Photo By Taichi Nishimaki
A typhoon is approaching the Kanto Region, but inside LaLa Arena Tokyo Bay the mood is pure sunniness. Quartet Ryokuoushoku Shakai waves their hands back and forth in a wave motion, the crowd inside happy to get swept up in the la-la-la-s of “Mela!,” the band’s biggest hit.
Here, on the second night of a nationwide tour lasting until December, they’ve rolled out their biggest hit very early in the night, a gambit for sure but perhaps one making sense given the weather outside. It was wet and gross getting here, and probably only going to get worse after. Give the people some uptempo pop-rock.
Generally, this is how the evening of Sept. 20 played out. Some moments of vulnerability, a bit of out-of-step dramatics, but mostly a good time to get people going before a three-day holiday started. This was as agreeable a J-pop concert in the 2020s could be.
Which is also where problems arose.
