This is their gift to the fans after the coronavirus pandemic forced the band to cancel their Eye of the Storm concert tour.
The past days, Taka had been making posting IG Stories of him picking up his orders from some of these restaurants.Įarlier, on Taka’s 32nd birthday on April 17, the band started streaming for free the videos of their biggest concerts in Japan (you can catch the last two on May 23 and May 31). You have to call in your orders (there are limited bento boxes and raw ingredients each day), and then pick them up at the exact time the shops say you should.
(Click here, here, here, and here if you want to check them out in the Shibuya and Minato wards of Tokyo and the Chuo and Kitaku wards of Osaka.)ĭon’t just drop by, Taka says. On May 1, Taka made several IG posts, recommending takeaway restaurants and food shops that people could support. (Things you do when you get bored!)īut, hey, not all goofing around for them.
The treat in this video is we see the OOR members recording their antics from their respective homes: Taka trying to exercise although his joints hurt, Ryota washing his hands vigorously, Tomoya playing the drum set that obviously belongs to his toddler son, and Toru wearing pajamas and pigtails. Yet, within days, the crowding in the usually busiest areas, like Shibuya in Tokyo and Umeda Station in Osaka, was reduced by around 70%.Īnd that, fellow OOR followers, is where the connection comes in.Īs we in mega Manila rushed out to the streets and malls, Taka (vocals), Ryota (bass), Tomoya (drums), and Toru (lead guitar) in Tokyo urged fans to remain holed up at home the way they knew best: through a music video. In Japan, there is no law restricting people’s movements and activities, just a request from both national and local governments for them to stay home as much as possible, and to avoid the 3 C’s: closed spaces, crowded places, and close-contact settings. If the situation improves in Tokyo, Osaka, and 6 other prefectures – which had been under this state of heightened alert since early April – then the declaration would be lifted by the end of May, or even earlier. In the same week, Japan lifted two weeks ahead of schedule what was supposed to be a one-month-long state of emergency in most prefectures. May 16 was the start of 3rd extension of this setup where cops would arrest you (and could abuse you) if you went out of your house without a government-issued “quarantine pass,” without a face mask, and at the wrong hour. The past week, most of the Philippine provinces and cities had been in lockdown for two months. There’s a connection between those two stories, I promise. Past noon, the world-famous Japanese rock band One OK Rock was on my IG feed, announcing from Japan that they would be releasing a new video in the evening on their Youtube channel. Baiser 1 BAND-MAID 2 Baroque 1 BUCK-TICK 5 BUMP OF CHICKEN 6 Charisma.Late morning of Saturday, May 16, my social media feed began filling with these: photos of congested streets, reopened commercial centers teeming with customers, and warning about the certainty of a second wave of coronavirus infections because the Philippine government eased the lockdowns too early.