#until I blew it way up to make my comp entry | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

cardcaptorcoconut · 6 years

Text

Sakura Fest 2018

Sorry it took so long to write this up! I’m finally on a proper “weekend” break for the first time in nearly 2 months (thank god for comp days!) so this is my first chance to really sit down and write up the rundown of Sakura Fes 2018. It’s been a few weeks since the event happened, but I typed up a bunch of notes that night to make sure I remembered as much as possible. :)

This post is really long and text heavy, so apologies in advance! Also, please keep in mind for those of you who have not caught up to the halfway point in the anime that there are heavy spoilers for the first half of the season.

For the Japanese rundown of with some additional photos during the event, there is a link here with some.

[EDIT] There were mispellings for Saori Hayami’s name. I’ve fixed it now.

This year’s Sakura Fes was held at Maihama Amphitheater, right next door to Tokyo Disneyland. It’s so close by you can hear and see the park rides. This was a much larger venue than last year’s event at Rune Kodaira Hall (total capacity in the large hall there is 1,229 people vs Maihama Amphitheater’s 2,170) and much more centralized in Tokyo. As with last year, there were two performances - the afternoon one and the evening one.

Tickets for the event really blew me away this time around. I didn’t win the lottery tickets early on, but waited for the general ones to go on sale. The morning they did, tickets for BOTH events FULLY sold out within only 10 minutes! I tried to get tickets for the afternoon event, but they disappeared just as I was buying them. Luckily, I snatched up ones for the evening event this time (and am SUPER glad that I did!).

#1) Before the Event

Even though I was going to the later one, a good friend of mine in Tokyo had lucked out and gotten herself a lottery ticket for the early show, so I met up with her before it started. I loitered around outside with her until it was time for her session to start.

There were TONS of people waiting around for the goods for the evening show to go on sale, and apparently a lot of stuff had sold out quickly for the early show.

I waited where I thought we were supposed to line up for a bit, but then someone with a megaphone instructed that everyone for the evening session’s goods line needed to form a different line elsewhere - it was almost like a stampede getting to where we needed to go! I managed to get sort of close to the front of the line somehow, but even so by the time I got into to buy goods, some stuff was already sold out!

Here are a few photos of the venue, goods, lobby, & how everything looked on the day:

List of goods on sale:

The line for entry wrapped around the building:

Kero-chan flower arrangement from Good Smile Company!:

Easter Display:

Fanmail boxes for Aya Hisakawa, Junko Iwao, and Sakura Tange:

After wandering around and taking as many pics as I could, I made my way inside (my seat was in the very, very back of G Block in the theater).

#2) Event Intro & Cast Introductions

The stage itself looked like this from where I was sitting. Take note of the location of the magic circle on stage:

Once everyone had settled in for the event itself, the lights dimmed and the stadium made an announcement about the rules (no photography, filming, etc, so unfortunately I don’t have any photos or videos for this reason aside from the ones above).

Then suddenly, from where Sakura’s Clear Card magic circle was shining on the stage, the floor sunk down and opened up leaving a huge hole where it was. It rose back up seconds later with the life-sized Kero and Suppie mascots dressed up on it. Suppie had on a pair of bunny rabbit ears on his head (Kero did not). Behind them, they had a whiteboard about Easter (much like they do in the Kero-chan Explains It All segments at the end of every episode).

As always, Kero (voiced live by Aya Hisakawa) greeted everyone with "Konanachiwa!!” After getting the audience to do it back, they dove into an explanation about Easter. Unlike Halloween, Easter is not a commonly celebrated holiday in Japan even in the secular sense (Easter Bunny, egg hunts, etc), and the majority of Japanese people don’t know what it’s about. Kero started by explaining that Easter is a Christian holiday and is about resurrection and coming back to life. He started going deep into the religious origins of the holiday, but Suppie held up a sign saying “Don’t give such complicated explanations!!”

