a nice ending song for the pre-encore part of the show. Some of the performing members were touched by the song, and were sobbing by the end of the song.


- encore.. the encore command was: "JKT" and the other fans replied with: "48"


Wasshoi J
Just like Wasshoi B, the song made the room exploded Even though the song was titled Wasshoi J, I would like to give a nick name to the song: "Asoy J". "Asoy" is an indonesian slang word that means "exciting, enjoyable"

Over all the show was good, it exceeded my expectation of JKT48, the first AKB48 sister group outside japan. And I was very lucky to be one of the people that was able to watch the first show.

I'm not sure I can sway my friends that hate JKT48 to like them, but today I finally am able to say wholeheartedly, despite their weaknesses, their shortcomings, their sometimes weird decisions, JKT48 IS REALLY WORTH SUPPORTING! AND NOT JUST BECAUSE OF THE NUMBER 48 ON THEIR NAME.

SIDE NOTES
- I presume most of JKT48 fans are not familiar with Pajama Drive Set List, but surprisingly, the timing for the mix was very good

- Rena, who's a japanese JKT48 member, is still learning bahasa indonesia, so she often has clueless expression on her face, and it makes her that much cuter