12 Days of Reminiscence #11 – Fangirling over nano

(This is a part of the series of posts, 12 Days of Christmas, done in my own way. This contains lots of photos, by the way.)

This year has been another great year of fangirling over my favorite rocker, nano-san! Ever since I discovered her music in 2012 (BTOOOM! OP), I’ve been following her around the internet. Although, of course, I’m not as dedicated into this art of online stalking as her other fans are. But it doesn’t mean that I don’t love her as much. I just love her in my own little ways.

Screen shot from nano’s “Born to be” PV. The song was used for Mahou Sensou ED. Unfortunately, the anime was so bad that I had to drop it.

For starters, you can check nano’s wiki page to know the basic stuff about her, if you’re interested. If you’re not, then that’s okay. Some of the important attributes of nano are: ryouseirui (“trap” singing voice), returnee (from New York), bilingual (fluent in both English and Japanese, so she can totally sing in both languages) and Detective Conan fan. She grew up watching Conan and singing along to the songs, which eventually became influential to her music.

For nano, this 2014 has been a great year for her career, too. The year opened with a bang as fans waited for her single, Born to be, whose main track of the same title was the ED of Mahou Sensou, an anime which came out in Winter 2014. The PV was released by the end of January, and it received a positive reaction from fans around the world. Wearing hooded jackets has been her trademark appearance, even in her promotional chibi persona. But in this PV she showed more than just the lower part of her face. That unexpected stunt was enough to drive fans crazy.

Her face is not clearly seen but, at least, we’ve got an idea of how she’d look from afar.

This song and last year’s SAVIOR OF SONG (feat. MY FIRST STORY) (Arpeggio of Blue Steel: Ars Nova OP) were songs that I frequently listened to in the first quarter of 2014. I didn’t even expect to actually pour some effort into expressing my admiration for her. It just sort of happened.

The first thing I did was subscribe for the Nanotomo Circle Magazine. It’s an e-mail newsletter that is sent at the first day of every month. Sometimes it’s fully in Japanese, other times it’s in Japanese accompanied with English translation. I have nothing to lose since it’s free. And I always get the news fresh. Isn’t it awesome?

Information I entered in the required fields. Since it was a personal historical event, I took a snapshot of it before I entered to confirm.

The next thing I did was draw a nano and Detective Conan crossover. I drew it for her upcoming birthday, but I couldn’t wait to send her that. It ended up an advanced birthday present that I sent through twitter. 

No response was coming, and my tweet may have been buried by the flood of fan tweets. Since nano-san is a friend of her fans, I knew that she always makes sure to retweet/favorite the heartfelt messages (including fan illustrations) from her fans. It doesn’t matter if she didn’t notice it, because something even better happened about two months later, as if God has finally answered my prayers and realized my fangirling needs. The amazing thing that happened is, nano RT’d my sincere message! 

I entered a euphoric state, wanting to freeze that moment and just immerse myself in joy. Was this how the other fans felt when their tweets got RT’d? It was such an extremely joyous moment that I literally rolled on my bed and squealed–kicking my legs in the air, tightly hugging my pillow and bringing it to my face in an attempt to keep my fangirl scream inside, but to no avail.

Not 100% exactly like this but, yeah, you get the picture. (Thanks for the photo link, anonmatcha!)

Wait! There’s more! About three months ago, I turned a friend into a nanotomo! I only recommended her some songs from my favorite Jrock bands. The good thing is, we pretty much have similar music taste when it comes to English songs, which helped build the path for us to be connected in a new and special way! It’s really a memorable ‘achievement’, because I used to have only one friend who also enjoys Japanese rock music. Now, there’re two of them! Sharing high anime compatibility with someone else is okay, but sharing music preferences is on a whole different level!

We even got to participate in nano’s “PIECE OF PEACE” project version 2! It’ll gonna be difficult to locate our photo in the collage/cover art of nano’s upcoming 3rd album.

Looking at these events that happened in just one year–in 2014–I realized that I really took it as a time for fangirling, but without the self-awareness that I was already doing just that.

Come to this side, we’ve got the artist with the coolest chin ever!