Kero gave up and said that if the religious meaning of the holiday is too complicated for everyone to understand, then there is a secular meaning too. He said that the Clear Card Arc is the resurrection of the Cardcaptor Sakura anime, which is why they chose to hold the event as “Sakura and her Friends’ Happy Easter” this year. He also explained that bunnies and eggs are a motif of the holiday and that’s why Suppie was wearing rabbit ears. Kero said that it was time for the event to begin and they both waved as the big monitor above cued up.

The platform they were on descended below again as Maaya Sakamoto’s “Clear” and the opening visuals for Clear Card Arc started playing. As the opening credits progressed, the platform rose back up and all of the CCS cast members participating in the event were on it this time:

Sakura Tange (Sakura Kinomoto)

Junko Iwao (Tomoyo Daidouji)

Aya Hisakawa (Kero)

Motoko Kumai (Syaoran Li)

Megumi Ogata (Yukito Tsukishiro / Yue)

Minori Suzuki (Akiho Shinomoto)

Natsuki Hanae (Yuna D. Kaito)

Everyone waved at the audience and as the theme ended and the platform stabilized, they walked back to the main stage area, but didn’t take their seats just yet. The emcee came out at this point and went through a brief introduction of each cast member. They were in this order from left to right on the stage: Ogata-san, Kumai-san, Hisakawa-san, Tange-san, Iwao-san, Suzuki-san, Hanae-san. [Note: I can’t remember if Kumai-san and Hisakawa-san were sitting in this format, but if not they were switched seats - everyone else was for sure sitting like this.]

The emcee brought up that this year’s theme is Easter again and did another explanation of it for the audience. She said again that it’s originally a Christian holiday, but that in Japanese it’s known as 復活祭 (”Resurrection Festival”) and they wanted to use it because CCS came back too.

At that point, everyone went to sit down in the chairs provided and the emcee gave each staff a chance to introduce themselves. During Tange-san’s turn, she said when they were downstairs before the platform rose up earlier, the Kero-chan mascot was dancing to Clear and was a pro at it. Apparently it was really cute and she really wished she could’ve recorded it (which reminded me of the Cherryblossom viewing chapter with The Record). Hanae-san’s intro was the funniest to me - he said he had a yakiniku bento for lunch and was super energized for the evening show, lol!

This was where it became apparent that the evening show was the “fun one” of the two: After the yakiniku bento comment, Hanae-san said よろしく (”I’m in your care”) to the audience in Kaito’s voice and made a point to sound “sexy.” Everyone laughed but around the same time Suzuki-san was readjusting herself on her seat cushion and sort of absentmindedly said 気持ちいい (”That feels nice”). As soon as she said that everyone in the audience started laughing super hard because it was so unexpected. She immediately got flustered and apologized and said “No, no no! I meant the chair is really comfortable and soft!! That’s all...!!” and laughed with everyone.

#3) Question Time

“How did you feel about Sakura and Syaoran’s reunion?”

As everyone was seated, the emcee opened up for question time. It started off with the question asking how Tange-san and Kumai-san felt acting out the very first SyaoSaku scene of the new series - the cherryblossom reunion. The question showed up on the monitor and then they played a clip of the scene (and said that the clip was only played at the evening show - slightly different from earlier).

Tange-san said she was shy about it from the very beginning when she had to record it. Kumai-san mentioned that during the recording session, she was nothing but happy with how it was written and how they performed it. However, having the scene itself played in front of SO MANY people that day was embarrassing.

The cast on a whole then examined Sakura and Syaoran’s dialogue in that scene. The main part they looked at was when Sakura said she had so many things to tell Syaoran, and he reciprocated that he did too. They the looked at the following exchange in particular:

Sakura: 教えてね！全部！(”Tell me everything!” - The word 教える can be translated as either “Tell” or “Teach” meaning-wise) Syaoran: ああ。(”Yeah.”)

