This article will be picture-heavy.
How it all started
I started playing the game only a few days after lauch back in August 2015. I didn't care much about idols back then and just downloaded the app because I was beyond bored and tought that the icon boy, Riku, looked cute (oh, the irony...), so maybe it could be a good way to pass the time.
Considering how invested I am in it after almost 9 years, that certainly worked LOL
My favorite character quickly shifted from Riku to Iori and it's been that way since.
I have never loved a character this much before. I never understood why people would go such lenghts to make shrines or itabags or other things of the sort. But Now I Now.
While I'm obviously celebrating my very favorite character with these shrines, I feel that I'm also celebrating the person I have become, because his existence made me change for the better in many ways. I used to dislike myself in every way possible, but can now sincerely say that I love the me who loves Iori and i7.
Whomst
Iori is a member of the idol group IDOLiSH7. He's called a "perfect high school student" and acts and claims to like cool & sharp things, but he's in fact very much weak to anything cute, although Iori tries to hide that. At 17 years old, he's Mitsuki's younger brother and their parents run a cake shop called “Fonte Chocolat” with a cutely decorated interior, which influences him to like cute things. Iori also loves small animals like cats and bunnies and is a fan of the mascots "Usamimi Friends", specially Roppu-chan.
Iori has proper manners, although he possesses a sharp tongue. He likes to have things well-planned and executed orderly, which is why if anything goes wrong, he has difficulty dealing with it.
Every member of IDOLiSH7 has a kanji number in their names, so Iori (和泉一織) is associated with the number 1 just like he's the number 1 in my heart.
The Shrines
Iori's birthday is on January 25th. I started making birthday shrines for him back in 2016, so the very first time his birthday came to pass.
2016: At first it was a very humble attempt, as all I had was a single magazine poster and an overwhelming wish to celebrate him nonetheless, so I made do with macarons (his favorite sweets), pudding marshmallows, yaki manju and many cute things & plushies, things he secretly loves. Doesn't look very good but it made me happy at the time, and so I kept going.
2017: Still had very few things so it's 10% merch and 90% entusiasm. The cake fondant I bought was of terrible quality and the cake looks like a disaster. I still wanted to make things look slightly acceptable, so I added a bunch of baloons and made a bust cardboard cutout of him to place at the table. There's a reason both "fun" and "frustrating" start with the very same letter and I learned it on that day.
2018: Things started looking good by then. Had a decent amount of merch to make use of and an equaly decent cake to go with it!
2019: More merch, more baloons, one extra cardboard cutout because Why Not? The cake was supposed to look like a Rabbit Hall, a little stage from the game that you can customise and have chibi versions of the idols walk around and dance, so I used an acrylic stand for Iori, printed the back with normal paper and had decorations printed on rice paper, which I then applied to some white chocolate to make them stand up. This shrine even made into a Crunchyroll video about anime birthdays back then, as well lol
2020: I was studying in Japan at the time of this one, so I had very little space and time to make something grand. Got one of my simple itabags, some extra merch I had bought (including a plushie of his favorite Usamimi Friends bunny, Roppu-chan) and some cake slices from the local market and just placed everything on my room table. Somehow, despite being small, I like how this one turned out quite a bit!
2021: Back at home! I had all the old things I already owned before and also all the new things I bought while in Japan, so there was a lot I could work with for the first time! Didn't have much time to work on the cake so I made do with a brigadeiro (look it up it's GREAT) one and added some hearts and a (deformed, rip) Usamimi Friends bunny face made of white chocolate on top.
2022: Great idea, not-so-great execution. My home was full of leaks and while I had a reasonable plan, the room I wanted to use was suffering from a leak and therefore I had to discard the idea. I didn't want the surroundings appearing too much, and the only way to do that... was to cover everything with picnic paper towels and character towels/cloths. Adding to that the fact that my home isn't exactly the brightest place around, the limited lighting kinda made the baloons look weird. But hey, I got to fit one of my favorite newly acquired item, the Sakura Message Iori pillow case, so everything's fine! I was also certainly quite proud of the general setup, considering what I had to work with lol
He barely appears but I made one more cardboard cutout, a full body one this time, and he's HUGE! Also, the cake has a little white chocolate bunny on top!
2023: Looking good! Lighting and leaks are still a problem but it certainly looks better than the previous year in that aspect. Didn't have a big table to work with, made do with a small one and more boxes than I'd like to admit I have hoarded at home. I had also obtained one of my biggest grails, this fairly difficult to find (and expensive) post card item/1344364, not long before, so it would be the first time I could add it to one of my Iori shrines and that made me very excited!
2024: Here we are! Definitely my best shrine so far!
Leaks are no longer a problem, so I FINALLY could use the spare bedroom for this! The white sheets, wall and baloons made all the merch really pop better.
Had to sacrifice some items in order to make the overall ensemble look good (couldn't really find a good way to place a cup or two extra towels here). Ran out of transparent tape so you can see some darker ones on the wall but honestly the fact that it all stayed in place without falling appart for so many hours was already a miracle LOL My original plan included more baloons on the floor to hide the flooring but my lungs said no.
Iori's nendoroid was released last year but it's been held hostage by Brazil's customs since early december, so unfortunately, he couldn't be part of the shrine this year yet. Damn.
Wanted to go all out this time so I finally bought some fancy-looking plastic tiered trays and cake stand to display things in a different way. Liked it a lot and will probably try to get more things like these for next year, which will mark my 10th Iori birthday shrine milestone!
And that's it (for now), thank you for reading!
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