I'd pay $1000 to see Maaya again ><
-Tofu[/quote]
Haha so now you're a real fan ! Welcome ! :evil:
AnimeFest 2005 Concert in Dallas, TX
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Tofusensei
- Junior Member
- Posts: 11
- Joined: 2005-07-10 21:04
- Contact:
[quote="Tofusensei"]haha, I probably been a real Maaya fan since before you even heard of her :D [/quote]
Does it really matter ? I don't think the number of years shows how much of a real fan you are... nor the number of dollars (or whatever is the money in your country) you spent in buying all the artist stuff.
Does it really matter ? I don't think the number of years shows how much of a real fan you are... nor the number of dollars (or whatever is the money in your country) you spent in buying all the artist stuff.
☆NIKOPACHI☆ Love and... Peace !! \(^O^)/
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chibiNekomancer
- Senior Member
- Posts: 351
- Joined: 2004-04-02 03:33
- Location: México
[quote="dillpops"]It's all in your fighting spirit! (And whether you have a Maaya site of course, bwa, ha, ha!) Anyway, it's how you support her:
Ra, ra, ra! Maaya, Maaya, Maaya!! Ra, ra, ra![/quote]
jojojo
to have a website? ^^u
now that you mention it, even tough i have been around, i don't have a maaya fansite XD
this cannot stay like this no no...
new idea: Maaya fansite ring :3
(i will write this one down for latter) ^^
Ra, ra, ra! Maaya, Maaya, Maaya!! Ra, ra, ra![/quote]
jojojo
to have a website? ^^u
now that you mention it, even tough i have been around, i don't have a maaya fansite XD
this cannot stay like this no no...
new idea: Maaya fansite ring :3
(i will write this one down for latter) ^^
Neko ga Suki na Anata to
Inu ga Suki na Watashi
-- Neko to Inu, Maaya Sakamoto
Inu ga Suki na Watashi
-- Neko to Inu, Maaya Sakamoto
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frecklegirl
- Senior Member
- Posts: 429
- Joined: 2005-09-25 04:24
- Location: Tokyo
- Contact:
[quote="Jérôme."]At least I'm a bit surprised about the the AnimeFest event...
It made a lot less of reaction here.... no restranscription of the panel, and even no comments on the panel :3
next time, i'd try to go myself and to take notes on everythings [/quote]
I know. I was there, and I'm a little upset about the Maaya online fandom's general lack of response about it. It's like everyone got hyped up about her being at Anime Expo over the summer (even though she was planning out her Afest visit first), that when Animefest in the fall rolled around, no one could bring themselves to care. :/
I have a report, including my impressions of the concert and the panel, but I wasn't on this forum when it happened, so I think it would be too late to post it now. Oh well.
It made a lot less of reaction here.... no restranscription of the panel, and even no comments on the panel :3
next time, i'd try to go myself and to take notes on everythings
[/quote]I know. I was there, and I'm a little upset about the Maaya online fandom's general lack of response about it. It's like everyone got hyped up about her being at Anime Expo over the summer (even though she was planning out her Afest visit first), that when Animefest in the fall rolled around, no one could bring themselves to care. :/
I have a report, including my impressions of the concert and the panel, but I wasn't on this forum when it happened, so I think it would be too late to post it now. Oh well.
Nostalgic Lavender// Maaya Sakamoto Translations
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frecklegirl
- Senior Member
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- Joined: 2005-09-25 04:24
- Location: Tokyo
- Contact:
Hmm, well, better late than never, I suppose. Here's the report I wrote up of Maaya at Animefest 2005 (Sept. 2-5, 2005; Dallas, TX). It covers the concert Sunday night and the panel Monday morning.
Oh, and just in case anyone wants to archive this on their site or use bits and pieces of the information somewhere, go right ahead, just be sure to credit me
This was my fifth Afest, so I was quite familiar with the con, but I pretty much went this year for one reason and one reason only and that was Maaya. Ahhhhh!
Sunday
Early Sunday afternoon I rode down to the hotel with my friends, where we wandered around until we met up with one of my friends working volunteer staff for the con, Monica. She was guarding the doors to the main programming room with her friend, Omair aka drhaibane on this board. They told us that she was currently inside the main programming room practicing, and after Omair snuck inside to watch her singing and came out all giddy and euphoric, I asked if I could go look too even though it wasn't really allowed. Monica is a wonderful person, however, and let me borrow her badge so I could go inside and watch her sing for 30 blissful seconds. She was singing "Gift" and it was so amazing. When I left the room I almost collapsed from happiness and hugged everyone in sight. It was so wonderful!! Maaya is so wonderful!
