While scrolling through Twitter about a month ago, I noticed Minase Inori’s (hereby called “Inorin”) Twitter account posting about an event out of nowhere. Confused at first, I looked further into it.

It turns out she was set to appear at a university school festival as a special guest. The tickets went on sale about a month before the event, and it sold out pretty quickly due to it being held at a smaller venue.

I was ecstatic when I found out I won the lottery to purchase the ticket to this event. It was only around 3100yen after including all the service fees and such! Such a bargain to get to see Inorin!

The event is just a talk show, and it is to be held on 7/7, which is the day called “Tanabata” in Japan. “Tanabata” translates to “Star Festival” in English. I’m not too educated on the day myself so if you wish to learn more about it, here is the wiki link to it. (I actually didn’t even know if was Tanabata until I got to the venue that day haha)

Since no goods are being sold, I just arrived about 15mins before the doors open, which is at 10am.

The nearest the station to the venue is called “Shonan Station”, and the venue is called “Fujisawashi Shonandaibunka Center Shimin Shiata” (藤沢市湘南台文化センター市民シアター). Yeah, pretty long name, I didn’t bother remembering it either.

The design of the place is really cool. The outside area looked like an abandoned research centre.

Once it’s 10am, the staff started allowing us to enter. First by checking the ticket and then followed up with a thorough bag check.

This is what the front entrance looks like (I took this picture on the way out)

I’m not sure how to describe the venue, so here is a blueprint of it.

The seats are like the ones in movie theatre, each row is a bit higher than the previous one.

This is a sold out crowd, so I’m estimating about 600-700 people all together.

As for where Inorin is, she did the whole talk show in the middle of the half circle extending out to the seat area. So that means people in the first row is about 2-3 meters away from her. My seat was at the 6th row #9, which is also the closes I have ever been to Inorin! Great seat, great view! The whole venue is just really great. You aren’t too far from her no matter where your seat is, and you won’t be obstructed by anyone while sitting down no matter where your seat is!

The event started once the clock hits 10:30am.

Introduction

There were 2 hosts for this event, the main one is a guy and the supporting one is a girl. Both students of the university club that invited Inorin to this event. The host started off by thanking everyone and all that, and after about 1-2min of chitchat, he invited Inorin on stage.

The moment Inorin came on stage, everyone clapped and cheered! She was dressed very casually, white long sleeve top with a long green skirt. She was also wearing a 5cm ish heel to top it off.

To start off the show, the host has her introducing herself “in case some people don’t know who she is”. We all laughed and Inorin sounded confused by this question (I guess an expression to describe her feeling would be “really? lol”). Everyone thought it was funny how this was the question because everyone attending this event is here because of Inorin.

Regardless though, she introduced herself. (I will paraphrase what she said since I don’t have the actual audio file to translate it 100% in her words)

Inorin: “I’m Minase Inori… well you all probably already know that. My birthday is on 12/2/1995… you all probably already know that too. I’m guessing a lot of you guys are also the same age as me right?”

Then she looked at the hosts and asked, “By the way, how old are you guys?”

Host: “We are also about the same age as you”

Inorin: “That’s what I thought too, everyone is so close in age here~~” (she sounds excited)

Host: “Let’s continue, so you are 154cm right?”

Inorin: “Apparently yeah, I’m actually not sure how they got that information (laughs), but somewhere around that height. On a good day I can be 155, but yeah usually around 154-155cm. Oh, I may look taller today because I am wearing a pretty tall heels today. It’s about 5cm I think. So today I’m about 159cm ish (smiles).” She then added, “Oh yeah, my blood type is B.”

Host: “And your hobbies? I hear you like going for walks and shopping.”

Inorin: “Yeah I love going for walks. Actually just last night I went for a walk! I invited *Oonish Saori for dinner and we went for a walk after we ate. I think we walked about 3-4km last night”

Yeah, she walked 3-4km for fun last night. O_O

*Oonish Saori is another fellow seiyuu. I believe they are good friends with each other. They are the hosts for the program called “Pick Up Girls!” Here is the playlist of the show (show still on going as of this post)

The host then asked a sarcastic question.

