Relatively early in the morning, I made my way to Ikebukuro for the in store event of THE MICRO HEAD 4N’S (called Maifo). Since I only had been
once to the Brand X shop before, I decided on being a
bit earlier to search for it, in case I would have might forgotten the
way. It was a cold winter day though, so when I almost
arrived at the shop I were pretty early. In order to warm up I wanted to
get a hot drink from the convenience store and looked into it, while
still being a bit away from the entrance. Surprised I
stared into the shop for some seconds, still trying to figure out if I
really were seeing Zero and Ricky in the store. They still had not noticed me, so I decided
not to stop at the shop and leave them alone.
So
I wandered around in the cold for a bit, checking twitter and due to
some messages from Japanese fans I got to know that all members of Maifo must have been in the convenience store at that time.
Some
time before the in store event started I got back to the shop,
perfectly in time, when a staff started to line up everybody due to the
numbers.
So when I heard my range I went to her, showing her my number, as everybody did, and were brought to a
spot.
Later
the woman, who was supposed to stand in front of me, arrived and we
started to talk, because I realized she was wearing a scarf Hizumi
designed. We had a fun
time, while waiting in the cold until we could get into the already
crowded Brand X shop. Inside the store it was a little bit too warm. On a
screen on the left side, the new Maifo
DVD was played, while in front of us were something that looked like a red wall.
Anyway shortly after the last person got into the store Yada from Brand X started with the introduction and then moved the red roller shutter that
looked like a wall before. There were Maifo sitting.
The sitting order was: Shun Zero, Kazuya, Tsukasa, Ricky. So the Bônenkai-talk and 6Shot checki shoot could
start.
A
Bônenkai is a party you have at the end of the year and drink a lot of
alcohol in order to forget, especially the bad parts, of the ending
year. So referring to the talk as a Bônenkai-talk they
decided to do a cheers with drinks with the fans, therefore they went to
the convenience store and bought themselves some drinks. While Tsukasa and I think also
Kazuya really drank beer, Zero only had a bottle of tea and a bottle of water. So not everybody of them drank
alcohol.
For some reasons they started to be bothered by the drinks, because they had the labels on it, so Zero started to remove the label around his tea bottle and then
moved on to Shun’s doing the same. I did not get what
the problem was at all. Maybe covert advertisement or the little hope
that they could now say that they had drunken alcohol as
well.
The talk was based on questions that the fans could ask. For the question, they had got a paper along with their in store
ticket and had to hand it in before the in store started.
It might be possible that I mixed up the order of the questions, I am sorry for that, but such an event is pretty
fast.
The first question was about bad memories they made that year. The first person, who had to answer, was
Shun.
He explained that he had troubles with his bicycle. When he was in Roppongi and for some reasons the pedal broke and soon
after that his saddle moved forward too. So he decided to leave the bicycle and took the broken pedal to a friend.
When he got back to his bicycle it was gone. Then it was Zero’s
turn, who told about the last live,
because he was moving around and then struggled before falling down. He
got a bruise on his hip. He also stood up to show where and how big it
was. Then he started to say that he could not play
futsal that year at all and he thought it was kind of sad.
So Yada suggested Maifo could play with the audience later but Kazuya
said, he does not really like sports or has no interest in it that is why he do not appreciate the idea. So Yada asked him, if he is playing
golf.
With that a golf talk started. However it seems that Kazuya and Shun both are not good
with it.
Since Tsukasa and Ricky obviously did not like the topic. Ricky tried
to convince Tsukasa to make them stop and in the end he really got Tsukasa to interfere. But with that Kazuya’s story about the year was
skipped.
For Tsukasa, he had a bike story too. He went to a karaoke box alone to practice and when he got out of
it and went to his bicycle I think somebody was trying to steal it, but I'm not sure. Sadly I did not get Ricky's. Sorry!
The next were actually two questions. First it was about the DVD and then about their pants color today.
Yada started with Ricky and Tsukasa. Both of them admitted that they have not seen the DVD yet, so they cannot say anything about
it.
