Kanjani8’s PUZZLE Tour 2009 at Tokyo Dome Review – Disc 1

It’s been nearly two years since we’ve seen a concert DVD released from Kanjani8. Despite the fact they’re on tour every year, we only see a DVD whenever they release an album (unlike other artists who release DVDs with nearly every concert tour) so its pretty much a big event and marketing campaign whenever Kanjani8 does release a concert DVD.

Unlike their other concert DVDs, Puzzle’s presentation seems more like a coming of age than anything else. While 47 was all about breaking records, doing everything by the ‘ go big or go home ‘ philosophy, Puzzle takes on a more sophisticated approach: Everything from the lightening of the stage to the actual performances. Nothing is over the top; it’s all simple and tasteful. Explosions, flashes, confetti, and all of that are kept within tasteful means that makes focus more on the group itself than the set design. Whether this is due to the economy or the actual intentions of the concert planners is beyond me, but I personally enjoyed it.

It come off like a magical sea of lights with all the glow pens being waved in the air

Puzzle was released with two versions: A Dokkiri (Prank) version and a Documentary version. The concert itself is the same on both DVDs with the extra disc being the only difference between the two. Version B, Dokkiri, included a photo book while Version A, Documentary, had a hologram casing.  The packaging was simple, sleek, and to the point. Not bulky in the way 47 came in and not a typical DVD case in the likes of their previous three concert DVDs. All in all well design, except in the case of Version A’s; in which the DVD contents and lottery for the DVD event falls out whenever you open the case.

Now, let’s actually get to the concert review itself!

There is significantly a focus on the fans in this DVD. The opening sequence focuses mainly on the fans as each member’s name is titled across the screen with their appropriate cheers. It makes it come off like a magical sea of lights with all the glow pens being waved in the air, with the panning on each fans’ face holding their favorite uchiwas close to their chests. Then suddenly the curtains fall and the concert starts.

1. Musekinin Hero

Kanjani8’s biggest single opens up their concert tour. The performance simply is them standing in hovering platforms signing as their free labor, I mean, Johnny’s Juniors dance beneath them as back up. Overall the performance was on point: It has to be; they’ve sung the song like 23502359235238523523523 times since October last year.

The camera pans out to do a near 360 aerial view around Big Egg to the entire audience who are all doing the dance to the chorus of the song. It’s really amazing to see a room of 50,000 people all going Jyaa jyaa jyaa jyaan!

2. Its My Soul

They leave their platforms, Its My Soul immediately plays. This is pretty cool because they’re huddled together in a group till the first horn crash where they jump away from each other like an explosion. Nice touch.

The performance is, again, on point. They’ve sung the song for two years now so it should be expected. No dancing in this performance either, because they’re all ridding on those big ass rolling monitors that circle Big Egg.

3. Kan Fuu Fighting

Again, nothing to say about this one. It rolls in straight into the chorus much like a melody. Three years singing this, they should be able to sing this blind folded and death without a problem. The only problem on this is partly on fault with whoever did the ADR for the DVD itself, as there’s a major feedback between the actual recorded, mixed, track on the DVD and the feedback echo in Big Egg.

I don’t know if this is significantly noticeable on a TV screen but watching this on a laptop with headphones it proves to be slightly distracting as the syncopation is slightly off.

On a totally personal note, I find it funny how when I heard this song three years ago I totally hated now it’s almost a personal favorite.

4. Misetekureeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!

You know its band time when Subaru screams Misetekure and half of Kanjani8 are gyrating on stage. Or attempting to. How ever you want to interrupt the hip moves.

Misetekure is actually not a favorite song of mine so usually when I listen to it I tune it out, strange since I am a big rock fan. But this performance was pretty good. Entertaining, with a lot of fast cuts with the editing and crude, “fancam” angles from the audience itself.

5. Heavenly Psycho

…. I. Hate. This. Song.

I guess that disqualifies me to be a Kanjani8 fan.