Host: “So what do you do for a living? What is your job?”

…

The crowd laughs.

…

Inorin then answered sarcastically, “My job is something to do with voice, like playing with my voice. I think it’s what we called a ‘seiyuu’ (voice actress).”

The crowd laughs again.

…

With that, the introduction section ends and the host reveals the schedule for today.

First segment: 「Saikoro Talk」(Dice Talk)

The host started off by explaining what this segment. Basically, Inorin will be give a dice, there will be 6 different questions attached to each number of the dice. Whatever number Inorin rolls, she will need to talk about the questions corresponding to the number.

Here are the list of questions:

What is great about being a seiyuu? Inorin is ______ kind of person! Talk about the end of her first live tour What something you are crazy about recently? What is something that made you laugh recently? Secret talk!

Interesting lists of topics!

First roll: 6- Secret talk!

Straight to the secret talk! To be honest, this is probably the one most people are looking forward to as it’s going to be new information that she has not yet told the public (if she ever will).

Inorin talked about how Nana (Mizuki Nana) was on her radio show as a guest last week.

Before I talk a bit more about this, I just want to make sure everyone knows that Inorin is a huge fan of Nana even before she became a seiyuu herself. She’s even in Nana’s fan club and has attended Nana’s live as well.

Anyways, Nana came on her program. Nana mostly came to promote her new blu-ray(?)/ live tour(?) (sorry I’m not quite sure). This was while Inorin was still on her first live tour and Nana knew about it. To surprise Inorin, Nana brought herb tea for Inorin asking her to take care of herself while on tour. Inorin said she was very touched and happy that this happened because she really wasn’t expecting it, especially from someone you look up to. (How you you feel if you received a gift from your favorite seiyuu? That’s probably how she felt)

Here is a picture from Twitter when Nana came to visit Inorin on her radio program!

Second roll: 1- What is great about being a seiyuu?

When Inorin got this question, the first thing she thought of was how she gets to act like someone she isn’t. She said being able to be other characters is just really interesting. However, after this she really wasn’t quite sure what to say, so the host jumped in to rescue her by giving her suggestions.

The host suggested how she got to met many people and made many friends, like Oonishi Saori. Inorin giggled and the crowd laughed. We all thought it was funny cause why Oonishi Saori when there are many other seiyuus she seems pretty close with as well.

That was actually all Inorin needed. Her mind immediately got ideas and starting talking about how she felt like being a seiyuu is like being in a different world. This is because her friends (that are just everyday normal people) all have the same schedule while only hers is different. For example, all her friends need to get up early in the morning to catch train to go to school or work, however for Inorin her work usually starts later in the day. This means that she didn’t really need to get up that early and never really need to ride crowded trains to work. She ended off her thought by saying being a seiyuu really different sort of lifestyle which she thought was pretty cool.

Third roll: 3- Talk about the end of her first live tour

Inorin’s first thought when she rolled #3 was that this is probably the first time she got to talk about the tour after it has ended! She seems really excited.

She started off by thanking everyone for coming and how the tour ended without trouble. She said that since this was her first ever live tour, she was actually really nervous every single weekend of the tour before her live performance. She then mentioned how the song list is mostly the same but she did change a few songs between each city she visited on her tour.

Then came the shameless plug.

Inorin: “By the way, you guys know that the live will be made into a Blu-ray disc right? It will be released on 10/17/2018 along with my 6th single!”

…

We all fell out of our chairs laughing and clapping.

…

She then stopped us from clapping and said “but most importantly, I learned to skip!” (Context: in her making of her first live BD, she looked very awkward when she was asked to skip and got “made fun of” by the staffs)

… We just laughed and claps roared in the venue… her timing of speech is immaculate.

Fourth roll: 4- What something you are crazy about recently?

Before she actually rolled #4, she got #1 twice. First time we chuckled, 2nd time we laughed out loud. Actually the third time she got another repeat number, but instead of rolling again, she just turned the dice to whatever number she has yet to roll yet. That number happened to be #4.

