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Entrance
At the entrance, I paid 500 yen (about 5 bucks) for an odd coin and something like a cylinder. They gave me bonus items for SS seat there as well.
The coin was there to exchange for a soft drink. I chose a 500ml bottle of milk tea. They provided coke, ginger ale, orange juice and so on.
500 yen for a bottle seemed a bit too expensive. Are tickets not profitable enough?
I walked into Zepp at half past 5 with many seats already taken. My seat was 10th from the front, feeling far away from the stage.
This was a no recording place, so I have no pics to show you guys.
Before it started, some music was playing through the speakers though they were not on the playing list, some of which were from “Fire Emblem Music Collection.”
Fire Emblem EXPO starts now!
“Sorry to have kept you waiting, Fire Emblem EXPO finally starts!!”
Following the announcement,
A huge
sound
blew my mind and “The last holy war” began playing. I’d never been to a live concert or performance, and here’s a finding:
“This is the sound that echoes in my stomach…
It’s overwhelming as hell!!”
I felt my entire body vibrating—from my lower body to even my throat. Since I hadn’t had anything except tuna bread in the morning, my stomach was almost empty, and a barrage of sound was beating it on end.
I didn’t have a penlight so tapped out a rhythm with my finger.
The main caster *Michihiko Hagi stepped onto the stage after the performance.
“There’s no Cipher battle today?” He said, making the audience chuckle and relieving the tension that was hanging heavy on them.
*Hagi is the voice actor of Ike in the JPN version.
Hagi: Next up is from Game Boy Advance: The Binding Blade, The Blazing Sword, and The sacred stones. Enjoy the three music in a row.
The performance order was not identical with the one the official website said.
When we heard the soundtrack arranged solely for EXPO, it still brought back vivid memories.
No matter how the original is short, they made sure that all music last long enough. The playing time for every tune seemed five minutes on average.
Guess what’s on the screen while each music is playing?
On every performance, we got a screen with each protagonist standing side by side. The Blazing Sword, for instance, threw Lyn, Eliwood, and Hector on the screen.
When we were halfway through the event, a woman in a white dress walked to the center of the stage.
She said:
“I’m Lucina. I’ll change destiny!”
Guess who? Yes, it’s Yu Kobayashi, who did the voice of Lucina in Fire Emblem Awakening. She sang “Id (Purpose)”, with a lyric intended for EXPO. I’d heard that she could sing so well, and that’s correct.
She did not sound like Lucina while singing, but it didn’t matter. She carried out a magnificent performance, which is all very well, but I hardly caught any lyrics due in part to mike or settings.
Kobayashi makes a living as a voice actress, so lack of volume is not responsible for the unclarity. I wonder if this is because of the mike adjusted to Kawamura, who has a bigger volume level? I’d want the issue solved if we had the next EXPO.
At an interview followed by her performance, she had this to say:
“Lucina gave me a chance, I mean, Intelligent Systems offered me the opportunity to sing on here today because of Lucina…“
“Lucina gave me a chance” is not necessarily incorrect, don’t you think so Ms. Kobayashi?
◎小林ゆうですなう。ルキナ役でお世話になっている『ファイアーエンブレム EXPO』に出演させて頂きました。私は「覚醒」から『I 〜為』を歌わせて頂きました。とても素敵な曲で緊張いたしましたが、お越し頂いた皆様の暖かい応援のお陰で全力で歌うことができました。ありがとうございました！ pic.twitter.com/qAGB13YvWa
— 小林ゆう_公式 (@holy_kobayashi) May 4, 2019
…
It’s Fire E”m“blem, but not E”n” blem!!!
She’s put a misspelled name for Emblem（エムブレム）on twitter: Enblem（エンブレム）, which is the most common mistake between those unfamiliar with FE series; some hate to pronounce it, sticking to the original name (me as well).
On a side note, Intelligent Systems has authorized the pronunciation for a conversational form that is easier to call, and they use it in public including voice actors.
Voice Drama
It’s one of the chief attraction of the day, alongside a live concert. This drama was about “what if Ike and Micaiah had encountered before Radiant Dawn?”
Not to say they’re emulating their outfits, voice actors and actresses were dressing like their own characters.
I couldn’t put a word for word script on here, so please excuse some vagueness.
Ike:（CV.Hagi Michihiko）
Soren:（CV.Ayumu Murase）
Titania:（CV.Miho Miyagawa）
Micaiah:（CV.Natsuko Kuwatani）
Sothe:（CV.Junji Majima）
What if they had met each other?
Ike, Soren and Titania were shopping.
“According to Mia, there’s a good fortune teller around here. What do you say to dropping by there?”
Titania suggested.
