Singing Cosplayer Hikari’s event report from JAPAN EXPO PARIS 2022 – DAY 3

[ Day 3: July 16 (Saturday) ]

by Matsumoto Takuya

Saturday, July 16, the third day of the JAPAN EXPO. More visitors filled the venue than on the previous day.

About 800 people, far more than on the first day, packed the front of the TSUBAME stage from 1:15 p.m., and in the front row was a girl wearing a matching LucyPop ribbon with her.

The main image used on the approximately 1,000 flyers distributed at the signing and merchandising booths and the schedule image posted on SNS was LucyPop’s uniform for this day, and the mere appearance of her on stage was met with loud cheers.

The first song was “This game” by Konomi Suzuki from the TV anime “No Game, No Life. The voltage rose quickly from the start, and a cover version of the this song by Singing Cosplayer Hikari began to rank in the Apple Music French Anime Song Top Music Video Chart.After the first French stage banter, they performed “Inferno” and “Monster,” the same songs as the first day, followed by “Yorunaderu Menou,” the same song as the second day, and then “Ai Oboete Imasuka” sung by Mari Iijima aka Lynn Minmei in the TV animation “The Super Dimension Fortress Macross”. The song is about the memories of a lost culture in the war in the anime, which both friend and foe recall with the singing voice of this song.

Immediately after the start of the Ukrainian conflict, Singing Cosplayer Hikari’s “Yume To Hazakura” was ranked No. 1 on Apple Music Ukraine’s J-Pop Top Music Video Chart on a daily basis for more than 15 consecutive days, and she hastily decided to release the music video of “Ai Oboete Imasuka” on YouTube. In addition to Japanese, English, and French, the video was released with lyrics translation subtitles in Ukrainian and Russian, and overwhelmingly, the video was played in Ukrainian and Russian subtitled environments.

She came to France from Japan after a 15-hour flight to avoid war zones, and sang for peace in Europe and the world, where conflicts still continue in close proximity.
After the song, she made an important announcement during her stage banter. “This stage will be my last solo performance in France. Do you miss me!” She called out in French, “I’m going to miss you!” The audience cheered.

“I am happy to announce that on October 1st and 2nd, I will be performing at an event called ‘Otaku Party’ in Madrid, Spain. Please come down to Spain to see me!” When she made the announcement, the audience, who had already become her devoted fans over the past three days and were stationed in the center from the front of the stage, erupted in cheers.

Having experienced a great response from her trip to France, Singing Cosplayer Hikari announced her second overseas live performance in just three months’ time. Not only the JAPAN EXPO visitors from Spain, but also many French fans are expected to rush to Spain.

In addition, Yohei Onishi, co-host of “ANIME SONGS PARTY!”, an anime songs session program hosted by Singing Cosplayer Hikari, appeared on stage here (radio on air on Nippon cultural Broadcasting in Japan and the YouTube channel of Manga News in France).

Singing Cosplayer Hikari performed with Yohei Onishi the distributed hit song “Muscle Please!” which was released in January 2022 in collaboration with Nakayama Kinni-kun and already has over 1.5 million streaming views. The performance ended on a high note with a side chest pose and a dance she devised the choreography for.

Another drama occurred backstage after this stage: Singing Cosplayer Hikari released Linked Horizon’s “Shinzou wo Sasageyo!” and “Guren no Yumiya” from the TV anime “Attack on Tiatan” and is popular among international viewers. The French Livai, a French performer and cosplayer at JAPAN EXPO, was so impressed with this song and music video and sent the message beforehand. And they exchanged messages “We hope to see you at JAPAN EXPO.”. She found him backsatage and said “You look just like your instagram! The French Livai!!”. And they were lucky enough to meet. Coincidentally, he and she were on the TSUBAME stage in succession, and they were able to see the satage of both of them.

Exactly one hour later, on the same TSUBAME stage, the “ANIME SONGS PARTY!” stage began, the last live performance for her in France. Yohei Onishi began his solo performance with two songs: “CHA-LA HEAD-CHA-LA” by Hironobu Kageyama from the TV anime “Dragon Ball Z” and “Pegasus Fantasy” by MAKE-UP from the TV anime “Saint Seiya”. The following third song was not a cover, but a song by Yohei Onishi’s band Miracle Chimpanzee, who sang the opening theme song, “Mabataki” from the TV anime “Sasaki to Miyano” with their elongated high tone vocals.

Singing Cosplayer Hikari took the stage for the fourth song, and like “Monster,” the two began singing together “Yasashii Suisei” by YOASOBI, a song from the TV anime “BEASTERS”. As they began to sing the following fifth song, Ikimonogakari’s “Blue Bird” from the TV anime “Naruto Shippuden,” the audience began to sing in chorus, accelerating the excitement of the audience.

The stage was also joined by Enzo Ratsito, a French voice actor dubbed for the French version of the role of Kamado Tanjiro in the TV anime “Demon Slayer” and the three on stage began to sing. The audience’s voltage reached the highest when they performed “Silhouette” by KANA-BOON, the 16th opening song of the TV anime “Naruto Shippuden,” which was released on July 10. At the end of this stage, Singing Cosplayer Hikari and Yohei Onishi also announced that they would perform at the World Cosplay Summit 2022 -20th Anniversary-, one of the world’s largest cosplay events, to be held in Nagoya, Japan, on August 6 (Saturday). Then, a sigh escaped the French cosplayers when they heard the name of their coveted event.