Now this part she talked really fast, so I wasn’t able to catch everything.

Basically the gist of it is that there is this TV show that she has been really interesting in because apparently one of her friend appeared in the show. Inorin talked about how a character in the show is widely disliked by most people, but went on saying maybe he isn’t that bad of a person (defending him in an indirect way probably cause she likes that character haha). She also mentioned how there is this main girl character that everyone loves, but Inorin thinks another girl character is much better than the main one.

Inorin seems to have something going with unpopular characters haha.

She said that this TV show has really caught her attention and she is really looking forward to watching it. She then added everyone should watch this show too! (But I don’t think she gave us the show’s name lol).

And that wraps up the Dice Talk segment!

Second Segment: Atorie Inori (Guess the Drawing)

The next segment is “Guess the Drawing” segment. Rules are really simple: Inorin will draw a word from a box, she then will have 30 seconds to draw whatever word she drew and an audience will be picked to try to guess it.

Round 1:

Inorin immediate went about drawing right after she got her word. However, she ran into an unexpected problem… she couldn’t get the lid of the pen… For a good 10 seconds, she was struggling to get the lid off the pen, and while that was happening the crowd was having a good laugh about it.

After getting the lid off, Inorin went into berserk mode, hands moving as a deer running for its life. She then changed colour, but this time did not struggle to get the lid off.

Times up!

Inorin: “Crap…”

Inorin seems very anxious and she seems to have no confidence.

Host: “Let’s show it to everyone! 3… 2… 1…”

This one was surprising easy to guess. Almost half the crowd raised their hands. One of the person got picked on got the answer right. Inorin seemed relieved afterwards.

The answer to the first drawing was “Sunflower”.

Onto the next question.

Round 2:

Like last time, Inorin drew her word from the box and went right to work. After 30 seconds she was asked to stop and show her drawing to everyone. This is the Inorin I knew…

When she showed everyone what she drew. The crowd at the same time all went “HUH?”

Inorin is bad at drawing and we all knew it. The first one caught us off guard cause it was actually good.

This one though, how would I describe the drawing…? Imagine 2 potatoes with faces, turned to their side facing each other. Then they each had 1 hand which all fingers are glued together while being really close to each other. Forgot to mention the creepy eyes.

My first guess was “2 potatoes trying to kiss and hold each other”, but I don’t think there is a word for that.

The host then picked a person from the crowd, and that dude nailed the answer… Like seriously how? Of course when the crowd heard the answer, we all went “HUH?” again in sync.

So what I thought were 2 potatoes kissing each other turned out to be Orihime and Hikoboshi (I think they are called Altair and Vega in English).

Inorin said she was trying to draw them leaving each other.

Round 3:

Again, Inorin drew her word and went about drawing. This time as she finished, she gave the drawing a look of doubt.

When she showed us her draw, we gave the same look to it as well. Again, what the hell did she just drew?

The host gave us a little hint which is that Inorin actually didn’t draw a word that she drew from the box. Instead it’s something that describes the word she drew from the box. Maybe something that she likes or dislikes.

Apparently that was a good enough hint for some of the audience to guess.

Before I tell you the answer, let me describe the art.

Imagine a normal white mushroom with it’s hat and body, then add 2 bunny ears on it’s hat. Then add 2 eyes at the lower part of the mushroom hat. Lastly on the body add 2 wings.

Yeah… That’s what she drew…

I drew it our for you guys. It looks sort of like this:

The dude who got picked to answer this question got it in 1 try. The answer is a frog.

When you think about it, never mind, it doesn’t look like a frog at all haha

But for those who couldn’t see why this looked like a frog to Inorin, The wings mentioned earlier are the front leg, the bunny ears are the back leg, and the body of the mushroom is the frog’s tongue. Yeah…

Inorin said she was trying to draw this frog from a different angle then what we usually see.

By the way, the word she drew was “something she dislikes”. Frogs are one of the 2 things she dislikes, the other being tomatoes. However, she said if she drew tomatoes it would be too simple and easy to guess so she went with a frog.

