Osaka Concert Weekend: Camui Gakuen Osaka Branch School

Tags

Camui Gakuen, Camui Gakuen de Dashinasai, GACKT, Gakuensai, Osaka

I’m writing this from my mother’s house in Detroit. Well, I started writing this post over a month ago, but mid-November through December was crazy busy. So as I lie here at six in the morning on Christmas Eve Eve waiting for my non-jet-lagged family to wake up so I can go eat breakfast, I figured I should get Lucky Hill up to date. ^o^;

Onward to Catch-Up Post One of Five!

The weekend of Nov. 17-18, I went up to Osaka with some friends for two concerts. We flew to Osaka and before we even got there, we ran into GACKT.

I picked up ANA’s magazine, flipped it open, and happened to land on this ad. ♡

On the way to the venue, Intex Osaka.

Saturday’s show was the first day of this year’s “Gakuensai,” the school festival of the Camui Gakuen. This time it was called “Camui Gakuen de Dashinasai,” which I think we can translate as “Let it all hang out at the Camui School Festival.” Or something like that.

At these shows GACKT plays the character of Student Council President, and we must thus address him as “Kaichou” (会長). “Students” must attend the shows wearing a school uniform or something that can pass for a uniform. There are many other “school rules,” and I was a bit surprised to find them posted in Japanese, English, Korean, and Chinese.

Click to read at full size! Ahaha…I just noticed that while the Korean and Chinese translations have the ♂ (symbol for Mars/men) the English translation leaves it out.

The 購買部, or “Cooperative Store” where you can buy goods. While the high schools I’ve worked at in Fukuoka have 売店, a little store that sells stationery, I’ve never seen a student-run store like the DECA stores in many American high schools.

The show opened one hour late. It started with the usual singing of the school song and explanation of the rules by the Kyoutou-sensei. There was a Mr. and Ms. Camui Gakuen who got school blazers with huge epaulets to wear. On top of the usual picking of “chairman” and “vice chairmen” to take photographs of the students, there was also an award ceremony for the students who had gotten the highest scores in the Camui Gakuen mobile phone game. If I had known that playing said game would earn one the chance to get called up to the stage and shake GACKT’s hand I would’ve played it! Then there was the introduction of “F9,” the upperclassmen, who this year consisted of:

(Left to right) Back row: Taya, Shinnosuke, Kazuya, Hayato and Baru of Duel Jewel (I don’t know which is which), and Wong. Front row: Takumi, YOU, Seito Kaichou, and Chachamaru. I’m still not sure if we’re supposed to count Kaichou as part of F9, but seeing as this is a “Hana Yori Dango” reference I assume that he is a part of it.

After this there was a play making fun of MOON SAGA Yoshitsune Hiden. It was called “Yoshitsune Kaden” (「義経家電」) meaning “Yoshitsune Home Appliances.” It opens with Benkei running on stage with a bag from Yodobashi Camera. Otherwise it had nothing to do with electronics. Chachamaru played Tomoe, Takumi played Yoshinaka, YOU played Hiyori, Kazuya played Kage, and one of the Duel Jewel guys played Yoshitsune. After Kazuya recreated Kage’s fight scene, Yoshitsune tried his hand at fighting the whatever-monster-shadow-thing that was, but had to do it with a hair dryer. >o<

Then there was intermission. At this time you could either line up to buy goods or food and hope that you got to meet the band members, who go out briefly to serve in the Cafeteria (ショック堂 not 食堂) and the Store, or line up to be photographed by the chairpersons, whose “collected smiles” end up in a yearbook of sorts sent to fanclub members later. My friends and I lined up to get goods and food, but I think none of us got to meet any member of F9.

After the intermission, the concert part finally started. Like a school festival where student rock bands perform covers, GACKT’s band covered such singers, bands, and groups as Mika Nakashima, GLAY, L’arc~en~Ciel, Shonan no Kaze, X Japan, and…we’ll come back to this later. XD He did sing one of his own songs, namely “Graffiti.”

