Until I Became Hooked on Seikima-II [Part 2]
*This article is a continuation of 'Until I Became Hooked on Seikima-II [Part 1]'.
Summary of the previous part
Kogechiku had known of Demon Kakka since she was old enough to understand things. However, she had mistaken him for a comedian, and even after discovering heavy metal, she had long ignored Seikima-II.
A broken daily life
As I mentioned in [Part 1], I have been a so-called 'metaller' who has loved HR/HM since I was a high school student. I would go to any live concert I wanted to see, regardless of its scale, travel to distant Disk Union metal specialty stores to buy indie band recordings, and after becoming an adult, my daily pleasures included making metalhead friends at bars and talking all night long.
A dark shadow began to fall over my daily life in 2020, when the COVID-19 pneumonia that was raging around the world finally began to spread in earnest in Japan.
Non-essential outings were discouraged, restaurants shortened their hours or closed, and events where people gathered were all cancelled... everything that led to my enjoyment was completely taken away by the COVID-19 pandemic. On top of that, because it was a global pandemic, there was no mental escape even on the internet, and from the despair of not being able to see the future, even I, who am naturally a positive person, became completely mentally ill (my state of mind at the time was too terrible to write here).
Finding a ray of hope in the devil
I didn't want to see people whose hearts were hardened by dark news and paranoia, so I had significantly reduced my opportunities to touch social media. It was the only self-defense I could do to the best of my ability.
One day, when I logged into a certain social media site for the first time in a while, a fellow fan of a certain hard rock band I had been interacting with for several years—since they are younger than me, I will call them 'Young-chan'—was posting about Seikima-II. Apparently, Young-chan's father was a Seikima-II follower, and Young-chan had also attended a Misa (mass) with them in the past.
'Seikima-Two? Demon Kakka's band?'
At the time, reality was so painful that I was intentionally constantly numbing my senses with canned chuhai so I forgot the exact circumstances and timeline, but thanks to Young-chan's post, I learned:
・That Seikima-II disbanded in 1999 and has been reuniting every five years.
・That it is a band where the talk by the unique members is also fun.
・That the reading of Seikima-II is 'Seikimatsu' (End of the Century), not 'Seikima-Two' that I learned.
And because BURRN! magazine, which had been an important source of information for me for many years and had a connection with Seikima-II due to the
legendary zero-point incident (which I now think was one of the reasons I didn't know about Seikima-II), had reconciled with Seikima-II and featured them on the cover, I became even more interested in Seikima-II.
Extension of the reunion, and then to the Misa
To backtrack slightly, Seikima-II decided to extend their reunion period, which was originally supposed to end in one year, and hold a 35th+ (meaning 36th) anniversary national tour called 'Video & Mutant Live Black Misa Tour: Evil-Vaccine Mass Vaccination'.
'That's it, I'll go see Seikima-II.'
Having decided that, I spent my days listening to Seikima-II songs on Apple Music, watching videos of their Misa (live concerts) on YouTube, and preparing for the day... or rather, What is this, it's super interesting! And above all, it's cool! before I knew it, I was completely hooked on Seikima-II.
Then came November 6, 2021 (Demon Era 23), and my first Misa location was the Tokyo Garden Theater (day session).
The Misa format announced in advance was 'Video Black Misa using pre-recorded footage + live acoustic Misa,' so while I felt a tinge of anxiety that it would be different from the original Misa format I had seen on YouTube, that anxiety disappeared as I watched the gratitude of Seikima-II for making the Misa possible through various ingenious efforts, and the sight of the fans/followers gathered at the venue.
The performance finally began. The flesh-and-blood members were not there yet, but listening to Seikima-II songs with a live feel in such a magnificent concert hall and seeing the members perform seemed well worth it for a first-timer like me. Especially how cool Ace Shimizu-chokan was, who became a hot topic for returning to the Seikima-II stage for the first time in 16 years (even if only on video).
The second half was an acoustic live Misa. I was finally able to see the real, flesh-and-blood members. My seat that day could not be called close to the stage, and the stage set itself was much simpler than the past Misa I had seen on YouTube. Even so, the many Seikima-II songs were wonderful even in an acoustic format, and I thought that truly good songs are masterpieces regardless of the performance style.
Seikima-II was truly there.
The lesson of the Blue Bird and timing
Discovering Seikima-II during the pandemic was, for me, the very lesson of the fairy tale 'The Blue Bird.' Until then, the objects of my interest were major overseas HR/HM bands, or bands with an extremely underground orientation (of course, that's not wrong either). When all of those were shut out, I realized the charm of Seikima-II, which had existed nearby for a long time. True happiness is not far away, but close by.
Conversely, if it hadn't been for the bottom of my life during the COVID-19 pandemic, I wouldn't have been so obsessed with Seikima-II. When my life, Seikima-II's career, and various factors overlapped, the lines crossed. In life, there is a timing for things to be met.
As a result, I decided to try to survive in order to go to Seikima-II's Misa and to know more about Seikima-II, and that has led to today. I don't know if there were any other means of survival.