[Fan Account] Lee Seongjong Fanmeeting Asia tour - Osaka 22 Sept 2024
Seongjong was in Osaka for two days, but I only went on Sunday (22 September). The event was held at Pluswin Hall, Osaka, and I attended both the afternoon and evening event on the same day. Tickets were on general sale to the public and easy to buy. I was 2nd row in the afternoon and 6th row in the evening. No merch was for sale, but we could pay for a photograph together (on your phone or a polaroid) and/or an autographed postcard.
-Please note, I am only able to understand intermediate Korean and Japanese, and no English was spoken, so I may have made mistakes in my translation/understanding of some speech!-
So first of all I think this was the most perfect fan meeting for any fan of Jjongie. It was a very small venue, so you’ve got a good view of him no matter where your seat was basically. In addition he made sure to walk around all of the venue while he was singing and would take peoples phones and take photos and selfies everywhere. Like he really made sure that everyone in the venue got to see him very close. In addition we were allowed to film which is something that still fairly new here in Japanese venues, So the difficulty for me this time was juggling filming and watching him and waving the fan I made at the same time.
A very exciting thing as I mentioned above was after the performance was over we were able to get a photograph with him, or get an autograph from him, or multiples of both if we wanted. You had to pay for all of these extras, but I do think it was 100% worth it.
I will describe the actual performance first. Both sessions were the same in format. When we arrived at the venue there was Disney music playing, which continued during the later photo/auto session. During this time we could leave him a question written on a Post-it note, leave him a present or gift in a gift box, and buy a ticket for the photograph an autograph session.
When he came on stage he just sang straight away, and then shortly after that he was joined on stage by a Japanese MC (Nami, has pink/red hair on the videos) and a Japanese to Korean translator. (Yuri, short hair and usually behind jjong on stage). This ensured that he could be comfortable speaking in Korean the whole time but was able to interact with the audience and understand what was going on at all times. He spoke a little Japanese but really we know his understanding of Japanese isn’t as great as Myungsoo’s for example.
His interaction with the two ladies was really fun. For example he always sat down to talk but he wouldn’t sit down until Nami sat down, because she’s older than him and so he was being very polite! She was like ‘please sit down!’ and he was like ‘no, after you-‘ ‘let’s sit together, then.’ haha. This demonstrated to me how he is still very humble/polite to others even as an idol. He definitely had a good banter with her as the MC. In the evening session there was a fan question that asked him to play '007' a popular korean game where he shoots an invisible gun, and then you pretend as if he shot you, and he did it with both of the women on stage as well as us, and that was funny.
As well as a general introduction, and a true or false game, Nami and Yuri joined him on stage for the Q&A session, and a ‘presenting Behind-the-scenes photographs’ Section.
The Q&A session was very straightforward, because he just picked questions from the Post-it notes and answered them. Japanese fans always ask tend to ask him things like what’s your favourite Japanese food (which he started listing but it seems like it was pretty much everything lol) And how does your skin look so good (he said he uses face masks every day and drinks a lot of water, plus recieves our love).
One fan asked if he has a troublesome hyung in infinite these days, but he said no, they all have a really good relationship. Another fan asked him what he usually buys when he comes to Japan, In a popular store called Don Kihote. He said that he usually buys products to relieve and support aching leg muscles, and heated eye masks.
Someone asked him what his favourite anime was, and he said Digimon, then Pokemon, and sang an anime song I didn’t recognise. I have a video clip of that I'll share.
