2024.02.04

Headed off to Tokyo from Jakarta via Kuala Lumpur. It was a pretty uneventful flight aside from some turbulence.

Landed on schedule around 5:30 PM, and it was almost 7 PM by the time I was done with immigration/luggage/exchanging train tickets. My first thought after getting off the flight was that it was seriously cold. To put things into perspective, the temperature in Jakarta around this month is usually well above 30°C, I usually set my air conditioner at 26°C, and the temperature in Narita when I landed was about 3°C.

The original plan was to rush immediately to the hotel, drop my luggage, and go to the nearest cinema from the hotel. Unfortunately, after checking the schedule again the last showing time had passed already, so I had to come up with another plan while on the train from the airport.

After some frantic googling, the new plan was to go to Shinjuku Wald 9 for the 9:20 PM showing, however:
1. It's about 40-50 minutes away from the where I was staying, and I got to the hotel around 8 PM
2. I have no idea how to buy a movie ticket in Japan
3. I always got lost in Shinjuku

Honestly the smarter decision would have been to just rest and go to the first showing the day after, but I decided to go anyway because even if I couldn't make it in time, at least I could buy some merch first.
Well thankfully I didn't get lost and the ticketing machine had English available, so I managed to watch the movie on the first day of the trip.

The joys of watching the characters that I love moving and talking on a very big screen in front of me, combined with the euphoria from being on the first day of a vacation abroad, had me grinning to myself for the whole movie to the point where my face hurts. It's a good thing I wear a mask because otherwise I bet it looks weird to everyone else. Probably still looks weird with the mask, but whatever.

By the time I returned to the hotel it was already close to midnight, but I wasn't sleepy at all, so I finished the bag of popcorn that I bought earlier while thinking about the movie.

2024.02.05

Isn't it colder than the day before? Apparently the temperature outside reached zero degrees. Even though I was on vacation, there was a mandatory call from work at noon, so I spent the day walking around the hotel area until the time for the call came.

After the work call was finished, it apparently started snowing. I had to ask whether it was snow or rain because I have never seen snow before, so I had no idea what it looks like…
Well snow turns out to be cold, slippery, and annoying, so in the end I didn't go out much afterward

2024.02.06

Snow everywhere

Today is also the first day of OMRK panel being displayed at Animate Akihabara, so after coming back from Washinomiya Shrine I decided to go have a look.

To my surprise, the CD was also already available to purchase today even though the release date is still February 7th. It's my first time buying a CD on release date in a physical store so maybe this is a normal thing, but why not just write the release date as February 6th…

By the way, I haven't got any SSR in any game that I play ever since I won the autographed poster, so I think I used all my luck for the rest of my life on that.

2024.02.07

Last morning in Tokyo. The original plan was to leave very early and head off to Niigata before going to Toyama, but in the end I was just too tired and decided to rest and go directly to Toyama around lunchtime. I really want to visit Sanjo for Do It Yourself pilgrimage though, so I'll definitely go next time.

Looking back, I think this was the day when the tiredness from the trip started to catch up with me, so I mostly just slept and ate a lot to prepare for the next day.

2024.02.08

Takaoka!

I did YRYR last time, so the focus this time would be locations from the new OMRK movie. Even though the movie had just come out, there was already a pilgrimage guide written by Moritz-san, so it was very helpful.
Part below might contain spoilers to the movie (although only a small part not related to any plot), so if you don't want to get spoiled just skip it from the table of contents (or better yet, go watch OMRK dear sisters and come back here).

Might contain spoilers for the movie

Eating ice cream outdoors in the middle of winter when you're not used to the weather was not a very good idea, because after this my mouth felt numb and my body temperature definitely dropped, so I had to return to the station to drink something warm and take a break for about half an hour.

Now that I think about it couldn't I just bought chicken? No idea why I thought getting ice cream was a better idea there.

After this, I spent about 30 minutes trying to figure out the route taken in the opening, but I got lost instead. Moritz-san went and took a video a few days later though.
(actually, aren't you going to Toyama every weekend? are you a travel ambassador of the prefecture?)

After that, went to the elementary school and the park. Couldn't find the right angle though, so I didn't take any pictures.

Also, the picture in front of Lawson was somehow found by something that looks like an official account from the city even though I was being careful with keywords and stuff, so it was pretty funny.

End of part that might contain spoilers

I finished walking around about noon and went to grab lunch after. Well since this is a pilgrimage, there is definitely only one place to go for lunch.

Once I finished eating and started taking pictures, the nice lady who took my order earlier came back and asked if I was a fan of YRYR (I think, my Japanese isn't exactly great). When I said yes, she went and grabbed the guest book from the table and asked me to fill it out. I initially avoided it because my handwriting wasn't exactly great, but eventually decided to write down some stuff anyway. Everyone else has cute drawings and stuff so I really do feel bad about writing there and ruining it with my terrible handwriting, sorry…

A bit later, an older gentleman came over to the table and joined in on the chat, but since it didn't appear that he could speak English and my Japanese was too terrible to understand him, we had to chat using voice mode on Google Translate. I really hope the app didn't translate anything weird during the conversation.

