On the 29th, at a press conference held after the first rehearsal for Japan’s biggest musical show of the year, NHK’s Kouhaku Utagassen (Red and White Year-End Song Festival), Perfume took a moment to look back at 2012, and to talk what they’re looking forward to in the coming year.

2012 has been an amazing year for Perfume. Not only did they do a nationwide concert tour in Japan following the release of their album JPN, this year also saw the electropop group performing overseas for the first time for their “Perfume World Tour 1st” Asia tour.

“It has been a year full of live performances for us, and it was a particularly memorable year for us because of the outpour of love we received not only from our Japanese fans who cheered us on with yells like “Ganbatte ne! Go show the world what you’re made of!”, but also from our passionate overseas fans,” Perfume’s Ayaka Nishiwaki, better known to fans as “A-chan”, said.

When asked about what they’re got planned in the coming year, the ladies said that they’re looking forward to doing a “World Tour 2nd” during which they hope to be able to go to and perform for America and Europe as well.

In 2013, Perfume will also be performing the new theme to Doraemon, announced while they were here in Singapore f0r the last leg of the Asia concert tour.

“We’re very happy about that. When we were performing in Singapore, Doraemon even made an appearance to announce this, by coming out of a Dokodemo Door – it drove the crowd wild!

“There was a moment where we thought ‘What the, we should be the stars of the show here!’ But over all it was still a great honour!” A-chan said jokingly.

The group also said that being able to perform for and interact with children, which comes hand-in-hand with being picked to sing the new Doraemon theme, was something the group had dreamt about for the longest time.

Apart from musing on the past year and the new one ahead of them, Perfume also teased at their performance on the “live” NHK show, saying that it would incorporate the latest cutting-edge technology in stage gimmicks.

“It’s so cutting-edge that we don’t even fully understand how it works,” Ayano Omoto (also known as “Nocchi”) said when pressed for specifics.

“At the rehearsal, when A-chan saw it it for herself she went “Ah!”. That we’ll be able to stage such a surprising performance at Kouhaku is something we’re very excited about,” she continued.

When pressed further, Nocchi revealed: “Although we’ve done this at our live performances, so far it’s only had a success rate of about 99% of the time. So it’s an act that’ll be quite thrilling; in fact we’re quite thrilled to be doing it too.”

According to the electropop group’s A-chan, the Kouhaku performance will incorporate numerous stage gimmicks used in several of their live performances.

“This year we were able to put together a lot of fun things by employing the latest technology in the stage gimmicks at our live acts. Our Kouhaku Utagassen live will sort of be like a compilation of all these different stage gimmicks and technologies,” she said.

This year marks the fifth time Perfume has been on NHK’s Kouhaku Utagassen music extravaganza show.

“It’s an honour to be part of the Kouhaku Utagassen line-up, as the programme is viewed by many people around the world. We’re very proud of this honour,” A-chan said with regards to being a returning act.

“This time around the Kouhaku planning team went through a lot of concepts with us, and so we were able to incorporate all that cutting-edge technology into our performance, as a result of this collaboration. We hope that the viewers watching in their living rooms will find it very interesting.”

The 63rd NHK Red And White Year-End Song Festival begins airing “live” tonight, from 7.15PM JST.

In Singapore, the show will be aired on NHK World Premium (Starhub Cable TV channel 147) at 6.15PM Singapore time (GMT+0800 hours).

Sources: Newslounge, Natalie, Oricon

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