A Huge Thank you/my thoughts on hanako san and aphrodite cheki sessions and more

Hi Derek, A couple of very successful cheki sessions so thanks for organising that. Hanako-San one was fun, her attempt at saying my name was cute & funny. It’s great that she takes her time with each one drawing the blood drops, makes the cheki stand out from a normal one. I’m glad the Aphrodite members had fun doing the zombie poses and I look forward to seeing their interpretations. I thought my question of which member would they eat would be a fun one to ask and hope they appreciated my attempt at a humorous question. I noticed that Maria and Yura seemed to be quieter than the others hence why I asked questions specifically for them, the dresses question for Maria and the how long does it take Yura to braid her hair which got a comical answer initially when she thought I meant how long in length. I try to keep the conversation flowing by asking questions and hope it encourages others to do the same. As for the question of how regular the online sessions should be then I think each group doing a regular monthly session would be good like Merry Bad End do. However I would have to pick and choose which groups to support as like most people money is getting a bit tight at the moment (regrettably I’ve had to reduce my MBE Patreon this month due to a few too many bills). My vote for regular monthly sessions would be MBE, Aphrodite, Miho & Bury. Additional groups I’d like to see would be Manacle (I would expect them to be very popular) and Odoro (I love them but think they’d struggle to pull in the numbers). Stay idol, Graham

as always, thank you for your incredible comments. I always want to respond so I hope you'll forgive me for trying to address things you said via the audio patreon post instead. In this case though, I wanted to say a few things. First, THANK YOU. the Aphrodite session was a huge success because of you and everybody else who came in at the last second and saved the day. How amazing is this. I really appreciate it so much. I also understand your logic to be a DD and support everybody in a group or various groups... that is not a bad thing to me at all. I am happy you do what you can and considering you and everybody else isn't made of money, it means even more to know that you had to sacrifice in order to do this. That's real love and real respect... so my heart goes out to you for that. And believe me... Aphrodite wants to connect with fans, but they need to be shown the way how to do that. I think last night was a good first step in making them see the wider world that's out there waiting for them. As for your question... Kosame already debut on IU, if you remember... but it was just a brief cheki sale. I will have a lot more stuff for her, including her songs, and her live debut, as soon as I can get her in a vocal recording studio. I am waiting to meet with her to go over the vocal patterns and then we'll record her vocals and after that, I'll print up the CDS and get her ASHA made, take more cheki, and print up some t-shirts and other merchandise. We are going all out with her because I wrote the music for some of her songs myself and produced everything... so her style and music is a reflection of my spirit as much as it is her spirit... only in this case, Kosame has a very difficult and painful story to tell with her songs, and it's DEEPLY personal, so... I have to support her vision more than my own, if that makes sense. She's a damn genius, and I think she's going to take the Idol World by storm when she debuts. And I guarantee NOBODY has heard what she's going to be doing, at least not in the idol world. I am wondering if she'll even be accepted by Japanese fans. My guess is probably not, but her focus is on the foreign market anyway. She wants to tour the world and never look back, and so do I, so we have a lot in common in this regard. So yeah, March/April to get all this out, and probably May for official debut in Japan for live performances, but we'll see. Kosame I can do her cheki session anytime but I really did want to wait until we had something to show everybody musically first. However... I've been thinking of a few things to do in this regard, so I'll talk to her and see what she wants to do. She truly steers her own ship... so I want to know how she feels about doing a cheki session soon or if she wants to wait. For Frun Frin Friends, that's easy enough for me I think but we'll see. They are contracted to XIDEA, so that is where it might be a slight issue? But Aku can do it on her own no problem, I think. And she's very easy for me to work with, as me and her have a very close bond I think that was developed from this past year of working together. So I think everybody can expect at least her next month. Anyway, thank you so much. You made a lot of idols happy the past two days. As did all the foreign fans. And me too... though I had a strange feeling of sadness going home last night. I'm going to post about some stuff later, but yeah... maybe a sadness that is not necessarily a bad sadness... more like I didn't want the party to end kind of sadness. Life was truly glorious for those precious hours spent with all of you and my favorite idols in the whole world. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Hey Derek, what a week. Starting with an earthquake… I hope everything in your apartment still is in one piece. But hey… with a beginning like this things can only get better. Hanakos cheki session really was a blast. I ordered my three cheki pretty early already. I know some friends were about to order cheki as well, since Hanako is very popular. But some wanted to wait in case you would have added some surprise. If that is not only the case in our 10 people group that might explain, why the session got a boost pretty late. For the Aphrodite session it´s so cool that you saved the day by telling the situation completely transparent as it was two days before. I can only speak for me here and hope it helps you getting some input for future plans. (I´ll make it as transparent as possible, to give you the data, but if you think i better have to make an edit for any reason – let me know. If i am not sleeping i can change that in minutes.) Originally i planned to skip this session. The main reason was to give my wallet a little air to breathe after your awesome offers on idol underworld starting in December. Mihos introduction set. Definetly a reason to give full support. The cheki session of Miho and several things i was about to buy. Then the first real x-mas cheki sessions. And at the end the announcement of the doc, which i wanted support as much as possible, That was clear from August on already because i loved the whole idea from the beginning. And on top of that: Mihos Photobook. All awesome stuff i in no way could skip. As an IT technican i don´t earn anywhere as much as a programmer (or manager). But still … no problem to get my money buffer into serious trouble. But all that stuff made me took a bigger handfull of it. So this month i tried to cut some corners if possible. I have seen several concerts of Aphrodite mostly on icolony and i love their music but honestly didn´t have much connection with them. So my plan was to cut corners here at least this time. They are a bigger group and one cheki for each one sums up.. If its a smaller group there is always room for one or two cheki. Having an oshi and only support one or two members is something that triggers my justice system. Out of question. One member of a group maybe the most popular one… and another one… sells only a handful of cheki. This sucks and is nowhere fair. You´ll never will see me doing something lie this. Can´t do that. (Same goes for a buppon where you buy a ticket and have to name a group you bought the ticket for. If a normal group plays with the most popular group together… mini revenue…) But that justice system made me buy the whole set now after you told the actual state. Especially for Aphrodite who want to take a look out of the Japanese Fan bubble. I bought one ticket for each one and cut my corner on another part instead. Turned out to be many people got the same idea and making a new record after Hanako made a new one one day before made me happy. In my opinion for an idol group under three one cheki Session per week is no problem at all. If it is possible to time bigger ones maybe better should be seperated one or two weeks. For all sessions you had in mind i might gut corners for Emopipi due to least connection but buying a Cheki for Emomomo and Bakshinu. But here it is meant just as an example since i can only speak for myself here. Only to give you one viewpoint. Hope it helped a little. For Hanako i wonder if she had an idea how big her foregin fanbase already is. When she had made you a good bunch of cheki before they are gone very fast. (So better make more of the Sailor Saturn cosplay ones They will sell fast no matter how much you have made.). I hope having a glimpse how many fans she has outside of Japan brightened her day. Before i close my commentary for today i have a question too. Since Kosames first songs are in the final stages do you have a date for her in mind to debut on Idol Underworld already. Later March or April maybe? My preferred Cheki List of Idols you havent´t done by now: - Kosame - Frun Frin Friends - Satanic Punish I wish you a good week. Stay safe,, stay awesome. Hear ya soon.