You can see how this game is fun for us there right? Seeing Inorin draw just makes us laugh haha.

Anyways, there are more drawings!

Round 4:

This one was another “?” from the crowd.

After Inorin finishes her drawing, she took a look at it and smiled then said, “perfect”. She seems to have full confidence of this drawing.

As she showed us her drawing, we all gave her the “?” look, again…

Imagine a stick figure body, with a grape head. On top of the head there is like string with a ball attached to it. And there is like a “floating dick” near the top of the figure’s head.

Only a few people in the crowd raised their hands.

The answer was “alien”.

I feel like Inorin was half surprised by this because she followed up with:

“My drawing really that good or is it just because you guys are too good at guessing?”

Oh, and the “floating dick” near the top of the alien’s head is suppose to be a beam sent from his space ship.

This round really just flew by. Nothing else to really add.

Round 5:

This is the last round of the game. Inorin drew a word from the box but ended up wanting to change the word because she said it would be too easy.

In fact, she was right. The original word she drew from the box was “lion”.

Inorin then asked the host to pick a word for her to draw. So far so good, no one has guessed her drawing wrong yet.

Can we make it 5 in a row?

Inorin went right to work once the timer started. She seemed to work at triple speed this time and finished the drawing way before the 30 second time limit is up.

Then the grand reveal came. And another huge “HUH?” followed.

No one in the entire audience knew what she drew. It was all over the place. It felt like there were 3 pieces of art there we were suppose to guess but the fact is that is one piece of art. I would try to describe it, but it’s just doesn’t resembles anything so it’s impossible to describe.

The host looked for audience to answer the question and a dude raised his hand with a 200% confident look on his face.

Host: “Are you really sure you know the answer? It might be embarrassing if you get it wrong since no one has got it wrong.”

Audience: “I know it 100%, don’t worry about it.”

Host: “So what is the answer?”

Audience: “A birthday party”

You could see Inorin’s face go, “HUH?”

Inorin: “Birthday party? I thought you knew 100%!”

Another dude raised his hand and Inorin pointed at him and he answered.

“Takoyaki.”

Inorin: “What? Oh I guess part of it sort of looks like it”

Another 1-2 guesses, still no one got it.

Inorin then pulled out her cute voice and said, “Why is everyone trying to bully me?)’: ”

The host then came in and said he would like to give a hint.

Host: “The word starts with the letter TA.”

Someone shot their hand up and Inorin immediately picked him.

Audience: “Taiyaki” (Fished designed red bean paste bread/ cake)

Without missing a beat, Inorin cut in and said, “Where the hell can you even see a fish on here?” indicating that she isn’t that bad at drawing. She seemed to started to sound a bit panicky, probably afraid no one will get it.

Another audience raised his hand and he got picked.

Audience: “Takoyaki party”

Inorin: “What’s with you guys with parties!!?!”

Another try…

Audience: “Tako rice”

Host: “Ahhhh, so close!!!!”

Then a girl raised her hand.

Inorin: “Oh! Oh! A girl! A girl!”

Inorin sounded like she found gold.

Audience: “Tamago kakegohan!” (Raw egg on rice)

Ding ding ding!

Inorin: “FINALLY SOMEONE GOT IT!!!!”

Inorin sounded relieved.

She then went on to explain what she drew, and even so no one can really tell what she drew after explain. She then looked disappointed and sad in a joking way.

All in all, this corner was extremely enjoyable, everyone had a chance to participate and everyone pretty much laughed their ass off while playing this game. Great times! Would like to play this game with Inorin some day!

Final note to close off this segment: Someone twitted all 5 pictures of what Inorin drew based on his memory. I think most of them are pretty accurate, but #5 is not really the same because Inorin’s is way messier~!

Here is the link to the 5 pictures!

Third Segment- Reading Lines

This segment is basically just the host giving Inorin the background of the situation, Inorin then will read the line in fitting voice. All the lines are prepared in advance, so she just has to make the voice for it. Also, I think all the lines are collected from their Twitter. I assumed they asked for suggestions and people sent in what they would like Inorin to say.

