First of all, I should warn you. About a week before the first event, I knew nothing about those boys. XP

 

I remember seeing them perform “So Dangerous” when it came out last year because I think they were doing it at the same time Bangtan were promoting Dope? (because let’s face it, why else would I have been watching music shows?) but, although I remember thinking their dance was cool, they were just another rookie group to me at the time.

 

Anyways, it was only a few days after the BTS handshake event and I was still emo about it being over. You will notice that I have not written a fan account about that, even though I had 5 handshake passes. There is a reason for that, and the reason is that, it did not go as great as I had imagined it would and I was still a little upset. Because of how pushy the staff was and we were just treated like cattle, because of how absolutely untouchable the boys had become, and how Hobi had not remembered me at all, and because a friend kinda ruined the whole rest of the day for me with her behavior… but never mind that. This is not a post about BTS.

At that time, someone on my tl retweeted a video of this kid, who basically looked sooooo much like Jungkook (but really more like Jungkook and Hoseok’s love child) talking cutely at the camera in bad Japanese. His Japanese was terrible, but it was the cutest thing I’d seen all day. He was saying something like “Wait for us, we’ll come soon!” I looked it up and it came from the “official up10tion Japan” twitter account. So I clicked on it and saw a bunch of other similar videos from other members, all in more or less butchered Japanese. Sometimes they were in pairs, sometimes alone, but they were cute.

I had tried before to “get into” other groups – less famous groups – especially the type who did a lot of activities in Japan, but it had never really worked. Nothing drew me to them the same way I was drawn to Bangtan. They all bored me. But something drew me to that one boy (ok, ok, it was mainly the fact that he looked like Kookie’s baby brother), and I was on medical leave with too much free time on my hands, so I got curious. I looked up what the heck this event they kept referring to was first, (each video went D-5, D-4, D-3, D-2…) and found out that they were coming to Japan for a week of promotional events; and best of all, since they were a rookie group, those events were FREE.

I also found out that, as part of these events, there was going to be some “fanservice events”. (that’s how they get you to buy the CDs)

Now I’m only used to Bangtang and their stupid handshake events and how those work, so it took me a while to understand the process, but basically, if you bought 2 CDs (one of each version), you’d get a scratch-card where you would IMMEDIATELY (not lottery! omg!) win something. It could be one of 3 things.

1 – a handshake with all 10 members
2 – a “sign” with just one member
3 – a “selca” with just one member

 

So at first that was still all very confusing. I headed over to the Tower Records shop in Shibuya (since they were hosting the event) and showed the girl the tweet with the photo of the scratch cards and asked “how do I get that?” so she explained the process to me. I ended up buying 6 CDs, so that meant 3 scratch cards. I dragged my load to the café downstairs and scratched my little cards while openning my cd/photobooks to look at the pictures and try to pick a favorite. I’d already started watching their MVs and memorizing their names, but I was failing miserably still. I could only remember a handful of them:

girly-baby-kookie,
giant-lips-n-ears-boy,
the-one-whos-supposed-to-look-like-baekhyun-but-really-doesn’t,
the cheeky-one-who’s-always-sleveless
the-ugly-one (though that’s just personal taste so I won’t say who).

 

I scratched my cards and this is what I got : Xiao selca, Xiao selca, Hwanhee sign.

At that point, I had already decided that my 3 faves – based on attraction alone – were Wooshin, Sonyoul and Jinhoo, so I was cranky I didn’t get any of those. But, I figured that, if in Japan ARMY was any indication, surely other Japanese fandoms were just as organized. And I was not wrong. I wrote a little post on twitter along the lines of “I got Hwanhee and Xiao cards, wanna switch for Wooshin, Sonyoul or Jinhoo”, and waited.

It took literally 3 seconds for my Xiao cards to be gone; and that’s how I learned he was the most popular member (maknaes always are…). Hwanhee took longer, but I managed to exchange it later on too. Honestly, as I bought more CDs along the way and proceeded to more exchanges, I don’t remember what went where, but it doesn’t really matter as you’ll hear about who I met in due time anyways.

