Arashi’s Waku Waku Gakkou 2012 report

360 degree screen, circular stage in centre set up like a class room with one podium and four desks (one Arashi member as teacher and the other four as students)

Before the opening
A message came up on the screen from all Waku Waku Gakkou teachers other than Ninomiya Sensei saying they want to throw a surprise party for him so please refrain from wishing Ninomiya a happy birthday until they say so.

Opening
The opening video showed the five members doing their own thing, and then after seeing the Arashi school seal would transform into their white lab coat outfits.

• Jun Matsumoto: Running on a treadmill in the gym and sees the school seal on a T-shirt on a guy in the same room
• Masaki Aiba: At a shoot for his drama “Mike-neko no Holmes”, opens up his lunch box and sees the school seal
• Sho Sakurai: Giving the weather report during News Zero and sees the school seal as he points to the screen
• Kazunari Ninomiya: Inside a bus playing on his Nintendo DS when a message flashes on the screen to look outside, he sees the school seal on a building’s TV monitor
• Satoshi Ohno: While reading through his script for the drama “Kagi no Kakatta Heya”, pours some sugar into his cafe au lait, and the coffee art turns into the school seal

After the transformation, the five appear from the staff room and onto the Tokyo Dome stage.

Ninomiya Sensei’s Kachi Kachi class

• Who dunnit game.  Try and find out who broke the vase in the classroom
• Getting Ohno to open the lid of a bottle (he can’t because it’s a trick lid that has to be twisted in reverse to normal lids)
• Showing how confusing it is if someone reverses the colour of men’s and women’s toilet signs (blue woman sign and red man sign)
• The door with a doorknob, but it’s a sliding door
• Relay.  Matsumoto -> Sakurai -> Aiba -> Ohno ran a relay.  Towards the end Nino jumped towards the goal post and started fiddling around.  But Ohno managed to run through the goal without any problems.  Apparently Nino had tampered with the finish line and at a switch of a button the goal posts were supposed to move further away from Ohno, making him run more.

Aiba Sensei’s Paku Paku class

• Three Arashi members keep their eyes open when Aiba changes into a sushi chef
• Video of Aiba in a fish costume
• Q&A session (the student with the correct answer gets the sushi Aiba is making at the time)
  Q: What part is shrimp miso and crab miso? This one went to Ohno who said it’s the liver.  Aiba tries to make sushi but gets rice all over his hands so he starts licking it off, which puts off the others.  When Ohno finally gets his sushi he bites on a big bit of wasabi, holds his nose and stopped moving.
•  Members eat fried clams.  Everyone compliments Aiba that the food tastes good, and he says, “I love you guys”.

Sakurai Sensei’s Goku Goku class

• Sakurai gives everyone a bottle of water to drink
• Video about recycling water (apparently Tokyo Dome toilets use rain water)
• Experiment to see how much water a person can use when taking a shower.  Arashi members collect buckets of water from pools set up around Tokyo Dome, and use it to wash a mannequin dressed up as a member.  One bucket = One Arashi.  In this session, the Aiba mannequin used up 12 Arashi, in June 17′s first session the Ohno mannequin used 13 Arashi (he said he doesn’t use conditioner), and in June 16′s session the Matsumoto mannequin used 18 Arashi.

Matsumoto’s Somo Somo class

• Goes around families sitting in the audience asking them for stories about when they were born or the meaning behind their names
• Video about birth
• Now the members give the audience a sign, and everyone shouts, “Happy Birthday Nino!”

Nino’s birthday section

A birthday cake appeared in both the morning and evening sessions of June 17.  After everyone sang Happy Birthday, Nino would blow out the candles.

Apparently in the evening session, the cake was decorated in strawberries and umeboshi sour plums.  Matsumoto had said it was because Nino’s mum always gives sour plums to Arashi when they have a concert so his image of Nino’s mum is sour plums.

“In the script it said that when Nino eats his cake and says, ‘why is it sour?’ then Matsujun would say, ‘because this cake has sour plums on it’.  But how can he not spot the sour plums,” Sakurai said.

Nino’s birthday comment:

“Thank you so much for celebrating my 29th…not that anything has really changed, but I’m enjoying every day.  Now I think it might be an idea to dye my hair blond from time to time whether I’m 30 or 40 or 50.”

Matsumoto had said he heard from Nino’s mother that he was a baby who grew so much inside of her, that no matter how much she tried, he just did not want to come out.  She said when he was born he weighed 3900g, or roughly the same as a one month old baby.

Matsumoto: When I asked her why she called you “Kazunari”, she said, “we were fussy about the (kanji) stroke count, and decided we wanted him to become a friendly person, treasuring the 和(wa, harmony) of those around him”.  Not only that, but she also spilled on the other name they were thinking for Nino.  ”大 (Hiroshi)”.

Nino mum’s letter

Ninomiya’s mother wrote a letter for Nino which was read out, but because she knew there were two sessions on his birthday, she wrote two letters.

I couldn’t find a fan who managed to write everything down word for word, but you can get an idea!

These are bits from the morning session:

“Happy Birthday Kazu.

When you were born you weighed 3900g, your neck wouldn’t strengthen as quickly as it should have, you got an infected ear, an ambulance came when you got heat cramps, you got the mumps, the doctor said there was something wrong with your heart, then there was massaging you every time there was a nappy change to get you over from hydrocele testis.

You didn’t like extra-curricular classes.  (You cried when going to Kumon, pretended to sleep when it was time to go to piano lessons.  But baseball went on for a while)

A lot of people have looked after you over the years.  Never forget what it means to be thankful.

Whenever you come home to eat my monja dish, you always say thank you before leaving.

Thank you for coming into my life.

Love Nino-mama”

These are bits from the evening session:

“Happy Birthday Kazu.

I remember when you joined Johnny’s when you were at junior high, and when you were bullied as a child in early primary school and walked to school at a different time from the crowd.

When there was bullying going on in your fifth grade class, your teacher told me that you weren’t involved and that you treated the student getting bullied like a normal person.

I also heard that when your friends invited you to peak into the girl’s changing room with them, you said you didn’t want to.  I was happy because it takes real courage to stand up to your friends.

I remember when your friends would come over to the house and you would make takoyaki, how you’d be playing video games a lot, and how the adults in the neighborhood would call you a charmer because you always took your hat off when saying hello to them in the street.  Everyone loves seeing you work Kazu, and you always make me smile when I come to your concerts.  I am your biggest fan.

Love Nino-mama”

After reading the letter, the other members asked him whether he remembered saying no to his friends when they dared him to peak into the girls changing room.

“When I was a senior at primary school, the girls changing rooms were on the top floors so I think I was just too lazy to go all that way,” Nino said.

Ohno Sensei’s Gera Gera class

• Gera Gera championship.  See who could laugh the best.
• Gera Gera laser.  This is the section that got a lot of TV coverage on wide shows.  Ohno doing the gera gera dance and song.