Atelier Kurotsuki

Anime Boston 2014 / jamcon

Anime Boston, Convention, music

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Anime Boston 2014 also known as JAMCON is now over.

I believe that it is safe to say that it was the best “convention season” (Kurotsuki Ver.)  opener I ever attended.

This year, Anime Boston invited super group JAM Project as musical guest. More or less like Erikon last year,  this year I’ve once again only attended 98% of the events related to JAM Project.

JAM Project was to perform twice. On Friday as a group and on Saturday they would do their solo work, basically a schedule for the EPIC.

Day 1 – FRIDAY

I am not sure if Anime Boston overestimated the North American public, but they announced a couple of days before the con that they would cap the live and one would need to get a ticket for each day by lining up at 10am each day.

So I rushed to get there from Montreal on Friday morning to get my ticket, only to find out that 1) the Line wasn’t that long and 2) they still have a great deal of tickets left when the concert started.

Met up with fellow JAMily members Realstarterv , hotel mate @Animemiz and fellow congoer and @omo in the line Friday morning.

Realstarterv cosplayed as Makkun and (Makkun-)Senpai totally noticed her during the Live (as always)

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After that we pretty much did nothing for the rest of the day until it was time to line up for the Friday Live. Took a few cosplay pictures. Also bought some JAM Pro merch at the Lantis Booth

Then the night happened sooner than expected.The Live was to begin at 9PM and the “official” line up at 7:30 , but everybody pretty much started lining up by 6 something.

The Live was to begin at 9PM and the “official” line up at 7:30 , but everybody pretty much started lining up by 6 something.

unfortunately pictures were not allowed during the concert, but I managed to snag how close I was to the show before it began.

you can see here bellow the staff doing final checks on the equipment.

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unfortunately, as mentioned earlier the room wasn’t really full, but for those of us the front , we sure as heck got the best show EVER!

Here is the set list for the Friday Group Live :

M01 「Crest of Z’s」

M02 「嘆きのロザリオ」 (Nageki no Rosario)

M03 「鋼のレジスタンス」 (Hagane no Resistance)

– MC-

M04 「牙狼～SAVIOR IN THE DARK～」 (GARO ~Savior in the dark~)

M05 「守護神-The guardian」 (Shugoshin the guardian)

M06 「TRANSFORMERS EVO.」

– MC –

M06 「THUMB RISE AGAIN」

M07 「Wings of the Legend」

M08 「SOULTAKER」

– MC –

M08 「Rocks」

M09 「GONG」

M10 「VICTORY」

M11 「レスキューファイアー」(Rescue fire)

– Encore –

M12 「KI・ZU・NA 〜10th Anniv. Ver.〜」

M13 「SKILL」

 

Needless to say that it was the most amazing live ever.

They actually performed all the songs I love so I was more than super happy.  I was not expecting them to perform 「Wings of the Legend」 which was my new favourite from them, so this moved me quite a bit.

Also, you could tell by this performance how badly we missed Fukuchan during the Otakon MF . With him being there this time, the band had a completely different dynamic. A real and perfect chemistry and camaraderie . This was certainly mostly evident to me during 「VICTORY」 in which the 5 do a sort of bit during the low key moment of the song.

Speaking of Fukuchan, he is an amazing tease, during the live he pretended to throw is coat as us , and I was ready to fight everybody to catch it, but it was a tease, and laughed as us. oh you Fukuchan.

And as usual 「SKILL」 rocked my world.   Once the live ended,  my entire body hated me for what it had to go through.  Totally worth it.

Day 2 – Saturday

same thing as the previous day, wake up early to line up to secure ticket in a more or less non existent line.

At 11:30 was the autograph session. We all gathered ahead as usual, a funny tidbit was when the staff announced the official line , she called out attention to”Project JAM” fans.

I brought my wings of the legend single for them to sign.

When it got to be my turn, I had them sign it to Kurotsuki and Dani quickly rebranded me as Kuro-chan. My day was thus made.

