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"Same numbers" by Nogizaka46 [single, 2025]

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"Nogi Ni Tsuki" by Shiina Ringo [single, 2025]

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"Ikutsu No Koro Ni Modoritainoka?" [single, 2024]

I wondered how the Sakurazaka members were holding up in this heat during various points of the show. So when I heard Ten Yamasaki come out and shout to fans at the top of her lungs as the show neared hour two, it felt like us old friends were finally reunited after a long time away, reveling in big relief that we both were doing alright.

Weeks before I take off, my whole family warns me about how Japan’s experiencing an unusually hot summer. Southern California is a breezy 69 degrees when I get on the plane; I’m welcomed by a stuffy 93-degree heat as soon as I touch down at Narita. Everyday on the news, the weathermen issued warnings of extreme temperatures in practically every region in the country so the public can take precautions for heat exhaustion. 

It was much cooler inside the Tokyo Dome, sure, but Sakurazaka are still dancing all that intense choreography in their costumes while running up and down the stages for two hours and then some. The group came out for an MC section to greet everyone after the fifth song or so, but that was it. No other formal breaks to check in on each other through the hour. Just song after song, performance after performance, with the extended interludes and unit songs providing a breather.

But as Ten and the rest of the gang showed up near the end of the show, they still sprinted to the center stage — the heat, it seemed, had barely left them with a scratch. Ten looked as energized as she always seems on the other side of the screen. She did have one last job to finish after all: it was time for her center song, “Ikutsu No Koro No Modoritainoka?” And she was ready to get into it with all that she’s got.

The stage has taken flight, and the song enters its breakdown. The group is gathered around Ten, twirling at the center, as the pianos spiral upwards, and the song pauses for a recollection as it reaches its almost too-brief, weightless bridge: I couldn’t hear the footsteps of now as they pass / even a moment like this will shine one day. Time quickly resumes its course, the last round of the chorus rushing by with fleeting intensity, yet Ten remains unfazed by the velocity, proudly embracing the final lyric in this anthem about looking back at the past with rose-tinted lenses: If I’m going to dream, I want it to be about the future. She’s always present to enjoy the moment — like what heat? — while caring more about what’s ahead. I can only idolize a group appearing this invincible.

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"Mouikkyoku Hoshiinoka?" [Jigougidoku, 2024]

The concert set list reached past song #20, and my entire body is aching.

Forgive me for being a wimp, but in my defense, I’ve been out since 11 a.m., walking all afternoon around the blocks of Shinjuku to first attempt lunching at the Sakurazaka pop-up cafe at DISH-UP — of course it was not accepting walk-ins due to reservations filling the day’s capacity — and then do some record-shopping. I already noticed my internal battery being dangerously low during the first minutes I began browsing the idol section at Tower Records around 3 p.m., 3 hours before the show at Tokyo Dome — the summer heat was no joke.

Adrenaline did its magic once the show started, giving me enough of a boost to pogo hop during the opening of song #3, “Start over!” Though, the tank gradually got close to E, and I unfortunately had to sit down during the entirety of song #17, “Nothing Special” (sorry, Yuuzu!), and began to intermittently take a seat in between song intros thereafter to catch a break.

But as if to call out my pathetic self as well as others like me, who only think they’re exhausted but just need a good kick in the ass to endure this two-hour concert, Shizuki Yamashita bum rushes the stage with the rest of the gang to ask this rhetorical question: “you got a lot more in you, right!??!?” She is screaming with her entire body. Every other question of a similar topic from her is half-intelligible because most of what comes is just a piercing shriek. But you quickly get the point: we better deliver what she demands, and that is to get the fuck up and move.

The show’s setlist has now reached its penultimate track, song #21: “Mou Ikkyoku Hoshiinokai?” Do you want one more song? The implied answer is “yes,” though they’re not going to just give it to us: they’re going to make you work for it. As the silvery industrial-metal-esque guitars roar, Sakurazaka scream the chorus even louder: “We can’t end like this, can we?” I am now up from my goddamn seat and ready to clap along even if it kills me.

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"Yume No Nakae" by Yuki Saito [single, 1989]

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"Nightmare Shokougun" [UDAGAWA GENERATION, 2025]

Allow me to share a popular piece of lore of Mio Matono. Back in early 2024, she incited screams from the women-only section of a Backs Live! show during a performance of “Blue Moon Kiss,” specifically the part where she embraces Rika Ishimori a few bars before the latter lets out the key dialogue of a pre-chorus: “Oh, I love you this much!” It’s enough of a cherished moment in Sakurazaka fandom that you can find a clip of it subtitled “to be saved forever” on YouTube.

