Fanime 2004 Report

by Roxanne

Saturday May 29, 2004

Today was the first time I saw BLOOD here. Kristin (my daughter), Suzanne, Becky, the other Kristin and I went and got a dozen red roses each for the members of BLOOD. We decided to give the roses to BLOOD at the panel, and we were almost late getting there because the con decided to make the BLOOD panel an hour earlier than it had been scheduled, and we didn't know they had changed to time! When we got there BLOOD was already there. I looked up and saw all of them sitting there when we walked into the room, but I couldn't take my eyes off of Kiwamu. He looked so amazing!

When he saw Kristin (my daughter) he recognized her and waved to her (she is the person Kiwamu chose from the audience at the panel at Ohayocon, and then BLOOD did her hair and makeup). Then we gave the roses to them. Becky gave roses to Kaede, Kristin (my daughter) gave roses to Fu-ki, and I gave roses to Kiwamu. Then we sat down and they started the panel. The translator said anyone that had any questions for BLOOD should form a line in the middle aisle at the front of the room, and no one got up. I think people were afraid to ask them questions. When no one else got up, I got up and walked to the front of the room to ask the first question. I asked a question about the song BLIND (I knew that Kiwamu had written the music for the song several months ago, and that Fu-ki had written the lyrics, but at the time Fu-ki had not even known about Kiwamu's music). I asked them if they had to make any changes to the lyrics or the music to get them to go together. They said that it had not been a problem. Then one or two other people asked them questions, but people seemed reluctant to ask them questions, so I went up to ask another question. I said that I wanted to ask each of them "If you could have one wish, what would it be?" I was very distracted when I asked the question, because as soon as I walked up there, Kiwamu started pointing at me, and I was thinking 'Why is he pointing at me, is something wrong?' Later I realized that he must have been pointing at my con badge, because it had my name on it, and he must have recognized my name! They each answered my question, but I was so distracted at that point that I only remember Kiwamu's answer, which was "Sell all of our CDs so we can go home". After answering a few more questions, they said that the members of BLOOD were going to draw pictures of each other. They each drew a picture, which were given away later in a drawing. Then they said that the members of the band were going to make balloon animals. Fu-ki looked at the balloon he had been working on and realized that it looked very distinctly like a part of the male anatomy, so he held the balloon over towards Kiwamu. Kiwamu stood up, and Fu-ki put the balloon in front of Kiwamu in a place which made it quite apparent what the balloon looked like! Kiwamu started laughing very hard (along with everyone else in the room), then he took the balloon and started trying to put it in Fu-ki's mouth, which made everyone laugh even harder!!! It was one of the funniest things I have ever seen. During all of this Kaede just had a look on his face like 'I can't believe you guys are doing this', and he was laughing too. Eventually they all finished making their balloon animals, and they were also given away in a drawing. Then they had a drawing for a chance to spend 1 hour with BLOOD the next day. They announced that BLOOD was going to be going to the jpophouse booth in the dealer's room, where they would be selling their CDs. I had to go back up to my hotel room to get a battery for my camera (which I had forgotten in the rush to get to the panel), so I told Kristin to go on to the dealer's with everyone else and that I would meet her there.

When I got to the dealer's room, the booth was naturally very crowded. I saw Kristin and she started saying "Come here, come here" in a very excited voice. She said something like 'get over here, hurry up'. I told her I was coming but I didn't want to cut in front of the other people, and she said "No, you don't understand, Kiwamu was asking about you!" At that point I was like 'What, he was asking about ME?' She said "He wanted to know where you were!" (Kiwamu had asked me a few days before this to take picture for BLOOD). So I got over to where she was standing next to the table as fast as I could. When I got over there, Kiwamu turned around and Kristin told him 'This is Roxanne' and he nodded his head like 'yes I know', then he shook my hand and said "It is very nice to meet you". I said "It is very nice to meet you too". I am surprised that I managed to say anything, because I had not expected anything like that at all! Then Kiwamu turned toward Kaede and Fu-ki and said something and I heard him say my name, and from their reaction he must have said 'This is Roxanne'. They both were like 'Oh' and looked at me.

A little while later I asked if I could get a picture taken with them, and they said yes. Kristin took the picture, and then I turned around and asked Kiwamu if I could please have a hug. He smiled at me and said yes, and he hugged me! Then I asked Kaede and Fu-ki for hugs too, and I got hugs from both of them! We hung around the booth for a while, and Suzanne asked us if we thought she should show Kiwamu the "Finding Nemo" wallpaper she had made that had Kiwamu's head floating underwater behind 2 fish on it (which is REALLY funny!) and we told her to show it to him. She did, and he laughed. Then she showed it to Fu-ki, and Fu-ki said "Ugly" and pointed to Kiwamu's head in the picture. It was SO funny!

Later on, I asked them if I could get another picture with them, and they said yes. Kaede came over and he looked at Kiwamu & Fu-ki and said "Roxanne Roxanne Roxanne!" in a very excited voice! Then he came up behind me and put both of his hands on top of my head and put his head over top of mine to get the picture taken. I was VERY surprised by his reaction.