Ogata-san out of NO WHERE, turns to Kumai-san and goes “So I’ve gotta ask, but... What do you mean by 'Yeah' in response to 'I will teach you everything'? What is this 'EVERYTHING' you’re gunna teach her?” The cast and audience lost it again laughing.

Kumai-san got shy and couldn’t answer fully, but goes "Well uh... yeah... you'll have to ask that to CLAMP..." and the cast reminded us again that because we we’re at the evening event they were being goofy and making suggestive jokes like this that they couldn’t at the more “family oriented” afternoon event.

“Tomoyo records lots of personal moments.”

The next scene they examined was where Tomoyo appeared in the SxS scene above recording their reunion, and then in their date episode just before they entered the aquarium (the “This is my best shot!” scene).

The question this time was directed at Iwao-san, asking if she thought that Tomoyo’s recording sessions were growing in scale and becoming more extensive. She replied that “Yes, they are. It’s because (she sees) the love growing (between Sakura and Syaoran) and wants to capture it along with their happiest moments.”

I think it was Ogata-san who jumped back in saying something along the lines of “I wonder just HOW MUCH (of their love) you’ll get to record, heh heh heh...” and everyone lost it again. I was kind of surprised at how much they were implying, haha!

“Have Kero and Touya finally acknowledged Syaoran?”

The next question was whether or not Kero and Touya finally recognize Syaoran as someone who is an ally and cares about Sakura. They played clips of the scene where Kero and Tomoyo were skyping during the date episode, and during the “ruined date” scene where Syaoran retrieved the soggy bento and Touya looked at him and sighed.

Hisakawa-san said that before, Kero would always say things like “You wanna go, brat!?” and try to pick fights with him, but now whenever he says “brat” there’s some love and affection in it. They went on to say that Touya has also started to recognize him a bit and that neither he nor Kero do as much as they used to in protecting Sakura anymore. I read this as meaning it’s not that they don’t want to, but they realize that they have extra help in Syaoran now.

They said that Yukito, Yue, and Touya don’t do as much anymore, but Tange-san said that no matter what everyone helps "Sakura” and that makes her happy. But the reason they don’t do as much now is because “Sakura” has grown up and is more adult.

Something interesting got brought up here with regards to the voice recording sessions - the scenes are recorded in A and B parts separately. Meaning that some of the cast who are in scenes together will record their lines, but don’t know what happened with the other casts’ parts in previous or simultaneously occurring scenes.

Ogata-san said that sometimes when recording their B part, they say to each other “Jeez, what on earth did they do in the A part!?”. It then got brought up that they are close to the end of recording for the anime and they sort of gave the impression they know how things will be finishing up. It was not clear and they avoided mentioning if this “wrap up” was just for the “season” or if there would be any more series to follow.

“Have Syaoran’s techniques stopped working?”

The next clip was from Episode 12 where they caught the Hail card. It was when Syaoran’s fire technique didn’t work and he had to use his other “secret” power to stop the card.

They asked Kumai-san what exactly it was that happened there, but she replied that it’s too much of a spoiler and that they’re not really sure themselves. It seemed like maybe the cast DOES know and just can’t say it because of non-disclosure.

When she was asked, she simply said “I’m not sure if it’s okay for me to say... but I think we have like 3-4 episodes left to record?” Tange-san jumped in signaling "Nooo!” with her arms and corrected Kumai-san saying that they had “several” episodes more to go at that point.

“Is Yue an “Agokui” Type?”

[顎クイ “Agokui”: Suddenly lifting someone’s face by their chin in an aggressive, yet sometimes romantic fashion]

Ogata-san talked about how she has played many "cool type / handsome guy” characters in the past. They then played the scene where Yue says to Sakura “Tell me anything that happens, even if it’s something small” and touches her chin.