Again, that feedback issue is very obvious in this song… almost to an annoying level. It’s pretty much not as noticeable when they hit the chorus but the moment they hit the verse it’s very noticeable.

At this point after Heavenly Psycho, Yoko performs his only flawless ability in Kanjani8: MC. He riles up the audience and gets them all hyped up for member introductions. Everyone introduces themselvesssss… And I still can’t get over how huge this audience is. I don’t know why I never noticed this on 47, lol.

Hina askes for all the male Eighters in the audience to yell out, which then you hear this loud collective yell from all the male fans. It’s pretty funny how small it is, yet so amusing how many there is at the same time.

Ryo end’s the introductions to where the audience goes crazy and introduces the next song. A pretty nice break.

6. Ichibyo Kiss

After the trip down memory lane was over, the concert takes us straight into Puzzle itself with the opening track, Ichibyo Kiss. The choreography isn’t bad and you really can’t notice if K8 is in synch or not because the camera focus is mostly on the audience and/or whoever has solo on the song. There’s a major focus on “ Soloist “ and the “ Backup Dancers “ in Ichibyo Kiss that was a really nice touch and fit the song most definitely. I also enjoyed the fact that they were not sharing the stage with 1,000 juniors, which tends to be extremely distracting from the group itself.

It’s this moment that you start to notice where K8 starts to falter vocally. Maru’s performance on the album is pretty amazing and I had expect to see this delivered live but he went flat and sharp several times during his solos; this being the start of them. Yoko actually stays on pitch but hits an awkward note at the end of his solo which was like “ Yaaay… ow. “

Though I did notice this being the start of the reoccurring “ Fixing the ear monitor during my solo “ deal that happened to nearly every member in the group. I don’t know what went wrong with the sound techs, but I noticed K8 adjusting their earpieces a tad bit too much during this concert.

(Sidenote:  Ear monitors reduce stage and crowd noise and enable the vocalist to hear themselves with the music to make sure that they’re basically singing on key – A sound tech mixes the levels accordingly. So when they mess around with it, nine times out of ten its because they can’t hear themselves.)

7. Glorious

I skipped this song. Ohkura introduced it but I seriously cannot stand this song at all.

In my Puzzle review I said that Glorious is more enjoyable on mute. I didn’t even bother watching it on mute on the DVD. What I did catch though, no costume changes at all. They went straight into the song.

8. Kicyu

This performance is a visual acid trip. Like, the costumes are… Yeah. Colors would be assaulting in the daylight.

Anyway, its very much obvious Yoko lip-synched the hell out of this song. There’s no way in hell Yoko can sing at this pitch or hit falsettos that perfect in-between riding the cowboy and doing the Egyptian. If Yasu can’t, Yoko definitely can’t. Also, when Yoko is adjusting the hell out of his mic in the beginning of the song when they jump on the platforms, movement like that would produce feedback and tapping noises – Much like Yasu’s mic; there was none at all. Oh well.

Overall the performance was really good and entertaining if you put aside the lip synching aspect. The dance is extremely cute and makes you want to learn it when you start watching it; especially the part where they say “ Odeko, hana, hoppe ni Love Power “. There’s nothing much else you can say about it because its just mindless entertainment.

9. You Can See

The mood totally changes for this song. The lightening is cool, the dancers are in dress wear, and Maru and Hina take the center stage.

Vocally, the two weren’t so disappointing and sound pretty close to the track with some slight off pitch moments. Maru takes his falsetto a half step higher than the original track, Hina pretty much only has one octave range and stays in it. When they come in after the instrument break with “ You can’t change my life, human life “ they come off completely off key, which was harsh cause it broke the flow.

It’s amusing to watch Hina now doing the diva hands. He also did it earlier in the show with Ichibyo Kiss and it was certainly hilarious to see him do the diva hands again; especially since Hina… can’t … sing. One of the extras, I believe the Dokkiri, they said Hina has been loving the sing lately so maybe that’s the reason why he’s discovered the diva hands.

