Only a little belated….

The Ebisu Garden Hall holds 750 seated; most of those seats were temporary chairs on the floor. Ours were permanent-seeming seats, stadium style at the back. And dead center. When we entered the hall, staff handed out uchiwa with GuraP’s face on each side.

As this was a talk show, the stage was set up with 5 chairs, and a large box covered with black cloth, which was oddly … moving. When the show started, Kiiyan, Konno Hiroki (GuraP), Hikarigoke Katayama (RodeO’s blond friend), Saito Aya (Kuroko) and the director Shinkai Takehito came out first. They then introduced their special guest, GuraP! They had a giant, and adorable, GuraP plush on puppet wires – hence the big box. The entire show, Kiiyan was weirded out by seeing the plush … but hearing Konno’s voice come from right next to him.

Everyone had on yellow shirts with GuraP’s face on them … and had tied on pink Uniqlo cardigans. The shirts, alas, were staff only, and not for sale. (the only new item for sale was a microfiber towel)

The very first segment was introductions, which included putting up pics and bios of each person on the screen behind the stage. Kiiyan’s KenPro pic is SO OLD. He really needs a new one. Konno’s pic has his hair super short, and he’s leaning pensively against a wall, for which Kiiyan ribbed him. Katayama had a bowl harcut in his pic, prompted Kiiyan to ask “RodeO?” Turns out this was Saito’s first seiyuu event, and she was really nervous.

After introductions on stage, they did character introductions by playing a few episodes. After introducing GuraE, they brought out e-zuka, dressed like everyone else. Except he was the only person who actually tied his cardigan around his shoulders like GuraP (everyone else tied around their waist).

The longest segment of the show had them writing or drawing responses to a series of questions, such as “If Knossos is this … what is Orix?” (For that one the only thing I remember is Katayama bringing up the Kobe Orix baseball team.). Another was “what kind of person does GuraP like?” And another was “what would be bad for the show,” which had some amusing responses – Saito said “a 50 year old RodeO,” which had Kiiyan (turning 40 tomorrow) going “Ho!” over and over. For this one, e-zuka drew GuraP and RodeO in Doraemon style, prompting someone to say DoraP! Heh.. Later in the segment, they had to describe what would be the main attraction at e-zuka Land. And … e-zuka drew himself as a ginormous seesaw, complete with tiny stick figures on his head and feet.

While they were composing their answers, the background music was Volcano, prompting a lot of us to start clapping rhythmically, like Kiiyan had prompted us to during the tour. GuraP was encouraging us too. So cute.

After that segment we were asked to hold up our GuraP uchiwa to indicate which guest we thought was most interesting, Konno was first, and got a lot of votes. Kiiyan was next and had just a few, so he told us he would give a hug to each of us voting for him. I want my hug! e-zuka ended up winning this segment.

We got to watch one pre-recorded bit from GuraQ, in which Kiiyan slaps the crap out of GuraP. He really can’t help himself with cute, stuffed things.

Kiiyan and e-zuka were asked to list their nicknames and make nicknames for one another. Kiiyan called e-zuka “baka guitarist,” and e-zuka called Kiiyan “migi ashi kega” (I assume he said kega/injury) because he had a band aid on his right foot. Kiiyan called poor GuraP unko something (unko = shit).

At one point Kiiyan actually said “ore wa kawaii” about himself. And they kept bringing up his shorts (well, the guys’ shorts, since Konno and Katayama were wearing them too), calling them “umi no pan” (sea pants). Kiiyan absolutely could not sit still, stretching and doing exercises in his chair … showing off his very smooth calves.

Kiiyan and e-zuka played an acoustic version of Rodeo dake no uta, which was marvelous, of course.

Late in the show, Kiiyan admitted that kids make him nervous (I don’t recall what prompted this). Shinkai’s daughter was backstage, running around, and he was at a loss as to what to do. He was even uncertain about eating baumkuchen in front of her. So, someone asked him that surely he was around kids with his family. And he said yes, he has a niece … and there’s such a sparkle in her eyes, he can’t look into them – he’s always the first to turn away.

There are tentative plans for a blu-ray release.

They gave away signed items before the closing remarks. Closest they got to picking my friend and I was Kiiyan drawing someone one row behind us, a few seats away.