 

Also, while I was looking to trade my cards, I found a girl (whom I’d also ironically already met at the Bangtan event a week before) who was selling a ticket – a very GOOD ticket – to their showcase on the upcoming Saturday. On a whim, I decided to buy it.

 

 

Day 1

Friday June 3^rd – Tokyo release event for their “Spotlight” album

 

I went to this event with a friend from my hometown. She was actually on a trip to Tokyo with her school and we had arranged to meet up while she was here. Pascalina was a formerly big Shinee fan, and had expressed the desire – if it was possible – to go to a kpop show, or at least something kpop related when we met. When I suggested this to her, she agreed immediately and got very excited. So I met up with her at around 11am. (11:30, I was late…) and we went off to Odaiba.

 

The event was held as DiverCity Tokyo, which is a huge shopping mall in Odaiba that has a kinda terrace set up for outdoor concerts at the back. A lot of groups have special events there. Bangtan even had one there for No More Dream and FOR YOU. (but they had to stop doing those because 10 000 people showed up the last time……..)

There weren’t too many people when we arrived. Maybe 100-200 waiting in front of the stage, a hundred more milling around, trying to exchange cards and lining up for CDs, and another 150 lining up around the 2^nd floor balcony. All in all, when the performance actually started, I don’t think there were more than 500-600 people.

 

The event didn’t start til 2pm, but it said that the cd-sales opened at noon, and of course, like the compulsive buyer that I am, I had decided that I wanted to buy more CDs if we could still get scratch cards, which we COULD. So I bought 4 more. It was a bright, very sunny and warm day that Friday, and I still was not quite 100% back on my feet (if you dunno what’s wrong with me, please refer to my I’m Not Dead post) and the bright sunlight was not helping, so we went inside to the foodcourt to eat and wait.

 

When we came back out around 1:50, there was still room inside the enclosed space reserved for the concert crowd so we went there. We were maybe 2/3 in.  There was apparently no rule about cameras (very rare in Japan) or else nobody cared because EVERYONE had their cellphones out to record everything. There were a couple fansites there too, with their big giant cameras, ready to go.

They all filed out, all 10 of them, on stage with the two MCs and girls started screaming. I think they started with “Attention” right away (please forgive me, it’s been like two weeks now) and did the introductions after, but I could be wrong. But anyhow, they only performed 2 songs, “Attention” their single off “Spotlight” and “So Dangerous”, their debut single, at the very end. Both in Korean. In between the two they had a long ment and chit-chat with the MCs.

 

It was very cool. Their dances are very sharp and they sing extremely well live (more on that on the next day). If I’d have to describe them using other groups, I’d say that their sound reminds me of Shinee, and they’re a bit of a cross between BTS and SEVENTEEN with their dances, since they have so many members. I was really, really impressed. I was like “! They’re not gonna stay not famous long!” lol.

Anyways after the first song they all introduced themselves one by one. They tried to use a bit of Japanese but it was painfully obvious they can’t speak it,  so mostly they would talk in Korean and there was a translator who would translate into Japanese. They all showed a “talent” and some were really cute, and others kinda lame……… who was it who brought back the “Ramen, Tsukemen, boku wa ikemen!” joke back? I think it was either Wei or Xiao… (it’s like a Japanese meme that was popular like 2 years ago?) Sonyoul said he’d sing a Japanese song but chickened out after 2 words (making everyone including myself squeal KAAAAWWWWWAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!!!!!!!!!!!!!) and Kogyeol sang the whole chorus of “Hitomi wo tojite”, which is a super famous song by Hirai Ken and I love this song and he sang it really well so I freaked out a little. Hmm… I have a bunch of videos of that up on my Youtube channel. My ID is kawaii_candie. You can look them up.