To be completely honest, there is nothing I can do about this segment because I can’t really type out different kinds of voices. I guess this is one of those things that you can only experience live. Sorry!

I will type out the different kinds of voices and situation she did though!

Shy school girl Girl trying to keep a secret from a boy Another shy girl Young boy Shonan’s girl (Shonan is the place where the event is held, so this basically means what the local girls here would sound like) Old woman Dating couple (as the girl) Energetic girl Tsundere inviting a boy for a walk Tenwa era (Like how people in Tenwa era would speak like) Sexy mom Love confession as a boy Cute voice saying mean things (things you don’t say to people because you will hurt their feelings; well she was saying it to us sort of haha) Wishing someone happy birthday (she also wished anyone who had a birthday on the day of the event happy birthday too! There were 2! They are so lucky!) Older sister welcoming you home Talking to childhood friend (as a girl) Seductive older sister Energetic girl in summer

In total Inorin did 18 different kinds of lines, voices, and situations! She said for voices that she doesn’t usually do, she never practice them. If need be (like today), she just do them on the spot using her gut feeling for it.

This corner was okay, but you got to hear a lot of different voices from Inorin! Sorry again, this is the best I can do to report this segment.

Fourth Segment: Fan Letter

As the title stated, this is a fan letter segment.

Like any fan letter segment, she reads the mail and answers any question that was asked. She will also input her own thoughts and comments as she likes while reading.

I will just type out the key points of all the letters that was read.

First letter: Has she been to any of her seiyuu friend’s live?

Inorin responded by saying she has only ever been to Nana’s live, and that was with her mom. She has never been to any of her seiyuu friend’s live before. However, Inorin has been to AKB48’s hand shake events before.

As for other lives, with her private friends, Inorin has been to Ikimonogakari’s and Aiko’s lives before.

Second letter: Share with us a secret from your live tour!

This one is really interesting.

She started off by thanking everyone for coming and supporting her on the tour. Then she moved into the secret talk.

She said since it was her live, she has tickets that she can give away to her friends if she wanted; so she decided to do that.

While trying to give the ticket away to her friend, her friend told Inorin she doesn’t need it since she already got tickets for it. Inorin was very confused by it and her friend sent her a picture of the ticket.

It turns out her friend joined her fan club and already bought tickets to her live. Inorin was so happy yet a bit embarrassed by it. Just imagine your good friend, in your fan club. >w<

Her friend made sure Inorin knew where she was sitting and asked Inorin to find her in the crowd while she is there.

Inorin said she tried to find her friend but the place was just too big.

It wasn’t until the encore part where she looped the area she was finally able to find her friend.

“It was too easy,” said Inorin. “My friend was jumping up and down holding all kinds of glowy things and towels, waving and shaking. There is no way I can miss that haha. She just has the ‘LOOK AT ME’ sign written all over her.”

Third letter: If you were to make a new single, what kinds of songs would you like to challenge yourself with?

Beep Boop Beep Boop Sellout Alert~!

Inorin practically jumped on this chance.

She said there isn’t anything particular she would like to challenge herself with. Then it came,

“By the way, my new single will be released with the Blu-ray disc of my first live tour on 10/17/2018. Please look forward to it.”

Inorin is just so straightfoward haha.

She then talked a bit about the new single, saying how this song is the first ever song that will be released in the autumn season for her. Then added that the song’s got an “autumn feel” to it.

Fourth Letter: Your name has the Chinese character for “water” in it, so do you like rain?

Inorin said she never thought about loving or hating rain. Rain was just neutral to her.

She then expressed how it’s not ok for it to rain to fall when she’s planning to do outdoor activity, but it’s okay for rain to fall if she’s doing indoors activity. Rain who comes while she is doing outdoor activity is the worst.

All in all, she decided that she likes rain.

Fifth Letter: What other jobs will you be interested if you are not a seiyuu?

A kindergarten teacher!

