Live Reports:

Report Courtesy of Cassiel. ^_^

deadman - 2004/10/17 - Like an Edison handshake event

Okay. Well, I got to Raika around 10 minutes before the event was meant to start, to discover a big queue of girls waiting up the street. At first, I joined the end of the queue, and then realised that they were queuing by ticket numbers, which to my delight meant I could move way, way forward down the queue. So I did that. ^^ Soon enough they started moving us into the store, in groups of about 10 or so. Raika is freaking tiny, even once they've moved all the display racks out of the way, and yet here they were, trying to squash a big pack of girls in.

Well, the important thing is that my nice #73 ticket allowed me to actually get IN to the talk event. ^o^ I was about 3 or 4 rows away from the back of the room, so I'm lucky I made it in. And that was after they made us shuffle forward about six times and kept telling us all to put our bags in our laps and everything. Many people were stuck waiting outside and were only allowed in for the handshake part of the event, so I felt very lucky to get in.

Finally, when everyone was settled in and ready and waiting, they announced deadman and we all applauded. And then it was a mistake. *laugh* But the second time they announced them, they really did walk into the room. I swear, my heart was pounding so hard! They all walked past us and up to the front, where they all sat down and got comfortable for the talk event. One by one they introduced themselves, and then the Raika guy started asking them questions.

The talk event went for an hour and my memories of it are all sort of jumbled together because I was still rather dazed that they were really there in the flesh. So let's see what I can pick out of those memories. *grin*

Mako is so cute. *_* Actually, they all are, even dressed down and without makeup. That's one of the first things that impressed me. Mako has really dark, intense eyes. I really noticed those. And he was wearing all black, and he had his hair completely covering half of his face. Aie was wearing jeans and a baseball cap, but his hair was sort of smoothed back from his face. Toki and Takamasa wear wearing nice button-up shirts.

Mako seems shy and nervous. He's also not very good at being put on the spot. When asked a question that he wasn't sure how he wanted to answer (like the very first question *laugh*) he would sit there staring into space while trying to put together his answer, and it would always go on a little too long, and a couple of girls would giggle, and then he'd give this cute little smile and start to speak. He didn't seem to really want to say a lot, particularly at first, although later when pressed, he said more, and he could be funny if he wanted to be. He just gave this impression of really not wanting to be in the spotlight. (Which is interesting for a singer!) He also obviously wasn't always paying attention to what was being said when it wasn't his turn to speak. *laugh* Sometimes he was listening, but a lot of the time he would look around the store, at the posters or at the roof, and once out at the audience. And then sometimes the others would say something funny, and everyone would laugh, and he would look around with a sort of 'huh?' expression on his face. It was really cute. Once the Raika guy asked him a question, and he obviously wasn't listening, and Takamasa had to repeat it to him twice before he could answer. That was really cute too, especially his embarrassed grin when everyone laughed. ^^

Aie seemed to have a bit too much pent up energy, and pretty much the whole time he was sitting there he was bouncing his legs up and down. You know what I mean? Like he wanted to get up and run around or play basketball or something. He also has a really, really soft, gentle voice, which I really liked listening to. Like Mako, he also came across as a little bit shy, but once he got talking, he could stop being shy and just have fun talking about whatever it was he was being asked about.

Takamasa and Toki were both a lot, lot more relaxed about talking, and they were the ones who were able to be open and friendly and cheerful and make everyone laugh from the very first question onwards. They both had a lot to say. (I'm sorry if you're a fan of either -- if you couldn't tell, I'm a Mako fan, and I also really like Aie. So even though I paid attention to Takamasa and Toki and thought they were cool, I really mostly had eyes for Mako, and spent most of the event looking at him, and the rest of the time at Aie.)

The first question the Raika guy asked them was what was the meaning of the title 'degrees centigrade'. They all looked at each other, and then at Mako, and then Mako drew in the air the little degrees circle, and a C. *laugh* It was SO CUTE. And then he just looked at the Raika guy, as if that was it. ^^ So the guy asked him if there was any specific meaning to it that they'd had in mind, when they chose it. (That was Mako's first space out, trying to answer that. *grin*) I didn't really understand Mako's answer, but it seemed like something about them wanting whoever listened to it to decide for themselves? I'm not sure. ^^;

The next question was about the recording of the song, and about the only thing I understood was that when Toki was in the booth recording his part, Takamasa (I think it was Takamasa) would come up to the glass and stare through at him and try and unnerve him. *laugh* I thought that was really cute.

So much of what was said, I didn't understand much at all, which was very frustrating. They talked fast, and used lots of slang, and they mumbled a lot, and I just laughed when everyone else laughed. ^^; I was wishing so bad that I could understand them better!