Fast forward now, at Tokyo Dome in 2025, Mio’s seated on a throne atop a flight of stairs as her and her peers perform her center song, the third-generation-exclusive “Nightmare Shokougun.” The entire set at the Dome resembles the royal halls of a Gothic cathedral, and Mio’s presiding vampire queen. Spooky organs ring like a procedural. Draped in blood-red costumes, the rest of her peers swarm and dance to the stark beat like they’re restlessly keeping their ringleader entertained. Before Mio fully makes her way down, her favorite subjects climbs up the stairs to meet their maker. Rika attempts to make contact, of course, as they once did in “Blue Moon Kiss” about a year ago, only now to suffer an entire different fate: her neck bitten deep by the vampire queen.

Getting one’s blood sucked by a vampire might be the same sort of show of affection as a mortal’s warm embrace, at least in the context of the song driving all this gothic theater. “Nightmare Shokougun,” or nightmare syndrome, explores the concept of love as possession, a phenomena that alters one’s well-being to the point of drawing physical side effects: “Whenever I like someone / I can’t stop seeing nightmares,” goes the chorus. When the third gen. finally let go of their inhibitions and indulge in their suppressed desires, they transcend to the tune of an evil dubstep drop with hits of martial brass and a screeching bass line. It’s not the prettiest transformation sequence, hinting at a change into something beastly than anything regal, but it’s a transformation sequence nonetheless.

But then, I see Mio later take a bite out of a few more of her peers. For Rika, this might constitute at least a cruel love triangle, depending on the amount of girls involved; for Mio, it just seems like entertainment. For everyone else at the Tokyo Dome, especially for those who have followed the lore since Backs Live, the Gothic theater of “Nightmare Syndrome” starring Mio was pure delicious fan fiction. With all this pull with her as the focus, it’s unbelievable this summer single, “Make or Break,” is Mio’s first center single. She had more than earned her position in the throne. 

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If you want a live reporting from the scene at a Sakurazaka46 concert venue, YouTube provides spoils of them uploaded either by the fans or the members themselves. They filmed outside of a Backs Live, not the main shows, yet the group’s Itoha Mukai and Fuyuka Saito painted a good picture of what to expect: flags representing each of the members; a crowded merch tent; countless fans gathered with oshi gear, taking group photos near the arena.

A missed detail from Itoha and Fuyuka was the venue speakers playing Sakurazaka songs on loop. As I hopped out of the subway station, I could gradually hear “BAN” and “Start over!” from the distance. Walking closer to the venue, my neck could ache from my head kept raised to look up at all the flags of everyone, including the new fourth generation, hung up around Tokyo Dome. A photo couldn’t suffice; I shot a video on my phone so I could also feel the whole situation to fully soak in the fact that, yes, I am definitely at a Sakurazaka46 concert. 

In my direct sight were a sea of fans walking around with oshi towels around their necks. The first three names on the towels that I can remember: Ten, Hono, Akiho. Many looked calm, just hanging out, despite being 30 minutes to show time. Some sat outside to trade photo cards with one another, binders open to show off the collection; some got their last-minute photos in before strolling into the venue.

With the show almost starting, the line for the merch was understandably sparse — exactly what I had planned for. I came to Tokyo Dome on the night before my concert date to take in the sights and, more importantly, stock up on merch without the trouble. (It also helped my friend was already headed to the Dome for Day 1.) I already knew what to get partly from me attempting more than a few times to pre-order everything to pick-up on the day, only for the site error out due to me attempting to order from overseas. Nothing too fancy on the wish list, loaded up and generated into a QR code for the attendant to scan: a hako-oshi towel, a light stick, a shirt, some photo cards and an acrylic stand of Kira — my fav despite me insisting I am a hako oshi.

After my shopping spree, and after grabbing the special Sakurazaka Times newspaper issue from Sankei, I immediately tried that thing all idol fans do with their acrylic stands, and what many others at the Dome were also doing closer to the entrance. You know, take a photo of the stand with the venue in the background. I failed miserably. I couldn’t get the focus right, blurring either Kira or the Dome. It was clearly my first Sakurazaka46 concert. 

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"Kita Wing" by Akina Nakamori [Anniversary, 1984]

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"Udagawa Generation" by Sakurazaka46 [single, 2025]

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"Kagami" by FRUITS ZIPPER [single, 2025]

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"Hatsukoi" by Yuki Saito [Glass No Kodou, 1986]

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"Oh No" by N.O.R.E. [Melvyn Flynt Da Hustler, 1999]

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"RuLe" by Ado [Zanmu, 2024]

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"Plash" by Takako Minekawa [Fun9, 1999]

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"Day 1" by Red Velvet [The Red, 2015]

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"Blue Moon Kiss" by Sakurazaka46 [Nobody's Fault, 2020]

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"mimosa" by Ayumi Hamasaki [single, 2025]