Midori na Silhouette

DaiCon 2009 - The Minori Experience

-and that’s about my best shot of Minorin. If you’re here looking for photos of her, you’ve come to the wrong place.

Well anyway, let’s get straight to it.

The Q&A Session

At around 5PM, we were told we could move in and find our seats already. As I had mentioned in my DaiCon convention post, I thought the seats with the huge VIP stuck on to them were the seats for AWSM ticket holders, and so I begun my search for my seat in those rows. I quickly found out that this was not the case, and that my seat was really in the third row from the front. (°A°;;)

I moved to my seat, and noticed that e-jump was in the seat right beside me. I had a great time chatting with him and the folks around.

It was a while before the Q&A session actually started. If my memory serves me right, it was about 5:40/50+PM when Minorin finally walked in. Everyone was shouting, “MINORIN” at the top of their lungs, and pretty much going crazy. Before Minorin had arrived, we were told we were not allowed to go on-stage to take photos. As soon as Minorin made it to the center of the stage, chaos ensued, and everyone rushed up front, forming a mob of both official and non-official photographers. I joined in, but too late, as there was no good place to shoot from, and my height does not help.

I had originally planned to record the Q&A session with both my mp3 player and by taking down notes, but gave up on the first. I did do the latter, but only at about half-way through, since prior to that, I was busy enjoying Minorin’s voice and trying to take pictures of her (at which I failed miserably. I blame this on not thinking of bringing my tripod, and a crappy DSLR).

Before I share my record of the Q&A session, I must complain- the VIP seats were never filled, leaving us just that much further from Minorin. But worse than that, some of the official photographers (and bloggers?) took the liberty of filling those seats themselves. As one who paid for front row seats, I just felt that this was unfair. As you can see in the photo above, a photographer/blogger/NINGEN obstructs the view. Yes, I am butthurt. (ò_ó )

Let’s get on to the Q&A panel record (Note: The following are rough quotations and translations):

Q: Among all the characters you have played, which character’s personality matches yours the most?

A: Mmm.. I’d have to say Shirakawa Nanaka from Da Capo. (Minorin then goes on to detail how their personality matches, but I can neither remember, nor did I note it down)

Q: Do you have any role models?

A: As a voice actor, Hisakawa Aya. I first met her during my debut as Natsume Aya in Tenjou Tenge. She took good care of me, and was like an elder sister to me. As a singer, Yutaka Ozaki, because he really knows how to express himself through his music and singing.

Q: What do you think about the food here? (And later,) I heard you ate prawns?

A: I enjoy the curry. Ah, yes! I love the “sambal udan(g)”.

Q: How did you start your career as a voice actor?

A: I actually began by attending a music school, learning about singing. Through my time there, some of the staff took notice of my voice and personality, and suggested that I try out as a voice actor. I did so, and after some hard work, I made my debut in Tenjou Tenge.

Q: Could you share with us funny or interesting experiences as a voice actor or singer?

A: Hmm.. Ah, there was this one time when I was playing the role of Nagato Yuki. Kyon (that’s how I remember her referring to Tomokazu Sugita) was supposed to read from the script, but suddenly began to ad lib instead. I thought that was really amazing.

For a more complete (and perhaps, more accurate) record of the Q&A session, you can visit bj0rn’s blog, or Quazacolt’s blog.

Somewhere in between those final questions (I do not remember when exactly), after the Q&A session was opened to the audience, the following exchange took place:

*Minorin chooses a guy with Chiaki headgear to ask a question*

Chiaki guy: (Softly and unclearly, he says) Are you married?

Translator: He says, “Please marry me”

Minorin: EH?! *hides her face for a while, presumably giggling* What do you like about me? ^^;

Chiaki guy: (Again, very softly and unclearly) Nothing really.. (I heard him say, “ベつニ..”)

Translator: You have to speak louder, we can’t hear you.

Chiaki guy: *thinks a while* Your voice.

Minorin: Thank you. But I’m not thinking about getting married yet, and would like to focus on my career.

By the end of it, I was щ(°A°;;щ)

What a waste of a question.

After the Q&A session finished, the autograph session began. This went along for quite a while, which left me rather upset since I had to rush off to another event elsewhere. Oh well. The length of the autograph session could not be helped.

At about 7:20PM, the autograph session finally came to a close, and Minorin gave her closing words. I did not note down what she said, but her last line was most memorable..

“マレーシアは最強だ！このバカ野郎！！”

The Concert

On day 2, I decided to arrive at DaiCon just before the concert, since there is nothing to do at the place anyway. Turned out to be a wise choice, as when I got there, all the lights were off, and lots of the sponsors were packing up. I’ll not go into detail about that though.

At about  3:10PM, we were allowed to enter to find our seats. To my delight, there were some goodies on the AWSM and some ELITE seats.

Left to right: Red light stick, Minorin flag, blue light stick, a notice from MSS, some Animax advertisement nobody really cares about.

The light sticks were kindly provided by some Malaysian and Singaporean fans (thanks guys), you can read more about their project (in its early stages) here. The flag and notice are from Minorin Smile Seasons (Minorin fanclub from Japan).

Aside from the goods, I was also pleased to find that the VIP seats were now reduced to one row, meaning I was now in the second row from the front. \o/

Soon enough the concert began, and the rest is a memory too good to share with mere words. It was.. phenomenal, to say the least. Indeed, as great as an experience as it was, there is not much for me to say.

I had kind of hoped to see 6 violinists in the background during the concert though. (´·ω·` )

As usual, no photography was allowed during the concert. Not like I would’ve gotten any decent pictures anyway. (´-ω-`;; )

Well, that pretty much sums up my concert experience. I left shortly after the concert ended, and that was it.

Now, curse my bad taste if you will, but I’d love to see school food punishment next year. (òωó )