Takako Okamura ENCORE X: Christmas Picnic 2024 Blu-ray

Since its beginnings in 1988, Takako Okamura’s year-end Christmas Picnic concerts have become one of her defining traditions. ENCORE X captures the complete final performance held at Tokyo’s LINE CUBE SHIBUYA on 21 December 2024. Alongside the fourteen songs featured in the WOWOW broadcast, it restores the unbroadcast “Yumemiru Hitomi” and adds a special version of the new song “Mirai no Tobira” as a bonus.

The concert brings together the signature “Yume o Akiramenaide,” seasonal favourites “Tenshitachi no Toki” and “Christmas no Yoru,” enduring songs such as “Liberte,” “Mistral — Kisetsufu” and “Baby, Baby,” and more recent favourites including “Taisetsu na Hito” and “Megami no Hohoemi.” Fans gathering from across Japan also heard the first performance of “Mirai no Tobira,” her eagerly awaited first new song in three years. Gratitude for sharing another Christmas season united Okamura and her audience in a moving evening filled with warmth and smiles.

Following a serious illness in 2019 and an extended break, Okamura returned to the stage in 2021 and continued to challenge herself. With its new song, Christmas Picnic 2024 looks ahead to 2025, the fortieth anniversary of her solo debut.

In her message for the release, Okamura reflects: “This autumn marks forty years since my solo debut. I am filled with gratitude that I have been able to walk alongside you and weave music together. Going through illness made me realise that time is finite. In 2019 I received a cord-blood transplant, and I am cherishing the little life entrusted to me. If I can keep walking towards the future, taking a few more detours along the way, I will be happy.”