Moriyama Daisuke All-night Comic Release Party

Read my previous post regarding this event here. →

This past week was crazy busy at school with the end of Term 2 and all grades were due by the end of Friday. As a sort of gift to myself, I purchased a ticket to attend Moriyama Daisuke’s comic release party in Shinjuku. Since it was an all-night event, I also booked a room at a hotel in town.

In retrospect, I probably could have made it home after all since the event finished at 5am. xD But still, I had plans to attend the ECO 10th Anniversary event to see ACE perform with my friend, so I needed to sleep as long as possible before hand. ^^; Plus, it didn’t make much sense to me to go all the way home just to head back into town again.

I left work as soon as I possibly could, mostly because I didn’t want someone to grab me at the last minute and make me do something more that day. I got into Shinjuku around 4pm and checked into the hotel. I had about six hours to relax before heading out to the venue location. I brought all sorts of stuff to relax during this time. I brought my computer and watched a bunch of silly YouTube videos while eating a conbini bento for dinner with my usual drink. I also brought a bath bomb from home for a relaxing bath.

This was my first time to stay in town, so I was a little excited about it and took a bunch of stupid photos.

I was also pretty surprised how noisy it was even from inside my room. I suppose it shouldn’t have been much of a surprise given all the crazy videos and lights that play until the wee hours of the night in Shinjuku and elsewhere; it just didn’t occur to me that it would be so audible from inside the room. xD Here’s a short clip to demonstrate this:

All that aside, let me talk very briefly about the event. I don’t want to say too much about *what* was said since they basically told us “what happens here, stays here”.

First of all, the venue was a very “live bar” sort of feel (the location actually has live music until about 11pm when they clean up and prepare for other gigs that perform throughout the night). Since I went alone, it wasn’t too difficult finding a free spot to sit.

On the table was a menu of speciality drinks featuring the Moriyama’s characters from various series.

There was one drink specially called “Pure Black Cocktail” made for Kuroi from Kimi Shi ni (Thou Shalt Not Die). It was basically Coke, although I’m not entirely sure if there was any alcohol mixed with it. For each order, you were given a numbered ticket that would be used in the final giveaway portion of the event.

The 1st Segment of the event was broadcast on NicoNico, which you can still view here. In it, host Mel Kishida talks with Moriyama.

For the 2nd Segment, they called Yoko Taro in from the 3rd floor waiting area where he said was pretty cold. Yoko Taro briefly introduced himself with the use of a short powerpoint that also included Yukiko Yokoo’s cute white character “Pre” from her “Pre/Zen” combi.

I believe this was the section where both Kishida and Moriyama dressed in school girl outfits: Moriyama had the whole get-up on including a short skirt with leggings, a wig and makeup. Kishida didn’t have a wig or anything extra, but he seemingly was not very comfortable wearing a short skirt without any leggings… He continued to fidget, attempting to cover himself up.

The discussion mostly dealt with the Kimi Shi ni manga and their interaction with each other and also the publisher. Here are some interesting bits:

Except for Mashiro and Kuroi, Yoko Taro originally had *all* the students from the first mission killed. The publisher wanted more characters to survive, so they settled at 5 survivors. ^^;
The publisher also requested the “booby” artwork that was used as the bonus book cover from Gamers.
Moriyama doesn’t completely like illustrating grotesque scenes like some that appear in the series.
Mizukaki seems to be a worthless character but will eventually get a useful and yet not so useful power… ^^;;
It sounds like both parties are expecting this to be a longer series than just three tankoubon releases (at least 5)… and the possibility of an anime version is still very much alive.

With the end of Segment 2, Yoko Taro took his bowl of udon that had just arrived up to the 3rd floor.

Segment 3 brought Yasuhiro Nightow to the stage. Unfortunately, I don’t remember much from this portion of the talk, but Nightow seems to be a totally awesome guy. He was very funny.

When Segment 4 began, Kishida wondered if they could call Yoko Taro and Nightow back to the stage… but both of them were already peeking into the room from the doorway leading to the 3rd floor. In classic fashion, Yoko Taro was very funny how he tried to hide half of his face in the doorway.

The last segment had a short Q&A with the audience before switching over to the Giveaways. Some of the items that were given away as prizes was a gorgeous shikishi with Mahoui Neko characters, several mini shikishi of Chrono Crusade characters, and a couple books of his other works; all of course signed by him. The first item to be given away was the larger shikishi, which the man sitting next to me won! I had a quick glance at it, and it was really beautiful! <3

Although I had three numbers, I was not lucky enough to win anything. I later discovered that ticket #201 was stuck in my iPhone case pocket where I originally put them before clipping them to my tab–but it’s okay, they never called that number anyway! I was really close for a couple of the drawn numbers, though; off by two numbers, twice! And the dude who won the shikishi also won another item, too. Very lucky! xD

Finally, we all had the chance to greet Moriyama and receive a special gift from him–a really cute postcard of the Mahoui Neko characters and a specially made chocolate of Yoneko, the cat-girl from the series.

In the end, it was a really, really awesome night. We didn’t get any personal interaction with either of the guests, but it was nice to greet Moriyama one more time since the signing event earlier last November.

I was also very happy how smoothly my plans fell into place one by one. I had no problem getting to or from the venue location, either. Not that you can completely lower your guard, but Japan is still a very safe place that I didn’t feel too uncomfortable walking around alone at midnight.

I also planned out the following day perfectly, too. I had enough time to eat breakfast in the hotel and made the check-out time at 11am, which got me to the ECO 10th Anniversary event right on time. It was seriously one event to the next!