She said that during this scene and others, she was just acting it out naturally and how she thought would be a normal back-and-forth between them. However, some of the lines that would just come out without thinking were deemed as not appropriate by the directors. She said that the way she acted the lines came out naturally because as a woman acting out a male role, she was just saying what seemed appropriate and not thinking of what “male feelings” might be like in this situation.

For example, at the end of one of the Facetime/Skype sessions with Sakura, she would say おやすみ (”Goodnight”) as Yue. After about 2 or so times of this, the directors pulled her aside and commented that “It’s a little suggestive saying ‘goodnight’ like that to a middle schooler...”

As such, she had to tweak how she replied in that scene. She went on to say that she talked about it with Tomokazu Seki (Touya) as well on how they needed to act in certain scenes.

Apparently even at the Sakura Fes event, the staff was instructed not to ad-lib dialog anymore. Hisakawa-san had done it at last year’s event and they were warned not to do it as much this year, but overall ad-libbing was too much fun and it’s something the audience audience enjoyed, so it couldn’t be helped.

“Who are the new characters?”

The next topic up was the new characters: Akiho and Kaito. The scenes they played were Akiho’s self-introduction at the school and her competing against Syaoran in badminton. They also showed the scene where Sakura and Tomoyo come over to her house and meet Kaito for the first time.

Suzuki-san and Hanae-san talked about how it felt to record their lines. Suzuki-san in particular said that during the badminton scene, Kumai-san helped her match up the timing by playing air badminton with her in the recording booth.

They also talked about how Hanae-san constantly keeps reassuring everyone Kaito’s not a suspicious guy. He said everyone suspects him and that the cast had asked everyone at the afternoon event what their opinions were. Everyone reacted that they think he’s definitely shady.

Suzuki-san said that even SHE thought that and when she was acting out Akiho’s lines, the directors told her she had too much doubt in her voice. The instructed her to reassess and act her lines out in a more Akiho-like way - that she loves him and thinks he’s a really good person, even if Suzuki-san herself doesn’t think that.

Hanae-san chimed back in and emphatically goes “But I am a good person!!!” and tried to convince everyone again.

“The new Key, new Magic Spell, and new Wand...!?”

The last scene they put up on the monitors was Sakura releasing the new key into the sealing staff and using her new spell. Cue a shameless plug for the new Takara Tomy Clear Card wand toy that has voice recordings from Tange-san.

The cast collectively was like “YES, TAKARA TOMY EVERYONE. OF COURSE” and I got the impression they were a bit sarcastic like they had to advertise it as part of their job, but were a little like “Yeah, we know this isn’t what you’re here for, lol.”

They brought out the wand and had Tange-san use it. She asked the audience to say the “Release!” chant along with her and said if we did that maybe some magic would happen. When we all said “Release!” together, the stage platform opened up again. She asked us to help her seal the stage back up and everyone repeated the sealing chant together. Upon shouting “Secure!”, the stage went back to normal.

After this, the emcee made the annoucement for the “Sakura Hoeeee” Mori Arts Center Gallery Exhibition in Roppongi Hills later this year in October. They asked everyone to please look forward to the event.

Apparently, this is where the live stream ended for the afternoon event, though there was no live stream for the evening event.

#4) Live Cast Voice Acting Performance

Now it was time for a live voice performance from the cast. The emcee explained that the story would be how Sakura and her friends spend Easter Sunday (that very day). What surprised me the most for this was that for the sake of the performance, all of the characters seemed to know each other and of each other’s existence. This meant that Kero was interacting in scenes with Akiho and Kaito.

Sakura spoke first and was humming along while doing something in the kitchen. Tomoyo chimed in asking what she was up to. Sakura replied that she and Akiho were making eggs/omelettes because that’s what’s done on Easter.

Akiho said she wasn’t good at cooking, but wanted to try her best. On hearing this, Tomoyo said that she wanted to record them cooking and Sakura gave a loud “Hoeee..."

