Nendoroid 10th Live

I went to the anniversary concert for Good Smile Company’s Nendoroid 10th Anniversary. It felt both comfortable as an event for the more casuals among us, but in reality it’s CG 3rd Live Day 3.

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IMAS DESUYO, AIMASU

[What I went to, What I expected, What I got]

Since GSC was kind enough to translate the event site into English, you can just read this for the actual details.

This was my first trip to Makuhari Messe. I was looking forward to it ever since last year when my ML2nd plans fell through. Why was I excited? It’s not just a memorable place for eventing Producers, but it was near a Costco. And I wanted to visit a Costco in Japan. Did you know your Costco membership work internationally?

180y for hotdog and a drink

Unfortunately time did not permit me to go inside, since it looked to be a pretty involved experience with escalators (the huge ones that let you push a Costco shopping cart onto it) taking you to the top of the multi-floor warehouse. It was on a Saturday and naturally there were a ton of people in there. Instead, after grabbing my Costco food court eats (the food even tasted very similar to their American stores), we went to the IM@S popup store in the Aeon next door.

CG costumes...

In case you are going to Makuhari Messe sometime this year, both are great places to stop by, about a 20-minute walk away. If you want there’s even a bus that takes you from the Keiyo JR stop to the Aeon, but it’s an easy walk with wide paths and overpasses.

At the event, there was a part of the hall that was open to the public. It has some of the Nendo 10th props in display, such as that 10th anniversary sign made up of Nendo boxes, as well as the photo contest submissions posted on a wall. You can even do the at-site vote-in. We also spotted Mikudayo bouncing around a bit, although I guess there was also Wooser and that Nendo mascot character. That’s what you get for showing up just before doors opened I guess.

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Mikudayo

Ahh, such cute terror.

In actuality, Nendo 10th is more just a live that has some popular acts trying to enable us to various things that aren’t as popular. Like, what does Prizmmy has anything to do with Nendoroids? I don’t know. Maybe someone can kindly tell me. The real idol moment did help highlight why I liked the concept of a Nendoroid event, because it’s all cartoony. Like, it wouldn’t be the same if May’n wasn’t into collecting nendos and had her own. Or that the WUGchans and Trident were begging for the “erai no hitos” to make some more for the rest of their groups. So when we got this obvious tie-in moment with music and dance styles totally different from everybody else at the show, it pointed out why I was there?

That said I can’t be sure if that applied to the audience, which seemed to be full of producers. Maybe half of Makuhari Event Hall were ready for 2nd Side. I was … not entirely ready.

Anyway, let me walk the setlist. It’s available on the JP side of the Nendo 10th site. My seat was on the right side towards the front, and a few rows up in the 3rd level. It’s not the best seat but I was fairly close to the stage and it gave me a view of the whole place.

May’n:

01:射手座☆午後九時 Don’t be late
02:ヤマイダレdarlin’
03:もしも君が願うのなら
04:ユニバーサル・バニー
05:Chase the world

I fell off the May’n bandwagon as it felt like ages since Macross Frontier. Still having seen her solo and in the person, her performances are a lot of fun. It’s good to reconnect with this at a 10th anniversary live. Knowing 4 of these songs, 3 very well…

At some point, I don’t remember if it was before or after May’n’s set, Wasshi climbed out and MC’d some stuff. A bit of his usual magic and talking about Nendoroids. Also after May’n’s set the two had a brief segment on it, while the crew took down the live band setup behind them to make room for who’s up next.

At some point in the beginning, all the guests got on stage and greeted everyone. There was the “congrats for 10th anniversary” thing talk too. In retrospect, they did this only because not everyone could have been on stage at the end, so the group talk had to happen first. Thanks for dropping by, YRYR.

Prizmmy☆ & Prism☆Box

06:I Just Wanna Be With You ~仮想と真実の狭間で~
07:LOVE TROOPER
08:キラキランウェイ
09:Jumpin’! Dancin’!

I did some research before going to the live so I watched at least the PV for I Just Wanna Be With You, or at least however much of the song I was able to stomach. Jumpin’! Dancin’! was the only track I kind of was okay with.

There was a strong kids troupe vibe once Prism Box got on stage. Oneechans with imoutochans.

The crowd was accommodating but clearly not in the elements with these guys. During and after their set, they had a quick MC and Wasshi did a brief thing as the girl group bowed and head off stage.

In between acts, there was a talk segment where one person from each of the groups got up and did something. My memory is pretty bad about who came up and did what when, so I’ll summarize the contents all at once now.

