A Different Kind of Experience - EN Ver.

Hello everyone, I’m Toki.
My experience hasn’t quite been the same as everyone else so I thought it would be fun to share some thoughts. 
This may be a little messy since I do not usually write things like this, but maybe it will be interesting.

My Japanese is not very good, and it will mostly be a machine translation, but feel free to check out the Japanese version!

Entry point?

I’ll say it up front. It was Kiratto Prichan.
I’ve heard from people that this is not really a common entry point, but various circumstances led to a group of online friends watching this series together in the first half of 2020.  I’m not sure how to put it, but watching the series together was probably the most fun I had in a long time.  It was just a bunch of joking around, making inside jokes, creating various memes.  Secretly pushing both Anna and Emo and having season two dropping FUCKING TSUYOKI TWINTAILS. If this isn’t a confession, I don’t know what is. (Wrong [but actually right {probably}])
Overall, it was a very fun and interesting experience filled with late nights binging several episodes once a week together. Lots of shitposting, and fun memories.

At some point through watching the series I got someone interested in finding out who the rest of the cast was, since at the time I really only knew that i☆Ris was a portion of the main cast.  After investigating, funnily enough, I found that I had already heard two Run Girls, Run! songs previously from other anime I watched (Break the Blue!! and Share the light) so it was quite a surprise when I found out that not only were they the same group, but they also had absolute fire songs.
So curiosity led to another, and I soon found out that they were having an online live soon!

Online Events!!

So that leads to the next interesting point. Corona was an interesting period (and still is?). Although it was frustrating at times, I’m also somewhat thankful at the same time.  I think I’ve said this before somewhere, but I don’t think I would have become a RGR fan if these online lives/events didn’t exist. 
But because the online lives existed I was able to watch RGR perform live. 
Because I was able to watch RGR perform live I started participating in online events.
And because these online events existed, I started watching other net programs that RGR was in.
Because all of those existed, I became a fan.

Looking back, if not RGR, it could have been any other group,  but just by chance, I happened to be watching Kiratto, and just by chance, RGR had some lives coming up. Just by chance, RGR happened to have music that I really enjoyed. Chance after chance, it feels very shallow writing it down, but thinking of it, that’s what life is all about right?

So for nearly two years I continued to support RGR from far away, and met a lot of people online. Everything was fine(??)

Run Girls, Run！をいつも応援してくださる皆さまに大切なお知らせ

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The title itself isn’t doesn’t say much, but I’m sure people will recognize it.

I remember people saying they were expecting this, but this was the first time for me. I didn’t even think of this as a possibility…
Is this how it’s going to end? Without me having seen them perform in person???

The thought crossed my mind several times, and at the time, entry into Japan was still impossible.  With the 5th anniversary final leg happening in 2 months and no end to the travel restriction in sight, it felt a bit depressing.  I realized that there will probably be a final live and maybe I could go to that… but just the thought of having my only RGR in person live being the final live also felt a bit depressing… 

Around the same time, in a very dangerous discord server, there was some talk about guided tours. The only way to get into Japan at the time was to have a tour company sponsor a visa, and have a guided tour with the tour company.  

So began the investigation into guided tours for RGR 5th Anniversary Live (and Pretty Live！～All for One !!!～). 
And well: 
3,000 USD… not including a flight to Japan…

A bit expensive…
Maybe I could gather some interest with some other people and reduce the cost?? (nope)

Well, this could be the last chance to see them I thought, so if there’s a chance, I’m going to take it…

So I took a solo guided tour to Japan for a weekend and had 2 out of 3 days filled with lives (lol).

I won’t write my impressions, because quite frankly, I’m a very forgetful person.  Since I can’t really visualize things, it’s very hard for me to look back and remember without a reference.  I do wish we had a recording of the last leg in Tokyo though… 

Looking back at it objectively, it was very expensive.  It was a terrible financial decision.  

I’m glad I did it.

I wrote the initial draft of this somewhere over the Pacific on a plane heading back to Japan again. After the 5th anniversary live, I thought it would be funny to write a blog titled “I spent 3,000 USD to fly out to see a female voice actor unit perform live, they’re breaking up”. (Please stop)

This post is likely very messy and very rambly.  I can’t really share the charm of the members, and other people will do it better than me anyways, but these past two years have been fun and I look forward to the Final Live in March.  So let's run through to the end.