I had thought that I wouldn't have anything to write about today because I left my apartment really late - like 2 PM or so - and didn't have any set plans. I ended up heading to the Kita-Senju Station area in the Adachi ward of North Tokyo. I don't think I've ever actually been to Adachi so I figured I could see what the area was like and also potentially check out another collab event.
Once I made it to Kita-Senju, I headed into the local Marui department store to head to Funtos, which is like a cafe and "culture space", which seems to just mean it has a ton of collab events.
From the Funtos Twitter account
Unfortunately, when I arrived all of the Monica merch was sold out! They only had side character merch left. I found this especially crazy since the collab started only yesterday and there wasn't even anyone else in the store when I went. I wonder if they just had really low stock? Even for the collaboration drinks, they were out of the Monica stirrers. I did get a flyer promo for the event though which almost makes up for it? It's a flat piece of merch that takes up basically no luggage space, has anime characters I like, and works as a souvenir itself anyway? I guess I'll let them off the hook for today.
Next, I stopped into a shop to get some gachapon toys. I only tried 2 bocchi machines, but I pulled Kita both times?? I'm not sure why I always pull the same characters when I do these kinds of things, but it's okay, Kita is cool.
Left is from the stasto sleepy figures (onemutan) line, right is from the Takara Tomy A.R.T.S slippy figure line
I also ran into a Surugaya flash sale event and was pretty sad that my luggage was full because plushes starting from ¥330 is quite a deal in my book! They even had popular characters like Emilia from Re:Zero or Saber Alter from the Fate series
After I left, I planned to check out a few temples and did briefly stop by a couple but didn't stay very long or even pay respects at them and actually accidentally jaywalked right into traffic once because I was confused about the placement of some traffic lights.
The last thing I had planned to see in the area was Rainbow Plaza in Adachi (I think there are multiple plazas in the Tokyo area called this), since I had read that it had a nice grassy area right next to the river and was pretty scenic. Since it was only a few minutes away, I was sure I was going to check it out, get bored pretty quick and head home without having done much of anything at all.
But when I was leaving the last temple I was at to head to the plaza, I started hearing music and wasn't sure if it was like someone blasting from their house or what. As I got closer to the plaza, the music started to get louder and more people were heading in that direction. What was going on in the plaza today?
Imagine my shock when I walk up the stairs to the top of the embankment and saw some sort of concert going on!
At first I wasn't sure what was going on since I hadn't seen anything about this in any of the English sites I usually frequent to find events (or even the Japanese collabo-cafe which I use to find merch collabs lol). I also didn't know if it was free and I could just go in or if it was ticketed or what. So I nervously performed a little recon, sneaking along the walking past back and forth for a minute until I caught a glimpse of one of the event staff's shirt which let me know (in English!) that this was the ADACHI FOOD & MUSIC FESTIVAL!
Originally from the festival's twitter festival's twitter (at least i'm pretty sure it's their account...)
I think I showed up during like an idol music block because I don't think the rest of the perfomers in the lineup were idol groups but all that I stayed for were.
I ended up staying for much longer than anticipated, catching 4 full perfomances and part of 2 more! Recording and taking photos was or wasn't permitted on a per group basis and they let the crowd know before each act.
All the groups I saw seemed really talented and I think the most catchy song I heard was Tokyo Girl by MyDearDarlin', but (I'm gonna dump a ton of songs smh) I also liked トキメキCherry by ChuLa, 恋餃子 by STAiNY, Pa!!!!!!nation by MyDearDarlin', ナノLOVE by MyDearDarlin', MDDSyndrome by MyDearDarlin', and ウノウクノウカノウサノウ by TSUYOGARI SENSATION.
LOL looking at this list I'm like ok we get it, you liked every song in MyDearDarlin's set. I guess if I had to pick, they were my favorite out of the performances I saw. And listening back to all of these now, maybe ナノLOVE is actually the most catchy.
Only slightly related but I keep telling myself I'm not interested in idols or idol culture. But I do apparently like the music, and am drawn to their multimedia projects. If I'm not into idols why did I spend like 2 hours waiting for Sally Amaki from 22/7 (among other things) to sign a shikishi for me when she went to Sakura Con in Seattle this April? (Ok I'm actually just bragging about the last one)
The shikishi she signed while I was probably speaking gibberish
My literal reaction at that time L M A O
All of that to say maybe I should learn wotagei which are like dances that idols fans do (I'm not actually interested in doing that but it is an interesting subculture and cool to learn about). I actually don't know if that actually encompasses what I was seeing today but it seemed like at times a lot of the crowd would know when to do certain dances and self-organized to do more complex things on occassion.
I don't have a long clip of it today, but here is a short clip during TSUYOGARI SENSATION's set
I don't think that all of the guys dancing in the crowd were intimately familar with all of the groups, so I think that at least some of the dances are common and signaled somehow by the idols' choreo or something. (I could be wrong they could all know all of them!) I'll have to research this another time since it's like 3:30 AM as I write this and I need to fix my sleep schedule somewhat. Any wota out there that can fill me in on this?
By the time I left it was already dark
I'm still struggling to take night shots that actually look like they do with my eyes
And I did get to see the sunset
Although it was a bit less vibrant than this IRL
The last thing I did before going home was walk around to bask in the atmosphere (but not like a weirdo) and also because I needed to go to a Hobby Off to see if they had any cool anime figures. On the way, I had a donut at Ikkyu Donuts because it smelled so good when I walked by! For ¥250, it was really tasty, and I was actually a bit confused because at the time I was wondering if it was like a corn donut or something. It was slighty sweet with a super good texture and no glaze or anything. When I got home and looked it up, it turns out that they were donuts made with Soybeans and Soy Milk! I didn't even know that was a thing but I'd recommend trying it!
See ya later
As a quick reminder, I won't be blogging for the next few days. But fret not, I will return and begin blogging again on or around Monday, October 6. I'm meeting with my friends tomorrow but I wonder if I can make a quick pit stop at Day 2 of the Adachi festival before I do?? You can find out this answer and more on the next episode! See you next week!