 

Now, after that finally ended, I ran out of the pit to go sit down somewhere cuz I couldn’t endure it anymore (fresh out of the hospital, remember) and then they started announcing that the handshake session would start. I didn’t really understand how it worked so I kept getting up to check, but finally a staff person explained that first it was the handshake, then when all the people with handshake cards were gone they were gonna set up for the individual fansigns, and once that was done, it was gonna be the selcas. At that point, for that day, I had cards only for signs; for Jinhoo, Wooshin and Kogyeol. (I was going to exchange the rest at the next day’s venue.) I also met a nice Jinhoo fanboy while we waited, who was all excited to make English-speaking friends, lol. He was cute. Yay for fanboys.

 

So finally the fansigns started, and since I didn’t know how it was supposed to work, I hadn’t planned post-its or anything in advance. All I did was clip a nametag to my shirt and keep the page of my album open at the place I wanted him to sign. So I gathered up my courage and decided to start with Jinhoo. It shouldn’t be too bad, right? I barely knew them, it wasn’t like meeting Bangtang, my heart should survive… but anyways, it was still exciting. Every member had a line in front of them, but they weren’t encaged inside little cubicles like at the BTS events, so while you got closer to your turn, you could see really well the members sitting on either side of the one you were lining for, which was NICE. I spent the whole time I lined up for Wooshin staring at Sonyoul… but I’m getting ahead of myself. First, it was Jinhoo.

 

He looked up at me, and yes, he was surprised that I was a foreigner, but he quickly reigned that in and greeted me with a blinding eye-smile. To me, his smile is like Jimin’s. His eyes just disappear and it just makes you go “kyaaaa” because it’s so cute. And I personally happen to think his giant lips are really, really y…. He started talking in Japanese to me, and we had a mini chat in Japanese. Honestly, I don’t remember what I said because I was too much in awe that I wasn’t being shoved away by the staff. I think he asked me where I was from. He kept talking to me and smiling at me and then he took my hand to shake it in his – like covering it with his – and I died as he smiled again and now I was being told to leave. Once I was out of the line, I stumbled a bit away and opened my album at his page. It said “to Banessa” in Japanese, then there was a big signature and at the bottom he’d written again “banessa-chan, aieru” XD (like, “cutie-Vanessa, I love you”). And I just fought the urge to squeal like an idiot cuz I had to go line up again.

 

When one member’s line would get too short, the MC guy would warn the crowd with a megaphone that they should go there, because once the line became empty, that member would leave. So if you had several cards, you had to try to manoeuver and do the least popular members first so as not to end up missing one member that you had a card for. Anyhoo, second up was Wooshin.

Wooshin is hot. He’s really really hot. But I wonder if that’s enough for me to pick him as my bias. And Sonyoul looks like Kookie and is adorable and I wasn’t seeing him today so I spent the whole time in Wooshin’s line staring at him. Anyways. Wooshin. Oh lord. I need to take a deep breath just remembering this. First of all, he asked me my name and where I was from, and he had his elbow on the table with his hand up and was gesturing as if I should take his hand, so I took his hand and he intertwined his fingers with mine and held it like that THE WHOLE TIME. At one point he even took my other hand like that too, after he was done signing, and he was just staring at me, straight in my eyes, like I was really fascinating and I was just dying, omg, Wooshin… we were talking in Japanese so I asked him if he spoke English and he said a little and so we switched to English, and his little baby English was the ing cutest askjdhshdlkjsllshdll arrrrrgh…. (sorry, need a moment… kay I’m good.) And I told him I was from Canada and he said “oh, I want to go there” so I said (very slowly and enunciating very clearly) “I hope you become very famous, then you can tour there” and he repeated it to me in Japanese to make sure he’d understood and I nodded and he seemed very proud to have gotten it. At this point I’m just there wondering why no one has shoved me away yet, but he’s still holding on to my hand and talking to me, so hey! And then… and then… HE ING PETS MY FACE!!!!! He raises his other hand up, cups my cheek, gives it a couple little pats as he smiles at me, and I’m just… I’m sure my mouth is hanging right open by that point. And he goes, in English “I miss you” giving me this cheeky little look and I just wanted to die, cuz I’m an English teacher so I wanted to say “that’s wrong hun…” but it was just so damn cute… and so I told him he doesn’t have to miss me cuz I’ll come to the showcase tomorrow, so he was like “yay” and then finally the staff was like “ok, thank you, you should get moving now” in Japanese and we started saying bye. He tried writing something else in the book buy his pen wasn’t working well and he had to try like 3 times. Anyways it was in Korean and all scribbled up. It was only afterwards, with the help of Twitter that I found that that he’d written “thank you”.

