Witnessing a miracle — AqouRainbow
A few months ago I noticed a young man named PhillyJ (Angelo-kun) starting a fledgling project to use penlights to simulate the rainbow painting scene in season two. I thought to myself, "how wonderful, I want to help." I wasn't going to be able to help much, given that I still had finals, law school graduation in May, and the bar examination in July, but as one of the social media staff members for School Idol Tomodachi (Sukutomo) I figured I could help spread the word by retweeting from Sukutomo's Twitter account with 22K followers.
There were naysayers on twitter, but the initial core group of AqouRainbow (they had a different name at first) were dedicated and hardworking. They kept growing, and project began looking more professional as time passed. I was doing my best to retweet and publicize AqouRainbow and the other penlight projects @AX_YousoRail. Artists contributed their art to the project, website designers volunteered, and others donated. They raised funds. They formed organizational structures to distribute flyers day of, and had leaders for each section to guide everyone.
I've attended every single Aqours event in the US starting with the AX 2016 premier, and my wife has been to nearly all of them (DVs included) with the exception of 2016 and the 「Happy Party Train」Tour DV (she was in Korea). Getting near the night of the concert, I was a little sad that we didn't own penlights—so we couldn't participate. I'm grateful that my wife let's us attend these events, but she frequently reminds me that I'm not allowed to buy merchandise. So asking to buy penlights was out of the question.
We were handing out Sukutomo flyers prior to the event and noticed the penlight teams handing out their flyers, and admired the AqouRainbow nametags. Their volunteers were all polite and professional. I kept hoping that all the projects would come off flawlessly. When we got inside there was a young woman and her mother seated to the left of us. They liked our nesoberi and said they had driven up from San Diego. They asked us why we didn't have penlights, and we didn't have a good excuse. She said she had an extra, and offered YJL use of it. It didn't take long for YJL to get the hang of it, and she memorized the Seiyuu's colors within two songs. She was having the time of her life.
When 「yuuki wa doko ni kimi no mune ni」 started playing, I said to myself "please let them pull this off." We were in Row S, Tsushima Yoshiko's color, and YJL's favorite character. YJL had already changed to white, having gotten instructions from our San Diego seat-mates. Penlights dimmed before Anchan's solo started and the miracle happened.
They did it! It was miraculous!
(official Love Live! staff photo)
Aqours were moved, several of the Seiyuu, notably Anchan and Shukashuu, had tears in their eyes (they weren't the only ones crying). They commented on it, and I believe I heard Aina say "rainbow." The feeling in the venue was electric. Something very special had just occurred and everyone knew it.
I can't begin to tell you how hard it was for these fans to organize such an amazing thing. I am in awe of PhillyJ and all the AqouRainbow team. Japanese websites are discussing it, and Japanese fans want to duplicate it in Fukuoka.
I wrote the following to PhillyJ from my alternate twitter account last night:
Many thanks to you and the team for all your hard work. It was incredible, and the see them so moved by it was probably something we'll all remember for the rest of our lives. @AX_AqouRainbow #AqouRainbow
You can find YJL and myself on Sukutomo and other places.