After that we got in line and at about 6: 30 they started letting us go inside, which was very nice. Even though we were near the front they were only seating people in the middle of the room so we were actually a little farther from the stage than we would have liked... ah well. We still had fairly good seats despite me being behind this lady who really liked to sway her head to the music (wtf). Ramen & Rice were playing as we came in; I saw them 2 years ago and they were just as good again.
At 8 Maaya came out!!! She began with "Yakusoku wa Iranai," which I had guessed based on her AX setlist. Here's her setlist, complete and in order:
1. Yakusoku wa Iranai
2. Mameshiba
3. Kiseki no Umi
4. Yubiwa
5. Gravity
6. Loop
7. Gift
8. Kaze ga Fuku Hi
ENCORE
9. Tune the Rainbow
In between songs she would say a few words, and it was so cute! Her voice sounds all high-pitched when she speaks English, it was absolutely adorable. After the first song she told us how nervous she was and that her arms were shaking! So cute! She absolutely had no reason to be nervous, but I love that she cares so much about doing well for an American audience that she got so worked up about it. She just seemed so genuine and I really loved that. Oh yes, and cameras were absolutely prohibited so unfortunately I have no pictures! But trust me, she was beautiful. Her hair has grown out a bit from when it was cut short and it looks adorable.
Oh, and towards the end of the concert, she started getting all teary-eyed! She was so overcome with emotion she started to cry; it was adorable! Later at the panel she said again how she started crying towards the end, and remarked on how American audiences have so much energy and vibrance and that it really moved her a lot. She put her hand over her heart a lot, saying that she would always remember our emotion and love for her. :maaya:
The one kind of irritating thing, though, is that when she would pause between songs, she would have to take a few moments before she spoke to gather her thoughts, and people would use that time to yell out stupid things at her. "Can I glomp you" was the main one I heard from some guy, and there were many others. While I didn't mind it the first few times, it got to where she couldn't talk herself because of the fans yelling. And she was goodnatured about it but she did have to say two or three times "Can I speak?" and that is just so awful, that some people can't shut up and let the singer speak, and she has to *ask* for you to be quiet. Unbelievable.
Other than that it was absolutely amazing, it was magical, wonderful, great, and I felt so incredibly lucky to be there, I mean out of all the places and conventions she chose Dallas and Animefest along with the bigger names of LA/Anime Expo. Some people in the Maaya Sakamoto LJ community were ragging on that because it's a little bit unknown but I really could care less because this is what Maaya chose. They were setting up the arrangements for her to be here even before they made the plans for her to be at AnimeExpo so she wanted to come here first. Which is simply amazing and I just felt so honored--this is only her second American live, and she chose here! Plus, I love that Afest still retains its small-con atmosphere, while AX is a huge con like Akon and I imagine the number of fans there was quite overwhelming, while here we maintained a balance between good turnout and breaking-fire-safety-codes.
And we were wondering why she didn't do an autograph signing (I even brought my CDs for her to sign!) but what I overheard from someone next to me in line *cough* is that she has this crazy stalker fan in Japan who sends her death threats and the like, so they really tightened up security for her. Which makes sense, I guess.... but I really wanted her to sign my CDs. :// Oh well.
Monday
Even though my college still has class on Labor Day (ridiculous), I decided Maaya was more important than school and returned to the con on Monday to attend her panel. Which was equally amazing and I'm glad I skipped all my classes to go. Omair couldn't go, so it was just me and Monica. After breakfast we went and sat down in the room that was going to host her panel, even though we were an hour early so the preceding panel was still going on, and we just sat through the end of that. Because we did that and got there so early, we snagged front and center seats so I was *right* in front of Maaya when she came in, which was so cool. As she came in, everyone applauded, and she looked oh so cute again! Ah, Maaya. Even though her English is pretty good she still couldn't say everything in English so she had two interpreters accompanying her. (Monica and I were so jealous, we want to be interpreters! ;_; ).
