🍌 Kagamine Twins 10th Anniversary Collaboration Cafe 🍊

Happy Holidays everyone!

Having just arrived home around an hour ago, I decided to write about today’s visit to the “Vocaloid Kagamine Twins 10th Anniversary Collaboration Cafe” held at NicoNico Honsha’s cafe in Ikebukuro.

Although I wasn’t a very active Vocaloid fan now compared to during my high school days, there’s still some nostalgia in my heart for these digital singers. Coming across news about this event happening right now, I got a friend from university (who herself is an avid fan of Len and Rin Kagamine) to head over there on the day before the Kagamine Twins official birthday (27th December).

We reserved a 3:30pm time slot online and arrived around 3:18pm to line up. After the staff came to mark our reservation, we were given our table number and the menu to order first before taking our seats at 3:30pm sharp. Even from the online menu list and looking at the menu over and over, we were still conflicted about what to eat. Since you’re still welcome to order at the table, we first chose our drinks.

There wasn’t a lot of people on a weekday afternoon, with around 5 groups of 1 or 2 people in line with us. Still, it might get busier tomorrow with the official birthday of the twins.

One thing to note: when reserving a spot online, you can only reserve up to 2 people. We were guessing this was to avoid big groups and having seen the layout of the cafe, there were only counter seats for singles and tables for doubles only.

Cafe Layout

Apart from the counter seats and tables, there was also a wall that stretches across the cafe area where you can leave wishes or doodles, plus some TV sets playing a collection of Kagamine twins songs related to the items on the cafe’s menu.

The Doodle Wall and TVs

 

Kayla doodling on the wall~

 

Me doodling on the wall~ ✌

 

Both of the things I had were songs I knew and were strongly familiar with. For drinks, I had the “Lost One’s Weeping” (ロストワンの号哭) cocktail, which consists of black coffee with chocolate whipped cream and ice cream on top and a tiny square of sugary milk blanket.

The Drink

Since the drink itself was pretty sweet (even with the bitter black coffee), I went for the “1, 2 Fanclub” (いーあるふぁんくらぶ) Mapo Tofu to balance it out.

The Food

We both shared a 10th Anniversary Special dessert, drizzling of orange and chocolate sauce with a scoop of mango sorbet, a slice of mango pineapple cake, “Number 1 and 0” biscuits and cream in the middle of the plate.

The Dessert

For a character-themed cafe, the food and drinks were pretty good. The cocktail was still my favourite of all the things I had. The Mapo Tofu sauce was sort of sweet but still spicy and although the biscuits for the dessert were pretty dry, the overall dessert was still nice. Portions may feel small but the food presentation makes up for the visit.

You also get a free coaster for every item ordered from the menu, which kind of explains why someone at the other table ordered like 10 glasses of the same drink so she could get all the available coasters…

Free Coasters I Got

For some reason I do need to give a shoutout to the staff at the cafe, they were really kind and accommodating to requests we had. I actually also like this tiny detail of how they kept the coaster face down so we could do a big reveal to see what we got.

Regarding the merchandise for the event, a lot of items (acrylic keychains, the twins’ can badge set and clear file) were actually sold out, with only the big-sized poster and song-related badges still available for sale at the shop nearby.

And that was our visit to the cafe! It was quite worth the visit, especially for a casual Vocaloid fan like myself. I enjoyed listening to their songs while enjoying my meal there, nostalgia showering over me and my friend. If you happen to be around town from now until January 5th and plan to head over, I would suggest making a reservation online first, especially with the holiday season happening for the next 2 weeks in Japan.

Xin’s Visit to Tokyo Takarazuka

Hey so before that, apologies for not updating this place in months… /_\
It’s been a while since I wrote anything here so about time I posted something.

And with that said, let’s get back to the topic at hand!

Failing to procure tickets for Takarazuka’s production of “West Side Story” in January 2018 (Seriously tickets were sold out within minutes of opening sales, it was that bad), I decided to try and catch an evening show by getting a same day ticket [当日券 or “Toujitsuken”].

 

The fanclub awaiting their star first thing in the morning…

After lots of intense research on how early you should go to get tickets and the best days to catch a show, queueing up at 9:30am on a weekday wasn’t too bad. Later when a staff member came along with a counter and greeted us with a good morning (plus a “Thank you for waiting!”), asking her what number I was I realised I was only just No.14 in line for the last row of B seats at the 2nd floor.

My initial plan was to get a standing ticket since personally, my legs are fine and I don’t mind standing for hours (also yes it’s ¥1000 cheaper), but since I’m like around the middle of the queue and standing tickets don’t go on sale until all seats are sold, I decided to keep my space in the queue and just get the last row seat.

10 am came and picking Seat 19 for the last row, I squealed in delight while clutching my ticket in hand…

All I have to do now was survive the next few hours of university before the 6pm show.

~ INTERMISSION ~

Fast forward to 5pm plus a tiny break from university, I left the house aga

in and reached the theatre at 5:30pm.

That gave me some time to browse around the venue: from the gift shop to the rental counters and cafes, before reaching my seat inside the concert hall.

 

Takarazuka’s Giftshop “Quatre Reves”

 

Tokyo Takarazuka’s Ground Floor

 

Also, it’s a good move to visit the bathroom before the show.
The bathroom queues during the intermission were terribly long.

The show I watched that day was called “Berlin, My Love” [ベルリン、我が愛]. It’s about wartime Germany and movies, and a director’s dream in making a “talkie” despite the rise of the Nazi Germany regime and troubles within the UFA; and like almost every Takarazuka show, there’s a budding romance between the director and film star he personally raised to stardom.

Poster for tonight

Despite my basic levels of Japanese, I was still able to follow the story and get what’s going on. Seeing all this live on-stage, I was blown away by how amazing it was to see everyone’s skilled acting, how amazing the stage looks and changes during certain scenes, even the set designs were amazing. The songs for this musical were alright to drive the story, but otherwise, they don’t really stay in your mind after the show.

One piece of advice though: bring some binoculars or opera glasses with you.
I was squinting a lot during the show from the very last row. Still, at least I could get a view of the entire stage and take note of things happening in the background. If you really want to get a closer look at the actresses’ faces and maybe details from the stage (be it sets and costumes), you might want to bring one with you.

Of course, you can rent one from the counter on the ground floor, keep in mind that the rental fee is ¥500 plus a refundable deposit of ¥5000.

The main musical lasts for an hour and we got a 30-minute intermission before the next part. After browsing the gift shop a second time yet not getting anything in the end, I decided to get myself a mocha softie from the cafe on the first floor (which was good 🙂 ).

My mocha softie~

After the intermission comes the liveliest part of the night: a mix of song, dance and vaudeville-style spectacles.

 

All set for Act 2!

 

Although I was overwhelmed with the number of stories they’ve crammed into this 30-minute second act (I’ve lost count with how many stories were there and which story we are in right now), it was definitely more vibrant than the first act. I’m however still questioning how on earth does the audience know when to clap along during the show… (Perhaps there were some people who’ve attended the same show multiple times to get the gist.)

And with the screen (not the curtain) closing down on the stage, my night at Tokyo Takarazuka comes to a close.

For a first experience, I was really happy that I got a chance to catch this amazing troupe I’ve always heard about right here in Tokyo. Whether you’re a super fan of Takarazuka or you just love musical theatre, definitely go if you have the chance. Hopefully I can catch another show next month before the end of my exchange.

Here’s a helpful link on how to get tickets for Takarazuka that I’ve heavily relied on: [Link]