 

The last one was Kogyeol, and he was also the quickest one. Because Kogyeol speaks no Japanese, no English, and I can’t speak Korean at all. Or maybe I just made him nervous because another friend said she thought his Japanese was quite good. But anyways, when I got too him I was very nervous because he was very handsome and styled like very “manly” with his hair up and looked kinda intimidating, so he just repeated my name and started talking to me in Korean. And I said in Japanese that I didn’t understand Korean and he was like “aaahh…” and it was a bit awkward, so he signed my book and I said, “you’re very handsome” in Japanese (I’m sure he would know that) and he seemed surprised and said “you’re very beautiful” to me, and I was like “eh?!” and then it was thank you, bye-bye and I was done. Lol.

 

As the fansign continued, some of the members who were “done” came back on the stage with a video camera and started filming themselves acting like idiots and playing with the crowd until it ended. I just ran back to my friend and started gushing. I was completely exhausted though, so even though there was another session starting at 6pm, we opted to leave so I could rest.

 

Day 2

Saturday June 4^th – Tokyo Showcase

 

So again, I ended up showing up later than I’d planned cuz I’d totally miscalculated the way to get there… if you don’t know, those things always end up being in the middle of nowhere on the outskirts of Tokyo, so even though it technically is in Tokyo, it’s still like an hour away from my house. I’d also found out that another ARMY friend of mine was attending this event, so we’d decided to meet up at the train station and buy our cds together. But we both also had some cards to exchange, and we’d been running so late that there was like 20 minutes left before the opening of the doors when we finally got there, and I wanted to buy more cds before we got in. This was a big deal for me cuz my ticket was no. 126, and in Japan, they let you in by order of ticket number, so I didn’t wanna lose my advantage. In the end, there was a lot of scrambling but we managed to get everything done and get in line. My friend’s ticket number was like 1397 so we were not waiting together.

When I got in most people already there were massed around the front center of the stage, but the extremities of the first row were still empty so I rushed to the left side and stole that spot. (in retrospect I shoulda gone to the other side but how was I supposed to know Jinhoo and Wooshin would spend the whole night over there?) but anyways, I was still first row. I was also, someone who was still freshly out of the hospital, for whom it was very difficult to stand up for long periods of time, and there was no way in hell I was waiting the next hour before the show even started standing up, so I just sat down, putting my towel on the pole and my bag behind me, and waited for the show to start like that, as more and more girls poured up around me. I felt a little stupid and bad, but as I sat down I explained to the girls behind me I was kinda sick and they were like “it’s ok don’t worry!” and no one came to kick me up or out of the way so that was nice. When it was almost start time, I stood up, and it definitely helped that I could lean over the pole because otherwise I don’t think I would’ve lasted 2 hours like that. And it was amazing because, even when the show started NOBODY PUSHED. Now I dunno if it’s just because UP10TION fans are incredibly nice, or if it’s generally like this for newbie groups, but I have never, in my life, attended a concert where nobody pushed to get closer when you where within the 5 first rows in front of the stage… and I have been to a lot of concerts.

 

Anyhow. It was almost like a fanmeeting. Half-concert, half-ments with them chatting, being idiots and playing games. The MC this time was actually much younger and kinda attractive (probably some Japanese personality I’m not aware of) but he kept dicking around every time the translator lady would translate, and her mike wasn’t that loud, so I pretty much missed half of everything they said because of him.

