(NOAH) Fan Event Recap: Road to Nippon Budokan Special Autograph Session

"I won Happiness of The Year today"

It was a return to the Ariake area today for Noah, if not the site of the old arena and dojo, but that will come in October. Today it was a focus on the future and a look ahead to the Nippon Budokan which takes place on the 16th July. The day started at 11:30am, when the doors opened and the merchandise sales started. Noah also had the collection boxes out for Yoshihiro Takayama and Shinjiro Otani. 

It was going to be a long, but exciting day for both wrestlers and fans. 

Mohammed Yone was not at the event today, he had been to visit Director Aoyagi's memorial, where Noah had sent flowers. 

12:00 - 13:00 Autograph session part 1

- Booth 1: Kaito Kiyomiya, Shuhei Taniguchi, Yoshiki Inamura, Daiki Inaba & Kinya Okada

- Booth 2: Seiki Yoshioka

- Booth 3: Michael Elgin & Masa Kitamiya

- Booth 4: NOSAWA Rongai & Super Crazy

Michael Elgin was absent from the autograph session, information is sketchy as to why, but fans seemed to think he was unwell. Go Shiozaki was on hand as a replacement and was at the ticket booth. He signed the tickets that fans bought for the Nippon Budokan. Noah are still advertising Elgin's appearance for the event tomorrow however. 

Kinya Okada pulled funny poses for and with fans. 

So many people came, that with fifteen minutes to go until part two, there were still long lines for Kaito Kiyomiya's booth (he asked fans to call him "Kaito") and they appeared to be increasing. Like fans said, there was no way this was going to finish at 1pm.

13:00 - 14:00 Autograph session part 2

- Booth 1: Go Shiozaki, Takashi Sugiura & Kazuyuki Fujita

- Booth 2: Daisuke Harada, Atsushi Kotoge, YO-HEY & Xtreme Tiger

- Booth 3: HAYATA

- Booth 4: El Hijo Del Dr Wagner Jnr, Rene Dupree, Simon Gotch & Timothy Thatcher.

Part two managed to somehow start on time, although Kiyomiya et al didn't wrap up until ten minutes later so Go Shiozaki, Takashi Sugiura and Kazuyuki Fujita could start. 

Just like in Ota Ward, the Noah Junior Regulars photos sold out and YO-HEY was chatting away to the fans who were in the queue, which was a pretty long one. Xtreme Tiger came dressed for the event in a suit jacket, while the Noah Junior Regulars all wore the white N-Innovation t-shirts. Their line went fifteen minutes over the end time. As the portraits all sold out, YO-HEY pulled a number of different poses for fans so each person would have something individual. One fan classed them as "YO-HEY'S brightness, Harada's kindness and Kotoge's sincerity".

A parent and child came to the Noah Junior Regular booth, who were talking in sign language. Daisuke Harada, stood a little distance away from the child, removed his mask and signed and mouthed "thank you". 

One fan wore a Fujiwara t-shirt to Noah International booth, and was met with a "Nice" from Timothy Thatcher and Simon Gotch. El Hijo Del Wagner Junior spoke Japanese to fans.

Seiki Yoshioka was very gentle and softly spoken, fans could not quite imagine he was the same person who had so savagely attacked HAYATA this past weekend. 

After the booth had wrapped up, Go Shiozaki went back to the ticket stand, and then after a long day of signing autographs (and most likely giggling) went to eat a mountain of watermelon flavored shaved ice with a big dollop of cream on the top.

14:00 Exclusive fan club personal autograph & photo session

Participants: Kaito Kiyomiya, Takashi Sugiura, HAYATA

Now that they had him on their own, fans gave a little encouragement to Takashi Sugiura, who sadly (and understandably) was not himself.

HAYATA was more talkative than usual (although he did look like he was hiding a bit behind the belt in some pictures) and fans said they were able to have a bit of a conversation with him. 

15:00 Satoshi Kojima & Kaito Kiyomiya talk show

By this point, fans were grateful to be able to sit down.

Satoshi Kojima was asked about his first impression of Kaito Kiyomiya. Kojima said he was reminded of the character, Katsuo Isono from Sazae-San. Katsuo is a young boy (eleven in the manga) who often gets into mischief and is typically boyish i.e. doesn't do his homework, is more interested in sports, gets scolded by his parents for poor grades. Kojima also bought up the short article from Tokyo Sports the other day, of when he was speaking to Kiyomiya in the waiting room, and discovered he and Kiyomiya's mother were the same age. 

They both had good chemistry. Kojima talked about the feud with Kenoh, something Kiyomiya knows all too well, and described him as "strong", with a "heavy kick". They also both talked about fighting Keiji Mutoh. Kojima's advice to Kiyomiya was that Mutoh only thinks about himself during matches, therefore Kiyomiya should fight for himself and not think too much about Mutoh. A sudden Q&A broke out about four minutes towards the end. It was a fun talk

15:30 Kongoh talk show

Kongoh entered to Kenoh's music and then posed in usual manner. They were all smiles throughout the talk. Katsuhiko Nakajima in particular was smiling from start until finish.

Takasuke (or "Dasuke" which Katsuhiko Nakajima calls him) and Hajime Ohara discussed the dreaded "Him" (Shuji Kondo, whose name it seems must never be mentioned out of fear and terror). Ohara is still terrified of him and remembers his days as a trainee all too vividly, which makes bringing out his strength difficult sometimes. Tadasuke's opinion was on the Noah Junior Regulars and no idea why they had a match. 

Katsuhiko Nakajima said he was looking forward to fighting Kazuyuki Fujita again after a long while. 

Kenoh talked about Satoshi Kojima and push ups. 

Masakatsu Funaki was not with Kongoh today. Tadasuke, who appears to be in charge of him, apparently has to contact him by e-mail. This comes about from Tadasuke wanting to add him to Kongoh's LINE chat and Funaki misunderstanding that Tadasuke wanted his phone number, so Tadasuke does not have it as Funaki does not know what LINE is. Manabu Soya (who said that Funaki was Kongoh's "First Grader") said that when the switch is on, Funaki is terrifying. Kongoh agreed and said that he sometimes got them into difficult situations in the ring. 

16:00 Kongoh autograph & photo session

(Participants: Kenoh, Katsuhiko Nakajima, Manabu Soya, Tadasuke, Hajime Ohara & Hi69)

At the end, Kongoh did their pose on the stage and "Kick Start (The Voyage)" played to usher in the last event of the evening. It had been a long but exciting day for fans, and there was one last queue to get autographs and pictures from Kongoh, which had a waiting time of about an hour.

With thanks to: Abeshin, FPW_Re_Name, Fujiwara Armbar, Yudaidayo, Mam_sndSK, Mashimashi, ULTIMATEROYALE, Tahtaunwa, ara_ki_mine, Akane, Shadowwoody, Jun_Mazima

GIF taken from Noah Official Twitter

Pic credit Noah Official Twitter & Noah Sales