On August 11, 50 people from 25 groups belonging to Watanabe Entertainment, including the comedic trio Neptune, Ungirls, and Lotti, appeared at an annual summer live comedy performance at the Nihonbashi Mitsui Hall in Tokyo.� This year, 31 elementary school students from Ishinomaki, Miyagi, which was affected by the Tohoku earthquake, were invited to the event.

Last month, Horiuchi Ken (42) (0f Neptune) visited the area and made a promise [to invite the children to the show.] �Fellow Neptune member�Nagura Jun (43), who gave the children with gold-medal worthy smiles, wished, �I will be happy if this stage has become the trigger for them to have dreams.�

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Nagura continued with, �I am elated to receive such spirit and fun from everyone.� I hope this becomes a good summer memory.�

Whenever the artists did a gag, the children�s laughter resounded through the performance space.�After the final performance, Horiken, Nagura, and�Harada Taizou (42) who is also a part of Neptune, smiled as they took a commemorative photo with the children.

Of the 31 Ishinomaki municipal school students invited to the �Watanabe Entertainment Live Special 2012� live comedy performance, 12 were from Ohara Elementary School and 19 were from Yoriiso Elemtnary School.� Watanabe Entertainment began contacting the schools this January when they began their charity project, the �WAE After School Project.�

The concept was �To take action and present children affected by the earthquake dreams!�, and the company sent their talents to visit elementary schools in disaster affected areas �to teach comedy, music, and theater.

During the first round of activities on the 9th of last month, Horiken and Lotti visited Ohara Elementary School, while D-BOYS visited Yoriiso and they held �Shouting Contests� and theater workshops.� During that visit, Horiken, who thought about showing the students [the company�s] stage, promised to invite students from both schools to the live event.

As their desire to see the live performance came true, the children expressed great joy.� With widespread smiles that dazzled to the extent that even gold medals could not match, Taizou took in the scene and stated, �I would be happy if this has become one of the many choices for their future dream.�� Nagura also expressed his joy as he spoke with, �I will be happy to hear words like �After seeing that performance that time, I want to enter the entertainment industry.�� I want to be able to stand together on stage one day [with these children.]�

This fall, the trio plan to visit the schools again, and the three had a unified voice as they stated, �From here on out, we want to continue our exchanges.�

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Source and Image: Sanspo 1 + 2