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DSC_0126I told Kageyama that my favourite song of his was Soldier Dreams and he replied that he would perform it that night. Day further made.

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DSC_0128After the signing I killed time at the aniplex USA panel.DSC_0135

They announced their spring line-up and servant x servant home release .

Later we went to line up for the JAM Project Q&A

We got to enter the room way before the panel started. In part due to the Attack on Titan dub premiering in the same room after, and it somehow got the craziest line up. So bad that they got a major part of them to fill up the room during JAMPRO’s Q&A.

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The Q&A went as follow:

Their international(?) manager started by asking them to tell us a bit about their experience recording their latest album.

They began by mentioning that Thumb Rise Again is their latest completely original album (with no anime relation) and it was recorded in L.A
They were really happy to have recorded in the same studio (Capital Records) as legendary American musicians. Fukuyama on his side was especially psyched about it being the same studio that was once used by the Beatles.
It was only after he got back to his hotel that it hit him that he got to record at such an amazing place.
Unfortunately he didn’t get to sing there, but jus record background music.
They also appreciated that their hotel had an ocean view, and they got to see sea lions.

They are also not done touring it in Japan. They’ve done 16 shows so far, however the one we got the previous night was different than the tour, as it was specially customized with songs American fans would recognize.

They did mention to be working on Makai no Hana
and small reminder that they have two new songs coming up, the one for the new Super Robot War, and the second intro of Nobunaga the fool.

the fan Q&A began.

  • One person asked how to improve his singing voice, to which Enchan answered to Eat a lot, and Drink a lot (of alcohol)
  • One person personally asked Makkun how she got involved with composing for the Ray anime, she said that because she was approached via her own recoding company and arrangement were made from there to have her compose for it.
  • When asked what they would have done if they didn’t get into music, Fukuchan mentioned that because he watched many movies, he wanted to get into the movie industry.
  • One person asked each of them what their favourite fruits were. Fukuchan said Pineapple, Kagechan said Grapefruit , Makkun likes watermelon, Dani likes strawberries (the sexy kind~) and Enchan likes bananas.
  • A student(?) asked them to send messages to a certain association he is a part of (forgot which one he mentioned) , he got “Have fun till you die”, “Keep shining” and “Always full voice!”
  • I asked them what they liked to listen to in their free time , Dani said he loves KISS , Fukuchan likes QUEEN, Enchan likes Paul Rodgers, and Makkun’s is a big fan of Kageyama’s old band “LAZY”
  • When asked if they would consider doing a U.S tour, they did say that if the response and demand is good they would actually really like to.
  • When asked if they ever wanted to sing a song for an anime which would it be, Enchan said Sailor Moon. While they were thinking up the other answers , I said “Gundam” and Kagechan pointed at me and said I got it (SENPAI NOTICED ME!). That’s when my friend Shu decided to yell “Sentai” as well, but somehow what they heard was “hentai”.
    Dani quickly got up, and said “Who are you calling Hentai?” . Queue in the mass laughter. And Fukuchan adding more by pointing Shu and saying “Are you hentai ?”. After the general laughter ended he said “We are all Hentai”.
  • When asked what their favourite JAM song were, Enchan said 「KI・ZU・NA」, for Dani it was 「牙狼～SAVIOR IN THE DARK～」 (GARO ~Savior in the dark~)」, for Makkun it was 「未来への咆哮」 (asu he no houkou) even though she doesn’t sing in this one. Kage him really liked 「SOULTAKER」 and Fukuchan said that his favourite was the first one he got to sing with the band 「SKILL」
  • When asked what their favourite Gundam series were, Kagechan said he likes all the older Gundam series, meanwhile Makkun admitted to never having seen Gundam before.
  • When asked what their favourite Boston experience was, they mentioned never having stepped outside of the hotel much, but they did notice how cold it looked outside. Fukuchan meanwhile visited 3 guitar shops, but bought nothing.
  • When asked what kind of anime they like, Enchan mentioned that his favourite anime was Alps no Shoujo, Dani obviously said One Piece. Kageyama felt that Dani stole his Dragon Ball punch and Dani quickly dismissed him on that point. Makkun Likes Cutey Honey and Devilman. Kagechan’s personal favourite to this day is still Umi no Triton.
    Fukuchan said that his favourite is Alps no Shoujo as well, but asked that we all watch Macross 7 nonetheless.

