Koda Kumi - Dejavu Live Tour 2011

The third post in a row on yet another fabulous release from a Japanese artiste - Koda Kumi! This time, we'll be looking at her Dejavu Live Tour 2011 which ran Japan-wide last year despite the unfortunate 3/11 disaster that crippled the country.

Received this DVD along with ayumi hamasaki's 13th studio album - Party Queen. The Dejavu Live Tour may be one of her smaller scale tours considering that this time round, she performed in small theater halls instead of the grand arenas - probably due to the disaster. But nevertheless, boy did she deliver a fierce show!

"Why won't you come with me to my Dejavu~"

I know that sentence (taken from the introduction to the album) will make English teachers cringe but... Let's go!

Got myself the Hong Kong press version of the DVD from YesAsia and of course, it didn't cost an arm and a leg as compared to the Japanese press of the exact same thing. The quality is exactly and same and it still looks stunning. From the looks of it, she definitely kept her theme consistent with her studio album (unboxed/reviewed here) and I ain't complaining because it looks gorgeous!

A close up on the round sticker which explains that this box comes with 2 DVDs - one featuring the actual concert and the second one featuring over 70 minutes of "making of"s as well as the special videos played during the actual concert itself. Think they included those so that you can hold your own concert as well if you project those as a backdrop on a huge screen - if you can find one. 

The first press of the tour DVD comes in a cardboard slipcase sleeve and here's a clearer view of it minus the ugly plastic wrapper jailing our Pop Diva away. Loving the whole classic Kumi-sultry look and her hair is so cool! They could have done a better job with the title though - love the embossing effect but the colors are a little questionable.

The back of the cardboard slipcase sleeve with yet another photo of Miss Photogenic. I hope she can maintain her figure even after her pregnancy so she will continue to deliver stunning photos after stunning photos. Like most of her DVDs, the track list runs on the left of the packaging neatly. Well, unlike Party Queen, yellow works well here, no?

Details on the spine. Hmmm... On solid black, the effect actually looks pretty good. Perhaps it didn't work as well on the front cover because there were too many distractions and we don't need more distracting colors to rob our attention away from Koda Kumi.

Ta da~ Instead of just simply recycling the exact photo used on the slipcase, they took another one for the DVD casing beneath the cardboard case. This time, we see more of her face and for some weird reason, she looks like a teacher in that photo. Probably because of her hair. Who would mind having a teacher as beautiful as her, yes? :P I would make her sing in class instead of teach. :P

"You don't know~ You don't know~ How beautiful you are~~~" Again, the bad color choices of the font came back to haunt us. I think they could do away with just a solid color to make the whole look more classy and sleek as opposed to using these cheap gradients.

The track list is reinforced on the insides as well for the convenience of people who watch DVDs like me - slipcase at one end of the room and the DVD case on the other. I'm not the neatest person, okay~ I think the plastic DVD case is good enough to stand alone on the shelves of any CD store even without the slipcase. But the slipcase is definitely a bonus, don't you think?

When you open up the DVD case, you are greeted with 2 DVDs (duh) and a photo booklet. The DVDs come in Gold (the concert itself) and Silver (the making of). Nothing too special about it considering that the design is simple. Actually, there are not many physical CD designs that really WOW me these days. There used to be some in the past... Maybe when I'm too free or something, I shall go review those since they are sitting on my shelf collecting dust anyway...

Hello Lion! Phantom of the Gradient strikes back again! Not that I'm against gradients but I don't think it's appropriate here, yes? Anyway, here's the photo booklet for the Dejavu concert DVD. No lyrics... I wonder why...

The track list on the first page of the booklet. Well, since they didn't put lyrics inside, I don't see why they want to repeat the obvious again in the lyric booklet. Probably just to fill up that empty space? I don't know... What do y'all think?

I must say, the costumes of this tour are all extremely gorgeous! She opened the show wearing something like a blue oversized cape looking dress with red visors, almost Gaga-inspired and suddenly, she transformed herself into this modern Mad Hatter character in this striped look. Even though the stage is small, she still managed to blow my socks off with her performance.

I think girls will kill for this dress! I think it's one of the nicest costumes in the entire show! Loving how the skirt is done~ Well, even though this time round, I would say that her concert is a little disjointed because parts do not flow as well as they should and unlike her UNIVERSE or FANTASIA concerts, this one did not really flow a storyline so it was a little confusing for me but still, her singing rocks.

The cutesy-cutesy part of her concert. Lovely energy and definitely adorable look.

To end of this post, I shall take a photo of the DVD concert along with the album itself. See the ties in the theme? And notice that they used a solid silver color for the title on the album but chose to do the cheap gradient thing on the DVD jacket? They should have just stuck to the solid silver for that elegant look. Nevertheless, the album and the concert are still amazing~ Now, I just hope that she would do a JAPONESQUE tour after she's done giving birth and recovering because that album is packed with awesome songs and I can't wait to see her perform those in an arena (no small theaters please~).

And in case y'all want to know what I got for my Mini Japan toy from YesAsia, I got a bread keychain that's so soft and smells like coffee! I hung it on my shelf so I can smell it and squish it every now and then because it's so adorable! 

In case you don't know, if you buy 2 eligible Japanese CD or DVD from YesAsia, you get to pick a free Mini Japan toy. Even though they are randomly picked for you (i.e. you do not get to choose exactly what you want but you get to pick which machine your toy comes from), it's always surprising to open up your shipment to see what freebie you got. Really cool~

Well, that's the end of this entry. I hope you enjoy the photos, yes? I'm still waiting for my next shipment to arrive and it consists of 2 more DVD concerts from ayumi hamasaki and Namie Amuro. So excited! Not only do I get things to photograph and write about, I get concerts to watch. :D

Till next time y'all!!