2004.10.29 @ Harajuku Ruido
Death Trap ID Presents Halloween Visual Night

Bands in order: Antic Cafe, 12012, cosplay contest [MASK, Vidoll session]

This was an event put on by the clothing/costume store Death Trap ID. The livehouse Ruido is right next door. The event was supposed to be a costume contest, and general cosplay event in honor of Halloween. Ren and I went in Panic Channel cosplay. We wanted to get to Harajuku early, but had spent the morning finishing our costumes and got there around opening time. It was a sold out show, and the entire street was filled with cosplayers and Lolitas and visual kids... and obnoxious foreign tourists gaping at everyone. But we got a lot of positive attention from the other girlies, so it was cool. They were calling tickets by numbers, very slowly and the guy wasn't even using his megaphone so it was hard to hear. Our ticket numbers were really high anyway (around 230), so we waited outside a while.

We get inside and Ren realizes she left her ticket in the room, and we freak out. The staff people pondered in for a minute "it would be too far to go back and get the ticket, right..." and ended up just telling her to wait... returning a moment later with another ticket, and let her go through. No questions, no paying again... WE LOVE YOU DEATH TRAP ID!!!

The audience area was illegally crowded. It was possibly one of the smallest regular shaped live houses ever (Rt14 isn't "normally shaped") and with the sheer amount of people I couldn't tell accurately what was good about the place... it was just bad. The whole entrance was piled with rolly suitcases and stacks upon stacks of purses and bags. There was no room at all, and we were stuck in the back of the tiny place, but not the way back, because that was VIP seating and then a small staircase which girls were sitting on, so we didn't even have a wall to lean against. It was awful, and I cursed the place for being so small and for three Lolitas with massive platforms AND huge wigs and bonnets standing in a line in front of us. I also had very dry eyes and my white-out contacts hurt so bad I could barely see the stage. After a while, one of the Death Trap ID sales girls (playing MC for the night) comes out on stage in a Jui from Vidoll costume, and announces that Antic Cafe is coming on stage.

And then 200 girls get up from sitting on the floor and claw their way forward so the place is half as crowded as it used to be. Ayyeeee, where are their manners?! Sitting on the floor in a ridiculously crowded show... honestly! But even with the surge up front, it was still really crowded because the place was REALLY SMALL, and we were still in the back. So Antic Cafe parades their little underage butts out on stage, and everyone FREEEAKKKS out. I honestly could not see anything but the vocalist's head if he jumped up and down, or one of the other members' heads if they stood on an amp, unless I stood on my toes and craned my neck which was simply too much effort. The stage was rather low and 200 platform-clad girls in front of me did not help.

Antic Cafe is fairly good on CD, I held mild interest in them before, but live they were simply nothing special. They base way too much into the fact that they're young and cute and girls will like them no matter what they do, so their flaws will be overlooked... Well, I don't think they're cute at all. I think the jailbait guitarist is ugly as sin and makes me feel like a pedophile looking at him in a dress. They have absolutely no performance ability whatsoever. They don't move, they don't interact with the audience... they just stand there and maybe bounce around a little bit. With their style of music, and just their general band personality, they NEED to learn how to do more than just stand there. Why do people like them so much?

After them, we moved up a little bit. I thought MASK was next, but then I thought about the band list posted by the door, and realized they had written the bands in reverse order, and that 12012 would be before the costume contest and not after. I'm glad I thought about that. We pushed up a bit further so we could see the stage better. After forever and a day, the salesgirl came out again, with another one dressed up as Gackt, and they babbled about something and then announced the band.

12012 was awesome as usual. While it was crowded, there was a little room for some light headbanging and rushing. Miyawaki hung out into the audience for a little bit and the girls in the front went insane. They played Ms. Vampire from the new CD for the first time live, it's such a good song. I don't remember much else, argh.

1.gallows
2.mippei sareta hi
3.news paper
4.Ms.Vampire
5.Venom

Then it was time for the cosplay contest. We were thinking about leaving because we had no desire to see the other bands, and were hungry and my eyes hurt and so on... But after going and getting a delicious drink from their bar and seeing all the cosplayers in the lobby, we decided to stick around. Ten groups had entered and were now going to compete in the most embarrassingly Japanese way possible. I'm quite glad we stayed.

First the two costume-clad goofy MC girls introduced the judges. The first three judges were the guys that worked part-time at Death Trap ID (the "arubaito-kun-tachi"), then they introduced the store manager, maybe someone else relating to the store, and then... Rame from Vidoll! Sana from MASK! And Miyawaki from 12012! Oh my goodness! Then the contestants came out. They would play a song (of the contestants' choice), and the girl(s) would walk across the stage and try to look cool, while you saw them all blanche and freeze up as they entered the stage and saw the ten or so judges. Most of the contestants were Vidoll cosplayers, three Dir en grey kids in a group (one was a guy, the only guy), two Kalen girls, Zero from Despairs Ray in a rather revealing pleather bikini bottom, someone from Scissor, and erm I think that might be it.

After they strutted their stuff, the judges would have to ask them questions or make a comment. The arubaito-kun-tachi looked very bored and like they couldn't care what was going on. The band guys tried to seem interested at least. They'd ask questions such as if the costumes were hand-made or bought, and other random things. The MC girls would put one of the judges on the spot and just ask them what they thought of the costume(s). They seemed really nervous and were just like "erm, it's cool"... five hundred times. The most awkward time was when Rame was asked what he thought of the Rame cosplayer. Just imagine... you make a costume for fun, decide to enter a contest... and then find out that the man who WORE the costume is judging your personal craftsmanship of the costume. Insane. And embarrassing. The Dir en grey group was really hardcore and acted out a live show to Schwein no isu, they had everyone in the place screaming and cheering... But were also quite awkward when they didn't know when to stop, as the music usually faded out after 45 seconds or so, but the sound people were waiting for them to stop and vice-versa. Ahh the wonderful planned-out-ness of events. Another extremely awkward moment was when the Scissor cosplayer walked across stage making snipping motions with scissors and her fingers, and then didn't know what to do afterwards and the music kept playing.

The last group, a Vidoll group missing Yukine, were the show-stealers. They used the Vidoll song peko crash trap, which I don't know first hand but can only assume it's the song Vidoll themselves use as an intro song, because everyone knew what was going on and were going insane over it. They'd do some little dance and everyone would yell the member's name as the respective member went to the front of the stage. They were very well acted out, and everyone loved them. The MC girl suggested that they need to try that again with a Yukine, because it was so cool. So, they pulled Miyawaki of all people to stand in their Vidoll congo-line and pretend to be Yukine. He was a very willing sport, and he did the silly dance and everyone crapped their pants. After he sat back down, Rame asked him what he thought about it. Miyawaki politely said it was "good". Then Rame suggested to him that 12012 start doing a song like that, and he was like "Hell no." That was really funny.

After everyone was done, they were all called back out on stage and stood in a very crowded mess with the band guys sitting behind them. Then each judge gave out their own award, while there were three grand prizes, everyone got something, which was nice of them. Rame's two prizes were gift certificates to McDonald's, and to an all-you-can-eat buffet. Ironically (and I don't think coincidentally), he gave the buffet passes to the two overweight Kalen cosplayers. Oooooouch. Of course the grand prize winners were the Vidoll group.

We then left for the above stated reasons and went to take purikura and have dinner. Oddly enough, we saw some of the Vidoll cosplayers in the purikura-kan right afterwards. Why weren't they staying to see Vidoll?

See Cure magazine's report and pictures in Volume 16! [November 2004, NOIZ cover]