Sakura asked Akiho to go and get the eggs out of the fridge, but when Akiho opened it they were no where to be found. Everyone panicked a little bit, but then Kero appeared. He said “Well did you know that on Easter people like to hide eggs! So all we need to do is go find them.”

Kaito said “Let’s go look" and Yukito agreed with him. The whole group then traveled all over the world looking for the eggs! They ended up in a strange place... EASTER ISLAND!

Syaoran remarked saying “What is this place?” when they saw the monoliths on the island, so Kaito jumped in explaining that these were the Moai of Easter Island. Kero then explained that the Moai were mysterious carved figures shrouded in mystery.

But the group couldn’t find any eggs on the island, so they moved on. The next place they appeared was somewhere they initially thought must be “far away” from Japan. They thought that it must be overseas, but then found it out it was the “Land of Dreams” - AKA Disneyland right next door! They decided to split up and look for the eggs.

Sakura and Syaoran were paired off and while looking around and each found a matching egg. Their eggs’ image was shown on the monitor and were green with pink designs. Together they made a pair.

Syaoran once again saw some helpless foreign tourists and whipped out his English skills again. (Kumai-san has really mastered the “Do you need any help?” line lmao). He also said “The cat is in Disney Sea” in English. Sakura went CRAZY about the English and was like “Syaoran-kun, what did you say!?” so Syaoran ad-libbed and said “Ahh… well if I do a direct translation… I said 'There’s a cat in the Land of Dreams” (which was a reference to Geratoni - a plush stuffed cat of Tokyo Disney’s Duffy & Friends collection.)

Sakura was impressed and begged him to teach her English again. They had basically the same exchange as the date episode and he said “I'll try, but I don’t know if I can teach you anything useful...” to which she responded that she already remembered the word for “cat” so it was okay. As always, Tomoyo suddenly popped out of nowhere recording them and they got embarrassed.

The scene switched to Kero and... Yue! Yue was in full form and searching for eggs too! He said he could search better in this form and was doing it to assist his mistress. Kero remarked that “Well it's true that in Disneyland, people will just think you’re cosplaying someone, so I guess it’s fine. But wait! I should be in my true form too! I will change now into my--”

Yue cuts him off saying “Don’t you dare! If you do, you'll draw too much attention and you'll get petted and hugged and kicked by all of the children here!!” Kero was like “Ahh... oh man... you’re right... Maaan, but I would look so cool if I did!!”

The scene changed again, this time to Akiho and Kaito. They were searching for eggs on their own and she thanked him for helping her. Kaito said that he was “just happy that you seem to be having a good time with everyone.” All of the sudden they both stopped and said “What on earth is that??”

Akiho and Kaito had discovered the BIG GIANT EGG...

While the cast had been performing, a larger than life egg shaped... thing(!!) had risen up out of the rising platform floor again.

Everyone approached the egg and were like “Whoa! You could make a HUGE omelette with this!” However, the egg was so big that they couldn’t take it back home. So Kero said "Well one thing that is done on Easter is egg decorating! We should all decorate it...”

Then they temporarily stopped the voice acting session and the whole cast moved up to the egg. It turns out that it was a giant egg shaped whiteboard. Right next to it on the platform was a cart with lots of markers, cherryblossom petal shaped stickers, and decorative balled up tissue paper. The emcee explained the cast were going to be given 3 minutes to decorate the egg and the started playing a little tune while we watched them bustle about. But in the end they had so much fun that they went a bit over time!

One of them dropped their mic during the decorating session, but I couldn’t see who it was. Everyone jumped though, haha.

Hisakawa-san and Tange-san drew two Suppie faces: One was regular Suppie, and one was “evil Suppie.” They said that without knowing it, they had both drawn Kero at the afternoon session, so during the break between the two they decided to do Suppie for the evening session.

The cast drew a Momo, a random crab using cherryblossom petals for claws, happy faces, a cherryblossom tree, and a panda. But the best part was that they also wrote a few inappropriate things!