My third favorite part of this show was Takumi’s “saxophone solo.” I don’t remember exactly what song this happened during (maybe the Checkers’ “Namida no Request”). Before the performance Seito Kaicho tells us that Takumi has been learning to play the saxophone just for this solo. There’s two or three parts in the song for the sax solo–but Takumi never quite plays! This was a reference to how Takumi didn’t go through with bungee jumping for the Nico Nico Douga YELLOW FRIED CHICKENz show. At the very end of the song, Takumi lets out one completely out of tune and improperly blown note.

My second favorite part of this show was when the band briefly covered L’arc~en~Ciel’s 「花葬」(“Kasou” which, written as 火葬 means “cremation” but here is written with the character for flower rather than fire). This is one of my absolute favorite L’arc songs. GACKT sang only the chorus, with Shinnosuke up on a ladder throwing flower petals at him, and other members sweeping the petals about on stage with huge brooms. But more amusingly, he impersonated HYDE’s wiggly dancing. About midway through GACKT stopped the dancing; one of my friends said that it was because he was on the verge of busting out laughing and so had to stop dancing.

My favorite part of this show was without a doubt the grand finale. It was…AKB48’s “Heavy Rotation”!

XDDD

Now, I don’t particularly like AKB48 or that song. But seeing GACKT having a blast dressed like a schoolgirl with little pink pom-poms in his hair, wearing the shortest skirt on stage, totally nailing every move in that dance, and smiling a smile that seemed to just be bursting out of him…♡♡♡! We were also very lucky in that we were seated not only in the 7th row, but also to the right of the stage, meaning that we had a nice view during a particular part of that dance. XDDD

After the show we went for one more round at the Cooperative Store, took more photos with the cardboard cutouts, and talked to some fans. I ran into some Fukuoka DEARS, as well as a fan I’d seen about the GACKT fan interwebs (who has a post with the show’s setlist–I hope you don’t mind me linking to you!).

Then my friends and I headed for Doutonbori (道頓堀), the famous street in Osaka that has the Glico billboard. (And I just now realized that I didn’t take a picture of it with my camera. >o<;;;; I’ll have to ask my friends to send me the pics they took.) We had takoyaki from a stall and then went to an okonomiyaki restaurant and reminisced about the show. Then we went to our hotels and called it a night.

☆

次回！：嵐、嵐、for dream.

A Mock School Concert

Tags

Camui Gakuen, Camui Gakuen de Fukinasai, GACKT, Gakuensai, Kobe

I’d been debating whether I should post about this concert over on this blog, and two weeks later decided to go ahead say how it went considering I’d mentioned it briefly before going.

So, Saturday November 6th two friends and I got to get up at some unholy time in the AM (7 or so) to catch a shinkansen to Kobe for the GACKT concert I’d won tickets to.  It’s a relatively short ride at just under 3 hours.

Now, this concert, besides having had ticket sales limited to fanclub members, was special in that you had to go dressed in something that resembled a school uniform (or an actual uniform, of course, if you had one and wanted to wear it).  But the mock school thing didn’t end there!  People who’d won tickets were called “gakuensei” (but in one of the many puns, this was written 楽園性 which says “rakuensei” but the “sei” is written…oh, let’s just say it’s written with a different kanji than usual! ^_^;) and had to take a 3 x 4 cm ID style photo so that a “student ID” could be made for them!  The ID had slots for “credits,” and one credit could be earned by going to a concert.  Only someone who went to every single one of these Gakuensai concerts could accumulate enough credits to “pass” to the next grade. We were informed at the concert that everyone had “failed” the grade last year. ^o^;  People who were going as guests of someone who’d won tickets didn’t get a Student ID, but they still had to wear mock uniforms and were called 他校性 (takousei) meaning “student of another school.”

