Hanami with Female JAV Director Rizu Suzuki

You all might remember how, in my Miki Sunohara fan meet article, I crafted the idea of a single day trip from my teeny tiny inaka town to the bustling metropolis of Tokyo and back again. How I dreaded the thought of it at first, before realizing as I took the trip to see Miki that my body had become used to the train trip quite surprisingly, to the point where even though I managed to find a hotel, thus avoiding the need to return to my town that evening, I actually felt up to just such a trip when the evening sun started to set.

Well, as it just so happened, as if whoever writes the story of my life has a sense of humor, for my very next trip to Tokyo I would have to do exactly that sort of one day round trip. I hadn’t planned on it at first, but then… well, forces beyond one’s control have a tendency to spring up on you quite surprisingly, and you’ve got to admit, a dash of dramatic irony always adds spice to one’s life.

Yes, I had a trip to Tokyo planned for March 20th, whereupon I would meet none other than the director Rizu Suzuki, whomst you all no doubt remember from the lovely interview she gave us. After taking the time to give such thorough and intelligent answers to our questions, everyone in the ZENRA staff, myself included, was very much grateful to her, and I wanted very much to deepen our professional relationship by attending her Hanami event in Ueno Park as soon as I saw it listed on the JAV event site. If I made a good enough impression, then I could accomplish far more for our website than any article I write could. So I was determined to be on top of things with this event.

Because I wanted to get prepared this time around, I not only reserved my train tickets and hotel room in advance, but printed the tickets out at my teeny tiny town’s small station, congratulating myself as I flipped the tickets in my hand on my way home at a job well done. More than that, I realized, if I would be in Tokyo on the 20th, then I could get tickets to a Suzu Honjo event for the 30th whilst there. And if I was in Tokyo on the 30th, I could get tickets for another Momotaro event on the 12th of April. And if I was in Tokyo on that weekend…

Soon I had crafted a carefully constructed plan by which I could attend several key events and subsequently meet several A-list actresses throughout the next month and a half. It was perfect. It was pristine. It was all planned out and ready to go just according to keikaku.

And then Rizu had to cancel because of rain.

Oh God. Those were the words that passed through my mind as a shudder rippled through my whole body and very being as I read the message the big boss man pinged me soon after Suzuki made the announcement. Now, thankfully, the event was not outright canceled in full. It was merely pushed back two weeks and a half to April 7th. But I got this announcement only two days before March 20th. I was past the point of no return on Booking.com’s 48 hour free cancellation policy. And I had already printed out my train tickets, which meant that I could not cancel them or change their dates and times online. I had to do it at the station.

Now, you all probably know that even in the inaka, where our only train station has two tracks and doesn’t even have a proper ticket gate (if you print your tickets out you have to put it in a little box for someone to pick up at some point in time, when exactly I don’t know but that’s neither here nor there), we still have those ticket machines to handle reservation details. It’s on just such a machine that I printed out my tickets in the first place. So as soon as I learned I couldn’t alter or cancel my reservation online I dashed quick as I could to said machine. But unfortunately, once I got to the menu concerning cancellations and such, I found the machine telling me to find a station attendant and talk to them.

That might not seem so bad on the face of it, but remember, I live in the middle of nowhere. I have lived in the middle of nowhere for several years at this point, and I have not once in all that time found a single attendant about when I’ve found myself at my station. Well, there’s Taro, of course, cute little fella. If you feed him some dried squid he’ll let you pat his tummy, and god-damn he’s just so adorable when he lounges about in the sun. Makes you want to drop whatever you’re doing and give him belly rubs. Oh, so cute. Wait, where was I? Ah, yes. Apart from a cute cat, there was nobody about whomst I could talk to, so what the hell was I going to do?

The answer was simply to buy a ticket to the nearest station with actual attendants about and wait for it to arrive. So I did, and thankfully once I was able to speak to someone I was able to change the date of my trip to April 7th. The hotel was even kind enough to let me cancel my reservation free of charge. But the carefully constructed castle of cards I’d crafted came crashing down. And I wasn’t taking any chances on another event date change. If the weather prompted another cancellation from Rizu, I wanted my losses to be as minimal as possible, because once you’ve changed your ticket reservations to a different time and date, you can’t change or cancel them again. By hook or by crook I was going to Tokyo on the 7th, whether I’d find Rizu in Ueno Park or not.

As the date drew closer and closer, I confess I never fully relaxed. There was always the possibility, at the back of my mind, that Rizu would cancel yet again, and as such I needed to make the most of my trip to Tokyo that weekend, so that I could somehow justify the train fare when it came time to send in my monthly invoice. As such, I hoped to snag a ticket to that April 12th event I mentioned earlier on April 7th instead of March 30th, even if that was cutting things quite close. And I also hoped to snatch up tickets to an April 13th event that same weekend. This way, even if Rizu canceled once again, I would at least have gotten two event tickets to justify two train trips.

