Hinabitter’s first event “Kurayoshi Sakura Matsuri” was held in Kurayoshi city last weekend. Here are three main things you ought to know about the event.
1) Sister City Alliance formed between Kurayoshi and Kuranogawa
This was an incredible piece of news that surprised Hinabitter fans. The fictional town of Kuranogawa was officially made a sister city of her real world counterpart, Kurayoshi city.
The photo shows Ishida Kotaro, Mayor of Kurayoshi, presenting a letter of appointment to the new tourism ambassador of Kurayoshi, Yamagata Marika.
Hinabitter gained a huge presence all over Kurayoshi city, with this alliance.
Hinabitter’s symbolic chikuwa was introduced in 17 restaurants and cafes all over town, all for the sake of Hinabitter fans visiting the area.
There were also life-sized panels of the Hinabitter girls placed at various landmarks all over the town. Here’s a Meu panel in front of “Daigakuin”, a famous Buddhist temple in Kurayoshi.
2) Huge turnout of more than 3000 fans from all over Japan
For a short one hour talk show and an autograph session, 3000 Hinabitter fans travelled to this remote little town far, far away from any major city of Japan. Tomosuke, the producer of Hinabitter, was unable to hide his surprise. Imagine what the turnout would be like if this was held in Tokyo instead. Without a doubt Hinabitter has established themselves a large fanbase.
Mayor Ishida commenced the event by saying”今日は盛り上がっていくめうー！” (today, let’s enjoy ourselves to the fullest meu!), ending his sentence with Meu Meu’s trademark sentence-ending word “meu”.
Here’s a group photo of Tomosuke, the voice actresses of Hinabitter (back row), and cosplayers of the Hinabitter girls.
3) Announcement of new song “Kurayoshi Ondou”
The highlight of the talk show was the announcement of Hinabitter’s new song. “Kurayoshi Ondou” is a song made to commemorate this very first event, and to thank all the fans who attended it. This song will hit the stores on 27th of May.
And that is pretty much everything important you need to know about the Kurayoshi Sakura Matsuri. For those interested in a detailed report of the talk show, I found one written by a Japanese fan who was there in person. Feel free to check it out!