Someone else asked him to do some of the rap from ‘special girl’ which he did in Seoul. He did so, and then as a follow on one of the funny questions was someone asking him about the time he did a cover of Justin Bieber’s ‘boyfriend’, And could he do a section of it for us now? But he laughed and said he couldn’t really remember the lyrics, but yes it was a very cool performance so if we want to see it we should go google Lee Seongjong boyfriend. ^_^
In the true or false game we were asked a question and we had to decide if it was true or false by making an X or O, and then he would give the answer. at the end of that, four winners get to go on stage with him they all get to have a hug and then one of them gets to have a selfie with him. This game was very fun because it did test our knowledge about him, and some of the things were new to me, like, he asked if we think he eats fruit every day. I, like many people, voted yes cause I thought he probably does, but in fact he doesn’t, he said he doesn’t really like fruit! However as more people kept getting the correct answer, it got harder to narrow down the winner, so the questions started getting funnier like what does he want to eat for dinner this evening? (can you read his mind lol) By far my favourite pair of these questions was ‘what colour socks is he wearing right now?’ which turned out to be navy, and he did show them to us to prove it, and then the question after that was ‘what colour underwear is he wearing right now?’ Also navy, but we did not get the evidence of this, we just have to trust him!!
The behind-the-scenes photographs section was really fun too. In Seoul he showed old photographs of himself and talked about them, But for us he showed new photographs of him on tour, Backstage photos of him travelling in the countries that he’s been to so far or just having his make up done and stuff. Today on Instagram he has posted the photos of Osaka that he showed us. I think it’s cute that he showed us them first at the event.
I think other people have posted about the actual setlist he performed, so I won't repeat that, but as expected he did do some Infinite F songs as well as his solo songs, And on the evening performance he did Together (함개) by Infinite which left the girls either side of me crying. He also did man in love which was fantastic and I really enjoyed that because he danced for some parts of it as well. It was lovely to hear him sing so much, and even rap!
Towards the end of the evening event you could tell his voice was getting a little bit tired at times when he was talking, but he just gave such a good full-out performance for every song, every time, and showed how confident he has become as a performer. I am just so impressed and proud that he held the stage so well by himself.
THE PHOTOGRAPH AND AUTOGRAPH SESSION
So after he left the stage, they turned the full lights on and set up like a backdrop on it so that you couldn’t clearly see him taking photographs with people unless you actually joined that session. We lined up stage left and as we approach the stage, gave the staff our phone to take a picture.
He was sitting with a chair on his right hand side, and we basically sit in the chair next to him and do a pose together.
As soon as the person before me left I approached and said ‘Seongjong, I wanted to see you/missed you!!’ in Korean and he gave me a big smile and said the same.
I sat next to him and he put out his hand in the heart shape and then leaned his head against mine. (!!) The staff took the picture very quickly and then he said ‘thank you! come again, see you again!’ in Korean. I stood up and turned round and said ‘thank you!!’ in English while we still had eye contact. He said ‘thank you!’ back in English. ^_^
After the second performance, I decided to get a signed postcard, because although I do have his autograph on an album I thought this would be a nice thing to put in a frame. in addition my spirit already left my body with that first photograph interaction. (!) So for the autograph session we had to write our name on a post it note and he was sitting behind a table and smiling up at me. As I approach I’m saying ‘today, thank you, Sungjong!’ in Korean and he says ‘thank you, Donna!’ (reading my name on the post-it of course)
I wanted to say ‘thank you for coming to Osaka, it made me very happy’ But after he said my name my brain was just kinda gone. So I think it just came out in Korean as ‘Osaka, came, thank you!’ haha I’m sure he got the message anyway. This was much quicker than the photo session meeting, for sure.
If I had had the spare money I definitely would have paid for some more photographs, but the tickets were about ¥8,000 each and then each photograph you got (either phone or a polariod) was ¥5,000. The signed postcard was ¥3,000. I did see some people having multiple photos taken with him, and the Polaroid option also looked very cute, but I personally preferred to have the photo on my phone so I just have a better quality picture that I can print.
So all in all it was a fantastic event for jjongie fans, We got to see him be funny and chatting, quite relaxed, then also perform, and just be really generous and kind to all his fans. It was really great to actually be able to film this time because I’ve been this close to him performing before but not been able to share any images of that. So hooray for relaxing of the JP venue laws. I'll share my videos and pictures on twitter.
I’ve also never had the opportunity to have a one-on-one photo with him before. I didn't know what to expect because I only knew it was happening about a day or two before. So I didn’t have much time to prepare my heart or my wallet!! But that was really cool, and definitely a very special memory.
That’s all for this time, unless I remember anything else... thank you for reading til the end!
