Halloween was a lot of fun, even though pretty much no one knew it was Halloween, and the most popular comment I got on my flapper costume was ‘Doshita no?’. Only four people knew what I was: My women’s lit teacher knew immediately that I was a ‘Modern Girl’ (the Japanese equivalent of flapper), and so did Okaasan. And the Miwa, from the dorm,and Anna-san said that I could be be/looked like ‘Chicago’, which I chose to take as right, because Chicago was set in the 20’s. LOL When I got to the Hyakunenkan in the morning, who should I run into but Chen-chan, who squealed and gave me a hug, and immediately took me up by the hand to show me to Kinoko, Buri-chan and the Ryugakuseika. The Ryugakusei esp. took a bunch of pics, and I showed them pictures of Clara, and Brooksie. Chen-chan especially got really into it, and wanted to dress up as a flapper too, (the 4th floor was having a Halloween party that night), and so we decided that she could be Anna May Wong, and Kinoko could be like Brookies. I’m not sure if they really did it or not. They were so cute though. So anyway, after my last class, where I sat with that nice girl who’s in two of my classes, and gave me a little piece of cake, and writes me cute English emails about how cute I am.LOL I went to Hyper.
Tazue-san was walking ahead of me when I got to the Olympic Center, so I ended up walking up with her. She said I looked really pretty and took me to show me off to the others. Yayoi-san, Uchida-san, Takako-san, Tomoko-san and someother’s were waiting at the end of the hall. They all liked my costume, and Uchida-san and someone else took a picture of me with their cell phones. They all insisted I show my costume to Anna-san,etc before I changed, but when we went over to the lesson room, Anna-san was kneeling down talking to a Pop girl, so we waited until people were being let in. then I went in, kind of pushed in by my more enthusiastic classmates because all of a sudden I was embaressed, and Anna-san said ‘Oooh!’ She explained to Namio that it was Halloween. Then she said that I looked really cute, and I could just go out like that and it wouldn’t look weird or anything. Then I rushed to change before exercises started. Somehow I made it. I still had my ‘headache band’ on, and my ‘bobbed’ hair, and my makeup. Today all of ZinRye was there. Namio-kun spent most of the time playing babysitter (?) to this little Pop boy, Haru-kun, who was probably about 4. Yuuta divided his time between smiling wistfully at the Haru-kun, or even sometimes bending down playing with him, and standing against the wall staring off in to space or at the floor. Atsushi sat crouched in the corner in the back of the room, staring moodily off into space, pretty much the whole class. He happened to be right behind where I had to stand for Yagyugaiden, so I would sometimes watch him. He looked so broody, and David statuesque, with his handsome brooding face, and lightly (?) muscled arms, that I couldn’t watch him too long without laughing.
The room we were in today was very small, and there were a lot of people, so what we did after Anna-san checked everyone positions and we ran through the dance all together once to the count, and once to music, was split up into groups so we could take turns. The first time we ran through the dance all together, Anna-san had positioned herself on the other side of the bar, flat up against the mirror, which she was leaning back against. We all laughed when she saw her. She laughed too and explained that she was doing it so that we would have more room. She said, ‘It feels like a cage….that you guys are in. (Ori no naka ni iru mitai…kimitachi ga.) Or like I’m at the zoo, watching the animals.’ As she said this she leaned against the bars and watched with interest, as if she were at the zoo. Everyone laughed.
I’m not really sure about the division of the groups, it was basically center people, right side, and left side, but I think there was one more group. The groups that weren’t dancing sat in the front, and watched. I was really impressed with the people who happened to be the only person dancing their part in a group, everyone was really confident. Actually, everyone was really confident in general, and so every looked really cool. There were even a few people who looked B.B like to me, like Takako-san, for example. It was awesome, it just made me love everyone so much.
I think we ran through the dance in groups maybe twice. At one point, Anna-san told us that she wanted us to yell at some points, along with the yelling in the song. At first she had wanted us to yelling during the beginning, the end, and the Dokkoisho! In the middle, but she said that if she started cracking up watching, she’d cut the yelling bits. She told us to try to yell really loud, and not be wimpy, and try to get into it, esp the Dokkoisho! At this Namio yelled Dokkoisho very loudly from the sidelines, startling Haru-kun, and prompting Anna-san to joke that we could have Namio do the yelling over the mic from behind stage. The yelling didn’t go very well, since you couldn’t hear people so much, and the Dokkoisho was cut, but we’re still doing the Ha! (or Sui!) at the beginning and the Ha! At the end. The Sui group were late on their cue the first time, and Anna-san remarked that their heads were so full of trying to remember to say Sui that they forgot their cue, and the group nodded. LOL
After she watched all of us dancing, Anna-san san gave us some little pointers the finer points of some of the moves, and admitted, ‘I actually have a few more I could mention, but I don’t want you guys to think I’m being picky.’ However, on the whole she smiled a big smile and said, sounding satisfied. ‘It all looks really cool since when you’re confident.’, and instructed us that this wasn’t a dance like Miami where if you messed up you could laugh, that if you froze or made a nervous face when you messed up in Yagyugaiden, you’d ruin it, so that even if we messed up, she wanted us to mess up boldly, and confidently and just keep going. She said, ‘For some reason, when I made this dance, I was thinking about fighting as the concept, like usual. (she laughed) The image if this dance is supposed to be, as I’m sure you all understand, ‘Matsuri! Japanese Manly Men!’ She laughed again. ‘Even if you’re a woman, be a Japanese manly man! Everyone has the steps down, so now it’s just about becoming the image of the dance, and envisioning that as you’re performing. I want you all to get so into character that you actually say ‘Dokkoisho!’ even without meaning to.’ She laughed. From the corner, Namio yelled, ‘Dokkoisho!’, and Anna-san said, ‘See? You said that without even meaning to, right?’ LOL She then explained again that today was the last day for Yagyugaiden, and that next month we’d work on Miami the whole time, and then both in Dec, so we should just practice Yagyugaiden on our own until then.
