Riinu's handshake event is definitely the first event that I attended in Japan. I felt like it was a dream come true. Up till now, I still found it unbelievable that I met Riinu with my own eyes. The fact that I even won the lottery was just beyond my expectation. I think I'm only lucky on February (I went to Keyland concert on Feb 2019 in Korea). I just felt like the luckiest person ever. Anyway, I will tell you the whole journey on how I met Riinu in the beginning of Covid-19.
Saturday, 19 October 2019
It all began when Riinu announced his first full album, Time Capsule. When he announced it, I was so happy. One, he's releasing a new album. Two, his handshake event is on 1st and 2nd February 2020. I didn't expect that he would have a handshake event when I was going to Japan. My family already scheduled a Japan trip from 27th January to 7th February since mid 2018 (if I remembered correctly). I felt like I had a chance to meet Riinu, a slightest chance at least. Meeting one of Stpri's member is definitely was just a dream.
I told my parents that I wanted to go to the handshake event. Surprisingly, they were fine with it. I guess because it was near my birthday (*cough* 6th February *cough*) so they let me do whatever I wanted. They did say that I should schedule and make the plan for the trip. I was really excited, at least that I could actually go to the handshake event.
Now, the only problem is the handshake event is a lottery-based. I have to admit that I'm not a lucky person. Sometimes I am, but I'm definitely one of those people who never get their oshis when I buy random merch lmao. I was worried. I planned to buy all of the versions. However, I wanted to buy one from CDJapan so I could get the another cover for the bonus. In the end, I bought 2 albums from Animate for the lottery. I asked my friends if they are buying the album from Animate or not, so I could use the application code. I appreciated how everyone responded positively and some people agreed to give me their application codes. Who could I not be worried when the Japanese fans usually would buy hundreds of albums just to win the lottery? It was pretty scary though. However, as an international fans, it's pretty hard to buy a lot of albums as it costs a lot of money, not to mention the shipping fee.
Another problem was that I didn't know how to sign up for the application codes. Good thing that Nal was at Japan that time and she managed to get me the animate card. Pretty much, thanks to Nal, I managed to sign up in Animate Club. Thank you, Nal!
The animate card looks like this:
source: sara-net.jp
In the end I got 9 application codes from my friends. I would like to say thanks to Nal, Yacchi, Ryn, Hana and Ayumi for giving me their application codes. I also wanted to mention Poru who didn't get their album on time and Jojo who didn't get their application codes at all. I appreciated how they wanted to help me with this. Thank you so much. I'm really grateful to have you guys as my friend. Without everyone's help, I wouldn't be able to go to the handshake.
To apply the application codes, we have to login to the Animate Club website. Basically you have to go to the event page of Riinu's handshake. There are details regarding to the events and also rules that you have to followed—just like every events I guess.
For Riinu's handshake event, there are 6 time slots in total for the handshake:
- 01 February 2020 - 1st slot (10PM), 2nd slot (1PM), 3rd slot (4PM)
- 02 February 2020 - 1st slot (10PM), 2nd slot (1PM), 3rd slot (4PM)
I applied for 2nd Feb for all the slots as I only arrived in Tokyo on 1st Feb (from Osaka). It wasn't hard to apply the handshake event. On the bottom of the page, you can apply by selecting which slot do you want to go and also your application code.
To be honest, I was pretty nervous until the announcement date.
Friday, 17 January 2020
The day I was waiting for had come. I got some of my results was later than the others. I guess there were a lot of people who applied for the handshake event. I was very shocked to see my results actually. As you can see below, I won one while not the other 8 codes. I was pretty happy that I could go to Riinu's handshake (although I got the earliest slot and I'm not a morning person lol).
I was screaming while calling Nal. She definitely heard my first reaction when I saw my results. I didn't believe it but at the same time I was very happy to the point that I felt like it wasn't real. "I am going to see Riinu next month" was the only thing that I could think of. One of the unexpected thing that happened I guess was the Covid-19 Coronavirus. I guess it was only the beginning when I went to Japan. Animate soon announced that everyone should wear a mask and also use the hand sanitizer when going inside the venue.
Sunday, 02 February 2020
I couldn't sleep the night before the handshake event. I swear I even drank alcohol and also called Nal, panicking. Of course, I will always panic in this kind of situation. How could you not panic? You're going to see one of your favorite artist and you're going to talk to them. I couldn't imagine how I would react when I first saw Riinu.
I decided to use red turtle-neck sweater, black jacket and heatech pants. I didn't have a lot of winter clothes and this was the only red sweater that I looked good with LOL. I wished I bought a red parka earlier.
I stayed at Ginza, so I needed to use the train to go to Ikebukuro. It was my first time going to Ikebukuro too. Getting the Animate wasn't that hard (as long as you have Google Maps!). I arrived outside the Animate Ikebukuro very early. There weren't a lot of people as it was just 9AM.
At 9:30AM, everyone was already lining up to go to the store. It was long queue and we had to wait for a long time. Not to mention, it was pretty cold. When the store opened, the line was pretty mess up actually. The staff gave directions on what we had to do. We all went inside Animate and I think one of the most unforgettable memory was for us to actually climb the stairs to the 9th floor. It was very exhausting. Sadly, I didn't bring any drinks so I was kinda thirsty for the whole time.