Hanae-san wrote 真実の愛 (“True love”) and Suzuki-san wrote right beneath it 夜だから (“Because it’s night time”). And - echoing what she’d said earlier about how saying “goodnight” was inappropriate - Ogata-san wrote おやすみ (“Goodnight”) in really big letters.

Regarding the panda, Hanae-san said he drew it because he was wearing a panda pin. Everyone had asked him at lunch why he was wearing that and the reason was really cute. He said he was confused about what Easter was and thought that it was a holiday where any animals would be appropriate, so he wore a panda instead of a rabbit.

After that, they all returned to the main stage to resume the voice acting performance. A staff member wheeled the egg off and put it on the side of the stage.

Sakura and her friends were all happy as they finished decorating the egg. I think Syaoran said “Where do you even display an egg this big?” but no one knew the answer.

Then Kero said part of the Easter tradition was that God would choose whichever designed egg was the best and grant the person who designed it a wish. That wish would come true. Everyone reacted saying “Oh wow, really???” (I was sitting there thinking thinking “wtf that doesn’t sound right...”), but then Yukito spoke up saying “I’ve never heard that.” Kaito joined in saying the same thing.

Kero laughed nervously and said “Ahaha... I’ve been found out...” indicating he had made it all up. Tomoyo said he was just like Yamazaki lying to them like that. But in the end, they all had a nice time decorating the egg and doing the Easter egg hunt.

(I don’t fully remember how this came about, but) there was a part where Yukito said to Sakura that she was very adorable and she reacted by saying “Hanya--n!!” (I was hoping Syaoran would react somehow, but he didn’t so I guess he is very secure with their relationship now ♡). They then said they should take a photo with the egg to commemorate the day.

There was a pause again in the session and the emcee announced that the cast would be taking a photo with the audience from the stage. Since it was a huge amphitheater, they were taking 3 or so shots - left, center, and right side of the seating area. They said that anyone who was shy and didn’t want to be in the photo could cover up their face.

Center stage was first, then the left side, then the right side. After that, they finished up the voice acting portion of the night:

The scene changed back to the Kinomoto residence. Everyone had gone home for the evening and it was just Sakura and Kero.

Sakura said there had been a lot of tough things that happened earlier, but that it had been a fun day. She said “Oh, I even forgot we were supposed to make eggs today!”

Kero replied saying “What? You couldn’t find the eggs? But, I’d taken them out of the fridge earlier and I put them back...”

Sakura raised her voice and said “WHAT!?” and Kero replied “Yeah, they’re right here...” revealing that they’d been hidden in the fridge the whole time.

Sakura then ad-libbed in Kansai-ben and said ケロちゃん！！！なんでやねん！？！(“Kero-chan, what the hell!?”)

The cast finished up at that point and thanked everyone for watching. Then they said “You gave us an Easter photo together with you, so we will give you a present also!”

Suddenly, tons of paper stickers/notes from the cast began falling from the ceiling! I think they were egg shaped, but it was hard to tell because I was in the very back. They fell into the audience and a few lucky people got them. Some people rushed out of their seats to get the ones that had fallen into the aisles.

Some of the “gifts” fell onto the stage too, so Ogata-san and Tange-san helped pick them up and give them out to people in the audience. Ogata-san was really awesome and shouted out “Are there any little Sakura-chans in here!?” and called for any kids present to come up and get the stickers. One very happy little girl came running up and received one directly from Ogata-san. After that, she asked if there was anyone present who had been at both the afternoon and evening performances (I think there might have been a couple people).

After handing the remaining gifts out, all of the seiyuu thanked the audience again and left the stage together.

#5) Live Musical Performances

Maaya Sakamoto

Next, they introduced a special video message from Maaya Sakamoto on screen, who unfortunately couldn’t be at the event because it overlapped with her own international tour dates. In the message, she said she was so happy to sing “Clear” as the theme song.

