User blog:LuciaHunter/μ's FinalLoveLive! 2016 ~μ'sic Forever~ Live-Viewing Day 1

Day 1, starting at 4pm JST. Stage: Tokyo Dome.

The Tokyo Dome. A 55,000 seater stadium meant for baseball games, and not to mention all the live-viewings across Japan and the east side of the world.

With it being the Final Live, I went in with a heavy heart. Even if I was also hyped about it on the surface, there was a shadow I couldn't really shake off. A quiet wish to just freeze time right there and then. But perhaps that's where the genius of Hata Aki comes in.

Anyway, on to the entire live.

Set-list
Encore
 * 1) Bokura no LIVE Kimi to no LIFE
 * 2) Bokura wa Ima no Naka de
 * MC1
 * 1) Natsuiro Egao de 1,2,Jump!
 * 2) Wonderful Rush
 * 3) Yuujou no Change
 * 4) μ's Chronicle Part 1
 * 5) Mogyutto "love" de Sekkin Chuu!
 * 6) Baby maybe Koi no Button
 * 7) Music S.T.A.R.T!!
 * MC2
 * 1) Yume no Tobira (Short ver.)
 * 2) Susume→Tomorrow (Short ver.)
 * 3) Wonder zone (song) (Short ver.)
 * 4) Korekara no Someday (Short ver.)
 * 5) Love wing bell (Short ver.)
 * MC3
 * 1) Dancing stars on me!
 * 2) Happy maker!
 * 3) μ's Chronicle Part 2
 * 4) WAO-WAO Powerful day!
 * MC4
 * 1) NO EXIT ORION
 * 2) Sweet&sweet holiday
 * 3) Omoide Ijou ni Naritakute
 * 4) Futari Happiness
 * MC5
 * 1) Shunjou Romantic
 * 2) Cutie Panther
 * 3) PSYCHIC FIRE
 * MC6
 * 1) Sakkaku CROSSROADS
 * 2) μ's Chronicle Part 3
 * 3) Angelic Angel
 * MC7
 * 1) Kaguya no Shiro de Odoritai
 * 2) Datte Datte Aa Mujou
 * 3) μ's Chronicle Part 4
 * 4) Hello, Hoshi o Kazoete
 * 5) ？←HEARTBEAT
 * 6) Future style
 * 7) μ's Chronicle Part 5
 * 8) Sore wa Bokutachi no Kiseki
 * MC8
 * 1) Mi wa Mu'sic no Mi
 * 2) Super LOVE=Super LIVE!
 * 3) No brand girls
 * 4) KiRa-KiRa Sensation!
 * MC9
 * 1) SUNNY DAY SONG
 * 1) START:DASH!!
 * 2) Snow halation
 * 3) MC10
 * 4) Oh,Love&Peace!
 * 5) Kitto Seishun ga Kikoeru
 * 6) MOMENT RING

Double-Encore
 * 1) Bokutachi wa Hitotsu no Hikari

Detailed Review
I'll only be writing notes on things that stood out to me, so a lot of the old songs will not actually have substantial comments on them: this means that they were mostly like previous performances in previous lives, with nothing exceptional about them. I'll comment more on this in the last section.

The live started with a new, special animated short sequence where the members of μ's are gathered around the alpaca pen, examining the new baby alpaca. They take turns to talk to the audience through the fourth wall, eventually asking where they are now, only to find to their horror that it's DOOM DESU. A lot of other characters also make cameos such as Mika, Hideko and Fumika, A-RISE, Alisa and Yukiho, and Principal Minami.

It comes to an end with a really nice sequence where the members of μ's pass a heart-shaped balloon from one to another- and they're each at a different location. Specifically, the locations of their past 5 lives, finally concluding with Honoka at Tokyo Dome. Very nice attention to detail and callback.

1. Bokura no LIVE Kimi to no LIFE The live then kicks off properly with the very first song they ever released, and with them dressed in the same BokuLIVE outfits they used to wear- except unlike the past, this one's shiny! The white parts have been turned silver, and both the red and silver parts are really glittery. It was a really nice upgrade to the costume, and the song and dance went exactly as it always does. Crowd went crazy every time the camera focused on Jolno though- and with good reason. She's finally back ;w;

2. Bokura wa Ima no Naka de They finish the first song and go straight into the second, the OP from the first season of the anime. Not much to comment here, the audience is just getting hyped.