The panel was Q&A, with people forming a line down one aisle before the microphone. A lot of people asked kind of silly questions that you could find on any bio of her, but some did prompt her to tell some amusing stories. Apparently, that morning she had gone into the bathroom to take a shower and found a cockroach in there! And it was a big cockroach, she held up her hand to show nearly 3-4 inches! So she called over this lady who was sitting next to her at the panel, though I don't know who she was, her other interpreter perhaps, anyway, that lady was no help *laughs* So they called hotel security, who got on their radio all "Alert, we have a cockroach" and they squished it for her but apparently they didn't clean it up very well *laughs* It was a great story, we were all laughing. And when asked how she liked Dallas, she said it was hot outside, but freezing inside the hotel, which indeed it was! But evidently on her first day here she had gone (with her entourage of course) to go and check out the nearby Sixth Floor Museum (Monica and I: Man! You mean we could have caught Maaya alone without the fans if we had been there too?!) since it was her first visit to Texas and all. Also, she said she had no more abroad/con appearances planned, which made us all feel even luckier to be there. Apparently it took months of planning to clear out the schedule space required for her to come here! And when asked about her favorite American artists, she replied with: Oasis, Maroon 5, Jack Johnson, and Sarah McLachlan (which she said ma-ku-ra-ku-ran, it was so cute XD), which I thought was quite interesting. And quite a few people gave her little presents, though a request to hug her and a request for a picture were both firmly denied.
Then towards the end someone asked her to say something as Hitomi from Escaflowne, and she got all embarrassed and was like "It's been ten years!" but eventually she said "Van! Ushiro!" (Van! Behind you!) and then promptly buried her face in her hands as we all applauded wildly. She was unbelievably embarrassed after doing that and it was so cute! She was even all "How was that?" as if it could have been anything besides perfect! Her utter nervousness about everything was just so cute. Ahhh Maaya <3
One thing she said that I loved was that someone asked her how it felt to have started out voice-acting so young (she did Hitomi at 16) and to now be so accomplished, how it feels to be a 'pro' as opposed to the amateur she was ten years ago. But she said she doesn't consider herself a pro at all, she thinks she's still learning--but when she's doing voice work with the rest of the cast, some junior members will look to her as a kind of big sister. And she said that that made her feel like "Wow, I guess I've become an adult now!" I just really liked that, how much it still surprised her.
And so that lasted an hour and then the panel ended and with it, Maaya's public appearances at Afest. Except... Monica and I had gone over to the skyline elevators on the main level to wait for my sister to come down and guess who should come over to check out of the hotel Maaya!! My sister came down with a few other people at the same time and all of us unconsciously formed this little 'U' turned in her direction, pretty much openly staring at her. Maaya started making her way towards the main doors to leave and noticed us and waved!!! Personally! At! Us!!!! Of course we waved back and kind of laughed as she left, all "How obvious was that?!" to each other. So it was a little silly but I don't care. I had so many favorite moments at this con, but I have to say this was definitely one of them. I love you so much Maaya!
So really, it was just an amazing experience all around, and I think everyone who went shared that impression and can understand how completely happy I was to be there and just how incredibly fortunate I feel. It just made me feel so amazingly happy, it's like I've checked off one of my life's goals that I never ever thought I would complete. I mean, Maaya! Here! I just can't get over it. Plus, a lot of people who went to the concert either hadn't heard of her or were just kind of apathetic, but then after seeing her live, they became total fans! Which I love, she just charmed everyone and that's so cool. Maaya Sakamoto is unbelievably wonderful
And she waved at us!
Oh, and just in case anyone wants to archive this on their site or use bits and pieces of the information somewhere, go right ahead, just be sure to credit me
This was my fifth Afest, so I was quite familiar with the con, but I pretty much went this year for one reason and one reason only and that was Maaya. Ahhhhh!
Sunday
Early Sunday afternoon I rode down to the hotel with my friends, where we wandered around until we met up with one of my friends working volunteer staff for the con, Monica. She was guarding the doors to the main programming room with her friend, Omair aka drhaibane on this board. They told us that she was currently inside the main programming room practicing, and after Omair snuck inside to watch her singing and came out all giddy and euphoric, I asked if I could go look too even though it wasn't really allowed. Monica is a wonderful person, however, and let me borrow her badge so I could go inside and watch her sing for 30 blissful seconds. She was singing "Gift" and it was so amazing. When I left the room I almost collapsed from happiness and hugged everyone in sight. It was so wonderful!! Maaya is so wonderful!
After that we got in line and at about 6: 30 they started letting us go inside, which was very nice. Even though we were near the front they were only seating people in the middle of the room so we were actually a little farther from the stage than we would have liked... ah well. We still had fairly good seats despite me being behind this lady who really liked to sway her head to the music (wtf). Ramen & Rice were playing as we came in; I saw them 2 years ago and they were just as good again.
At 8 Maaya came out!!!
