■ “What’s with this? These kotatsu seats (smiles). It’s the ideal seat, isn’t it?” (Nikaido Fumi), “This is the first time in my life that I’m seeing media representatives sitting in kotatsu’s and taking photos of me. The best joke this year (smiles)” (GACKT)

The movie Tonde Saitama was released yesterday, 22 February. One of the campaign events during the promotional seasons was the awards ceremony of the “Local-1 Grand Prix” which was held today, 23 February, at New Tokorozawa Let’s Cine Park in Saitama.

The Local-1 Grand Prix is a campaign that was named after “local love”, one of the themes of the movie Tonde Saitama. People were to self-deprecatingly tweet about their hometown’s charm along with the location of their nearest movie theatre while fans will read it and vote for one of the 137 movie theatres nationwide that they “want to support”. A bonus prize for this Grand Prix is having the luxurious benefit of lead actors Nikaido Fumi and GACKT visiting the winning movie theatre.

After a fierce battle, the place that won the Grand Prix was impressively the above-mentioned New Tokorozawa Let’s Cine Park. The charming point of this local area that was brought up for this cinema was “Even though the place is called Tokorozawa, it produces ‘Sayama’ tea, and it’s Asami Rei-sama’s hometown!!”.

As promised for the awards ceremony, the two lead actors, Nikaido Fumi, GACKT, were accompanied by director Takeuchi Hideki to present a Tasuki, which was specially made for this day, and the crown, which somehow looked like it came from a mass retailer somewhere to the manager of New Tokorozawa Let’s Cine Park, Hayase Tomohiro.

He also received a “Sai-tama Ball”, which was named after Saitama’s nickname “Sai no Kuni (Land of Colours)” and was given out by Nikaido and GACKT to the audience at the Japan premiere on 28 January, from director Takeuchi.

It appears that during the Local-1 Grand Prix, the staff of New Tokorozawa Let’s Cine Park worked on making their cinema the holy grounds of this movie. With a smile, the manager shared his happy words, saying, “Winning this Grand Prix is thanks to the support from every one of Shin-Tokorozawa. I feel that the promotions that our cinema delivers to everyone in Tokorozawa City have properly reached everyone’s hearts”.

New Tokorozawa Let’s Cine Park had undergone refurbishment 2 years ago and received a new concept. They turned the usually-empty front seats into reclining seats and during winter, the front-most row gets equipped with kotatsu, turning them into Kotatsu Seats. These are just some of the ideas that turned this cinema into one with a rather “strong character”. Although they were informed beforehand, Nikaido, GACKT, and director Takeuchi were still rather shocked by this scene.

On this day, the awards ceremony was held together with a stage greeting, and the reporters’ area for the stage greeting was the kotatsu seats area. To the sight of the reporters seated in kotatsu and taking photos of them, Nikaido was highly amused, saying, “What’s with this?　These kotatsu seats (smiles). It’s the ideal seat, isn’t it? I think it would be nice if I could have such a seat. This is a very lovely cinema”.

GACKT, who gives the impression that he normally doesn’t display any expression, too could not hold back his laughter, bursting out as he said, “This is the first time in my life that I’m seeing media representatives sitting in kotatsu’s and taking photos of me. The best joke this year”. The audience also laughed.

The audience shouted, “Sit (in the kotatsu)!”, requesting GACKT to do that, but he said, “I’ll consider it”, and flatly declined. The stage greeting was a harmonious one that was enveloped in laughter from start to end.

■ Nikaido Fumi’s comment
We’re now in the 2nd day of the movie’s release and I’m really glad to hear from those around me that a lot of people have started watching this movie. (I) got an Oiri-bukuro* on the first day for the first time, and this really is the first time in a long while that I received something like that for a movie I was involved in, and this really is a movie that I would like many, many more people to come and enjoy it.

■ GACKT’s comment
Do come to the cinema as many times as you can to enjoy the scale that can only be experienced in a theatre. It’s a movie filled with meticulously set-up jokes all around that exhibits director Takeuchi’s particularities.

■ Director Takeuchi’s comment
This turned out to be a movie that’s really packed with lots of little jokes, so please do watch it multiple times to finds as many of those as you can. And for Saitama natives, the first 30 minutes might be a painful stretch of time, but at the end, this is a story about the local love for Saitama, so please do share your thoughts on SNS too.

* Oiri-bukuro is the bonus paid to employees on occasion of a full house.

Source: m-on-music.jp

Translation: GACKT ITALIA Team

Translation © GACKT ITALIA