Iwasa Misaki Christmas Event (with Hasegawa Ai and Matsui Sakiko) at Shibuya Loft 9 (2022/12/25)

If you asked me what my ideal Christmas would consist of, going to Shibuya would be far down on my list. Frankly, I don’t like the place at all. It is way too crowded, full of tourists, and just a clusterf**k overall. Then again, if you asked me who I would most want to spend Christmas with, there is only one answer….Wasamin.

With that in mind, I headed down to Shibuya to spend the evening with my favorite girl on the planet. And while I was down there, I decided to make the best of the situation, first meandering around to various HUB locations to redeem my free drink birthday coupons, and then to Guzman y Gomez for a nice burrito dinner, before heading to the venue. I thought about heading to a fourth HUB location for another drink, but I was full, and I didn’t feel like re-joining the hoards of people wandering around the area. In fact, it was much more fun to hang out with the other Wasafans and catch up.

I arrived at Loft 9 around 35 minutes before doors. For those of you who are familiar, this is one of the many venues tucked behind Shibuya 109, Spotify West, Club Asia, Shibuya O-Crest, they’re all back there, along with a bunch of love hotels. A fun area.

I hung out mainly with Wild-san and Kingyo-san waiting for doors to open. It turned out that getting there early was meaningless, as there was a number on our virtual ticket that dictated our entry order. By the way, there were a bunch of cute girls in the queue. I’m guessing they may have been Hasegawa Ai’s former groupmates in Fudanjuku/Nakano Fujoshi Sisters. I’m not sure though. They were let in pretty early and had really good seats. I had ticket #65, and grabbed a table toward the back. Kingyo came in very late, but the seat next to me was empty, so we shared a table. I had hoped they would be selling Wasamin’s calendar at the event, but there were only CD’s for 2-shots. So I grabbed two CDs for one shamekai ticket, and I was good to go…

The three girls came out in their Christmas outfits. Of course Wasamin was the most adorable. (No, I’m not biased…honest) It turned out that this was more of a variety show. There was a short interview, followed by a long quiz. Although it seemed a bit contrived, and the answers the girls “wrote” were all pre-printed on their tablets. It was stuff like “What is phrase you often hear from your manager” and “caption the following photo” stuff like that. Eventually they did a short singing set. The playlist was as follows…

1. White Story (Hasegawa Ai’s new single)
2. Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer
3. Koibito ga Santa Claus
4. Jingle Bells
5. Meri Kuri

Sakippe was on the keyboards, and Wasamin switched off lead singing with Ai-chan. The entire event took around 90 minutes. After series of photoshoots, and stage prep (they had to pack up Sakippe’s keyboard) it was time for 2-shots. A lot of the Wasafans bought Ai-chan’s CD, and lined up to see her. The funny thing is, I used to be a fan of Nakano Fujoshi Sisters, but Ai wasn’t the member I liked. So I beelined to Wasamin’s queue so I could get my 2-shot done and get back to Saitama, as I was really exhausted.

I was about sixth in line, and just as I stepped toward Wasamin, She (in her usual cute expressions) cried Kurisuuuuu! Immediately after she asked “Isn’t my outfit cute?” Now to be honest, a) it was very cute, but b) it’s not the first time I have seen her wear it. In fact, it’s not even the first time I have taken a 2-shot with her in that outfit. But of course, I love Misaki-chan, so of course, I told her it was “cho-kawaii” In fact, I told her that spending Christmas with Misaki-chan is the BEST Christmas!

After that I hustled my way back to Shibuya Station and barely made the 21:05 train back to Central Saitama. I lucked our too and got a seat on the train, so I could doze off a bit for the 61 minute ride back home. I’m not sure when I’ll next see Wasamin, but I DID pick up her new calendar for the online store. Hopefully it shows up soon, so I can promptly replace my 2022 version. And I should be receiving my Wasamin-nengajo early Sunday morning.

CK in Japan