She began with "Yakusoku wa Iranai," which I had guessed based on her AX setlist. Here's her setlist, complete and in order:1. Yakusoku wa Iranai
2. Mameshiba
3. Kiseki no Umi
4. Yubiwa
5. Gravity
6. Loop
7. Gift
8. Kaze ga Fuku Hi
ENCORE
9. Tune the Rainbow
In between songs she would say a few words, and it was so cute! Her voice sounds all high-pitched when she speaks English, it was absolutely adorable. After the first song she told us how nervous she was and that her arms were shaking! So cute! She absolutely had no reason to be nervous, but I love that she cares so much about doing well for an American audience that she got so worked up about it. She just seemed so genuine and I really loved that. Oh yes, and cameras were absolutely prohibited so unfortunately I have no pictures! But trust me, she was beautiful. Her hair has grown out a bit from when it was cut short and it looks adorable.
Oh, and towards the end of the concert, she started getting all teary-eyed! She was so overcome with emotion she started to cry; it was adorable! Later at the panel she said again how she started crying towards the end, and remarked on how American audiences have so much energy and vibrance and that it really moved her a lot. She put her hand over her heart a lot, saying that she would always remember our emotion and love for her. :maaya:
The one kind of irritating thing, though, is that when she would pause between songs, she would have to take a few moments before she spoke to gather her thoughts, and people would use that time to yell out stupid things at her. "Can I glomp you" was the main one I heard from some guy, and there were many others. While I didn't mind it the first few times, it got to where she couldn't talk herself because of the fans yelling. And she was goodnatured about it but she did have to say two or three times "Can I speak?" and that is just so awful, that some people can't shut up and let the singer speak, and she has to *ask* for you to be quiet. Unbelievable.
Other than that it was absolutely amazing, it was magical, wonderful, great, and I felt so incredibly lucky to be there, I mean out of all the places and conventions she chose Dallas and Animefest along with the bigger names of LA/Anime Expo. Some people in the Maaya Sakamoto LJ community were ragging on that because it's a little bit unknown but I really could care less because this is what Maaya chose. They were setting up the arrangements for her to be here even before they made the plans for her to be at AnimeExpo so she wanted to come here first. Which is simply amazing and I just felt so honored--this is only her second American live, and she chose here! Plus, I love that Afest still retains its small-con atmosphere, while AX is a huge con like Akon and I imagine the number of fans there was quite overwhelming, while here we maintained a balance between good turnout and breaking-fire-safety-codes.
And we were wondering why she didn't do an autograph signing (I even brought my CDs for her to sign!) but what I overheard from someone next to me in line *cough* is that she has this crazy stalker fan in Japan who sends her death threats and the like, so they really tightened up security for her. Which makes sense, I guess.... but I really wanted her to sign my CDs. :// Oh well.
Monday
Even though my college still has class on Labor Day (ridiculous), I decided Maaya was more important than school and returned to the con on Monday to attend her panel. Which was equally amazing and I'm glad I skipped all my classes to go. Omair couldn't go, so it was just me and Monica. After breakfast we went and sat down in the room that was going to host her panel, even though we were an hour early so the preceding panel was still going on, and we just sat through the end of that. Because we did that and got there so early, we snagged front and center seats so I was *right* in front of Maaya when she came in, which was so cool. As she came in, everyone applauded, and she looked oh so cute again! Ah, Maaya. Even though her English is pretty good she still couldn't say everything in English so she had two interpreters accompanying her. (Monica and I were so jealous, we want to be interpreters! ;_; ).
The panel was Q&A, with people forming a line down one aisle before the microphone. A lot of people asked kind of silly questions that you could find on any bio of her, but some did prompt her to tell some amusing stories. Apparently, that morning she had gone into the bathroom to take a shower and found a cockroach in there! And it was a big cockroach, she held up her hand to show nearly 3-4 inches! So she called over this lady who was sitting next to her at the panel, though I don't know who she was, her other interpreter perhaps, anyway, that lady was no help *laughs* So they called hotel security, who got on their radio all "Alert, we have a cockroach" and they squished it for her but apparently they didn't clean it up very well *laughs* It was a great story, we were all laughing. And when asked how she liked Dallas, she said it was hot outside, but freezing inside the hotel, which indeed it was! But evidently on her first day here she had gone (with her entourage of course) to go and check out the nearby Sixth Floor Museum (Monica and I: Man! You mean we could have caught Maaya alone without the fans if we had been there too?!) since it was her first visit to Texas and all. Also, she said she had no more abroad/con appearances planned, which made us all feel even luckier to be there. Apparently it took months of planning to clear out the schedule space required for her to come here! And when asked about her favorite American artists, she replied with: Oasis, Maroon 5, Jack Johnson, and Sarah McLachlan (which she said ma-ku-ra-ku-ran, it was so cute XD), which I thought was quite interesting. And quite a few people gave her little presents, though a request to hug her and a request for a picture were both firmly denied.
