Thank you! Birthday Light-up for Bright

Happy New Year!

It’s been half a year since our launch and we have enjoyed every moment of fast and hectic life as Brights with many projects going at the same time. With the winter break we had, our admins are all rejuvenated by relaxing at home and recharged with lots of Bright-kun! It would be great if you can cheer with us as we continue supporting Bright-kun with all of our ability in 2021.

We would like to express our sincere gratitude to all who sent us many kind messages and encouraging words for “Birthday Light-up for Bright.” We also would like to thank local Brights who came to Fukuoka Tower for the light show despite the rain on 12/27. Thank you so much for joining us with your warm heart for Bright-kun in such a cold weather.

This project was the first time we had volunteers from our LINE group, ClubBB, to handle the operation. We really appreciated that volunteer Brights helped us by doing the rehearsals before the event and conducting Instagram Live on location on Bright-kun’s birthday in the rain. We thank our volunteer Brights from the bottom of our hearts for their help.

Let us be honest, after we announced this project, we were actually surprised by the huge response we received not only from Japan but also internationally. It made us realize the responsibility that we carry at the same time. There was also the trending of the project hashtag on the event day and our hearts were literally racing knowing Brights Around The World were supporting our Fukuoka Tower project.

This project was funded by a portion of donations from Brights in Japan that we received for “BJFC presents Birthday Celebration ~2020~” to send BIG LOVE from Japan for his birthday. As we started planning for the project, we were met with many obstacles since this was our first offline event which was going to be held in Fukuoka, kilometers away from our main operating locations during the time Japan was experiencing the third wave of COVID19 pandemic.

If we may share some more background story, our admins have never met in person as a group since we formed BJFC during the lockdown and shelter-in-place. We only communicate and conduct meetings online. We were able to build trust as a team slowly with communications in texts but this project made us face many issues where a serious discussion broke out. The discussion heated up touching some topics that could influence how we operate the FC in the future and we almost gave up on the project at one point. However, because we did not give up on finding the best solution, making the effort to understand and learn about each other, we were able to overcome and grow stronger as a team, and gained some confidence as we have successfully concluded the project to celebrate Bright-kun’s birthday.

As the B-day (literally) was coming close, we were checking the weather forecast of Fukuoka. Weekly forecast predicted rain in the afternoon of 12/27 only!! No matter when we checked, it always showed rain that day. We were worried that cold winter rain would inconvenience our volunteer Brights and local Brights coming to the Tower.

And on the actual birthday, the forecast kept saying it was gong to rain…… Brights in ClubBB were so nice by sending prayers for the better weather in Fukuoka and someone even made a Teru-Teru-Bozu, which is a doll-like figure we make in Japan to wish for clear sky as you see in the image below (can you tell it has eyebrows inspired by someone very dear to us?).

And on the day during our Instagram Live, we saw comments from Brights that even Ame (rain in Japanese, you should know by now555) is celebrating! We were also tearing up because of really nice, caring comments to our volunteer Brights doing the live on location in the rain.

cr:れーと(red_bw0502)

We are very grateful to be able to complete the project safely with a lot of warm response from Brights. Thank you so very much! We are almost certain that our big love from Japan has reached Bright-kun who loves Ame.

(BJFC note: He has noticed our post about Fukuoka Tower and liked it!!)

There were a lot of things that we wanted to do with this project that were not possible due to COVID19 related restrictions. We hope the situation will improve as soon as possible and we can send even bigger LOVE to Bright-kun from Japan.

【Birthday Light-up for Bright light up videos】

◆Instagram cr.ClubBB Member

◆Twitter cr.LINA (@liliy722)

【Comments from BJFC volunteer Brights】

◆ こぅ @2gether_468

Although it was raining on the actual birthday, I thought Ame was celebrating with us and had a lot of fun helping with the live! It was great to be able to celebrate his birthday like this all the way from Japan! This was a memory of a lifetime!

◆ スー (@2getherctrls)

I was so happy and proud to be able to help BJFC to send birthday wishes to Bright-kun from Fukuoka! I was surprised and touched that so many Brights (even International Brights) have responded to the Fukuoka Tower Light-up for Happy Birthday!

And at the location on the birthday in the rain, we met with other Brights (with social distance) where we exchanged “pass-gesture” we decided for our giveaway and helping to take pictures, it made me realize that there are actual human Brights and seeing them outside of social media made me very happy😊✨

I was able to feel that we, Brights in Japan together, lighted up the Tower for Bright-kun✨ and it was a very special moment for me😊

It was the day that I appreciated Bright-kun again because he can connect us, and the world together and make us happy😌💖

◆LINA (@liliy722)

I helped with the recording of the event. I’m LINA.

It was pretty hard because it was Ame on that day💦

But, the Tower light-up was wonderful and celebrating Bright-kun’s birthday with Brights who came to see the light show together made me very happy.

Volunteering for the project gave me a very good memory that I can not forget😊✨

◆merci (@applehoney_tea)

I volunteered because I really wanted to help out since this was celebrating Bright-kun’s birthday in my hometown! I was anxious since the response was huge on Twitter, but in the end, it was a lot of fun. It was raining unfortunately on the day and there were few things that did not go as planned, but I hope we were able to show what was going on at the Tower. Thank you so much for giving me an opportunity to experience this!!

BJFC would like to send sincere appreciation to all Brights in Japan who supported this project in one way or another.

Lastly, in Kagoshima, the south of Fukuoka, has an expression called “Shimazu Ame.” It means that rain (Ame) is the foreshadowing of good things. We predict that even more good luck will come to Bright-kun. We would like to continue supporting 23-year-old Bright-kun while he spreads his wings even further, hopefully with all of you. Join us for 2021, too!

BrightJapanFC Blog by Zinnia.

Translation by Chinese Holly.