And that’s it for the Q&A

we then dropped by the Asakawa Yuu panel.DSC_0188

It was my first time seeing her and it was great. I liked how completely relaxed she was compared to other seiyuu’s I usually see at convention who tend to act more reserved.

At one point, someone asked her to perform one of Love Hina’s Mokoto’s line , but she said she could not remember as it’d been too long. She then pulled out her phone to Google Mokoto’s trademark attack line and she tried to perform it for us. It was pretty great.

The person in charge(?) of VGO in Boston said they made a special arrangement version for 「Just be Friends」 and would have loved to have her perform it. They managed to convince her and this was the result :

 

Also, the same guy who asked JAM Project the fruit question came back to ask Yuu her’s, unfortunately I do not remember her answer.

It’s Guava, thanks Shana.

As the Q&A ended, I got her to sign the back of my ipad next to Dixie Flatline’s signature.

 

Then 8pm hit. It was time to start to “unofficially” line up for the Solo live that was at 11pm

Shu brought roses for us to give to the band, and a card for us to sign. A good deal of people in the line signed so that made me pretty happy.

Also this happened during the line up. JAMily represent !

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Anyway, began the live.

they surprised us by Opening with Breakout and closing with 「SKILL」(best version) , also known as . https://twitter.com/omonomono/status/447594456255303680

The set list is as Follow

M01 「Break Out」

– MC –

M02 「勇者王誕生!」(Yuusha-oh Tanjou!)

– MC –

M03 「BELIEVE IN NEXUS」

M04 「ウィーアー!」 (We Are)

– MC –

M05 「ウィーゴー!」 (We Go)

M06 「「輪舞-revolution」(Rondo Revolution)

– MC –

M07 「MASK」

M08 「PLANET DANCE」

– MC –

M09 「真赤な誓い」 (Makka na Chikai)

M10 「聖闘士神話〜ソルジャードリーム〜」 (Soldier Dream)

– MC –

M11 「CHA-LA HEAD-CHA-LA」

– MC –

M12 「SKILL」

I finally got to hear Soldier Dream performed live and I think I could never have asked for any better inclusion than that.

During the live, Fruits Question Guy arrived with a Pineapple for Fukuchan.  Who himself was rather puzzled at the gift, so much that he started getting confusing with his words.

He also threw Pineapple-chan in the air, and caught it (and obviously hurt himself during the process) after 「SKILL」because HE’S FIRE BOMBER AND HE DOES WHATEVER HE WANTS ! BADASS !

To me the highlight of the live was during the long MOTTO MOTTO bit in 「SKILL」 , we got really close to the stage. Close enough that Fukuchan extended his arm to get us to shout MOTTO MOTTO in it.  It was the MOST AMAZING thing ever.

Fukuchan is such a bro.  Funny thing is before they began 「SKILL」 , my friends and I were all waiting with the roses looking for the best moment to give them and he noticed (SENPAI!!!) us with them and kept glancing at us waiting for her to give it to them. After a while he went backstage to get back the Pineapple (now dubbed Pineapple-chan by the JAMily) which he put back on stage for his infamous throw and catch bit.

I was pretty much like a corpse after the live. Too much energy had been spent, and I wouldn’t have wanted it otherwise.

 

DAY 3 – Sunday

Final day.

All there was to do was get to the dealers room and pray that my number was selected to win the raffle.

Unfortunately the powers that be decided against me, but a lucky guy named Leo did win and I’m pretty happy for him actually.

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unfortunately, all good things must come to an end, and this is how ends the best convention season opener ever.

I can tell already, 2014 is going to be epic.

Good bye JAM Project, thank you for coming to North America again and please come back Soon ~

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