We're now in a new decade and while I'm not too big on writing a personal retrospective, I thought it might be nice to write something on the topic of retrospective itself. As fortune would have it, NHK just streamed Perfume's Reframe 2019 three days ago. Given that it is an retrospective on the group's almost 15 years worth of career, I figured that I can put down some of my thoughts about the topic while gushing about the excellent show at the same time. Perrrrfecto.

Streamable videos for the show here.

The Show Itself

First, the show itself: Reframe 2019 is a one-man live held in the newly opened Shibuya Line Cube for 8-days in October. Different from the usual arena/dome tour with huge-ass stages and ten-thousands of spectators, Reframe is held on a small stage with a capacity of 1000~2000 people, all seated. As such, it has more in common with something like a recital or a theater performance (or even a Google I/O keynote) rather than tours for album promotion/fans. It's an exhibition of Perfume's work, condensed into an hour (and a half, the TV broadcast cuts several parts) of tech-infused audiovisual spectacle. Parts of it comes in straightforward segments of song performance, others are more avantgarde displays of art, music, and technology.

Tidbits/high points I would like to mention so people don't miss them:

• The logo for the show is literally the word 'Reframe' overlaid on 'Perfume'.
• On SCENE: Record, not only they record their sound samples, they also 'record' elementary dance moves and combined it into a proper routine along when the full instrumental plays.
• The glitchy visual filters at the end of SCENE: Pose (with the real-time video feed) most likely involves object detection + segmentation produced in-house by Rhizomatiks; Daito Manabe follows quite a number of ML/AI researcher on Twitter and is actually well-versed on the topic himself.
• The 6 controllable vertical display actually half-transparent; this allows them to be used not only as ordinary display but also as some sort of overlay/filter for the big screen on the back.
• In relation to that, the stage production for FUSION is probably the best for a single track I have seen ever.
• On Mugenmirai,the lights most likely followed the hand movements through motion tracking (explaining the slight delay). The alternative explanation is that the lights' movements are pre-programmed but trio's hand movement are ((that)) precise even in 3d space, which is even more impressive.
• The translation for the closing comment in case you need to cry.

On Retrospecting

Simplest way to do a retrospective on your year (or on your sprint!) is to divide your experiences in two: the good and the bad. Improving is then a matter of taking the good stuff with you along to the next year and tossing all the bad, irrelevant stuff away. The failures and the heartbreaks. You shed, forget, and leave them in 2019 hoping for them to not repeat. Suppose your year went really well 40% of the time; retrospecting this way will allow you carry over 40% of your experiences and equipment to face new stuffs in 2020. The remaining 40% are broken armors, weapons, and Potches you spend for health and mana potions.

Improving on the previous strategy is also relatively straightforward. From that remaining 60%, there will be some experiences that you can learn from. You understood why things went so bad and thus, if you have enough space in your heart for some luggages, you keep the lessons you've learned and push through. To communicate more with your loved ones. To make sure your voice are heard at work. To care for and love yourself more. The hardest falls are the most effective ones to remind you of things that are important. This way, give or take you'll carry over ~70% of your experiences with you forward.

You're now left with the final 30%, the trickiest part. They are things you've learned that you don't see as important or relevant with your life in the short or long run. Say you're reinventing yourself so that the things that you're going to do something completely different; you're switching lanes in your career; you're going to the industry after spending years in the academia; you're getting into a relationship after enjoying the single life for years. Do you have no choice but to learn everything from the ground up because you know nothing?

Probably, yes.

But then again, I personally feel that most ideas/lessons transfers well throughout time/context if they are framed (see where I'm going here) in the right way. So I guess the answer's actually no. At the same time though, I also feel a lot of people find it hard to apply lessons in a different context from what they originally learn it from. I am of no exception, obviously, but through the end of 2019 I was fortunate enough to experience some moments of clarity where things I thought will be irrelevant to my current career actually became things that distinguish me.

Rant is getting too long and convoluted so what I actually want to say is this: I think the times that we spend (and by extension, our selves who are spending it) living is always meaningful. Granted some meanings are easier to grasp and generate more tangible value than others. However, given times to try looking at it in many different angles, a little bit of luck, and assistance, we will always able to find some worth within the times that we spend, and in ourselves. It's easy (and relatively harmless too actually) to not think too much about the leftover 30% of your experiences but there's much you can mine and generate from them if you put them in the right place.

I think we're always able to apply what we learn from big things to smaller things. This naturally means we can also learn from the small things around us and apply it to bigger, more important things. I think people with amazing resume can fail to learn the most important things even if their environments makes it very easy for them; that's why it's beneficial to not look down on our own experiences.

Reinvention, Retrospective, Reframe

So how exactly does Reframe 2019 factor into this lengthy speech?

I always consider Perfume to be a group that—via circumstances, good luck, and hard work—have reinvented themselves multiple times throughout their careers, for better or worse. They began as your run-off-the-mill idol group but then marketed as a gimmicky 'near-future idol' produced by a guy who mainly dabbles in Shibuya-kei sounds. Then sonically, they went from newbies with a dark and edgy sound to veterans with soft-bubblegum songs; young girls singing about love to independent ladies teaching the audiences in Coachella how to brush their teeth.

What makes Reframe 2019 successful as a Perfume retrospective is how it takes this entire spectrum of persona that the trio has adorned throughout history, leaving almost none, and somehow cleverly cram them into a coherent audiovisual treat. The show began with an old footage of a~chan describing how she feels in the beginning of her career and comes full circle with her quoting that footage in her closing remarks. The setlist consisted of some old songs that hasn't seen any playtime in tours but repackaged in a way that makes you feel like they are important pieces of the group's discography. It manages to incorporate the music, choreography, and technology so that they look (and in fact, they are) equally instrumental in elevating to group to its current status as a mainstay in the Japanese music industry.

Watching Reframe 2019 reaffirmed my belief that there's always worth even in seemingly stupid, useless, and relatively insignificant lessons I've learned, provided I take time and find the correct set of glasses to see them.

Going forward to 2020 I wish everybody to be able to find worth in their times, and in themselves, regardless what the world told them.