Japan trip 4 - Day 3 - Kajiura Yuki Live Vol.8 - recap PART 2

Ahhh... I finally have time to write Part 2 of my recap of the Kajiura Yuki Live Vol.8 concert that I attended way back in March. :) It has been that busy at work and the next time any of you watch a visual effects heavy movie, spare a thought for us who slave over every pixel to give you what we hope is a visual spectacle to remember. I've finally gotten a break from work and the show I'm working on seems to show some signs of slowing down so I took the opportunity to take a huge break from doing anything too taxing but am now rested enough to feel like spending some time on the blog. :)

So here it is... here is recap Part 2. It's really not that much since but I would like to write it and complete my documentation of my very first Kajiura Yuki Live. :)
Basically the question the Kajiura Yuki decided to ask all the artists appearing at the Vol.8 Day 2 Live was this questions, "最近どう？" After the usual name introductions, Kajiura Yuki will chat with each artist. The only ones I took notes down for were the four regular utahimes because I had to get Itsuko to translate them for me after the Live and I felt a little bit bad about trying to get her to remember what everyone else said as well.

The usual standing positions for the 4 regular utahimes of FictionJunction are from stage left, Wakana, Yuriko Kaida, Keiko and lastly Kaori. As Wakana stands the closest to Kajiura and her keyboard, Kajiura usually starts by chatting with her.

"最近どう？" - Google transliterates it as "how recently" which is kind of close to my understanding of that it means. It basically means stuff like "how have you been recently", "what have you been up to recently" etc... something along those lines.
So first up Wakana. When Wakana was asked "最近どう？" She said that recently, she had been practicing zazen (座禅 - zen meditation). Wakana is very talkative and she really talked a lot but Itsuko couldn't remember all the details and I was kind of confused then since I actually didn't know what "zazen" meant till Itsuko translated it for me. During her little chat with Kajiura about zazen, she apparently told Kajiura that she practised zazen with her eyes opened which surprised Kajiura because I guess the image most of us have of meditation is that it is done with one's eyes closed.

The next part is actually kind of funny and it had the audience in stitches. I, unfortunately, didn't have a clue why everyone was laughing then but after Itsuko explained it to me, it made me chuckle too. I think Kajiura asked Wakana what she was meditation about and Wakana said that she meditated on things like "Why do I like gyozas?", "Why do I like dinosaurs?" and "Why do I like sharks?" Most fans know by now that Wakana really like dinosaurs and sharks and can apparently talk at lengths about them. I'm sure she said more stuff because Wakana can really talk and people around me were laughing a lot. I really wish my Japanese would get better faster so that I too can enjoy these MCs.

Next up is Yuriko Kaida. When asked the question "最近どう？", according to Itsuko, she talked mostly about practicing for the Lives. Sorry, I don't have more cuz that was all Itsuko remembered.

After that it's Keiko's turn. When asked "最近どう？", Keiko said that recently, she has started using pillows. She didn't use to previously but Wakana advised her to. As Keiko has not used a pillow to sleep previously, she decided to ask Wakana for some advice on how to ease herself into using one. Wakana adviced her to use a rolled towel as a start but as Keiko couldn't quite picture it, Wakana had to send her photos of how to roll the towel. Kajiura then followed up with her own pillow story. Kajiura says then when she sleeps, she'll somehow end up hugging her pillow so she decided to change her pillow into a hugging pillow but after changing her pillow into a hugging pillow, she'll find her pillow on the ground in the morning. Keiko's and Kajiura's pillow talk was quite amusing and while not quite as laugh-out-loud as Wakana's section, still amused the crowd a lot.

Last up is Kaori. After she was asked "最近どう？" , she started by saying that because Kajiura says that Kaori always talks differently from the other utahimes, for e.g. talking about beer etc, she decided that she would talk more like a star. This time, she'll talk about her new song. Kaori said that she would be singing the OP and EP of an Otome game for the PSP. When Kajiura asked her for the title of the song or game, I'm not sure which, Kaori couldn't remember it. It was really, really funny and it had the audience in stitches. Kajiura finally told her to tell everyone the name of the song/game during the encore and and Kaori did just that at the end of the Live. BTW, the name of the game is Amnesia Later.

Alrightly, that's its!! I have finally completed my recap of the Kajiura Yuki Live Vol.8. Here's hoping that I can make it to the Vol.9 Lives as well as to Anime Festival Asia Malaysia. VIP tickets have already gone on sale in Malaysia but as I'm not physically in Malaysia and most of my Malaysian friends aren't in KL right now, I didn't have anyone I could ask to go help us get tickets at this mall in KL where they were organising pre-sales of VIP tix. Anyway, I'm still not sure if I can secure one day of leave on Monday so I am not even sure if I will be getting one day or two day Anisong passes. I also really need to talk to all the people who expressed interest in making the trip to KL, I really need to try and get some answers by the end of the week because I really want to try and get all the essential arrangements out of the way first then we can decide on the other things.

I'm going to try and do my unboxing post on the Kalafina "to the beginning" singles in a bit... I'm not sure if I'll have it ready by tonight but hopefully, I'll have it done by the end of Monday.  K... later you all. :)

p.s. all the photos above come from the Yuki Kajiura Vol.8 pamphlet.