They were all dancers and appeared in the Japanese fan-made video of BurnItUp! It would be weeks later, that I would have a conversation with one of them about their meet and greet with Janet in Osaka. I remember she said, “Janet saved my life”. As we waited for the show to begin, I noticed some commotion in the crowd near to us. I wondered what that was about. About 40 minutes into the performance, I turned around and kept staring at a lady sitting in the 2nd row. She was gazing and in awe of Janet. I realised why there was a commotion earlier, it was superstar Namie Amuro, the Queen of J-R&B and fashion icon. Namie took a very quick break from her own tour so she could attend #UnbreakableOsaka. It is highly known that Janet is Namie’s idol.
We were all on a high throughout the show. Rie had her uchiwa fans with a message written on it saying Blow Me A Kiss or something very similar along those lines. It was just clever. It caught Janet’s attention and she blew a kiss to her. Rie then just about fell off. Towards the end of the concert, Janet talked to the crowd, saying how wonderful it was to be back in Japan after so long and how so very thankful she was for the Japanese supporting her family over the years.
It was an awesome day and we were all on cloud nine. We needed to get a group picture to remember this memory. I approached a trio of ladies to take our picture. I then noticed the cool t-shirts that they were wearing. It was a white shirt with the Rhythm Nation text in the front and on the back a black silhouette of Janet. If you know what the cover looks like for the Black Cat Japanese maxi-cd, that's the pose.
Janet in Japan - euphoria
by Marlene Bustarde