Since Inorin was an only child, she has always wanted a younger sister. In general, any job that has to do with family or children is someone she would love to do if she is not a seiyuu! Something like working in a amusement park! The main reason being that she just loves children!

Sixth letter: What do you dislike?

Other than frogs (which was mentioned previously on this report), she said everyone knows she hates tomatoes.

The host asked if she has ever tried to conquer her fear of tomatoes.

Inorin: “Yadayo (No way)! Why would I try to eat something I know I will hate? What’s the point to that?”

The answer is just so adorable like a little kid!! >w<

Host: “So are there anything else you dislike?”

Inorin: “Hotate no Orange and celery.” (Not sure how to translate that word)

Inorin then added: “Well for celery, I’m trying my best to eat it since one the celebrities I like likes to eat it. I’m trying!”

Host: “I see! So what do you LIKE then?”

Inorin: “I love lots of things! Noddles, meat, cow tongue, pizza, sushi, etc… Pretty much whatever a child may like, I will probably like it too!”

Seventh Letter: Which do you prefer? Mountain or sea?

Inorin: “Until last year, it was an easy answer, which is mountains. However because of the photoshoot of “BLUE COMPASS,” I had to go to the seas a lot. Maybe right now I like the seas better.”

Host: “But don’t you like swimming? You can do all sorts of activities by the sea!”

Inorin: “I don’t even own any swimsuits! I’m not really quite sure why people like to wear swimsuits. Maybe it’s just me who’s weird haha.

Eighth Letter: What is your impression on the Kanagawa Prefecture (prefecture where the event is held in)

Inorin: “Ummmmmmm……………”

Host: “No impression at all?”

The crowd lets out a laugh.

Inorin: “Well, I guess the Chinatown. Wait, Chinatown is in Kanagawa right? Yeah? Okay. Hmm, I guess Enoshima is also quite interesting as well. OH, of course, Shonan is also awesome!” (Shonan is the area where is event is held)

She then asked the audience who are from the Kanagawa prefecture. A few hands raised and she went on to ask what their recommendation is for what to do in Kanagawa is.

The venue was dead silent…

Then laugher ripped through the venue.

Final Letter: As an artist, what is your next goal?

Inorin: “It’s kind of hard to think on the spot if you asked that this. I really don’t have a next goal in mind at the moment…”

Then the audience started shouting out suggestions and one caught her attention.

Inorin: “It would be really cool if I can do a solo live in another country!”

…

Suggestions continue to echo through the venue…

…

Inorin: “Okay stop, now you guys are just shouting out the city where you live and where you want to have a live!”

That wraps up the fan letter segment. Lots of interesting questions and answers as well. Really learned quite a bit about Inorin!

Ending

At this point, 90mins has passed since the event started.

Unfortunately, all good things much come to and end and this is the time ):

Before finishing off, they announced that there will be a giveaway for 5 signed boards!

All of the winners were to go up to the side of the stage and write their name on a piece of paper. The paper then is passed to Inorin by the host and Inorin signs the name on the board along with her signature!

Of course I wasn’t able to win it ):

Then they surprised us once more!

They announced that that they will be taking a group photo with everyone in the venue!

As of right now, the photo hasn’t been posted but hopefully it will be posted within a couples days time! I will update it if it has been posted!

Inorin thanked everyone for coming once more, bowed to each section of the audience twice and left the stage.

Inorin posted this photo after the event finished! Cute as ever!

Final Thoughts

I absolutely love this event!

Although the venue was quite far, the venue was really pleasant to be in. Also love events where they aren’t as many people!

Had so many good laughs and learned so much about Inorin while sitting there for the hold 90mins. Also had my hopes up and then crushed with the giveaway >w<

All in all, this was a really good event and would love to participate again if I get a chance in the future!

If you love Inorin! You may be interested in the live report I did for her first live tour a couple days back!

Thank you so much for reading and sorry for the lack of visuals!

Until next time!

Salo

PS: So you may be wondering how I remembered everything in this event. I took notes while watching.

Here are the links to photos I used in this report:

Inorin clothing photo

Nana+Inorin

Inorin after event photo