At one point when we were dancing, Anna-san said, ‘A-chan, you look like you could be in Chicago.’ I turned, wanting to tell her that that was the period of my costume, but then she said, ‘Sorry for saying something that has nothing to do with anything.’
This made her the 3rd person who kind of got my costume. Or at least my hair and makeup, since at that point I was wearing my lesson clothes. LOL
Since I had my ‘headache band’ on, and Atsushi had a grey towel on his head, and Yuuta had his black headband thing on (Yuuta’s is in these little cornrow/braids now. I personally think looks kinda limp and scraggaly,but oh well), I thought ‘Oh, I had a Zinrye hairdo today’. But just as I thought that, Yuuta did this amazing no handed backwards flip, and I was like ‘Ok, I guess it’s only my hair that’s like Zinrye.’ LOL As Uchida-san and I watched in awe, Yuuta did the flip a second time. Atsushi was watching him, and then he did the backwards flip, and remarked, ‘Anmari kawattenai to omou’. (I don’t think it’s very different.) I think they were discussing flipping techniques, landing, or something. Anyway it was amazing to see them just flip themselves over backwards like that, no hands touching anything.
The lesson ended with most of us on the floor watching another group, so we stayed on the floor and stretched a bit, and I chatted with Yayoi-san and Tazue-san and Takako-san, about Yagyugaiden, and Yayoi-san said that this was the kind dance where if you had enough stage presence you’d be fine, even if you messed up, but only if you were really into it.
Then Yuuta and Atsushi were dancing to this music and so we all stood and watched them for a while. There are so amazing. Yuuta smiled and noticed people watching and kind of performed a bit for us, but Atushi was in his own little world, more unsmiling.
After I got dressed again, Atsuko-san took pictures of me. She posed me in a variety of positions, including up against elevator, and fixing my garter, prompting me and Emi-chan to joke that she was taking AV pics. Emi-chan, and Tomo-chan, and even Uchida-san and Tazue-san sometimes, took a bunch of pics with me, and we did a bunch of poses and it was a lot of fun. Then when Yayoi-san, Takako-san and Sachiko-san came down, we all went off to the station, where we ended up going to a restaurant to eat. On the way to the restaurant, Uchida-san and I talked about how I should start an English lesson class as part of Love Junx, and Anna-san could even help teach, because of her English, and how I could give it after Sunday lessons as we all ate lunch together, and how we could use the lyrics to the songs we danced to to teach it. Uchida-san joked that I could even just start working like that, and it could be my actual job. It was actually a great plan, although as he said, it was a bit late for it all now, since I was leaving so soon. (And the me feeling that it was a bit presumptuous to want to start a English class actually as part of LJ) But that would be like my dream. Especially if I got to teach it with Anna-san. God, I think I’d die.
The restaurant we ate at was some weird little resturant with food from Bali? Where we all had exorbantly expensive drinks made with milk and a whole mango. They were pretty good. We talked about Actor’s a bit, because Yayoi-san had pictures from the Aomori concert they went to, showing them with Takeshi-kun, and Nana-san, Nami-chin, Hinata, Yuki-chan, etc. (Which she said she’d make copies of for people). We talked a bit about Kiyoka quitting, and how we bet she can still debut somehow, and Yayoi-san and the others said what if she was in men’s magazines? I said I didn’t want her to be, and they agreed but said that she could because she was pretty and had a good figure and seemed the type that would be popular. Yayoi-san remarked that all the girls from Actor’s had good ‘proportions’. Emi-chan told us that Saki-chan had admitted that she wasn’t sure if she was going to stay at OAS or not, which everyone was really surprised about, although Kiyoka and she seemed really close to me. Atsuko-san said that she personally liked Kiyoka better than Saki, because Saki seemed a bit cold and stand-offish, but Emi-chan told her that actually Saki is just really shy. We were all surprised, but Emi-chan told us about how one time when she had been talking with Kiyoka and a few other girls, Saki had spent a lot of time watching them, and had finally been brought over by Kiyoka and started talking. She said that once Saki starts talking she’s amazing, and talks a lot, etc, but that it’s really hard for her to start talking. Speaking of which, everyone was very gushy about the fact that Yuuta and Atsushi now greet people! Apparently they have been going a lot of places because they were supposed to be in that musical (no one knows why they aren’t going to be anymore), and they have been taught that aisatsu’s are most important in Entertainment. So apparently today Yuuta said ‘Ohayou gozaimasu!’ to people of his own accord, even genkily, I think, after which Atsushi was kind of trapped into saying it, which he did a bit shyly. (Atsushi mo tsurarete botsun to ohayou). And apparently they said Otsukaresama of their own accord to people after too, which is very exciting. Maybe one day they will start opening up to Hyper more.