MC1 A round of welcome and introductions across the seiyuus, along with calls-and-responses. Just as always, we start with Shikaco/Hanayo, who gives pretty much the same lines- most of them do, nothing really special. Ucchi takes it up a level by finally giving her call-and-response- well it's more of just a call, with her going "If you don't get hyped for me, Kotori will make you her snack". We've only seen this line appear at 4th and 5th, but this is the first time she's said it during the introduction MC if I'm not wrong. Apparently, she's embarrassed by it which is why she never really used it.

Jolno didn't really have a "tadaima" (I'm back) moment the way I imagined it, though the cheers still went crazy when it was her turn. It's been so long since we last had her together with the rest.

3. Natsuiro Egao de 1,2,Jump! Or well uhh, I wrote that but Jolno actually disappears right after the intro MCs. Natsuiro has always been a song early on in the set-list so this wasn't much of a surprise.

4. Wonderful Rush Wonderful Rush showed us one of the new effects they're bringing in this year, which is a floating stage! I'm not sure whether it was hung from the ceiling or supported by columns along the walkways (probably the latter?), but this was literally a stage that could move horizontally and vertically, and in many of the performances they actually moved over and past the audience in the front-most center block, passing by overhead. Unfortunately, this stage was dangerously high enough that it required a wire mesh at its front, or so it seemed from the camera angles. Many of the frontal camera views taken during this stage had this mesh in front of it that was pretty annoying to be honest, hopefully they switch to the side shots when they make the BD.

5. Yuujou no Change I actually had trouble pinpointing the title of this song for a while. The girls head off-stage and onto a gondola, where Jolno was waiting at the top and high-fived/hugged everyone who passed by her. There was also a partial NicoMaki moment between Soramaru and Pile who sort-of-hugged, which made the crowd go wild.

μ's Chronicle Part 1 Pre-recorded interview about their first meetings with each other, and the start of the LL project back in Dengeki G's Magazine.

6. Mogyutto "love" de Sekkin Chuu! Mogyutto maid outfits. I am happy to have lived to this day to see this. This was the best moment of my life. Except Jolno was missing- she only comes back later. That feeling when we'll never get a full Mogyutto recording complete with outfits.

7. Baby maybe Koi no Button Another old song, but oh they had the giant alpaca dolls on stage which were pretty cute. Don't remember them being interacted with at all though- or maybe I missed it.

8. Music S.T.A.R.T!! Hypeeee. This has always been a good crowd song because of all the calls that one can do with it. Really enjoyed this one. Besides, Maki-center. :^)

MC2 Pretty much them talking about their new costume. Don't really recall much-

9. Yume no Tobira (Short ver.) Ended rather abruptly to be honest. Wasn't expecting it to be shortened.

10. Susume→Tomorrow (Short ver.) Another old classic- never was one of my favorites though. :/

11. Wonder zone (song) (Short ver.) Maid outfits = Wonder zone. Good pairing of costume and song, went past too fast. They got back onto the gondola again for this, where Jolno was waiting.

12. Korekara no Someday (Short ver.) Jolno and Kussun actually take part in singing this one though they weren't there for the original version. Unfortunately, they seemed quite distracted playing with two small alpaca plushies together on the railing, lost in their own garden.

13. Love wing bell (Short ver.) Another crowd favorite that went past too fast (are you seeing a trend here).

MC3 Can't really remember what happened but they went to put on orange glowy aprons decorated with Halloween themed prints like pumpkins and bats.

14. Dancing stars on me! Minus Jolno again, but was so happy that we got the full version because Kussun's pirouettes. The machine also rained down confetti of bats and pumpkins down on them.

15. Happy maker! A song that seemed to have come too early. Mostly riding smaller carts around, did not have the actual dance from the anime, most likely because they were missing Jolno so no Jolks heart.

μ's Chronicle Part 2 Reflection on their very first live. A quote that still stands out firmly in my memory is from Soramaru, who said that when she was first told about their first live, she was all "Wait, we have to dance? I didn't hear about this at all." It's a long-running funny trivia about Soramaru that she's not very confident at dancing (I can't remember the source for this unfortunately). Also Pile shows up on the video with the same hair as the video before the Final Live, the one where she looks like she either just rolled out of bed or got out of the shower. I've been informed that she has said she actually likes this hair, though the audience is still quietly groaning each time she appeared on screen.

16. WAO-WAO Powerful day! A Printemps song! I'll be upfront here, as a BiBi fan, I've listened to the other two subunits latest singles about one time each and then never again. Most of them didn't really catch my attention.