When the day came at last, there was still no word of cancellation. But there was also no word of where exactly in Ueno Park Rizu would be. The event listing said that Rizu would post the location some time around 10:00 on her Instagram and Twitter accounts, so as I settled into my train ride, I decided all I could do was wait and see.

The passage between the rapid service express train station and the shinkansen station at Kyoto which had taken me ten minutes when I first attempted it now only took me one. I walked with purpose and direction, and even after arriving at Akihabara to find the April 13th event sold out, I did not lose heart as I went over to the April 12th fan meet event location (funnily enough, at the same Alibaba store where I was to meet Mao way back when) and secured a ticket there. Alright, so one miss and one hit. Not great, but not terrible. And it was well past 10:00 by that point. So I checked Rizu’s Twitter and Insta. Insta gave me nothing, and for some reason Twitter would not show me Rizu’s latest tweets, giving me instead a slew of tweets from various dates. So I asked if anyone could see an unborked Twitter on their end, to check if Rizu had left any indication of where in Ueno Park I could find her.

Aw c’mon, how hard could it be? Just look for the woman with tattoos. She shouldn’t be too hard to spot, right? Such was the response I got from the other ZENRA staff. Leaving aside the fact that there was no reason to assume Rizu’s tattoos would be visible, I still had no idea what she would be wearing, who she’d be accompanied with, what sort of signage they’d have in their area, if any. I had absolutely no information to go on other than the fact that Rizu and her cohorts would be somewhere in Ueno Park on an ideal Hanami day. And as I pressed the issue, I was greeted with well-meaning dismissal, because how big could Ueno Park even be, really? (The answer is 133 acres)

Once I arrived at Ueno Station and exited the Park Entr., all my worst fears were confirmed, as all 133 acres of the park were filled to the brim with countless people, all there to enjoy the cherry blossoms and high spirits of the sunny day. Finding Rizu would be like finding Waldo, or Wally, or whatever your country calls that guy in the red and white shirt and cap. So I messaged everybody to let them know that unless I got some lead to go on, I was fucked.

Thankfully, the big boss man dropped in with the proper tweet of where to go, and while I couldn’t watch the video for some reason, I dutifully copied the instructions and put it into my translation app. The instructions were clear and simple, and I followed them dutifully. But to my surprise when I got to the turn where Rizu said I should go left, I didn’t find an incline like she’d said. I looped back around, knowing that even if I might have gotten a turn wrong I at least had a general area to look around. But to my surprise and consternation, there wasn’t a single soul in that whole area wearing orange, like Rizu was in the thumbnail to the video she’d posted, which I still couldn’t watch.

I looped around again. And again, searching over the place with a fine toothed comb, but found no-one. I checked, and rechecked, and double checked the instructions again, but they were very clear. Exit the Park Entr. at the station. Go down the road to the intersection in front of the gate to the zoo. Turn right. Go straight until you see a little y-intersection leading up a hill. Go up there, and when you see what looks like a tenement building, we are directly across the road from that. I read those words so much that I called them from memory when writing this section of the article, and I followed them to the absolute letter, but I couldn’t find Rizu.

I was angry now. And it didn’t help that I couldn’t use any wifi to access the video. Eventually I managed to find a Starbucks and watch it, but all it showed me was Rizu walking down the road towards the zoo. I walked back to the station, just to see if there was another road she could have been talking about, but there was only one road, and it was a straight shot to the zoo. I didn’t understand, but I knew I didn’t have any other options, so I finally just went looking for any hills in the general area, before finding on one hill a group of people standing around wearing Momotaro pink vests. They stuck out immediately. As soon as I spotted them I knew exactly who they were. They just weren’t anywhere near the area I’d been told to go to.

It turned out that the issue had come from the fact that the intersection “in front of the zoo” was actually the intersection two intersections back. The event had started at 12:00. I’d managed to arrive at the park at 12:30. And after all that time wandering around Ueno aimlessly and increasingly angrily, I finally got to where Rizu was at 1:30, halfway through the event’s planned time. So, yes. Because I was so intent on getting some instructions to where in the park that’s bigger than Winnie the Pooh’s woodlands I was supposed to go, and then on following said instructions to the letter, even when they were flawed, I ended up taking more time to get to Rizu and her crew than if I had simply set off to wander aimlessly right from my initial exiting of the station. And indeed, in the end, I had needed to resort to aimless wandering anyway. More fool me, I suppose.