We stood around for a while, and during that time several fans came up to talk to them and have pictures taken with them. One girl had kitty ears, and Kaede took them and put them on his head.



Then Kaede decided to put the kitty ears on Fu-ki!



Fu-ki took the kitty ears off of his head and held them up over his chest like a bra, but I wasn't fast enough to get a picture of it. It was really funny!

Shortly after that, a guy came up and talked to Fu-ki and Kaede, and he had toy guns. Fu-ki took one of the toy guns and started checking it out.



Then Fu-ki pointed the gun at Kaede and started acting like he was shooting him with it, but unfortunately I didn't get a picture of it because some rude person walked up in front of me and stood there taking pictures of them, even though they could see that I was trying to take pictures of them at the time.

A little while after that, I bought a sword and I asked Kiwamu if he wanted to see it. He said yes, so I gave it to him. He took it and started playing around with it. He acted like he was going to attack Fu-ki with it, and Fu-ki trapped the blade between his hands. It made me very happy to see them having so much fun.


Sunday May 30, 2004

Today we went to the BLOOD concert. While I was waiting to go into the concert, I found out that they were letting photographers go in ahead of time, but they had to have a press pass. I was very concerned that I would not be able to get close enough to the front to get good photos when I found this out, and just at that time we looked across the street and saw BLOOD walking toward the convention center! Kristin (my daughter) asked me if I wanted her to go over and catch Kiwamu and tell him what was happening and that I needed a pass (I needed to stay there so I wouldn't lose my place in line), and I told her yes, to hurry over there and catch them if she could. When she caught up to them, she explained to Kiwamu that I needed a pass, so he asked his staff to get one for me, so they started doing what they could to try to get one for me. Later, I spoke to them and gave them my cell phone number.

After waiting until almost time for the concert and not hearing anything from them (I later learned that they had the wrong phone number) I started to become very concerned. Just then we saw BLOOD and their staff coming across the street to go inside and get ready for the concert. Kristin said ‘Hi’ to them, and one of the staff members said that the band wanted us to come with them because they had been trying to get me a pass, but they were having problems, so they wanted us to just come with them! We went inside with them and we got to go backstage!

We were backstage for over five hours. We missed most of the other bands playing, but I didn't care at all. It was just so amazing to be able to spend so much time with BLOOD!

Out of respect for the band and their privacy, I will not go into much detail about what happened backstage. There were a couple of things though, that happened that I am sure they won't mind me talking about.

We had a video camera with us, and Kristin asked if me she could use it, so I told her to go ahead. A short time later, Fu-ki came into the room. When he saw that Kristin had the video camera on him, he held out his arms in front of him toward her and he started walking toward her. He said "Hey my honey" to her and then he glomped her! It was so funny. Kristin got up (she had been sitting on a table next to me) and glomped him back. Then he put his face right up in the camera and acted like he was going to kiss the camera lens!

A while later, Kiwamu came up and sat down on the table next to me, then he put his arm around me and pulled me a little closer to him, and I could tell he wanted something, but I wasn't sure what it was because he didn't say anything. Then he looked at Kaede and said something in Japanese and pointed at my camera, and I realized that he wanted Kaede to take a picture of the two of us with my camera. I had my biggest zoom lens on my camera at the time, and I could tell that Kaede was somewhat unsure about using my camera (I think it must have looked quite intimidating to him). Kaede said something back to Kiwamu in Japanese, and although I don't speak Japanese, I got the gist of what he was saying just by the look on his face, which said 'You want me to take a picture with THAT?!' Then Fu-ki, who had been watching and listening to everything had the same reaction. I gave my camera to Kaede and told him “it’s easy” (to use). He looked at me like 'OK, if you say so?!' and took the camera from me and took a picture of the two of us.



Much later it was almost time for BLOOD to go on, so we all went downstairs and waited backstage and watched Duel Jewel finishing their performance. Then it was finally time for BLOOD to perform (they played last)!

It makes me very sad to say that BLOOD had technical problems right from the start which were in no way their fault. I felt so badly for them! I think they should be very proud of themselves for the way they handled things. They showed just how professional they are by doing everything they could to continue and try to put on a good show, which could not have been easy under the circumstances. I am just so sorry that they didn't have a proper chance to show just how amazing they are, but they were still really great!

I was so busy running around trying to make sure that I got really good pictures for them that I didn't really have a chance to watch the show, but it was very important to me to get some great pictures for them, so I didn't mind it at all.

At the end of their performance, Kiwamu collapsed on the stage (he had put everything he had into the performance, and I think he was just totally exhausted).

The next day, they were unable to make it to the autograph signing because the convention staff had created a scheduling conflict. They had scheduled BLOOD’s flight back to Japan early that day, and unfortunately they had to leave before the signing.

As you can probably tell, I had a really great time at Fanime! ^_^



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