There was one round where one person from each group presented a custom-drawn face for a Nendo of their group. This one had Yoppi, Fuurin, someone from Trident, and Baum. In the end the audience were polled to see who won. I remembered Baum’s really well because it was awesome TOSHINO KYOKO level quality. Trident’s was basically Golgo 13? Both Yoppi and Fuurin were beauty faces.

Another segment has one person from each group show some pictures of their Nendo posing. May’n’s was pretty cool, a concert between her nendo and Nendo Sheryl with a lot of other Nendos in attendance. I forget what the IM@S one was. Or what the Nanamori one was. Or any of the others, besides that there wasn’t a WUG one (since this is just before WUG’s stage). I think Hibiku was on this stage.

The other MC segments between events were just from voice overs, as different multiple choice quiz questions were shown and the audience cheered to select an answer.

To go back to Prizmmy for a bit–they were only 2nd because of underage worker law isn’t it…

Anyways, there was one segment before the next act. The next act really got the crowd going.

Nanamori Gorakubu:

10:ちょちょちょ!ゆるゆり☆かぷりっちょ!!!
11:いぇす!ゆゆゆ☆ゆるゆり♪♪
12:ゆりゆららららゆるゆり大事件

It feels deja vu in that last Spring I attended P’s Live 02, which they did a similar but different thing. Still people got into it, the songs are hype and we all love our laid back yuri unit. The S3 OP was probably the easiest to get into call-wise, but still the first OP had the best call balance.

I wonder how many people got up and left at this point so they could catch the YRYR nama later that night? Maybe not so many. During their segment, I repped Tsuda’s colors.

The crowd really got into it. This would have made a better opener than Prizzmy, sure, but probably even better than May’n. As you’d expect.

Trident:

13:Blue Snow
14:Blue Sky
15:Blue Destiny
16:ブルー・フィールド〜Finale〜

I’m pretty sure a normal quiz segment happened between Gorakubu and Trident. Maimai had to do a costume change after this into TriPri, and the two teams right at start highlighted this fact.

Trident is in a very special place right now, in limbo between their last hurrah and their newfound marketing fame. Go out while hot as white flame seems to be their exit strategy. I forget if it was Nu or Maimai but one of them also mentioned that the Makuhari Messe Event Hall will be their largest venue in which they have performed in. Not even Anisama (yet?)! Such hipster seiyuu team.

And they were every bit as good as I expected them to be. It’s not just their singing, dancing, or the quality of music that powers this dance-heavy set. Hibiku is such top quality talent! It does not surprise me at all that she’s trying to make it as a solo artists now. Or maybe I just had too good view of her legs from the side? I don’t know. If you had any doubt about seeing which live on April 3rd, make Trident’s final live your top pick. They would rock in a live house format for sure. (Although personally I might still pine for Fukuoka just because ML3rd tour so far has been so stellar).

And I think there was another segment here, which didn’t have a WUG.

Wake Up, Girls!:

17:7 Girls War
18:少女交響曲
19:Beyond the Bottom
20:ハレ晴れユカイ
21:タチアガレ!

I like how each act since YRYR performed one more song, because getting 5 from these are always a treat. It’s around at this point the DDs broke out heavy around me, people doing mixes (?) and such. Screaming Nanaminn or whatever behind me. In other words, the usual KSDD.

Getting Hare Hare Yukai was something I half-expected, because this is about the Nendorids after all and WUGs are weaponized for covers, if at least ones related to Yamakan. It’s still a nice treat seeing them dance this while wearing the BTB outfit. This would also be my main WUG event this Asia trip so I was glad to get a good amount of their performances.

The screens behind the stage did have some enhanced visuals to show graphics of the appropriate nendoroid figures during the appropriate songs. Just in case you didn’t know there was a Haruhi nendo. Or a whole series of these. Speaking of which, part of the package you get for going to this live is a booklet of a list of all Nendos up to WF 2016w. That’s on top of the nendo carrier as advertised. Neat huh?

As an aside, I wore my WUG hoodie to the event so I was tagged as such during the live. Uh, yeah, such is how it goes… Maybe this con season I’ll stick Hackadoll #1 in the nendo carrier. Which, by the way, during WUG’s MC, Myu did name drop Hackadoll #1 Nendo. So maybe that counts as 1.5 WUGs who has had a Nendo.

A HaNaYaMaTa Nendo line would be really precious don’t you think?