So, we’d arrived in Kobe around 11:15, but after queuing to reserve our seats for the shinkansen back home that same night, and taking a few photos with the cardboard cutouts of “Student Council President” (meaning, GACKT himself) and crew at the concert venue, it was time to line up for 入楽手続き (continuing with the pun, this is read as “nyuugaku tetsuzuki”) meaning “Admissions.”  After that, we all tried the YOU Curry at the ショック堂 (get it?), bought some goods, and by then, the doors opened so we lined up to go in.

Now, this whole concert lasted a good 4 hours, though there was about a 30 minute break between the first half which was more like a “culture festival” and then the concert proper.  The event started up with, appropriately enough, a 始業式 (shigyoushiki), meaning Opening Ceremony.  First, the “kyoutou-sensei” of the Camui Gakuen (that’s the name of the mock school BTW) literally hopped and skipped up on stage and gave a speech that included instruction on “proper speech.”  Basically, we had to use old Japanese as responses.  Instead of various greetings such as “konnichi wa,” we had to say “gokigen yo” (ご機嫌よ); instead of “hai!” we had to say “kashikomari!”; and instead of “sumimasen,” “goburee” (ごぶれぇ).

Then the bald-save-for-a-single-braid-with-a-big-red-bow “kouchou-sensei” came up on stage and gave a speech.  I don’t remember much of it now.

Then, the man himself, seito kaichou (Student Council President), sloooooowly sauntered up on stage to give a speech.  ^o^;  Four audience members were picked to be fukuiinchou (副委員長 meaning “vice-chairman,” in this case, of the Student Council).  Along with the name of the concert (“Fukinasai” written as フキナ祭), “fukuiinchou” was another word that for reasons I don’t really understand, was always pronounced as if with a stutter. That is to say, GACKT always stressed the two i’s as being separate sounds.

Hm, well, the rest might not be of much interest to those who read this blog out of interest in someday doing JET, since the mock school stuff pretty much ends here.  After this point, one could say the part before the concert proper was like a bunkasai.  There was a skit that was sorta making fun of the play Nemuri Kyoushirou, then a dance-off, and then…I think that was it before the break.  After that was the concert itself, which was all covers.  Despite only being familiar with 3 of the songs, I really enjoyed the concert. I hope I get to go to another Gakuensai someday! My plaid skirt will be waiting. ^O^♡

I couldn’t take photos inside the venue of course, but here’s an article on a Japanese page about the show with some high resolution photos! 「GACKTが本気で遊びの楽園祭（学園祭）を開催！」: http://www.news2u.net/releases/78122?ref=rss

Okay, you’ve read this far eh?  You deserve some amusing photo to look at.

In real life, I don’t think I even knew who my student council president was.

That photo was taken before I bought the official school tie. ^o^;;;

Speaking of that tie, last Wednesday was the first day of Mid-Year Seminar, a meeting of ALTs and JTEs.  Since we have to dress super-formally, I put on my formal blazer (not the one in the photo), and when I looked in the mirror, the outfit felt empty.  It needed something. And the red & pinkish gold tie of the Camui Gakuen matched my light pink shirt too perfectly not to wear it!  So, I had a few Japanese people (mostly men) staring at me with WTF?! looks on their faces, which I found thoroughly amusing.  The best one had to be this one guy on the train platform.  I was going home, and as the train pulled in to some station or other, I see this grown man wearing bright yellow leggings and a bright yellow skirt.  And when I say bright, I mean BRIGHT.  The train pulls in, I see him…and he glares at me like few have glared at me before!  I don’t know if it was because I was dressed “like a man,” or because I was looking at him in his “girls'” outfit.

You’d think two people cross-dressing on a crowded train would’ve had more empathy between them.

XDDD Okay, there’s enough in this post to give you, O Reader, your Daily Recommended Dose of Wonk.  Don’t you just feel the life energy pulsing through you with unprecedented zest?!