For the other 3 members they meant they saw the DVD so often while cutting it, that the memory of it is mixed up.
Zero mentioned that there were many cool parts but he
had to cut some out. Every talk had been cut out during the song
Reverberation on the DVD, because otherwise the people who will
watch it, would not understand the situation, unless they had been on
the concert. They started talking about the intro of 'I'm like a bird in a cage & U too' because they clap during
that part. Zero said that everybody looked cool, despite Tsukasa who claps in Enka style. So they made Tsukasa clap and saying what kind of clapping
is good. Ricky also sang a bit to make the drummer clap. After that they had to talk about their panty color. Starting with Shun, who said black.
Zero said black too and Yada asked if it would be glossy or matt.
The bassist looked surprised but answered with matt. When Kazuya got the answer, he mentioned that
probably all of Maifo would kind of wear the same underwear. Yada made a joke out of it. Saying that they would ask around in the dressing room whom pants this or
that would be, since all would wear black. Everybody laughed and Kazuya then admitted that he wears black pants too. Tsukasa answered with black too. When
Ricky had to answer the question, he apologized saying
that he would be the exception. The vocal stood up, putting down a bit
of his pants showing his underwear and confessing to his
red/white fruits underwear.
For some reasons they started to talk about their answering to emails habits or better about Tsukasa’s
habit. Somebody said that Tsukasa would always write
too short emails or does not answer at all. Anyway the drummer explained
that his former cellphone did not had a 'answer all'
function or something like that. I did not get the explanation to 100%. Tsukasa promised to answer at least to Kazuya starting with the next
year.
There was a question with which kanji the members would describe 2014. Sadly I do not remember
Shun’s.
Zero started that part with sou desu. And the kanji he meant is pronounced
sou.
So he ended up saying 'maa, sou desu. ... sou desu.' And Yada again asked for it so he said again 'sou
desu' but I do not know which kanji he exactly meant and I did not understand the explanation.
Kazuya was 楽 (fun), Ricky was
新 (new), and Tsukasa
was 山 (mountain). The drummer explained that a lot happened this year, with his enka and the illustration stuff. So Shun said that it is good that it was not
a 川 (river).
But with that there was a good bridge for Tsukasa to talk a bit about enka and he also sang a bit.
Yada mentioned something about it and Tsukasa started checking it on the phone. But when he found it, it was a bit different from what he expected. At the end of the
talk for some reasons Zero explained that he is not talking at all when there is a camera around.
When Yada wanted that each member gives a short message to the fans, Shun used the chance to say, that on the next day it would be
Yada’s birthday and they would have a present for him. So everybody sang Happy Birthday for
Yada.
The present was related to golf. Yada was surprised saying that it must be quite expensive. But Shun denied
that.
When Shun then started to transmit his message, Yada was still looking into the present being astonished about. So guitarist asked if
Yada would listen and everybody laughed.
After the talk ended everybody had to go outside from Brand X, lining up at the same place as
earlier.
The
lineup was again according to the number you had on your ticket. So I
started to talk to the woman I talked to before the talk started. We
exchanged twitter. She was as nervous
as me, even though she had been to some checki shootings before, while
for me it was the first. A friend of hers was before us and when she
came
back.
I
was introduced to her and we started talking too. Finally it was our
turn. In a group of ten people you were lead to the shop again, standing
on the stairway. On the bottom of the stairway you could
give your belongings as bag and jacket to the staff, who put it on a
chair in the room. When the checki of the person before you was already
taken you could enter. In the room there was just the
band, Yada, who took and you. In the back there was Shun, Ricky and Kazuya (from left to right) and in the front were Zero and
Tsukasa sitting (from left to right) between the
bassist and the drummer was a vacant stool for you to sit down. Shortly
after you sat down Yada took the picture.
You got the checki grabbed your belongings and had to leave. Outside I
met up with the Japanese fans again and suddenly there was another fan
too. We talked and they were pretty curious. They told me
that you could have handed over a letter to the members as well before
the checki was taken. After some time we left.
