#aicchy

[welovefunassyi]

Funassyi was a guest at his regular event MC Aicchy’s wedding and reception on Sunday, May 15th. He also gave a speech during the reception (here’s a very short clip of him introducing himself.) I love this photo - the other guests at Funassyi’s table are acting like there isn’t a big, yellow and blue Pear right there. The little girl is more into the little Funassyi she’s hugging (plus she’s dressed in blue and yellow), and the guy in glasses seems more absorbed in the small Funassyi he’s holding too. Priceless. I would love to live in a world where having a Pear Fairy as a wedding guest is just a regular thing. 

Funassyi attended Sacocci’s wedding last year in full Pear Suit too. (Sacocci is his manager at Universal Music.) 

Chosei Tonyu-kun was also there, although he’s not in the reception photo. (He could have been at the nijikai, or follow-up party.) 

Photo 1 via the wedding-oriented Pear; Photo 2 via Chosei-Tonyukun. 

[welovefunassyi]

Here’s a video of the Funassyland Nagoya opening commemorative event. This was Aicchy’s real last day (I had mistakenly thought that the Pear Juice Parties were her last assigments) before she goes on maternity leave. Funassyi presents her with a bouquet of sunflowers, and Aicchy tells the story of how Funassyi was really concerned for her wellbeing, looking up nutritional information online and more. She said that she was the one who wanted to keep working so far into her pregnancy, and that she would really miss working with the Pear. Hopefully they can work together again, since she’s really the best show host-MC for Funassyi, not to mention several other gotouchi chara. 

Incidentally, 3 people from the event audience were chosen at random to have their photos taken with Funassyi. However, unbelievably several people who did have their names drawn were either not there, or unwilling to go on stage. Perhaps it’s because the event was on a weekday afternoon and they were taking time off from work without telling the office or something. What a loss though. (That’s the sequence where Funassyi is drawing several pieces of paper from a box.) 3 people did eventually get their photos taken with the Pear, and they seemed really happy about it. 

[welovefunassyi]

As I mentioned previously, recording videos during the Meet Funassyi Pear Juice Party events was prohibited (and according to Nittele Service a DVD will not be released). There are some tantalizingly short videos out there though. The one above is from the fourth and finally session, and taken from the Niconico Douga webcast (which is why you see the comments scrolling over the screen). It shows Funassyi getting a guitar installed inside his Ilusion, whereupon he proceeds to play and sing - well, kind of sing - Mr. Big’s To Be With You. 

This early ‘90s hit seems to be one of The Pear’s favorites, since he’s sung it many times before, such as here in this clip from March 2013 where he sings it while on stage with GCB47. (Yes, Early Funassyi looks so different...)

Funassyi mentions during the first clip that the guitar installation procedure ripped his Illusion during the first and third Pear Juice Party sessions. It may be time to get another new Pear Suit...

Incidentally, the Pear Juice Parties were the final Aicchy MC-ed events - she’s now going to take maternity leave. (Correction: She’ll be doing a couple more events this month, at Shizuoka Keirin and the Funassyiland Nagoya opening event.) It will be interesting to see if another host/MC can be found that gets on with Funassyi as well as Aicchy did. (There was another announcer at the Pear Juicy Parties who works for Nippon TV called Mori. He was fine as an announcer, but clearly knew almost nothing about Funassyi, which annoyed some fans.) 

[welovefunassyi]

A few more photos of Funa Santa and friends in Funabashi on Christmas Day - according to Aicchy, they visited 4 facilities. Kappa no Kotaro and Aicchy look adorable in matching green outfits as Funa Santa’s elves (top photo). I love the way Funassyi always gets down to eye level when talking to small children (middle photo). The Reindeer, or rather the CEO of Rapiit Co., who also runs the gotouchi chara-friendly Live&Bar Hugo, tweeted that he was going to spend the rest of the day as a reindeer (bottom photo), and that the second drink of everyone who came to the bar on Christmas would be on him.

Here’s a video clip of one of Funa Santa’s stops, at Natsumidai Kindergarten in south Funabashi. 

Photo sources: 1, 2, 3 

[welovefunassyi]

Here’s video of the second session yesterday at Tokyo German Village (see this post for the first session). Funassyi was even more hyper than he was in the morning session - he said he felt refreshed after a nap. 

One interesting thing that Funassyi and Aicchy talked about in this session was the question he was asked a month ago by a sports tabloid paper at the calendar event at Lalaport Tokyo Bay. They asked him if the “rumors that he was dating his on-stage MC were true”. (The reply Funassyi gave at to the reporter at the time was something to the effect of “That’s such a silly question it’s not even worth answering.”) They both seemed to find this quite ridiculous, and Aicchy remarked that she was a bit disappointed that the first romance she was linked to in the gossip columns was with someone who was not a hot guy (ikemen), or even human. ^_^; 

[welovefunassyi]

Here are some videos from Hikone yesterday. The one above is from Funassyi’s impromptu appearance on the main open air stage with first Chiibakun and Unarikun, then with Chicchai Ossan. Funassyi mentions his trip to Iceland with Chicchai Ossan for the first time here, although he doesn’t mention what or who it’s for. (Chicchai Ossan seems a bit overwhelmed by the prospect.) You can see the big advantage talking characters like Funassyi and Chicchai Ossan have over mute ones like Chiibakun and Unarikun, who are more or less at the mercy of the MC or attendant at these shows. 

The following 3 videos are from Funassyi’s Mini Talk Show later the same day at the Hikone Bunka Plaza. I’ve selected these videos because they’re complete and are the most audible of these ones I’ve found so far, even though the videographer was pretty far away from the stage. 

Part 1: 

Part 2: 

Part 3: 

Highlights include: 

Funassyi explaining why his talk show was set up in this separate venue this year. 

More details on the upcoming Iceland location shoot to catch an aurora with Chicchai Ossan, plus some reminiscing about Antarctica.

The venue Funassyi is aiming to hold a show in: Budokan! Although he’s not sure how he can fill up the time yet (he thinks singing 1 song and then chatting the rest of the time may not be up to Budokan standards). 

Meeting Ozzy Osbourne. Funassyi said basically Ozzy listens only vaguely to whatever you say, and just listens carefully to what his wife and manager (Sharon Osbourne) says.

A chat with GCB47′s Yosuku Ishida, who seems like a real gotouchi chara fan. It was mentioned thata Kappa no Kotaro is now operating mainly as a 8th grader (middle school 2nd grader, abount 14 years old) because that gets him into more places than the elementary school 3rd grader version. ^_^ It seems that Kappa no Kotaro is the main dealmaker for GCB47. (Note: Kappa no Kotaro is Rapiit Company’s in-house chara.) 

Funassyi goes down to the audience seats at the end, and the crowd gets very excited. Aicchy calls out to them to stay in their seats so that “Funassyi has a chance to come back [to Hikone] next year”. 

[welovefunassyi]

Funassyi attended the wedding of “Sacocci” yesterday, Saturday July 18th. Sacocci (real name undisclosed) is his manager at Universal Music (probably the closest thing to any kind of manager Funassyi has), as well as his co-host/sidekick/whatever on the Funanomics 2: Nassyi Vacation in Okinawa DVD. It looks like Funassyi also spoke at the reception. It must have been pretty exciting for the guests.

Photo sources: 1, 2, 3 (1 and 3 are from Aicchy, Funassyi’s regular event MC, who also attended the wedding.)