Oh, they're in the same outfits as the single illustration though, with puffy tails attached. They even got Ucchi to bare her waist as well as wear those unbalanced pants. This outfit is not very flattering to Emitsun though- IMO that dress print made her look like some old lady.

MC4 MC was mostly spent talking about their new costumes, about how it went from a flowery image to something cooler this time. Emitsun tried doing a rock star pose too. The topic then transitioned into singing a cool song, which led to the following.

17. NO EXIT ORION The screen effects behind them were of flying through endless constellations. This was a pretty cool song, though not very easy for the crowd to cheer to.

18. Sweet&sweet holiday An old classic! If you're talking about Printemps, it has to be this song. I'm really glad they chose this song as their extra third song to sing.

19. Omoide Ijou ni Naritakute lily white makes their appearance wearing... dresses wrapped in bubbles. It's kind of like normal dresses the same colours as their single cover's, but with a complete layer of big bubbles over everything. It made them puff up so much there was one point on a small gondola one of them got stuck between the balloons on the gondola- yes, because we need more things that look like bubbles. Lastly, Kussun tried to blow bubbles but epically failed when only a few came out instead of the stream we were expecting. So they broke out the bubble machine at the end to show her how it's done. You can never have too many bubbles apparently.

20. Futari Happiness Frankly I'm annoyed they picked this song for them as their extra song. There were so many other songs that were more definitive of lily white- and even if they were the same, all three of their songs were just so chill it was a bit of a crowd killer.

MC5 Traditionally, lily white does a survey of the audience every live, asking random questions, but this year they only asked who had already seen the cherry blossoms. But it turned out they had this amazing idea, asking everyone to change their cyalumes to either pink or white, hide them, and only pull them out when signalled to do so. It was quite an amazing sight to see the entire Tokyo Dome turn into full bloom bit by bit.

21. Shunjou Romantic Nothing much. Not a very crowd hyped song since it has too many slow parts.

22. Cutie Panther BiBi makes their appearance in outfits that looked like their first outfits, except the skirts and parts of the upper half were changed to silver dyed in shades of their respective colors. It looked pretty darn amazing, as expected of BiBi. I'm so glad they went out with a bang- and that they chose this song too. The intensive dancing was replaced with a lot of gondola riding to take it easy on Jolno's knee, but it was still very much hyped.

23. PSYCHIC FIRE When it comes to hype you can't beat PSYCHIC FIRE, really. The crowd went wild- having a song with calls already incorporated is actually super fun. Pile almost tripped near the end moving across from one stage to another.

MC6 MC where they talk about their songs, and they mention about how it fits because BiBi is a comical unit after all- they even pause to ask themselves what their original unit concept was, but none of them actually plays the straight man here. (Rather than comical, their original unit concept was the complete opposite: adult, cool, fashionable, etc.)

24. Sakkaku CROSSROADS The compulsory serious song from BiBi.

μ's Chronicle Part 3 Reflecting on their 2nd and 3rd lives.

25. Angelic Angel Angelic Angel outfits, all nine of them! Complete with Mimorin hair rings that were apparently clip-on, but it was super funny to see anyway. When it came to drawing the heart, what happened was they used the side screens to display them with a CG overlay, tracing out a golden after-trail on their fans. It was pretty nice to see... for the first chorus. The second and last chorus got mucked up when the detector somehow registered their entire bodies and drew golden shadows on their entire bodies instead, which pretty much ruined the entire screen.

MC7 Them discussing their new costume, and also teasing Mimorin for her hair rings. Kussun tried to put her fingers through both of them heh.

26. Kaguya no Shiro de Odoritai It was clear this song was coming up even before the MC, since it was the only logical transition with the kimonos and fans. Jolno was absent once more, and the only other notable thing was during the instrumental interlude where they're all supposed to say a line each. Rippi ended up saying "Hontouni icchau no?" instead of "isshoni ikou?", which was a line from Datte Datte Aa Mujou. So that kind of obviously spoiled the set-list for me but I was so excited.

27. Datte Datte Aa Mujou The last song to use a kimono and folding-fan combination, it was logical to put these three together. Also this is my favorite song and I probably deafened the people around me with how loud I screamed the moment the intro started. Pyrotechnics, falling sakura images at the last bit, the only thing missing was, well, Jolno. :X

μ's Chronicle Part 4 Reflection on 4th live.

28. Hello, Hoshi o Kazoete This song was amazing for all the effort they put into it- they followed the movie animation to the dot. Rippi goes on and dances, swings around lamp-posts, Pile gets out of a giant yellow cab cutout to join her, and Shikaco joins in after leaving her coffee table. But what was amazing was Shikaco ripping her coat away to reveal a costume similar to Rippi's beneath it, with Pile following shortly after. Nice moment that drove the crowd wild.