10. Puzzle

We’ve arrived at the title song. It opens up with a photoalbum displaying each members’ picture as a junior emphasizing the message of the song, Puzzle. I won’t get into the whole “ missing piece “ deal. With each members’ solo their Junior “peak” image is shown, which kind of really makes you go “ Wow “ because of how many years they’ve been active in the entertainment industry and also how much they’ve grown. It’s nice how they transition into what they look like today, its also nie how I notice these images are from Wink Up’s May 2009 photoshoot 😀

This is Ryo’s song, and it shows because he’s actually on key and not singing out of his nose like he tends to do. Everyone stays roughly in key except for Maru and Yoko… again. Yoko is terribly off key, to the point that it sounds like he’s struggling to hit the high pitch when he ends his solo with “ Kinou no you da ne “ – It’s excruciatingly bad.  After everyone’s solos and they return to the chorus, everyone is almost all over the place. It’s like they couldn’t really hear each other, so they’re all trying to sing over each other?

Out of all the performances on the DVD, Puzzle was the worst performance. Which really disappoints me because Puzzle ended up growing to be one of my favorite tracks on the album because when you take every aspect of the song, rip it apart, and pay attention to each layer it ends up being extremely beautiful. Live, the song just fell apart.

11. Kawaita Hana

See? Checkin their ear monitors AGAIN

Subaru’s starts of Kawaita Hana awkwardly but he eventually gets back to where he needs to be. I really do not know if K8 is honestly doing the acapella on this live, I really want to say no but a lot of them are checking their levels on their ear monitors so I guess yes… but after that performance of Puzzle I really can’t say… I’m glad to say Maru made a comeback with his solo.

Looking back, I remember how one of my friends said she did not like the blue suits when I said I really loved all the outfits from the tour. Now watching it over again, I can see where she’s coming from. The shade of blue is really distracting. But, then again, I can see where they’re going with this because the entire performance for Kawaita Hana looks like Kanjani8 is cosplaying The Temptations. I was half expecting them to bust out My Girl.

Everything is done 1960s Motown with dancing, the stationary mic stands, and the steps. It’s really nice and I like this performance if they all sound like they’re screaming over each other in the chorus. Who ever choreographed this really took a nod towards the Motown choreographers.

12. Eight Rangers

This skit is roughly twenty five minutes long but it seems a lot shorter than that… Maybe because it was actually the best Eight Ranger’s skit since Heat Up.

I really won’t get into detail about it; it’s pretty mindless, but with all the puns and jokes on what was hot in Japan for 2009, it was really hilarious. Also, mocking each other for “ Where have they been? “ was hilarious too.

Anyway, basically, Black wants to sing lead even though he sucks. He wants to yell out Misetekure and totally be kick ass cool. Red says this isn’t possible, but he’s also pissed off Black ripped off his motorcycle too. Anyway, we find out that Orange and Green don’t want to be their colors anymore. Orange wants to be cool like Yellow and Green wants to be small and cute like Blue.

The real Blue, Yellow, and Red get angry. The fake Blue, Yellow, and Red get angry. They break up and Purple, again, is caught in the middle. Eventually, “New” Blue, Yellow, and Red send a letter of challenge to Red, Blue, and Yellow. They fight, Purple dies, they realize they were stupid, recongize their faults, get together, put together a puzzle, find out Purple survive, complete the puzzle and save the day.

There’s just so many parodies its just too hilarious to sit without holding your sides laughing. Hopefully this will be translated for you guys that don’t know Japanese because its just pure gold.

Best skit ever.

MISETEKUREEEEEEEEEEEEE.

Ahahaha oh my god.

“ Be Black and sing terribly. “

Love it.

Disc 1 ends with the standard signed balls toss into the audience with Donna ni Hanaretetatte  Soba ni iru kara and my favorite #1 Kanjani8 song ever (at the moment) Giga Maji Mega Fight!!!!!! Gasgkl;asdg