 

They performed almost all of the songs from Spotlight, and did Catch Me and So Dangerous, as well as some other songs from the first and second album. I got really excited when they did “I Wish a Miracle” because it has quickly become my favorite song and it’s a subunit of only 5 boys and has two of my faves in it and I was majorly heart-eyes the whole time. Btw, Sonyoul sings like an angel. His voice is amazing, and beautiful and pure and super high, and Jinhoo also has a really beautiful clear, high voice, and so does Hwanhee. They are really ing talented. Like why they aren’t more popular is beyond me.

 

About halfway through, the MC announced that they were going to have some sort of contest in pairs and who did the best would win the center spot for photo-time, and that for the next 5 minutes, we were all allowed to take as many pictures as we wanted. So they did their little performances and Wooshin and Bit-to won for doing a “y strut” and again, all of that is also on my Youtube channel if you’re curious. After that they all grouped together in the center and posed to the left, right and center for everyone and then counted down for us to stop.

 

They played 3 VCRs during the whole thing. One at the very beginning (I don’t remember what it was though) the second one was a Behind-the-Scenes of the jacket shooting, for both Spotlight and Bravo, and the last one was a video of them practicing and making a special video for Honey10 and they were talking in Korean and there were Japanese subs, so of course I have no idea what it said cuz I can’t read that fast.

 

I think the last song they did was So Dangerous, and there was an encore but I don’t remember what it was. They also took a picture with the crowd, all lying on the floor, in which I am NOT even though I’m first row because I was just a little bit too much too the left… *sigh* I also didn’t really get any eye contact from anyone for the very same reason, but still, I had an amazing view the whole time, and I was so close and could see all of their dances really well, and let’s face it, I very often caught myself just staring at Jinhoo, so I think my bias has been decided for me (although Sonyouliiiiie…. And Wooshin…. *cries*)

 

Anyways, after that, there were gonna be fan events, just like there had been the day before… EXCEPT that there were 3000 people there, as opposed to the 500 from the day before…… so as you might expect, things went a bit crazy. It was already about 8:30pm when the show ended and the first part was going to be, again, the handshake. I rejoined my friend and her friend who were sitting in the very back, and we sat there waiting for things to start. They both had handshakes and I didn’t so I stayed guarding everyone’s bags. That went straightforwardly enough and ended after about 40 minutes I think, it was after that that I’m not sure what happened. It took nearly 1 hour for the staff to set up and start the individual fansigns, and because of the venue size and the amount of people, it was very difficult to get people to line up properly and in the right lines, etc. It was almost 10pm by then and I had long ago exhausted the amount of energy of a girl who’d just had heart surgery 2 months ago and could barely stand up. Finally, I noticed the line started moving so I got in line for Jinhoo. I had him again, and I had Wei, for signs.

 

I started with Jinhoo, because his line was shorter. When I got to him he looked up and said “oh! Hisashiburi!” which means “long time no see” in Japanese. And he took my book and signed it. So I was really happy cuz that meant he remembered me so I said “oboeteru?” (you remember?) but he made a face so I tried English, “you remember me” and he kinda tilted his head and made this face and said something in Korean I didn’t understand and I was disappointed and embarrassed to tell him “I’m sorry, I don’t speak Korean…” I felt really bad cuz I knew he must be so tired. He had just danced on stage for 2 hours and now it was 10pm and he still had to smile and wave to thousands of girls and I’m sure his brain had just shut off the little Japanese he did understand. He still smiled though, signed my book and said “Kankokugo benkyou e ne” (you should study Korean) and because he was tired, it kinda sounded like he was scolding me? Or ordering me? Lol and I was just so stunned and I said I would and he smiled and we said bye but I was just like, wtf, all the way to the back of the queue again like “did Jinhoo just scold me cuz I can’t speak Korean?!” XP well anyways, that was that. So as you can see, I was a little disappointed because I’ve kinda decided that he’s my favorite, and who wants to be scolded by their faves, eh?