To her surprise, Soren agreed with the suggestion while Ike was indifferent as always.
“After the war, it’s a good thing that we see the energetic town and people.”
Soren said.
Meanwhile, Micaiah was at work.
“Judging from his wound, he must be a soldier”
Sothe said.
Micaiah soothed him saying even soldiers can spend a relaxing time on something like fortune-telling.
“That’s not gonna happen in Daein.”
Sothe looked depressed.
He went on to warn her to veil her face though he allowed her to do the job.
After a while, the mercenaries party arrived at Micaiah.
“The mercenaries…, well, we have a lot of heavy eaters who can’t balance household budgets. Some advice?”
Titania asked in a complaining manner.
“Haha… that’s a problem.”
Micaiah made a forced smile.
“You’re considering preserve, aren’t you? but that’s not a good idea. We have a bumper crop this year, so, you know, vegetables are going to get cheaper.”
Micaiah said.
“Really? I’m happy to hear that.”
Titania looked so pleased.
“but isn’t that your imagination?”
Soren was doubtful of her fortune-telling.
“How about me? What will have become of me?”
Perhaps influenced by Titania, Ike asked her a question about his future strength.
“I train, you know, pretty hard, and do you think I’ll be getting even stronger?”
“You’ll be a lot bigger and stronger in 2 or 3 years from now.”
“You’ll have been a heavy build and thickened your arms.”
Micaiah replied.
“Heavily built Ike… I’m not sure whether or not I’d like to see it.
Titania was wondering.
Micaiah touched his arm and found a wound in the region. No sooner did she wield the power of “sacrifice” than Soren tried to cut her off.
“Hey, wait up. No need to touch his arm for fortune-telling!?”
Soren was getting angry.
(Here are waves of laughter in the audience.)
He was struggling to distract her from Ike.
“Me! How about telling my fortune!”
Micaiah checked him.
“…You!? You’re the same with me…?”
She noticed that they shared something in common—Branded.
The Ike party was at a loss what to do, and all of a sudden found themselves in a smog, where someone else took Micaiah away.
“She’s wielding an uncanny power on you…?”
Micaiah still seemed a suspicious woman to Soren.
“I felt something like inner power waving violently.”
Ike stood still.
Sothe was the one who took her away.
“You’re surrounded by unknown guys, so I thought they’re assaulting you, Micaiah.”
He excused her for the abducting.
“You don’t like the fact that I’m your older sister? However, you have to get bigger if you’re to call me younger sister.”
“Aside from that, what the hell was the boy…?”
That’s pretty much it. Keep in mind there’s something vague about the transcription.
It was fun when Soren was grabbing Micaiah’s hand as if he were saying “Don’t touch my Ike!”
This episode must’ve happened soon after Path of Radiance, which is proved by the fact that Sothe was not that tall at that time.
Second half of the live performance
With the few more performances to go, Hagi told us that they got something special for us.
“We unveil the entire lyrics of a theme song for the latest Fire Emblem three houses, and furthermore Caro sings in person!”
Ahead of anyone else, listening to the song to the end made me feel superior though the lyrics were hard to catch after all.
I remember Caro pronouncing E”m“blem and giving us a good impression. I know the M sound is difficult to pronounce but at the same time feel reluctant to call “Enblem.”
We had another singer besides Yu Kobayashi and Caro. It’s Yumi Kawamura. She sang two tunes from FE Fates and FE Heroes theme.
She was dressed in a black cloak decorated with something red, and her outfit reminded me of this:
She must be from Akatsuki.
Just kidding.
She had a husky voice that went well with her appearance. On top of that, her voice was the biggest out of the three singers.
In Fire Emblem theme for Heroes, she made the audience get hyper.
“Now that you’re here, everybody stand up!!!”
Come to think of it, the cylinder-like pipe distributed at the entrance was “Cyalume,” a chemical light that glowed for 10 minutes by bending it. She said the distribution was at her own will.
Hagi had told us to bend it at the best timing, and this was the time; he urged us to use it.
I paused a moment as I had never waved that thing.
“Bend it? Like this?”
I did! It glowed! Waving a light was so fun, but a bit distracting.
Following the last performance, there was an applause that perplexed me, but soon I found out it was an encore.
However, we were doing so for a full minute until my hands got tired.
Encore, the very last performance
We sang the Fire Emblem theme for Heroes together with Kamamura. I put my best foot forward, but a full volume of sound drowned out my voice. Even though I felt my throat quaking, I could not be heard.
So that’s it for Fire Emblem EXPO. It was so fun. I’d love to see another EXPO taking place!
Closure
Felicia and Edelgard were out there, so I took some pictures of them.
The following soundtrack contains all of the music played at EXPO!
