Aki Misato comes to Otaroad Gamers

(tags anime, artist, concert)

Aki Misato (美郷あき) is a recent singer that just celebrated her third "best" album. She usually sings slow and fast ballads and anime theme songs. Broccoli Anibro-Gamers had a couple of Aki Misato events, which was really a "talk, live, and handshake" mini-contest. I got a free ticket for buying her CD. 

Actually I dread these in-store concerts. Not that I don't mind seeing the artist, but that there are those pushy bodyguards that make sure you don't handshake for longer than a second. At least that was my experience back when I saw Halko Momoi. So when the day and time rolled around I was the opposite of excited. I brought the CD, even though there was no expectation of receiving a signature. I also learned that I was in the second group event. The first group got a little something something. Perhaps they got a poster.

The concert was held in the basement of Nanba-Nipponbashi Anibro-Gamers, but rather call it Otaroad Gamers. I didn't expect good acoustics with concrete walls and industrial ceilings but I'm tone-deaf anyway. There were about 50 people, which made it somewhat intimate. Also there was a questionnaire to get some good topics from the crowd, which they collected before the start.

Anyway, so Aki Misato showed up all dolled up. It was actually the first time I've seen her "move". She looks pretty good on the album covers, haha. And in person she was alright, but actually I couldn't see over the first 6 rows, um. The first part was a talk, with a local host personality keeping the conversation going. Aki Misato doesn't have enthralling dialogue, haha. "Osaka is great, even the one way streets." It seems I missed her other live event that weekend, and I don't keep up with her radio show outings. Other people, probably college kids, kept on nodding their acquaintance with her various radio events. She said she went to Brazil for work, but I didn't pickup/understand the details.

She then sang three song from her newest CD, "I lost the place", "Disarm Dreamer", "Here I am". For most of the time she sounded just like her studio voice. Was she lip-syncing? She did crack and off-keyed some notes, though. She didn't move from the center stage so I still couldn't see much of her. The people around me were the typical hesitant types, so they didn't break into dance. At least the guy at the front row broke out at least 8 glow sticks (sailium), one between each finger. That was pretty crazy cool. 

Afterwards, the dreaded hangshake scene. But what's this? No bouncer types? Each person getting about a minute time?!? Nice. I didn't really have anything to say to her, and I didn't really do my homework (memorize the CD). When she took my hand, I thought of two things. One was to wash my hands throughly afterwards and another was that her hands were really soft. I just asked if she spoke English (!) because I read somewhere that she was in New York. But no, she doesn't. No surprise there. Thank you for your songs and keep on singing! A parting handshake later, and I belted myself out of there.

Now that I checked out how paltry her Wikipedia entry is, I feel kinda bad that she's not getting more play time. I hope her company brings her out again to Osaka for a concert. The announced concert for 2008-11 is Tokyo only.