 

But anyways, next was Wei. I was hoping to exchange Wei for another member, hopefully Wooshin, but I didn’t manage to cuz it was too short-notice, I guess. But in the end, I’m glad I didn’t. he doesn’t really have anything that’s very striking to me physically, but he was soooooo nice!!! Ok, so first of all, he was the only one to show open surprise at me being a foreigner, but he seemed really happy about it. He switched to English and asked me where I was from and got really into it. And then he started going “I’m sorry, I’m shy…” stuttering a bit and I thought he was joking and we were kinda going half-japanese/half-english, so I said “uso, (liar) you’re not shy!” laughing, and he goes, “no, I’m shy. I’m shy because you’re so beautiful.” And my jaw just dropped. And I dunno if that was real, of if he is just smooth-as-, but I was so surprised, like I did not see that coming at all (see if Wooshin had done that for example, I would have seen it coming…) but anyways. Then he took my hand because I dunno why but I’d been keeping them away from the table (lol) and I don’t remember what he said but it prompted me to tell him that I’d really enjoyed the show today and it was my first time and he said “see you soon!” with a cheeky smile before letting my hand go and giving me a big high-five in sign of goodbye. I left with Wei having climbed waaaaaaay up in my bias list, lol.

 

After that I rejoined my friend at the back because there was still the selca session to go through, and THAT’S when I learned that it wasn’t a selca you were receiving from them, it was a selca you were taking WITH them!! So I really didn’t want it to be cancelled. But I was afraid they would because I’d heard some staff talking while in line for Jinhoo that the venue was supposed to close at 10pm… we were starting to get worried about missing our last trains home too, and some school kids had to leave cuz they had curfews… it was kinda sad. My friend inherited a Wooshin card from a high school girl who had to leave, for only 3500yen…. (I was kinda jealous, haha) So we waited and finally the selca-kai started around 11pm.

 

I got in Sonyoul’s line right away, even if it was one of the longest because he was the one I wanted the most so if for whatever reason there was no time, I definitely wanted to take it with him. As I got closer and closer to him, I kept staring at Bit-to and how he was interacting with his fans. The amount of fanservice he gave was NUTS. He was treating them like his girlfriends and hugging them and making funny faces. When you’re in line you’re supposed to “prepare your phone” so that it’s already on the camera, and you just give it to the boy and he will take the picture. Actually, they take 2, in case one is crappy or blurry. Isn’t that nice? Anyways, when it was finally my turn, he just went “Annyeong!” and then realized I was a foreigner and made a little sound of surprise, “oh! Vanessa, Hellooooo” super cutely, reading my nametag, and I nodded as all of my ovaries were exploding because his voice really is that high, and his face really is that perfect. I gave him my phone and he took it, and put his arm around my shoulder and his cheek to my face; I flashed a peace sign and snap! Then he brought his arm up front to make a finger heart, making a funny face, so I imitated him and snap! Second photo done. He gave my phone back to me, shook my hand and said bye and thank you and that was it! It was really quick! But he was really nice. Also, he touched me. Did I mention he touched me?? XD

 

After that I got in line for a selca with Gyujin, and it was so quick… he just said my name, we took two pictures (one of which is blurry T_T) and then he said “Thank you” to me in English and held my hand a bit, and that was it!!

 

After that my friend and I ran out of there, trying to make our train, and I ended up getting home around 1am. How freakin ridiculous was that?!? My mom was going mad with worry, cuz I was out way too late and had overexerted myself and in my condition, that coulda been dangerous, but it ended up being fine, my blood pressure was totally fine, and I was just a little tired the next day.

 

Those two days, were really tiring for me (and expensive…) but they ended up being one of the best experiences of my life. Getting treated like that, as a fangirl, it’s really like a dream come true. After that day, I was really emo for a couple of days because I knew that those kinds of things were never gonna happen with Bangtan, and I just had to resign myself to it. But I was also really happy, because I’d found a new group to stan.

 

And of course, now I have to learn Korean. (^_^;)