29. ？←HEARTBEAT The third years show up wearing those fancy costumes they had at the end of the song's original animation, and also with heart-shaped sunglasses. Also a point where they just sit down on a sofa and sing, and Kussun flings a giant plushie that was on the sofa off-stage. They end around some cube frames with lights, going in and out of them- I'm not sure how this really worked into the dance.

30. Future style The second years get short-changed with the school uniforms and not much in the way of props if I remember right. RIP.

μ's Chronicle Part 5 Reflection on 5th live and the movie.

31. Sore wa Bokutachi no Kiseki SUNNY DAY SONG outfits, and still missing Jolno.

MC8 Jolno reappears for MC. Can't remember much about what was said but it led up to them talking about the song everyone made together, the next song.

32. Mi wa Mu'sic no Mi MiMiMi is amazing for doing calls. μ'sic forever~ Since I hadn't watched the Fan Meeting Tour footage yet, this was actually my first time seeing this song being performed. Jolno joined in for this one too.

33. Super LOVE=Super LIVE! Transition into the coupling track, with them all grabbing either a towel or a pom-pom (or both). Another fun crowd song.

34. No brand girls Jolno disappears, everyone else does NBG. Once again, one of the most well-known crowd songs which makes it extremely satisfying to do calls to. Something happened at the ending jump though, basically Emitsun's SDS outfit has this chain holding her jacket together, and her jump was so strong that the chain flew up and entangled her mic, yanking it down. In the short moments before the next song begins, the camera accidentally focused on her where she was hurriedly readjusting her mic- which is now missing the mic's foam cover.

35. KiRa-KiRa Sensation! Not much that jogs my memory right now.

MC9 A short break while they wipe their sweat- Rippi's face was really covered in sweat, and she also used her towel to wipe off Shikaco's face too hehehe. But yeah, they literally just did five super hyped songs almost non-stop, the transitions between some of them were really super abrupt, so it was understandable. Rippi is then targeted as the new leader to teach everyone the SUNNY DAY SONG choreography. Though it was supposedly simple, it's pretty hard to pick up and do right in the middle of a live-

36. SUNNY DAY SONG Jolno is back again as expected, lots of hand-waving on the part of the audience to follow the dance. It was quite fun to do that, but less hyped. Different kinda song, I suppose.

Encore About two minutes' wait, which is pretty fast. They then began playing the choruses of the six main PVs and the S1 and S2 OPs to buy time. For the entire encore, Jolno is present in all of the songs.

37. START:DASH!! The quintessential encore song, the symbol of starting afresh. They were back in the first outfit of the day.

38. Snow halation A song that had been conspicuously missing the whole day, it finally makes its appearance.

MC10 Closing MCs that felt absolutely, ridiculously short. It was so bad I didn't even believe it was the last MC- and turns out it was. No one did their call-and-responses, Kussun literally asked everyone whether they liked Love Live!, μ's and Nozomi one by one, and that was half her MC done. Pile fires off a bunch of lines, barely pausing for breath and she's done. That was the general trend. The only thing that really stuck out was Ucchi's, where she was talking with Emitsun about an early Printemps event with only 80 audience members. Emitsun then mentions how they either agreed or challenged themselves, that some day they would turn these 80 audiences into over ten thousand. That was a seriously touching moment for me though none of them really reacted that much to it.

39. Oh,Love&Peace! I had expected Aishiteru Banzai actually, but this is pretty close.

40. Kitto Seishun ga Kikoeru Gondola riding, second-years group hug, while Pile and Shikaco use Rippi's maracas as mics.

41. MOMENT RING The final μ's single. I was starting to question whether they would even sing it. It was worth the wait though, near the end they actually use one of the lengthy instrumentals to focus on each of the seiyuus in turn, doing a solo dance while shown next to their respective characters on the central screen, with the side screens displaying scenes of the character from the anime. It was the sort of animation we were familiar with that we usually expected at the start of the concert, and had felt missing up to here.

Double-Encore Another short wait, before the videos start once more. First, a recorded interview of them reflecting on the past six years. Many of them are emotional, and Emitsun's eyes were brimming with tears while she sniffed to keep her nose from overflowing. Follow that up with a collage of past live videos, muted and with sad music instead, which just utterly murders everyone who's watched the previous lives. It really drives in horribly hard how far they've come.

