MEN'S PANIC 2018 Fan Report | Male Idol Festival in Japan featuring M!LK, SUPER★DRAGON & more

Now, I've been wanting to go to Japan for a while. For almost 10 years actually so you'd imagine I'd have quite a hefty list of things planned for my trip. One thing I definitely wanted to do while I was there was see as many of my favourite male idol groups live as I could o this led me to BOYS NEON LIVE (a monthly event for male idols). While searching their website, I saw that during the month of August (the month I would be in Japan) they would be running an event called MEN'S PANIC and checking the MEN'S PANIC website, I couldn't believe how perfect it was. There was a whole host of male idol groups set to be performing at the event with more and more continously being added. Since we hadn't decided on the exact dates for our trip yet, I then made sure that our holiday would be booked to include the MEN'S PANIC dates.

MEN'S PANIC took place on August 11th (Saturday) and 12th (Sunday) at Makuhari Messe, a huge convetion centre in Chiba. I would've loved to go on both days but the tickets were quite expensive as well as taking into account the fact that I had to buy them via a shopping service before I arrived in Japan and I had to pay for my dad as well so I elected to only attend the Sunday, since M!LK and SUPER★DRAGON were performing on that day.

After arriving at the venue and queuing for a little while, we got into the hall just before 10am which was when the first performance was due to start. The members of some of the lesser-known indie groups like URAGAWA PROJECT and TOONBOYS were waiting by the entrance, eager to give out their flyers (although some of them seemed a little wary of us at first as I assume they wondered whether we could speak Japanese or not). The members of URAGAWA PROJECT were particularly keen; I ended up with about five different copies of their flyer, haha.

We took some time to familliarize ourselves with the set-up of the hall and then we went over to the Platinum Stage which was where the first performance I wanted to see was going to be. 10 o'clock came and then Starmen KiDS came running onto the stage, full of their usual energy. Admittedly I'm not a huge Starmen KiDS fan so I didn't know any of the names of the songs they performed but it was still super cute.

The next performance I wanted to see wasn't until 11:15 so I just hung around by the Platinum Stage after that, watching whichever groups came up next. I saw Milli Melle Holic and Rushx300. During Rushx300's performance there was a girl next to me who literally knew their entire dance routines and was dancing along with the members on stage which I thought was pretty impressive, haha. I really liked one of their songs too but I have no idea what it was called.

After Rushx300's performance, we moved over to the Diamond Stage since M!LK's performance was due to start soon. Zekkou Cho Dan☆LoVe were just finishing up their set then and yet again they had a super catchy song that I have no idea what the name of it was, haha.

There was a few minutes of waiting around then and then M!LK's name appeared on the screen to the sound of hundreds of screaming fangirls. My dad said, "Oh, it's M!LK!" in recognition because they're pretty much the only group I like that he actually remembers, haha. They came out onto the stage then and they opened with a new song that I haven't heard before but I'm still super hyped. I felt the same way as when I saw SUPER★DRAGON for the first time; there's just this special feeling that seeing your favourite Jpop group in person for the first time gives you that I can't really put into words.

After the first song they did their usual introduction. I was probably a bit too energetic joining in with the calls but I was having so much fun, haha. They also asked everyone to join in with the "towel spinning" for the next song.

The next song was "Summer Gamba!!". I didn't have a towel but I joined in with my penlight. They had back-up dancers for this song that came on stage wearing M!LK T-shirts and dancing with pom-poms, much to my dad's confusion. They did that dance -- I don't know the name of it but it's pretty popular right now -- the one that DA PUMP do in the chorus of "U.S.A".

The next song is "Shissou Pendulum" and even though this is normally one of my least favourite M!LK songs there's something exciting about hearing it live. Everyone doing the wotagei routine for the chorus part in unison gave me this weird sense of community almost, as cheesy as that sounds.

The went straight into "Ternero Fighter" then and I'm waving my penlight like mad because this is one of my jams. Everyone (myself included) was so full of energy during the "Ternero, ternero, ternero~" parts. It was during this song though that I became very aware of Haruki's absense. There's that part in the song where each of the members call out their names so they had to do it in a different order since Haruki's not around anymore and I think it was slightly confusing for them as well as the fans, haha.

SUPER★DRAGON "SWEET DEVIL" Release Event in Chiba Fan Report | Dansei Idol Girl

Luckily enough for me, while I was in Japan SUPER★DRAGON (this month's featured group) were still in the process of doing their free live tour to promote the release of their newest single, "SWEET DEVIL". So with a lot of confusion and limited Japanese, my dad and I travelled down to Chiba for the day to catch their final performance of the tour.

 
The live took place in Seven Park Ario, a large shopping mall in Kashiwa. Thankfully there was a bus from Kashiwa Station that stopped directly outside the venue so we managed to get there without too many problems. When we actually got inside the venue though was when I had to properly break out my rusty Japanese for the first time on our trip (other than saying the odd word to people on the street giving us directions and the like) because we had trouble finding the stage so we ended up having to ask a group of giggly young girls holding SUPER★DRAGON uchiwas the way and they told us in a mix of Japanese and English.

Once we found the stage there was still a while before the live was due to start and on our search we'd noticed that there was a TOWER RECORDS inside the shopping mall so we decided to check that out in the meantime. In there I found a copy of the event edition of M!LK's "Ousama no Gyuunyuu" which I've been after for a while so of course I bought it.

We wandered around the mall for a bit more after that and it was then that I started to wonder where everyone had gotten the SUPER★DRAGON uchiwas from. I really wanted one as I thought it would be a great way to remember the event so I asked a couple of fans who were standing nearby and they explained that if we'd have gotten there early enough and bought a copy of "SWEET DEVIL" then we would've gotten a special ticket with it which could have been exchanged for either a picture with the group or an uchiwa. I was a little disappointed we hadn't gotten there in time but I was happy I'd managed to purchase M!LK's album at least and I still had the live to look forward to.

It was almost time for the live to start then so we went outside to the stage. People who had certain ticket numbers were allowed to go closer to the front but since I didn't have a ticket I was near the back but it wasn't overly packed so my view wasn't too bad. I felt sorry for the girl next to me though because she was smaller than me and could barely see so she had to keep jumping all through the live! My dad wandered off to sit on a wall nearby because it was hot, haha.

After an announcement from the staff, the live started and SUPER★DRAGON came running onto the stage to the sound of screaming fangirls. I think Jean was the first member I noticed and I swooned a little when I saw him. He's had blonde hair recently but it was back to brown now which I think suits him better and he had earrings in. He looked so handsome ;-;