The show runners gave her the theme of “clear things” for her to use for direction when writing her song. She explained that the word “clear” has multiple meanings: “transparent” or "definite and precise” or "to succeed with a goal”, so she wanted to write a song with all of these meanings rolled into one.

She let us know that she was so happy to be part of CCS again and although she wasn’t there, her colleague Saori Hayami was and would be joining us as the representative today.

Saori Hayami

The emcee came out with Hayami-san and said that as the second half of the season would be starting the next week, it was time to pass the baton over to the new OP and ED singers.

Hayami-san explained that everyone has little things that shine in their hearts and are like “Jewelry of the Heart.” After her explanation, she gave a live performance of the “Jewelry” ED.

To be honest (and I hate to say this), but I didn’t think that Hayami-san was very energetic in her performance. She seemed a little lacking in enthusiasm and just walked one circle around the stage, but as always the song itself was very nice.

While she performed, they played clips of the anime on the screen and showed the Jewelry ED clips as well. At the very, very end, they FINALLY revealed what Sakura had seen on her smartphone at the end of the ED (where she’s showing Tomoyo and Kero and they all smile): It was the “photo” they just took earlier that day on April 1st -- the official artwork for Sakura Fes this year.

The text message she had gotten read “Thank you for taking a photo with us!”

When the performance ended, the emcee came back out and thanked her. She reiterated that they were “passing the baton from next week.”

Kiyono Yasuno

Kiyono Yasuno and Minori Suzuki came out on stage. Suzuki-san had changed her clothes from earlier to red outfit and yellow shoes. The emcee introduced each of them and they talked about CCS and what they liked about it.

Yasuno-san said she’s watched CCS for a really long time. The very first time was when she was really young and her grandpa watched it with her. To her, it was like a dream being chosen to sing the new OP and that this was her first single.

The emcee asked who they thought was “cool / good-looking” from the series. Hayami-san said that she thought Yukito and Eriol were attractive. Yasuno-san had watched the CCS syndication in elementary school too and was the same age as Sakura through it. Because of that, she thought Syaoran was the coolest guy. Suzuki-san also thought the same.

Hayami-san then “passed the baton” and they left the stage to let Yasuno-san perform Rocket Beat.

It was my first time (and all of the audience’s too) to hear Rocket Beat and right away I thought it was an awesome song. It really seemed fitting for CCS. In addition, Yasuno-san was super energetic and gave a very spirited performance. She was actively all over the stage. As before, her performance was also synced up with scenes from recent anime episodes.

When she finished, Suzuki-san came back on stage and the figuratively “passed the baton” again.

Minori Suzuki

Suzuki-san is in charge of the new ED “Rewind” and also gave a really awesome performance. The song was super cute and (as everyone knows by now) clock themed.

She did motions of the clock while performing, syncing up with the “Tick Tock, Tick Tock” lyrics. More clips from the series played, but nothing new to that point.

#6) Closing Out the Event

When Suzuki-san finished her song, the whole cast came back out on stage. The staff then wheeled out a birthday cake again in front of Tange-san - just like last year. Once again, the audience sang Happy Birthday to Sakura and Tange-san blew out the candles.

They talked about what birthday this would be for Sakura, and Tange-san confirmed that this would be Sakura’s 13th birthday. She then said “These past 20 years – Ahhh! I mean... it’s been 20 years but Sakura’s not 20! She’s definitely 13!” and laughed.

They showed an image of the cake on screen and it was the one that was currently being sold by Animate. They then said it was time to close out the event and the audience started groaning, so the emcee had to apologize for how “short” the event was.

Everyone said their goodbyes, starting with Yasuno-san. She said it was a dream come true to sing the theme song for an anime she had loved so much as a child and that exactly one year ago on April 1st she had started her singing career. She promoted her first single (a mini album came out just before this).

Hayami-san said her Thank You’s next for everyone enjoying Jewelry.

