I don't think I've mentioned it here before, but I had, until this spring, been actively trying to avoid even looking at SKE48. This has been difficult as my favorite Majisuka Gakuen character was portrayed by the SKE star Matsui Rena. When SKE48 did their own drama, Mousou Deka, my resolve began to crumble and I watched that delightful drama, which deserves an entry of its own. My resolve crumbled further as the other SKE star Matsui Jurina did such a wonderful job as the side-kick to my god Watanabe Mayu in Majisuka Gakuen 2. I was done for when Kimoto Kanon stabbed Gekikara as Miso.While I made my pilgrimage to the AKB48 theater and saw AKB48 perform at the Tokyo Dome City Hall and Seibu Dome when in Japan this summer, I also watched SKE48 perform at the Zepp Nagoya and attended my first handshake event on my last day in Japan. This event was for SKE48 and in Nagoya. When I got up on the morning of my last full day in Japan I did not know what I was going to do, but I vaguely remembered SKE might have an event. I had bought their latest single, and I had a certificate for a handshake in it.
I had already been planning to spend my last day in Nagoya, so I quickly looked up where the event was and hopped on the Shinkansen as I had previously planned. Had I planned ahead better I would have made it to the even earlier, but as it was I missed a song or two of SKE's performance before the handshaking began.
After their performance, I sat in some shade and chatted with some local fans. Not so amazingly, two of them remembered seeing me at the Moss Burger before the Zepp Nagoya show we all attended (I am a caucasian and an inch or so taller than six feet). They told me how things worked and one fellow gave me a picture of Rena and Jurina he had multiple copies of. Universally my experiences with meeting 48 fans in Japan have been nothing but positive. I am often asked if AKB or SKE are popular in the US and A and I have to inform them that no one really knows of them. To bring the point home I tell them of the first AKB48 show I saw in the US- at Anime Expo in 2010. That theater could hold seven thousand, but there were only three thousand in attendance. The fans I met that day helped me understand what I needed to do to exchange my voucher to get a handshake ticket as we chatted about our favorites. They let me know all the tickets for Matsui Rena were already gone.
That was fine with me as the girl that stabbed Gekikara had quickly become a favorite of mine. I easily obtained a ticket to meet Kimoto Kanon. I had spent the entire summer studying Japanese and I was hopping to tell Non that I had traveled all the way from America just to meet her, but I am not very good at Japanese. The line moved too quickly and I had not yet figured out what I needed to say. I jabbered incomprehensibly and she smiled politely. She was waaaaaaaaay cuter in person. Her dimple was so amazingly pretty. The staff pushed me along so quickly that I had no chance to compose myself or recover. Miki Yakata was paired with Non and she spoke to me in English and said it was nice to meet me. I replied to her in English with what little coherence I had left.Rather than buy more copies of the single to try and see Non again, I returned to downtown Nagoya, found my hotel and then set out to explore SKE related places. I had already visited the SKE48 shop in Shibuya, Tokyo. I washed up and went to explore SKE48's home. I went to their shop and took pictures of Nagoya before taking a disco
nap. I went clubbing at 1am and returned to my hotel at 5am to catch a little sleep before flying back to the US & A. While this might seem to be an exciting last night in Japan, and it was pretty good, I recommend looking for up to date information for the club scene. The clubs I tried to go to bore no resemblance to their on-line descriptions and were closed by the time I got there (as opposed to just starting to get going at 1am as I had read). Still, I found adventure, just not the adventure I had been looking for.So, despite having spent a year actively trying to ignore the existence of SKE48, the only members of the 48 family I have had the honor of touching have been members of SKE48. Kimoto Kanon is adorable beyond belief and able to be bone chillingly terrifying, as shown in Majisuka Gakuen. Now that I will be able to buy a Uchida Mayumi calendar finally, I find myself wanting more pictures and posters of Non to add to my small collection. I guess the lesson here is to always open your heart to love all of the angels of the 48 family of idols.
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