It came and went like a brisk sunset at Tokyo Bay.

The PA Works festival, for the uninitiated, is a typical anime event where people involved with the show do a little show and tell, except in this case it’s focused on the music. It’s particularly appropriate since Tari Tari is a story heavily reliant on music.

The show was at Maihama, the JR terminal to Tokyo Disneyland. On a Saturday it was full of normal tourists, but now there’s your usual otaku crowd.

I had a great time just chilling outside. Originally I thought goods sales ended at 3pm and I didn’t make it to the venue until twenty past four, so instead I waited outside for my Japan travel buddy who was coming straight from Narita Terminal 2. The weather was too nice to be stuck indoor waiting with a bunch of hot-blooded anime otaku.

I scored a pretty cool wallscroll that they were selling for this specific occasion. It turns out all the goods would go on sale in Akiba until May anyways, so it’s no big deal that I didn’t really spent any time shopping then, and they were still selling it at the venue after the goods sale time.

The event was pretty much an Anisama-class thing for me, except I actually care about all the music since I pretty much adored all three shows to some varying degree. Seeing Riya doing True Tears stuff was definitely one of the biggest highlight, along with seeing Sphere finally in the flesh and hearing the Tari Tari seiyuu doing vocal harmonies.

I don’t really have a tracklist, but basically all the bands play the OP/ED pieces. Nano.ripe in particular played a couple c/w tracks I believe, or maybe they were for other mix-media releases that I don’t recall or know about. I can say for sure my impression for Sphere and Aira Yuuki changed because of this event.

There were a lot of cm segments because of all the bands coming in and out of the stage. I think Nano.ripe set up three times including the encore, so that’s kind of lol-tastic. The bassist for Clammbon is actually an otaku of sorts (and was asked to pick from True Tears after he siad he liked it the most) and it’s always fun to hear the Sphere girls do their usual routines. What’s a bonus is to see Asami Seto goofing up because she was too nervous. That girl is something special. Saori Hayami felt like a much more capable Noto except she trades some presence for singing and dancing abilities.

Aki Toyosaki wore a tall hat. I was exploding.

What is unexpected were the True Tours tie-in as Riya sang a couple of the themes, and Minori Chihaya’s string backup band played a 4-piece medley of the themes from the three anime series. There were flying streamers, camera poses, and a trio between nano.Ripe, Riya and Airi. It’s kind of cool, I guess.

Other notes:

• Ayahi Takagaki had 4 costume changes. She sang the Aburamushi song.
• There is one cool t-shirt that the Tari Tari seiyuu all wore.
• Despite that the concert website advertised only 4 of the 5 Tari Tari seiyuu, Air Daichi not only performed, also existed in the flesh to do Shiokaze no Harmony, which is pretty epic.
• Ah, yes, the high school choir. The interesting thing is that because this concert is in mid April, the choir is now half made up of different people as seniors from last year’s choir all graduated in March.
• My seat was on the right side of the stage at the back of the front section (row 9). It’s actually the handicap seats, which is kind of a rip given how much we paid for the seats, but it’s also convenient since it gave us extra space.

It’s a cool show, and I’m glad I was able to see it in person, even if it is something that’ll probably end up on Blu-ray. The night ended with hanging out with a bunch of locals at A-Button. We all recommend the curry. We also hung out way too long.

This blog post is brought to you by jetlag and local draft beers.