Hanae-san was third, saying “I will do my best, and from here on it’s going to be Akiho Akiho Akiho taking center stage!”

In response, Suzuki-san said “I will do my best and so will Kaito-san! I’ve loved this anime so much! Last year at this time, I was wondering ‘who is going to play Akiho’ and never thought that it would be me!!” She said she feels so lucky to be both a seiyuu and the singer of the second ED for the series.

Ogata-san was next, but was caught off guard and sort of spaced out. But she said thank you to everyone for all their support. She said that at last year’s Sakura Fes, they found out really soon after it ended there would be another one this year. So she shouted out to all of us “that means THERE SHOULD BE ANOTHER ONE NEXT YEAR RIGHT (EVENT SPONSORS)??”. She said that even in this industry, it’s super rare for the whole cast to come back for a show’s reboot and that really demonstrates how beloved CCS is.

She passed the mic to Kumai-san - who was also spaced out and wasn’t paying attention again. But she also said thank you to everyone.

Next was Iwao-san who said thank you and did a mini-voice over of Tomoyo saying 超絶によかったですわ！(“It was absolutely fantastic!”).

Hisakawa-san was next, and like Ogata-san, she said that last year she got a call about a week or so after Sakura Fes ended asking her to save the date for this one. She said “I mean, after today, I’m sure that just a few days will pass and then I'm sure I'll get another call… Hahaha! You guys want another one right!?” and everyone cheered.

Finally, it was Tange-san’s turn and she said they almost made it through the whole thing without a "Kero-chan Check.” At last year’s event, they always seemed to come out of nowhere and no one ever knew when to expect it. She begged Hisakawa-san to do one and Hisakawa-san laughed. She got a bit shy and was like “For real???” but in the end shouted “KERO-CHAN CHEEECK!” as Kero. Tange-san then thanked everyone for their support and for loving Cardcaptor Sakura. She hopes everyone will continue to love it in the future and bowed.

The cast came out into the circle stage to say one final goodbye and then they waved and departed the stage from both sides of the main stage. The emcee left last after deep bow. The Jewelry ED came on the big screen and played through to the end.

After the song finished, the Kero and Suppie mascots once again rose out of the platform floor. BOTH of them were wearing rabbit ears this time. Kero-chan started to talk about how awesome it was that he grew another pair of ears too.

Suppie had a new card this time that read “Just say what you have to say!” so Kero started talking at super-sonic speed thanking the cast and staff in batches:

The singers

The companies that made it possible

The seiyuu

And said thanks to all of us for watching him be awesome every week

He said to tune in next week for the start of the second half of the season, and also to keep watching him be so awesome in the Kero-chan’s Corner segments. Suppie violently shook the sign!! lol!

Then gave one last “thank you” to the audience and brought the event to a close, saying “We definitely kicked up even more of a fuss than ‘some place’ that’s right next door” (again, Tokyo Disney lol).

The platform lowered, bringing them back down underneath the stage, and just as they disappeared there was another final “Kero-chan cheeeeck!” shouted. The lights went off and then came back on with the ending announcements.

As I was leaving, I made a friend who was a big fan of Suzuki-san from when she was in Macross and had only just recently started watching CCS because of her. This fan had only seen Clear Card Arc so far, so I said to definitely watch the rest of the series!

I hope if there’s another Sakura Fes next year, I’ll have the chance to go again. :)

以上、さくらフェス2018の報告でした！(That’s all folks!)

#cardcaptor sakura #card captor sakura #cardcaptor sakura clear card arc #card captor sakura clear card arc #clear card arc #sakura festa 2018 #sakura fest 2018 #sakura fes 2018 #sakura festival 2018 #sakura tange #junko iwao #aya hisakawa #motoko kumai #megumi ogata #minori suzuki #natsuki hanae #maaya sakamoto #saori hayami #kiyono yasuno

81 notes · View notes