Then towards the end someone asked her to say something as Hitomi from Escaflowne, and she got all embarrassed and was like "It's been ten years!" but eventually she said "Van! Ushiro!" (Van! Behind you!) and then promptly buried her face in her hands as we all applauded wildly. She was unbelievably embarrassed after doing that and it was so cute! She was even all "How was that?" as if it could have been anything besides perfect! Her utter nervousness about everything was just so cute. Ahhh Maaya <3
One thing she said that I loved was that someone asked her how it felt to have started out voice-acting so young (she did Hitomi at 16) and to now be so accomplished, how it feels to be a 'pro' as opposed to the amateur she was ten years ago. But she said she doesn't consider herself a pro at all, she thinks she's still learning--but when she's doing voice work with the rest of the cast, some junior members will look to her as a kind of big sister. And she said that that made her feel like "Wow, I guess I've become an adult now!"
I just really liked that, how much it still surprised her.And so that lasted an hour and then the panel ended and with it, Maaya's public appearances at Afest. Except... Monica and I had gone over to the skyline elevators on the main level to wait for my sister to come down and guess who should come over to check out of the hotel
Maaya!! My sister came down with a few other people at the same time and all of us unconsciously formed this little 'U' turned in her direction, pretty much openly staring at her. Maaya started making her way towards the main doors to leave and noticed us and waved!!! Personally! At! Us!!!! Of course we waved back and kind of laughed as she left, all "How obvious was that?!" to each other. So it was a little silly but I don't care. I had so many favorite moments at this con, but I have to say this was definitely one of them. I love you so much Maaya!So really, it was just an amazing experience all around, and I think everyone who went shared that impression and can understand how completely happy I was to be there and just how incredibly fortunate I feel. It just made me feel so amazingly happy, it's like I've checked off one of my life's goals that I never ever thought I would complete. I mean, Maaya! Here! I just can't get over it. Plus, a lot of people who went to the concert either hadn't heard of her or were just kind of apathetic, but then after seeing her live, they became total fans! Which I love, she just charmed everyone and that's so cool. Maaya Sakamoto is unbelievably wonderful
And she waved at us!
Nostalgic Lavender// Maaya Sakamoto Translations
Hmmm thinking back on it, I probably shouldnt have yelled "I want to Glomp you" so many times during the concert.
Just kidding that wasnt me. In fact I never heard anybody yelling that. I heard alot of people yelling out song requests, and stuff like "I love you" but nothing inappropriate. I was on the first row behind the closed off area in the left column of seats. I had an unobstructed view of Maaya which was nice. My friends and I were 2 seats away from being stuck at the very back of the center column, which would have been awful.
Just kidding that wasnt me. In fact I never heard anybody yelling that. I heard alot of people yelling out song requests, and stuff like "I love you" but nothing inappropriate. I was on the first row behind the closed off area in the left column of seats. I had an unobstructed view of Maaya which was nice. My friends and I were 2 seats away from being stuck at the very back of the center column, which would have been awful.
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frecklegirl
- Senior Member
- Posts: 429
- Joined: 2005-09-25 04:24
- Location: Tokyo
- Contact:
[quote="Gibb"]I was on the first row behind the closed off area in the left column of seats. I had an unobstructed view of Maaya which was nice. My friends and I were 2 seats away from being stuck at the very back of the center column, which would have been awful.[/quote]
Yeah, we were a little angry about how they seated people: you know, filling up the center column first, then the left, then the right sides. Because we were very close to the front, so we'd been waiting awhile, and we still got awful seats when we should have had those seats in the front rows on the left and right. Oh well. I could still see her fairly well, I just didn't like being so far back when I'd been so close to the front of the line. :/
Yeah, we were a little angry about how they seated people: you know, filling up the center column first, then the left, then the right sides. Because we were very close to the front, so we'd been waiting awhile, and we still got awful seats when we should have had those seats in the front rows on the left and right. Oh well. I could still see her fairly well, I just didn't like being so far back when I'd been so close to the front of the line. :/
Nostalgic Lavender// Maaya Sakamoto Translations