FanimeCon, an anime convention held in San Jose, California, is well known for the Japanese musical acts they have brought. This year, FanimeCon brought two musical acts from Japan: Yuya Matsushita and FLOW. JpopAsia was there to cover Yuya Masushita's time at FanimeCon!
Starting off the weekend on Saturday afternoon with an autograph signing,Yuya Mutsushita proved his popularity within the U.S. as eager fans lined up 2 hours in advance to get an autograph from the star. Running on a tight schedule, the session ended within an hour, allowing him to prepare for the concert that would occur later that day. The anticipation for the concert was clear as fans lined up as early as 6 hours in advance in order to attend the dual concert of Yuya Matsushita and FLOW.
When the show finally started and Yuya appeared on stage in a stylish black suit, the audience erupted in cheers. Yuya opened up the show with the upbeat track “YOU”, filling the entire venue with screams of excitement. He then followed up with “Paradise”, driving the audience wild with his sexy dance moves and pelvic thrusts. During the next song “I’m Sexy”, he displayed moves that were reminiscent of Michael Jackson, as well as introduced each of his two dancers.
Taking his first break, Yuya took the opportunity to practice his English as he introduced himself and told his fans how he was “happy to be here in the U.S. [performing] for the first time”, to which the fans responded to ecstatically.
Continuing on with the performance, Yuya proceeded with his debut single “Foolish Foolish” and the B-side from his new single “Naturally”, “Back to Love”. As he sang, he proved his charm as he slid from each side of the stage to interact with the crowd by pointing at various members of the audience, causing cheers all throughout.
During the next break, Yuya once again took the time to directly address his audience, switching between Japanese and English. After asking “Are you having fun?” and being answered with positive cries, Yuya mentioned that it was his first time at an anime convention and complimented the cosplayers throughout the audience, especially cosplayers from the popular anime series “Black Butler”. This was because Yuya sung the Black Butler II’s ending theme song “Bird” and well as acted as Sebastian Michaelis in the series’ musical adaption.
Afterwards, Yuya began an emotional performance the soft ballad “Hallucination”, a track from the musical adaption of “Black Butler”, followed by “Bird”. No doubt the most anticipated song of the night, fans were allowed to become more connected with the song as scenes from “Black Butler” played on the screens above the audience while Yuya showed off his vocal talents.
Continuing with the references to “Black Butler”, during the next break, Yuya decided to teach the audience the catchphrase of his character Sebastian Michaelis: “Watashi wa akuma de shitsuji desu kara”, translated as “I am one hell of a butler”. In addition to teaching it, he also said the line as he would while acting, throwing the fans into a great frenzy.
Returning to the fast pace from before, Yuya switched up the mood by performing “Trust Me”, another anticipated track due to its role as the ending theme to the anime “Durarara!!”. He then performed “Secret Love” and ended the show with “Honesty”, during which he asked the fans to clap along with him.
After thanking San Jose, Yuya left the stage, causing fans to call out his name for an encore. Returning with a fedora and chairs, technical difficulties arose as the instrumental for “Hallucination” began to play once again. In order to keep the fans pumped, Yuya instructed the audience to call out “Yuya!” as he called “Matsushita!”, which the fans did joyfully. With the concert back on track, Yuya finished off the concert with his newest single “Naturally” as the encore track. With a final photo with the audience, the concert concluded.
Even as the concert ended, the activities were not over. The next day Yuya held a Q&A, another autograph session and a photo-taking opportunity with fans that had received a raffle ticket. A raffle for an autographed poster of “Naturally” also occurred.
This is the interview between Yuya Matsushita and Tokyohive...
Copas from JPopAsia with editing
By: Hirachi ^^
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