Milky Holmes: 

22:正解はひとつ!じゃない!!
23:ミルミルUP↑
24:冒険☆ミルキィロード!
25:激情!ミルキィ大作戦
26:雨上がりのミライ

I am totally not a Milky Holmes person, but I do appreciate what they bring to the table. Well, I can’t really appreciate them I guess, because they just rub me the wrong way? I don’t know. I waved Izumisama’s colors during this segment. It helped that I know maybe like 2 songs, as in it’s better than if I didn’t know any.

There are definitely some hardcore Milky fans who took off after their set. Which is too bad because they would have missed the last MC with MMRN.

This is not even the first time I’ve seen them in person? I don’t even remember. But for what it’s worth, it’s good entertainment.

IDOLM@STER Cinderella Girls
Triad Primus:

27:Trancing Pulse
28:2nd SIDE
29:Never say never
30:薄荷 -ハッカ-
31:Star!!

Yeah, there was a talk segment between Milky and IM@S? I just don’t remember clearly any more, but it made sense since Maimai had to change, including her hair.

For the uninitiated, IM@S CG is a big deal since their 2015 anime. There were a lot of marketing and Producer fandom are at an all-time high since 2014’s moviemas push, and 2015’s 10th anniversary push. CG 3rd was off the hook in terms of how much hype it generated as a result of the anime and related activities, and Starlight Stage is the home cooking that kept the fire going–the way most people in Japan engage this franchise today.

If you saw Dereani you would know Triad Primus. What you might not know is that it never happens where IM@S guests just get dropped into a lineup by their sub-unit name. Until Cinderella Girls this didn’t really happen at all. And Triad Primus is arguably the most sought-after sub-unit in CG. There’s all this backstory behind it that kind of took a turn during CG 2nd and came to fruition during the anime.

And TriPri wasn’t even at CG3rd.

So for some CG Ps this is a huge-ass deal that TriPri is performing, arguably as the headliner. And at a live that will not get a home-video release, no less.

Anyway, the live was good. They got it off the ground with Trancing Pulse, as expected. Mic stands for all, arm waving just like the anime. The dances were somewhat simplified but similar to the anime version, which is a lot less complex than the one from Starlight Stage.

Somehow I was too dumb to not realize the girls would do solos. I suppose I had a luggage capacity excuse in terms of concert gear I had available, and it would be weird to rep ML at a CG event, so all I had were a couple lights and a UO light–to make Rainbow Bridge for 2nd side.

Nebaneba was pro as usual. It was nice to be able to shout Fuurin. I also had my Shiburin light for some reason, so there’s that.

Maimai’s solo was pretty good, and this bonus CG coverage just reminded me 2nd. Such a change from Trident, LOL.

Star!! was business as usual even for me at this point.

Encore:

33:極上スマイル
35:ミルキィ A GO GO
34:ブルー・フィールド
32:お願い!シンデレラ

For the encore we called for about a couple minutes until Wasshi came on stage to say some obligatory things, telling us it would be a medley, and got us to call some more.

And the encores were fun, they were not seamless for a medley but the performers did march out back to back. The Trident pick was particularly noteworthy I guess, both because Maimai did a quick turnaround and it was the one song we wanted to hear during their set that wasn’t. The songs were short versions.

There was a final MC and line-up after the medley. It made me want to see a Trident x Tripri collab. Isn’t that just IM@S + Hibiku though…

That was also pretty much it. The live started at 5pm on a Saturday in Makuhari Messe, so that doesn’t leave much time for the live itself and the subsequent return from Chiba that most of us had to deal with. Some of us even went to buppan in the morning from Sendai so LOL that was quite crazy. An eventful day made full.

In that sense Nendo 10th Live was kind of like a Nendo, in that by itself it isn’t really all that, but it went well with other stuff and in the end made a good thing. Like all those cool dioramas where the nendo is just the focus of a big picture, this live was a nice add-on to a full eventer weekend.

PS. The buppan was genuinely easy mode, I bought a towel and that was it. No line or wait by the time I got there, although before the show and right after, there was a small crowd.


2 Responses to “Nendoroid 10th Live”

  • djwhack03

    Prizzmy was there likely because GSC is pushing the Pripara nendoroid line hard. Guess they couldn’t book i☆Ris.

    • omo

      iRis would make more sense but I guess yeah, I forgot Prizmmy did something for PriPara…

      I feel there’s a general push for PriPara and PriPara-related stuff by the way of Avex and SME, and it kind of just gets in my way now and then w.

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