On the way to 9th floor, you can see the big banner of Riinu's handshake event. I tried to take a lot of pictures but there was just too many people. This is the most decent one that I got after how many tries.
There were a lot of staffs outside the venue. They checked your seat number via Animate Club website and also your ID card which shows your name and also photo. Since I'm not a Japanese, I used passport to show if I am the right person. Legit, I was the only one whose name was written in latin alphabet.
Here's the screenshot of what you should show to the staff:
After they checked our identity etc, we had to apply hand sanitizer to go into the venue. The venue itself was quite medium for a hall. I think there were at least less than 200 seats. There was a stage in the middle and in front of the hall. It was the place where you meet Riinu and do the handshake. It was covered so you couldn't see him unless you go to the stage. The staff explained about the rules and also important things that we had to know every 10 minutes. Also, The letter box and present box was located behind the room.
I gave a letter to Riinu, which was made by us the Indo gangs. There were 11 Indonesian Stpr listeners who wrote the letter with me. I would like to mention all of them: Ryn, Hoshi, Yasa, Chiyo, Kemi, Rookaru, Rea, Hana, Reisa, Harunozuka. I wasn't confident in making a letter by my own so I decided to make a letter with my friends. I also would like to say thanks to Rea for translating every messages to Japanese and Nal who already drew the Riinu with Indonesian flag for the cover of the envelope.
We waited until 10AM for the event to start. I was seating on the 5th row and my seat number was 75. I was really, really nervous. My legs and hands were shaking. This wasn't even an exam but I was so scared as hell. The good thing was they played the whole album of Time Capsule. I tried to calm myself while singing quietly in my head. However, I was glad that I was nervous because I saw someone beside who also felt the same way. I initiated a conversation by asking her "Are you nervous too?" and we quickly became friends. Her name is Haruna and she is from Tohoku, she went to Tokyo just for the handshake event. We talked and shared our stories while waiting for our turns.
The rules was that we have take off our jacket and leave the bags on the seat. They will do a security check if you have anything such as phones or other prohibited stuff in your pocket or anywhere tbh. It was pretty strict. One of my biggest mistake was not making a name tag with my name and twitter username so Riinu would notice me. I didn't have any time too and I forgot. When it was my turn, I had to apply hand sanitizer again before I walked up to Riinu.
This is the summary of what happened when I met Riinu. I had to say that this is not 100% correct, I don't remember everything that I said nor Riinu said since I was pretty blank LOL. I made the English translation, just in case if you can't read the Japanese. I'm sorry if my Japanese and translation was not 100% correct, I'm still learning.
Riinu looked 10 times more handsome than what I expected (and also from his illegal photos shhh). His hands were so SOFT. I just felt like I was touching baby hands. They were smaller than mine too. Not to mention, Riinu was shorter than I was expected. I mean, I'm considered as short too but he is shorter than me. His ash grey hair looked good on him, although I'm used to seeing him with red hair. Riinu is definitely handsome (and he's my type LOLOL). He was so nice and he looked very interested in what I wanted to say and he always nodded whenever I said something. He even didn't let go of my hands even when the staff already said it's time. I guess he knew that I will be disappointed if he didn't say anything because basically, I wasted my time on trying to say what I wanted. Being a foreigner is hard, you just couldn't talk fast like the Japanese fans.
Overall, it was a great experience and I didn't regret going to his handshake event even if it only lasts for 20-30 seconds.
The whole day I was still shocked that I met Riinu and shook his hands. I'm grateful that I had given this opportunity (which I'm sure that I wouldn't even get this kind of opportunity again in the future).
After I was done, I went out of the venue with Haruna. We both still talked until we went outside of the Animate Ikebukuro. We took pictures together and it was really fun to make friends although my Japanese wasn't really that good. Here's a selfie of both of us after the handshake.
Monday, 03 February 2020
Okay. What I didn't expect was that... Riinu noticed me and mentioned me in his OPENREC's streaming. I was very shocked as I was in Shibuya station at that time and the signal was pretty bad.
Thank you to Sorayume for recording the stream or I would've missed it. Everyone messaged me in different languages and told me that Riinu talked about me in his stream. Indonesian, English, Japanese. Yasa, Nal and Haruna messaged me at the same time, all in different languages. I was screaming in Shibuya station and I didn't care.
I was surprised that he remembered me. I swear there were probably thousand of people meeting Riinu in 2 days and I was shocked that he even remembered what I said, "いつも応援しています”. However, I didn't remember Riinu saying anything about "サンキュー" to me. Is Riinu's memory really that strong? But nevertheless, I was so happy that he thought that my Japanese was good. Riinu really made me happy.
Meeting Riinu was the best thing in my Japan trip this year.
I was glad that I could actually go to Riinu's handshake. I'm writing this post while in the midst of Covid-19, I began to think that I'm very grateful that they didn't cancel the event at that time and it wasn't as bad as right now. I might probably cry if they cancelled the event.
I hope that I could meet Riinu again someday, maybe Stpr concert (SutoMemo) or.... maybe another handshake event? I also hope that I can go to Stpr handshake event someday so I could meet and talk to all of the 6 members. However, I wonder if I could survive on that day though? Probably not LOL.
Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoy reading my experience on Riinu's handshake. I hope this is helpful for those who wanted to go to Stpr's handshake event in the future :)
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