42. Bokutachi wa Hitotsu no Hikari The next animation is them backstage doing the μ's Music START! thing, numbering off one by one. And of course, the audience all calls out 10 after 9. They were shown in their BokuHika outfits, which pretty much everyone was expecting. I mean, it's not like they would skip out on this song, so they had saved it for the last. And they did it so well. So, so well.

If you remember the floating stage, at some point it had become a huge flower bulb while it was dark. As the song starts, the flower blooms open, the large petals opening to the side revealing the nine of them in the centre. And of course, they were dressed in the BokuHika outfits, though more whitish than pink.

They were limited to just within the flower bulb for their dance, so they mostly went in circles for their dance, or cycling between the center and the edges. But the song, that song, already so powerful in its own right, was just amplified beyond all sense by this incredible stage.

Just when we thought that was it, before the final chorus starts, all nine of them gather in the center. And as they spin outwards, all of them release the upper half of their costumes to flip down, revealing a simple white top but with a skirt reminiscent of flower petals in their respective colours.

I don't think there was anyone who wasn't moved by that.

Ending The song comes to an end, and the closing is an instrumental of BokuHika. As always, the crowd continues singing to serenade the girls, while they wait for the floating stage to dock back at the main stage for them to get back.

Every single time a chorus came along, it was the same line that killed everyone.

"Ima ga saikou"

Every one of them was crying, and Jolno and Mimorin being the most visible from what I saw. It was a very tearful goodbye on their part, as they sank beneath the stage.

Overall Thoughts
Here's the real talk, where I go into everything about the concert: These are opinions shared between me and a few others who attended, we all noticed the same few odd things we hadn't been expecting and couldn't really pinpoint until we spoke with others. Of course, everyone has their own opinions.

The concert was too rushed, with way too many songs than should be in a proper concert. I know, obviously you want more songs so you can enjoy more, but it's really a bit of an overload to the point where songs became forgettable: performances did not stand out from one another. There's a reason a lot of the songs lacked comments in this post: They didn't seem particularly innovative or built on from previous years, some of them really felt like they were just rushed through because they "had to be there" on the playlist.

I'm sure this will of course, feel a lot better on a BD/DVD where you can just pause at will, but in real life it was kind of daunting being dragged along from one song to another with barely any breaks- at some points it even makes you wonder if the seiyuus are doing fine. For the audience it's not really a matter of physical strain- it's emotional, where you're unable to calm down enough and process properly before the next one happens. It kind of lowers the enjoyment.

The venue was too wide. Okay first up, this was inevitable. They had to squeeze as many people in as possible so it had to be Tokyo Dome. But this is really more of an issue of spacing than anything else- their dance formations should have been kept a bit tighter. While it's understandable that they want to spread out and reach out to as many of the audience as they can, when they spread out along the main stage for some songs, they look like they're about twenty to thirty meters apart each? That spacing was just way too wide for the camera to take effective shots.

There were more derps this year. Technical errors, seiyuu mistakes, etc. Perhaps there's more simply because they're doing more songs, so more chance for errors. Or perhaps they're really just overstraining themselves.

The special effects were less powerful than 5th live. This is more of a subjective matter but I really didn't see much this year that wowed me aside from BokuHika. The screen effects were less stunning, the lighting effects were more disappointing, the only thing they had more of was confetti usage. Another one of my friends commented that the stage this year was closer to 4th live than 5th live. We've effectively taken a step backwards instead of forward. Maybe they blew all their budget on that flower stage, who knows. Final Live obviously wins every live in feels, but definitely loses out to 5th in just live quality. It's kind of regretful.

Everything that was important to say was recorded instead of said live. There were a ton of those recorded interviews, while MCs remained insanely short- but you can easily see why, because if they had to do a proper closing MC, there was no way they would be able to sing BokuHika afterwards. I wonder what it'll be like tomorrow. It just feels really weird and unnatural to hear recordings instead of seeing them talk about their feelings live.

Other Fun Stuff

 * Still no Ruteshi Kisuki Shiteru? Pls.
 * No Shangri-La Shower either? Meh.
 * Did we seriously just go through a concert without Aishiteru Banzai!? Will the world end tonight?
 * Where's my Sayounara e Sayonara! for closing song? What about Korekara? Which of these will they pick for tomorrow?
 * Subunit singles were done on the first day so that they can keep everyone in suspense as to what they'll be replaced with on the second day. I've got my money on 3-person Soldier game.
 * No seiyuu chocolates/gifts this year so no one else needs to sacrifice their Twitter account. ;w;