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Nana Mizuki Live Flight 2014+ in Singapore

May I have your attention? A fanboy is now typing.

Last year, my otaku senses failed. I didn’t know about the Anime Festival Asia 2013 in Singapore. I didn’t know that Nana Mizuki had performed at said festival. I was crushed.

In case, you’re unfamiliar with her *gasp* what blasphemy!—Nana Mizuki is a seiyu-singer. In case you’re unfamiliar with me (and you should, this being my first post), I’m Ed. But I’m hardly as important as this post. Maybe I'll do the intros in the next post.


She’s voiced roles like Hinata Hyuga from Naruto and Rina Ogata from White Album. Arguably, she’s most famed for the soft-spoken, scythe-wielding, super-powered loli known as Fate Testarossa in Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha.

Her credentials as a singer are impressive. She’s contributed to multiple anime soundtracks and out of the 10 albums she’s released to date, 2 have peaked at the No. 1 position on the Oricon weekly album charts, the first for any seiyu. In 2011, she became the first seiyu to ever hold a concert at the legendary Tokyo Dome.

Live Flight 2014+ is Nana-san’s first solo concert in Singapore (which explains why I’m so excited to write about it) and honestly, she didn’t disappoint.

Any of you readers went? Leave a comment below and share with us your experience! We’ll love to find out.

If you didn’t manage to attend, you can catch a clip of it on xinmsn here.


Goods (let’s start from the beginning) 
This was definitely not a concert for the faint of heart. (Apparently this concert will be released on DVD. Shut up and take my money!)

Fans dressing up in Nana-san's past roles.
Can anyone guess from where?
It was held at Resorts World Sentosa, 27 September. Get off the monorail and follow the sea of official Nana Mizuki t-shirts and you’ll find yourself at the single largest convention of Nana-worshipers in Singapore. I went a whole hour ahead of time, and even then, some merchandise had sold out! I bought the wristbands coz of their versatility. I also bought a t-shirt, but had some buyer’s regret (and that’s all I’ll say on the matter).




The crowd an hour ahead of concert time.




Wearing my Nana love subtly but proudly, yo!

Commemorative photos which came with the purchase. Had three because I spent so damn much!


FYI, Nana is definitely a fanboy’s dream. The proportion of male to female fans was around ¾ men and ¼ ladies. And they were crazy! Some were practicing their penlight moves, others were practicing dance steps and most were just in desperate need of inhalers to keep from hyperventilating.
  

The concert (OMG, the sheer glory of the Nana-force)

The view from my seat.


















        Note : if you’re ever planning on seeing Queen Nana in action, don’t skim on the tickets. Her concert tickets in Taiwan last year sold out within the first hour. I bought mine a day late and was lucky to even get a ticket. I was even luckier to have gotten a good seat, yay!

The hall seats about 1,600. It may sound and seem underwhelming, but it’s a blessing. The small area means that acoustics were richer and you could see the stage quite clearly from any seat, as I did.


Set List (as much as I remember. I wish I could be more precise, but you’ll have to forgive me. There was just so much epicness going on!)
  • Virgin Code
  • Vitalization
  • Zankou no Gaia
  • Silent Bible
  • ETERNAL BLAZE
  • Fun FunPeople
  • Setsuna Capacity (セツナキャパシティー)
  • Fate
  • GUILTY
  • still in the groove
  • Mugen
  • Antique Nachtmusik(アンティークナハトムジーク)
  • Kakumei Dualism
  • Appassionato
  • Kiban no Resistance (debut of an uncoming single for the anime Cross Ange: Tenshi to Ryu no Rinbu)
  • POWER GATE
  • Miracle Flight
  • POPMASTER
  • Discotheque
  • Shin Ai




Have you EVER seen so many penlights?

The concert started off with an opening video. If you’ve seen her concert videos, they usually have a video as a prelude to the performance. It’s usually a slow-motion, whimsical, feel-good clip that’s engineered to make you go “Awwwww”.

No one went “awww. Most went “AHHHH!”, caps intentional.


Even before she appeared, the penlights were going crazy. Let me tell you, that stuff is complicated. There’s different colours and different actions for different songs and different tempos. I had the good fortune to be seating next to a Japanese expat who was a die-hard Nana fan. I did not have the good fortune to avoid getting brained by her penlights ever so often.

As for Nana-san herself…



First off, for a petite gal—there’s reasons why she decks herself in lace and ruffles, she’s tiny!—she has incredible lung power. The concert was three hours long and between performing, talking and costume changes, I don’t think she took a break for any more than 5 minutes at a time. I could feel her voice reverberating right through me…or maybe that was just the subwoofers. An example of her impressive pipes: her background vocals were pre-recorded, and she could sustain the notes longer than she was tracked for.

As a performer, she has quite the unique ability to draw you in and make it feel like she’s singing to you and only you. I found myself enjoying the songs that I usually didn’t like. I was on my feet throughout most of the concert.

Highlights 
She did try her best to speak in English and she succeeded...somewhat. “How are you all, are you enjoying yourself….and then…ah gomen”.

Too bad there wasn’t a translator because she was definitely more comfortable in Japanese, but it seemed that most of the audience understood. As for this loser, I could barely make sense of it. But hey, if you’re a true fan, you’ll just strain your ears and cheer regardless.

Some of topics she spoke about
-   How it was a dream come true to be performing overseas.
-   About the crowd greeting her at Changi Airport upon her arrival, and hearing people calling her Kondo-san instead of Mizuki-san at some point—her real surname is Kondo.
-   How the passion of the audience inflamed her own passion to perform better and better.
FYI, there was definitely a lot of passion going on. Between the penlights and the jumping, towards the end of the concert, it was starting to smell faintly of…team spirit…and not in a good way. People were soaking right through their clothes.


Before I forget, a shout out to the Nana Mizuki fan club. They arranged to distribute these little blue flags right before the concert to the audience, with instructions to unfurl them only during the chorus Miracle Flight. I have to say, everyone obeyed and were quite coordinated. One moment, blue penlights, the next, little blue flags.

Glad to say that Nana-san was pleasantly surprised and in fact, a little overwhelmed. She started giggling during the song and she suddenly started belting with renewed energy despite it being well into the third hour of the concert. After the song, one of the audience members passed her the flag as a memento and she gladly took it.




Encores 
She had 3 songs for the encores. THREE!

After the first encore where she performed POPMASTER and Discotheque, she disappeared and I felt that something was up because she hadn’t performed her most requested song, voted by fans on the official Live Flight+ Facebook page.


True enough, she appeared, announced that she was going to be performing Shin Ai and the crowd went wild! That was definitely the sweet note that ended the entire concert. I don’t think anyone really wanted it to end, though. I know I didn’t.

So here’s the end of the report of Nana Mizuki’s first live concert in Singapore, and my first blog post! I hope you guys enjoyed it. Thanks for reading, and if you’re a Nana fan or attended the concert, let me know how you found it!

*Concert photos credit to: Kamiiisaka Hajime and Amuse Inc.Asia

Written by Edmund



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3 comments to ''Nana Mizuki Live Flight 2014+ in Singapore"

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  1. I was there :D I loved the part where Nakamura teased Nana XD Actually I LOVED every single sec of the concert XD I just went fangirl mode when she appeared on stage.

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  2. Oh cool! Were you in the Cat 1 or Cat 2 seats? I was in Cat 2, and there was this giant on his feet in front of us, I had to watch the concert under his armpit!

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  3. I was in Cat 1 so I was considered close to the stage :D

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