Today was a pretty good day...attended the stage event for Tomoyo Kurosawa, who did the voice for Hibike! Euphonium's own Kumiko Oumae.
Been ages since I went to Singapore's Anime Festival Asia, so I have kind of forgotten how crazy the crowd can be sometimes.
Definitely a lot more reaction/hype for Kurosawa's appearance compared to PA Works' earlier stage event regarding Kuromukuro's airing on Netflix, with some of them even breaking out the orange glowsticks to welcome her on stage so thumbs up fellow Euphonium bros/gals!
Kurosawa appeared in her promotional outfit, which was the Kitauji winter uniform (aka the brown colour/concert performance attire) and let us sampled a little bit of her favourite scenes from the two seasons, but not before introducing to us some of the fellow supporting/main cast and her opinions of them in the show.
There were occasionally very loud cheers when a character profile popped up behind her. Even without looking at it, Kurosawa said, "of course, it's Hayamin isn't it!?" when Haruka appeared. "Singaporean fans sure love (and know) their seiyuus!"-the MCs interjected laughingly"
Another loud roar
"Nao-bou (Nao Toyama), without a doubt". Kurosawa joked as Nozomi's profile appeared behind her on the screen.
Everyone started going wild when the first scene that appeared was the mid-and close to ending scene in S1 Episode 8 where Kumiko and Reina went for the walk uphill during the festival.
The Japanese MC slipped up on trying to pronounce AFA in English(AnimeFestivalAsia) and it came out sounding like "apple" instead.
"Apple?" Kurosawa asked.
"I-I have an apple, I have a pen. Ugh, apple pen!?"
*Cue loud cheers from crowd/a few facepalms at the joke*
"do you know Pikotaro is actually going to appear on stage later at AFA?"-asked the female MC/super translator
"Wha-what!? Really!? I want to see him! but I don't think my schedule later on would allow me to do that..."-Kurosawa
Her second more memorable scene was the audition face-off between Kaori and Reina in episode 10 as it was very emotional for her, especially when Yuko (ribbon-girl) started crying at the conclusion, as it started to make her tear up as well.
One thing that Kurosawa revealed was that originally she had auditioned for the role of another character, but the casting director asked her to try Kumiko's role using her natural voice, and somehow she managed to nab the role. She felt a lot in common with Kumiko at the start. Kumiko was cynical and lazy and doesn't really portray the "traits" that you would associate main characters in animes with, so she sort of felt like your average daily Japanese high school girl but stated that as the episodes went on, Kumiko matured as an individual and nowadays she doesn't really draw that parallel between herself and Kumiko anymore, even though she might go back to those feelings of old to draw inspiration from.
Then we fast forwarded to season 2 where we saw Sapphir-I mean Midori exclaiming in happiness on seeing the food on offer (mapo tofu) etc for the training camp and dropping her ice cream...? A puzzling choice but eh, different people, different strokes.
Next scene saw the part where Yuko finding (Kumiko and Mizore) and dissing Mizore for only playing for Nozomi.
Kurosawa said that she didn't pick a lot of scenes that focused chiefly on Kumiko, as the cast were all vibrant and really fleshed out, considering how many members there were in the band (yea seriously, cymbal girl, when?) and shared that some of the cast members even went on their own anime pilgrimage to locations such as the Uji Shrine used in episode 8, but sadly she added, there were so many people making the trip to the shrine at night to re invoke the feeling of episode 8 that local authorities put their foot down and might have imposed a visiting hours restriction e.g no walking up the path at night.
She said that she made the trip over there because with the recording of the series and the then-upcoming Euphonium movie, she had to see the sight herself to place herself in Kumiko's eyes, so that she would be able to better express Kumiko's amazement and delight at seeing the city lights that could been seen from the view.
She also bumped into some Taiwanese tourists that were walking up to the shrine, and they recognized and chatted with her on the way down, telling her that they were doing it because they were fans of the Euphonium series as well. At this point she expressed her thanks once again at how much she appreciate all these support that were coming from overseas fans for the Hibike! Euphonium series.
At this point of time, they are already completed done and wrapped up with the recording for the second season but she stopped and teased for a bit, "would you like to know why the show was named Hibike! Euphonium? The remaining episodes might explain why, so please keep on watching".
The conversation steered towards the show's depiction of the friendship between high school girls in Japan which Kurosawa said mirrored quite a bit of what she experienced. The MCs then turned to the crowd and asked, "so...how's the relationship between Singaporean school girls like?" lots of nervous laughter all around from the male audience.
The trio seemed like they wanted to clearly define where exactly the line is drawn between the relationship for Reina/Kumiko is drawn say, comparing the novels to the anime's version of the story, but Kurosawa and the female MC got cut off by the male MC, who had earlier told us that Euphonium's his favourite of the shows that are currently airing.
He pleaded, "please do not tell/clarify the relationship with us! Many of us male audience watched it because we like to let our imagination wonder, for it be for the better or worse, and imagination that is exactly how the relationship between two high school girls are like in Japan!" to rapturous applause from the male audience side of things, including myself. Sure, it might be bait, but bait like S1E8 was pretty good entertainment.
She's also on the hunt for some yummy fish head curry too, so hit her up if you have any good recommendations! <-typical question foreign guests to Singapore always get. So cringe-worthy like, can't the MCs mention something else without going on about Bak Kut Teh (Pork Ribs in herbal/pepper soup) or Chicken Rice? She's really been hitting those chili crabs.
Wished the MCs wouldn't talk over those scenes that they wanted to share with us though, but really got a feeling that they were trying to rush. Would have been a sight to see them sharing the concert scene from S2Ep5 if they had enough time to do so.
Still, wasn't too bad for the first stage event in a long while that I attended.
On the flip side....
I also brought my very first dakimakura at one of the booths.
Was hesitating a bit here and there for quite a bit, then asked one of the staff for one of the designs that I wanted. Unfortunately, they were out of brand new unopened pieces (since the cover/stuffing etc would be nicely folded for you to take home with)..but they did have the display piece (nicely wrapped in plastic) displayed on the very top with the design I don't really mind...
It wasn't long till the booth had to close, so they agreed that I could take the display piece if I wanted to, so I ended up grabbing the whole dakimakura to the cashier table and my fears were realized when they didn't have a plastic bag big enough to conceal it...
...and that was how I ended up lugging a dakimakura across the entire convention floor with dozens of stares/whispers coming my way. Thought about taking a cab back home but then again I was like, "screw this, I already spent quite a bit, so might as well just take the public transport back home and save some."
Never again. Still, got a couple of pretty nice keychains just I get for free to go along with my purchases at the booth. It's OG Love Live, but hey, at least a couple of my favourite characters are there! Hilariously awkward episode for me though. You can bet I didn't stay at the event till the end. Had no choice but to buy it on the fly since the booth was about to end its operating hours too.
Still thinking whether I should have spent on a couple of CDs at the Pony Canyon booth for that Hibike! Euphonium seson 2 poster (it was like...spend $40 or more, get a free anime poster...but I dunno if I really want to spend 40 bucks for a couple singers that I usually don't listen to just for a Hibiki! Euphonium poster), but eh, there wasn't any autograph session with Tomoyo Kurosawa to seal the deal for me so next time I'll see. A bit bothered by it since Hibike Euphonium merch IS pretty hard to come by if you aren't going by the usual AmiAmi and what's not.