Svensei

Manacle would really be great. And Frun Frin Friends INCLUDING BENI if at all possible.

thanks Romy! These are great suggestions! I think Miscast is possible but will require some tricky scheduling. Aku/FFF is definitely doable I think, since I work regularly with them. Kosame is really anytime... I was kind of saving her for when we can get at least her single out. Manacle would be interesting! I have a plan to see them soon, so I hope I can ask them and see what's going on with them. Anyway, thank you for this. Truly appreciate it as always!

Hiya Derek! Congratulations again on the successful cheki sessions, I hope many more follow. I think one cheki session a week should work out for most, or 3 a month. It might depend on the groups participating though, since the emo7+emopippi+bakashinu in 1 session will be as intense as 2 or 3 cheki sessions so if 3 more cheki sessions follow that same month, sales might be divided over the groups. But most groups have about 3-5 members so that should be doable for 3-4 groups a month. I always buy cheki for MBE. Their cheki sessions are just the most fun and like you've mentioned, I feel there is a sense of connection because I keep buying cheki. Otherwise the groups you've already done a cheki session with, I'd love to see return (Miho, LQ, Hanako-san, Zombie Powder). My list of groups you haven't done a cheki session with before: 1. Frun Frin Friends (or just Aku) 2. Miscast 3. Manacle 4. Kosame Have a good day, Derek! Love, Romy