Whatever the case, and however pissed off I was at having had to waste all that time, I messaged everyone to let them know I had safely located Rizu. And… the message wouldn’t send. That was the start of my conversation with Rizu, where she lamented how nobody could get any service there. Throughout the rest of the time I was there, a regular occurrence was someone talking about some topic, going “Wait, hold on, let me show you on my phone”, and then being completely unable to do so. If you were lucky, your messages would send an hour later, after you passed through some wifi hotspot. But for the most part, you were screwed.

Still, I had made it, and even if I was 90 minutes late I still had 90 minutes to sit down, relax, and converse with everyone. One of the Momotaro staff poured me some water, for which I thanked them, and I got to chatting with the two gentlemen seated beside me. We were all packed in tightly on some tarp by a tree, and there wasn’t a spare inch to set oneself up amidst all the other picnic sheets and chilly bins. The sun was bright and beautiful. The cherry blossoms were fully in bloom. And the conversation was lively, even if my own language limitations prevented me from being more eloquent. I was at least able to talk (or, well, listen) as the gentlemen beside me discussed their business in the motorcycle industry, and while they went on about the subject they were obviously passionate towards, I welcomed the chance to relax.

At some point, I saw that someone was taking a snapshot of Rizu by some cherry blossoms, and I headed over to get some pics myself. I didn’t get any pics with the two of us together, but I hope all of you readers appreciate the shots I was able to snap. After this I asked Rizu about the tattoos of hers that were visible even in the bright orange turtleneck she wore. I learned she has two pet rats, both of whom are tattooed on her arms, and the Momotaro staff marveled as they saw how even in heels Rizu stood beneath my shoulder.

This is when I struck up a conversation with one of the staff members, a woman not much older than Rizu herself, whose job I soon learned was largely to help actresses on set. Whether it be driving the actresses to where they needed to go or simply offering a listening ear and comforting hand if an actress’ nerves started to get to her, your one here played an invaluable part behind the camera in making sure your favorite JAV films were filmed smoothly. I tried to think of how to congratulate her on her service, but sadly could not find the words. I hope my sentiment was conveyed at least.

My feet then became a source of fascination for the Momotaro staff. Not in that way, as you might assume. Get your mind out of the gutter, what kind of website do you think this is? Heheh. But anyways, my feet and their enormity drew a great deal of interest, and as various staff members pressed their shoes against mine to compare, their attentions only shifted when a new guest arrived bringing a very big and very strong gift for all us guests. It was a bit early in the day for me to partake in such a gift, but everyone was quite happy to receive it, and I was quite happy to know I was not the latest guest at the event.

I chatted a bit more with your one about American cities (I still think LA isn’t a city so much as one massive suburb, but if you disagree, feel free to vent your anger in the comment section), until another Momotaro staff member (who had partaken in quite a bit of the gift, alongside other gifts other guests had given him) sidled up to me and asked what kind of woman I was into. He didn’t speak much English, but he knew at least enough to say “big tits”, which I will admit I do appreciate. But if you’ve read my descriptions of actresses here you know that I’m attracted to far more than just great tits, and I did my best to explain how I was most attracted to women like old movie starlets and pinup models. Jane Greer, Lauren Bacall, I listed several names but unfortunately your man didn’t know any of them. It was only when I mentioned my favorite JAV actresses (Ai Hongo, Mayuki Ito, Hazuki Wakamiya, etc.) that a grin of understanding made its way to his lips. And when I mentioned Wakamiya, his eyes lit up, and he showed me one of Hazuki’s Youtube videos where he could be seen amongst her pack of pals. I was impressed, and when I mentioned that I was going to attend a Hazuki Wakamiya fan meet event that Friday on the 12th, his grin widened.

Unfortunately, around this time the clock struck 3:00, and while Rizu was more than willing to extend the event a little longer beyond its planned ending, my train reservation had relied on my leaving Ueno Park no later than 3:30. And so I had to bid everyone farewell, just as I had fully relaxed and really gotten into the conversation. Such is life, I suppose. And such is the transient nature of one who can only pop in periodically to the city instead of live there. But the important thing is that I had made it to the event, and, I hoped, had made a good impression on Rizu.

The lesson I take from all this? If you have some kind of plan that all hinges on one very specific, small but significant nail, then that way lies danger. That nail is almost certainly not going into that shoe, and that horse is almost certainly not going to ride into battle, and even if you might be able to win the day and save your kingdom in the end, it’s gonna cause you a lot of grief and trouble. So… I dunno. Try to avoid such plans. Have some spare nails in your arsenal. Have some spare heirs to your throne. Don’t end up like me after a long whirlwind of stressful adventure, or the Japanese monarchy in the clusterfuck that it’s in right now. Uh… also, support Momotaro. The staff there was all really nice to me, and they deserve your patronage.