After we finished chatting, he left and talked to the lady from earlier for a bit, and she went over to my table again.
"Ah, shachou would like to give you banana juice, do you want it?", she said
(oh, it seems that the older gentleman from earlier was the president/owner LOL)
"It's the banana juice from YRYR!", she continued on.
Well the reason I didn't order banana juice was because it's really cold outside and I just want to drink something warm, but there is no way I'm turning down free drinks.

Once I was done with the banana juice, I picked up a couple of books from the table and went to the cashier to pay. The president was there, so it was a little awkward since I didn't know he was the president at all when we were chatting earlier LOL.
Because I told him earlier that I planned on going to watch the movie again afterward, he went out with me to the parking lot and showed me the way to the cinemas before we parted ways. The president was really too nice…

Onwards to the cinema! I went because I thought the reward had changed to the postcard, but apparently I was a day early for that.

Even though I didn't get the postcard, I'm glad I watched it again because that feeling of watching a movie set in a place that you just visited a few hours ago was great. I'll probably never experience something like that again.

I did almost everything that I wanted and it was getting late, so after watching the movie I went back to Toyama to rest.

2024.02.09

Leaving Toyama. 2 nights wasn't enough to explore everything at all, so I definitely have to plan for a longer stay next time.

I was only in Nagoya for one night so there aren't really any OMRK-related things to write about, but I did go to a certain event at night which I'll write about on another post probably.

2024.02.10

Went to Kyoto after Nagoya. It's the final stop of the whole trip.

Not much happened on the first day in Kyoto. The hotel bed was too comfortable so I just slept a lot.

2024.02.11

Went to Osaka for a day trip.

There was an event that I wanted to attend in Milulari, but other than that, there was also something happening at Animate that day.

It feels like a waste to eat it, so the chocolate is still sitting around on my desk today. If anyone has any suggestions on what to do with the chocolate, please let me know.

After staying in Milulari for a few hours, I headed back to Kyoto to get ready for the final boss of the trip (?)

2024.02.12

Returned to the hotel at around 6 AM after a certain event. I'm glad I picked a hotel with late check-out time because I was dead tired after.

I still had time before having to return to Tokyo even after a very nice sleep, so I went on an impromptu school trip.

It was too crowded, so in the end I didn't take much pictures and just walked around admiring the view. It's also the last pilgrimage spot of the trip sadly, and I went back to Tokyo a little while later.

Not much happened in Tokyo after that. I had more time left than I thought after I finished packing, so I went to see OMRK again for the postcard.

2024.02.13

It's the last day, so I went to Narita early in the morning.

Well, that's it. Nothing much happened on the flight home other than almost missing my connecting flight. Landed safely, picked up my luggage, and went home.

The end

Thanks for reading! After this point, it's just me rambling about the movie and the songs and may contain spoilers, so feel free to close the tab and continue on with your day.

Parts after this point contain spoilers

Thoughts on OMRK dear sisters

It's too short! lol

Even if the format is different than Nachuyachumi or YRYR 10th (i.e. there is no overarching arc/story? I think? Or maybe I'm just too dumb to notice the plot), it manages to be very enjoyable in its own way from start to finish. Literally all the way to the very last second.
Seriously.
The last scene.
ＯＨ　ＭＹ　ＧＯＤ.

I think the charm of everyone in the Oomuro family and their friends was delivered very well by the movie and presented in a way that transcends language barrier, so it's a movie anyone can enjoy regardless of how well they can understand Japanese. Some jokes and dialogues definitely flew over my head (especially the magazine one), but the rest I think I can understand just fine with my very very limited Japanese listening skills and vocabulary that mostly came from watching anime and playing games (after watching it 3 times heh).

Anyway, it's really good, and you don't need any prior knowledge about the series to enjoy it, plus the movie is not that long, so if you happen to be in Japan and have 40-50 minutes to spare you should go watch it.

There are plenty of YRYR and OMRK fans around the world, so even if it couldn't get a theatrical release abroad, I hope it makes a few stops at various anime conventions so more people can enjoy it.
(by the way, AFAID will be held soon this year in Jakarta for the first time since 2018, so please…)

Thoughts on the theme songs

My Dear SiSTARS!

I was at work when the announcement about the songs came so I couldn't listen to it straight away, but even before listening to the song I knew it was going to be good when I saw 5u5h1's name as lyricist.

In case you're unfamiliar with 5u5h1, he's the person behind these tracks from many years ago.

It definitely circulated around soundcloud a lot back in the day, probably introduced some people to YRYR too.

When a long-time fan of a series starts getting involved in songs for the series itself, it's definitely 100% going to be good.
The song, along with the visual direction of the opening movie, is probably the reason why the movie opening is one of my favorite part.

大げさに愛と呼ぶんだ

I definitely have heard of the name Masaki Honda before, but I can't remember from where at all. After looking up my library, it seems that I have heard the name before from t7s.

After looking a bit further, it seems that he is also involved in shanimas and millimas, so I'm ashamed that I didn't recognize the name at first as a self-proclaimed producer…

Back to the song, I like the 2step-ish (?) intro of the song, it's really groovy. I have heard it a few times in club events so far (at least once in mogra and tsukiyume?), and looking forward to hearing it more often in the future.

By the way, there is a house edit already of this song.

I love the internet.

Overall

Lantis、最高 ！(拳を突き上げながら)

Thoughts on Nadeshiko, written in all caps

THE SCENE
WITH THE PHONE
YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

That is all.