Animazement 2012: KOTOKO Live

[6/7/2012 Edit: Updated track listing!]

I was going to include this in the wrap post, but it got way too long so I’ll spin this separately here and for now–

I think it’s never an exaggeration to say I enjoy the hell out of her lives, at least the ones I’ve been. Having her play at Animazement seals the deal for the con for not just me but a bunch of others; in fact other than the locals everyone else I went with had her in their sights as #1. That said, I wasn’t sure if that was the case for me.

It wasn’t much of a question; after her concert Saturday afternoon (3:30pm EDT) it was pretty much settled that was the case. I went all out, to say the least. Luck would have it that I had a front rail spot and hung all out cheering. The problem was that there was this dance floor thing and my footing was at the edge of it, which was sloping down to the carpet, where the rail was. It made jumping pretty difficult, especially because I was sandwiched between two guys taller than I am. One happens to be JAMBO MOMOTATO (sorry for bumping/running into you so many times). Anyway, I had a lot of fun.

The physical damage as a result of Kotoko’s live was significant because she played an “anime best” set, which I believe is similar to her Asia Live Tour sets, just shorter. By shorter I mean “hey let’s get rid of some slow songs and have shorter MCs!” Which means “hey let’s have fast songs back to back to back to back ARGH.” Which means my arms kind of fell off at the end, and I was drenched in sweat. Which makes sense; if you do a best-of-KOTOKO of anime (and some games) it’s going to be mostly fast dance beats with some rock stuff mixed in there. Chi ni Kaeru and Being became necessities because of their anime-tie-in-ness but also because they are songs where you (meaning the band as well) can take a breather.

Oh did I say there was band? KOTOKO concert is the best with a band, and if you haven’t seen it you are missing out. Coincidentally the band members dressed up as Lupin characters. The dummer was Lupin, guitarist as Jigen, and the bassist Goemon. That got me at the beginning. Kotoko had an outfit change. Her first outfit was this modified ninja-kimono-thing complete with swordplay. Her second outfit had her in this weird, but more usual, skirt thing. And then there was the t-shirt for the encore. I imagine the second outfit was one of the Asia tour outfit.

My overall impression on the show was obviously quite positive. It wasn’t flawless, but I was too wota’d out to care. It was great to relive Suppuration and Re-sublimity and I was thoroughly impressed with Light My Fire. Most of the MC was in simple Japanese. I think she has a lot of stuff translated in her cheat-sheet/floor-monitor thing, but she didn’t read off it much so there wasn’t much English speaking going on. The front-and-center view was glorious. I was just left of the stage center. Lots of eye contact. I can’t ask for much more. I think the killing blow that made me go “kyun” was Oboetete Iiyo when she sang the last chorus. Man!

Set list (now updated! to be determined, because uh I need to verify it when someone gets home to his mac):

1. Face of fact
2. Suppuration-core
3. Ao-iconoclast -> MC1
4. Shooting Star
5. Wing My Way -> MC2
6. Chi ni Kaeru
7. Sakura no Ame mo Egi no yo -> Outfit change -> Band solo
8. Hayate no Gotoku
9. Special Life -> MC3
10. Unite+reactioN
11. Light My Fire [Definitely best song in the set!] -> MC4
12. Unfinished -> MC5
13. Oboetete Iiyo
14. Hirake! Sora no Oto -> band intro interlude -> Encore
15. Being
16. Re-sublimity

Yea, it’s likely wrong in several spots. Will correct once I get more info/remember/get input from others.

Encore call: A mess, but we went with KO-TO-KO.

Assist: Mr. LOAE was greatly helpful, this time as KOTOKO’s entourage. Good times. I asked them about the charity auction, because the show took place right after the auction(!) and as a result we got the head’s up on the charity auction items that went on sale on Sunday.

After the show, she was outside the concert room doing autographs for people who purchased something. I got a pair of chopsticks to round out the vending table (ended up with 1 of each item–>blue Asia tour shirt, grey Asia tour shirt, chopsticks and fan). I think they had Light My Fire and Unfinished singles there too, but they sold out by the time I got there. I actually picked up Unfinished the day before, since they were selling a lot of the stuff in the dealers room earlier.

We were chilling and having a good time, yeah?

Update: KOTOKO’s blog has some pics. Good stuff.