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ANN’s coverage of Anime Expo 2024 sponsored by Yen Press and Ize Press!
Hatsune Miku Colorful Stage! returned to Anime Expo bigger, better, and with idol flair. Last year, Colorful Stage hosted panel in Petree Hall featuring the voice actors of Kanade Yoisaki and Mizuki Akiyama of Nightcord at 25:00 (Tomori Kusunoki and Hinata Satō). I attended this panel when I was at AX the previous year, and I thought it was good. There were fun talking points with the voice actors, some line readings, and a little giveaway at the end. This year, they held another panel, but now it was being held in the Main Event Hall (which is a lot bigger than Petree Hall) and had Ai Furihata and Mayu Yoshioka (The voices of Airi Momoi and Haruka Kiritani from MORE MORE JUMP!) as guests.
Let me say that not only am I a Colorful Stage fan, but my favorite group from the game is MORE MORE JUMP! So, I was really looking forward to this panel!
It began with Eugene (the product manager for the Japanese version of the game) greeting the crowd and introducing the voice actors. Ai Furihata and Mayu Yoshioka‘s appearances were met with cheers, applause, and waving penlights (yes, I did bring mine). They introduced themselves and recited their character’s iconic lines from the game.
And thus, the panel begins.
It started with the usual talks with the voice actors about their time in LA, reading some messages, and answering questions from fans. Some interesting highlights include Mayu mentioning that her dad was the captain of their flight and that he wished her luck and both of them talking about how they related to their characters a lot as both have had experience as idols (Ai being a part of the Love Live! group, Aqours; and Mayu being a part of the disbanded Wake Up, Girls!)
The next segment was the Colorful Stage team showing the voice actors and audience custom profiles people submitted for the panel. In Colorful Stage, there’s a feature in the game where you can make custom profiles using art text, shapes, and art from the card you get from the gacha. It’s like the custom emblem system from the Call of Duty: Black Ops series. And very similar to the Black Ops emblems, it’s always impressive to see what players can do with their given tools. My favorites were the two profiles near the end, where each character was recreated with just tools from the custom profile.
After that, they did an exclusive line reading with the voice actors about their two characters visiting LA. This was accompanied by art of Airi and Haruka standing in front of the Hollywood sign made specifically for this panel. When the characters asked the audience where they should go to eat, In-N-Out was the standout answer, the same choice as last year when the Nightcord members asked where they should eat.
The following segment was (in my opinion) the best part of the panel. Before the panel started, people were given glow sticks for the “Call and Response” segment. Inspired by idol song performance, they had the voice actors sing two of the MORE MORE JUMP! songs and had the audience do the associated cheers (with slides to assist them). As someone (very) familiar with these kinds of performances, I was thrilled to know that this was why everyone was given glow sticks. I’ve always wanted to cheer and wave my pen lights to a MORE MORE JUMP! and I’m so glad that not only did I get to do just that, but I also witnessed one of the rare “live” performances with the Colorful Stage voice actors. They sang the classics “Newly Edge Idols” and “MORE! JUMP! MORE!” and once the music started playing, the energy from the crowd went from 10 to 11. I know this event was a live stream, and I was looking at the VOD while it was still up, and it did not fully portray the experience of being in a room full of fans yelling, “MOTTO!” “HAI! HAI! HAI!” “MORE! MORE! JUMP!”. It was truly an unforgettable experience.
Also, I just want to shout out Eugene and his hops during the performances.
The segment afterward was a fun one. The voice actor took turns drawing MORE! MORE! JUMP! related prompts (which they had to do in seven seconds) while the other guessed what it was. They would win a box of donuts if they could guess them all correctly. There was a bit of a mistake at the beginning where Mayu accidentally looked at the screen before Ai could draw the picture, but it was made up by Ai impressively drawing a penguin in seven seconds. There were a lot of fun moments in this segment, along with some cute drawings. One of the highlights was Mayu’s drawing of a “Meet-and-Greet” that looked like a love confession. By the way, they did get the donuts.
The final segment was the signed shikishi giveaways, where, similar to last year, everyone received a ticket, and the voice actors would draw out numbers to see who would win Colorful Stage-themed shikishi signed by the guests. Now, I don’t think it was planned for the winners to walk to the stage after their numbers were called and pick up their signed shikishi from the voice actors directly. Usually, the winner would get their prizes after the panel, but luckily, everyone was very respectful when getting their prizes from voice actors. A few times, people got emotional when they got their signed shikishi and would say something nice to the voice actors. It turned out to be a nice giveaway segment.
After that, the panel started to wrap up, and the voice actors began thanking everyone for coming and being fans of the franchise. They got in front to take a picture with the crowd, and just when everyone was ready to say goodbye, Eugene surprised everyone and asked, “Why don’t we end the panel with another performance?”. The voice actors got their mics, and they started to play MORE! JUMP! MORE! encore, and we all began to cheer yet again.
And with that, it came to an end.
I really enjoyed this panel, more so than last year’s. Am I biased because I think anything idol-related means it is good? Most definitely. But I liked how much they involved the fans this time: Tagging their account names in the messages, showing off their profiles, and being ok with fans meeting the voice actors as they grab their shikishi. That has always been the best part about Anime Expo (at least for me): seeing everybody here get a chance to interact with each other. I mentioned that watching the performances and waving my penlights was an unforgettable experience, but honestly, the one thing I won’t forget from this panel was seeing the person with no glow stick and handing them my other penlight so that we could both cheer for our idols together.