The second half of the talk event they took questions at random from the questionnaires that we'd given in before the event. Someone asked them to tell about any interesting dreams they'd had recently. Takamasa told about a reoccurring dream he's had countless times since he was a kid, something about the ground moving under his feet, and I'm not sure what else, but something he said about it totally cracked Mako up. He just sat there facing half away from the audience so that we couldn't see him properly, his hair all in his face, shaking with silent laughter, and it was the cutest thing I've seen in a long time. ^v^ Toki also related a dream with an indoor swimming pool in which Mako had been swimming, and that was about all I understood of it, but Mako seemed pretty amused by it, too.

Someone else's questionnaire was a whole bunch of make-up questions -- how long it took them, what brands they recommended or tips they had, and whether there was a point or feature to their makeup. They all said it took them about 30 minutes to do their makeup. Toki gave some sort of serious reply to the feature question, and then Aie, when asked if there was a point or feature to his makeup, simply said "mascara". *laughing* That totally cracked Takamasa up, which made it very difficult for him to give his answer. ^^

Someone else asked if they had any recent embarrassing moments, and Mako and Aie both declined to answer. *grin* Takamasa told a story about being too drunk recently and trying to get on the train, and I think he said he tripped and got stuck in the doors when they were closing or something. ^_^; I'm not sure exactly what it was, but it was amusing at the time. ^^ Toki's story was about recently moving and an annoying and scary University student in his new apartment building. I wish I'd understood them both better -- embarrassing stories are always fun!

After that, they thanked us all for coming and such. Mako's was so cute -- he said a bunch of serious stuff, and then did his space out thing again, like he wanted to say something else, and then when a couple of people giggled, he stopped, looked frontwards, grinned cutely, and just said "arigatou gozaimashita". ^_^ Which of course made everyone laugh even more.

And then.. it was handshake time. *_* Oh man, I tell you, my heart started pounding so hard all of a sudden, and everything that I'd wanted to say just flew out of my head completely. I had planned some stuff (I don't even remember what it was any more) but my mind just went blank. I have enough trouble with the English language when I'm nervous.. now here I was meant to speak in Japanese and I couldn't think of a single thing. *_* We queued up, and the closer I got to the front, the harder my heart started pounding. I almost couldn't hear anything over it. And then suddenly all the girls in front of me were gone and it was my turn.

Mako was first -- gods, why Mako first! I wasn't ready! I smiled nervously at him, and he smiled back. He didn't seem surprised by me, but then I know he saw me in the crowd, so I guess he was prepared for a gaijin. I shook his hand; it was so warm and strong. I could hardly look at his face, it was so close and I felt so nervous. I wanted to say something. I opened my mouth. "Ano..." He tilted his head right forward to hear me, his hair swinging even closer to my face, and that just made my mind blank even more -- he hadn't done that for anyone else in front of me, so I wasn't expecting it. I eventually managed to mumble something incredibly cheesy -- "your singing voice is wonderful, so thank you". ^^;;; He grinned at me, and then, even though I'd already let go of his hand, he shook my hand again. Ahh, I was in heaven.

The girl next to me moved on, so I felt obliged to do the same. Now suddenly I was facing Takamasa. That was okay. Well, sort of. Takamasa is still cute, and still a member of deadman. And my mind was still fizzling over Mako and I had no idea what to say. I said something along the lines of "thank you for deadman's music" which is still incredibly cheesy, but oh well. Takamasa grinned and shook my hand and said thank you.

Then I was in front of Aie. He immediately grinned at me and he's really cute when he grins and my mind just completely blanked again. *_* I shook his hand -- such a nice firm grip -- and opened my mouth, and some words stumbled out along the lines of "the way you play the guitar is really cool". ^^;;; He grinned and did that rising intonation "ohhhhhh?" thing that is so totally Japanese and so totally cute. I remembered I was meant to tell him about Meg, and I opened my mouth again, and a Raika staff member grabbed my shoulders from behind and literally pulled me across in front of Toki. >_< I remember thinking madly that I'd had twice as long with Mako and nobody had complained, but by then I was in front of Toki and it was too late to do anything. ^^;

I shook Toki's hand and he smiled at me in this really sweet, friendly way. I told him "thank you for deadman's music" like I had to Takamasa, and then because he was looking so friendly, I added that I really, really liked it. He grinned hugely at me and said thank you, and then told me to please come see them again. Eeek! I just started grinning like a loon and said "hai" and "arigatou gozaimasu" several times, and then I shuffled away and left before my head exploded from the intensity.