Looking for Answers of watching The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya and Lucky Star SOS☆Thanks Festival - Celebrating the 20th Anniversary!


Hello SOS Brigade Club Members,

I got a question I would like to ask, did anyone was able to watch ‘SOS☆Thanks Festival - Celebrating the 20th Anniversary! The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya and Lucky Star Thanks Festival’ during March 2024?

If so…

  1. Were you able to watch it using ‘Niconico Live Broadcast’ site (while purchasing ‘Dwango Ticket’ https://dwango-ticket.jp) or ‘EPlus Streaming+’ (https://eplus.jp/sf/streamingplus)?

  2. Were you able to use a VPN service to see the live archive paid recording without having any issues? As well, what kind of VPN provider were you using?

  3. Was seeing the live show was really good and worth it?

The reason I’m asking this question because was able to purchase one ticket for ‘<昼の部:らき☆すた>SOS☆感謝祭プレミアムステージイベント’ / ‘< Afternoon: Lucky Star> SOS☆Thanksgiving Premium Stage Event’ through Dwango Ticket and signing up to NicoNico website (for the first time) to unlock my ticket to watch the show.

Even those I was outside of Japan, I was doing it as a test to see if I was able to do it.

But for some unknown reason I wasn’t able to unlock the paid archive recording. It kept on saying “This program is not available in your country or region.” Even those I was using a VPN (I was using ExpressVPN).

I search high and low to find the answer of how to watch paid NicoNico video while using a VPN.

But I wasn’t to find the answers and I missed the paid archive recording of both The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya and Lucky Star.

So if anyone was able to go pass all these obstacle, I would like to know how please?

Source links:

  • Lucky Star and Haruhi Voice Actresses Reunite in 20th Anniversary Event

https://www.siliconera.com/lucky-star-and-haruhi-voice-actresses-reunite-in-20th-anniversary-event/

  • “The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya” and “Lucky Star” joint event “SOS☆Thanksgiving” commemorating the 20th anniversary of the original works / 『涼宮ハルヒの憂鬱』『らき☆すた』原作20周年記念の合同イベント「SOS☆感謝祭」

https://tokorozawa-sakuratown.com/event/sos-fanfes.html

  • SOS ☆ Thanksgiving Premium Stage Event / SOS☆感謝祭プレミアムステージイベント

https://dwango-ticket.jp/project/4CzVgtP8NG

  • <Afternoon: Lucky Star> SOS☆Thanksgiving Premium Stage Event / <昼の部:らき☆すた>SOS☆感謝祭プレミアムステージイベント

https://live.nicovideo.jp/watch/lv343989156

  • < Night Session: Haruhi Suzumiya’s Melancholy > SOS ☆ Thanksgiving Premium Stage Event / <夜の部:涼宮ハルヒの憂鬱>SOS☆感謝祭プレミアムステージイベント

https://live.nicovideo.jp/watch/lv343989178!<

Seeing as no one else has answered. I’ll give you some common trouble shooting steps to try first. I can’t directly help you though. I don’t have a NicoNico account and I’ve never tried this before.

Use a different VPN provider. Some services are smart enough to detect common VPNs.

Make sure your VPN is actually working. Search “what’s my IP” and see if it’s indicating you’re from Japan.

Clear your cache and cookies for NicoNico. It’s unlikely, but possible there is some cookie indicating you are from outside Japan.

Check your account settings. It’s possible when you created your account, you (or NicoNico) marked your account as outside Japan. If this is an option, set it to Japan. Hopefully this isn’t a hardcoded setting you have no control over.

Check all your account settings. Is there anything else (eg phone number) which may indicate you’re outside Japan?

Access from incognito mode, then TOR browser, and then, if all else fails, from a virtual machine. Do all of the above while the VPN is running. This will ensure the browser or website can’t somehow fingerprinted you as outside Japan.

To u/LaughingDash,

Thanks for replying and sorry I didn’t reply sooner.

Thanks for giving me some advice and other suggestion about VPN and NicoNico (foreign) Japanese site.

So far (while my ExpressVPN was ‘ON’)…

  • I did use “what’s my IP” on google (and other site) and it di said that my IP address was in Japan. But it fail many time when I was trying to watch their lock video content.

  • I did clear the browers cookie (Firefox) and change my NicoNico account location to ‘Japan - Tokyo’. But still didn’t work.

  • As for the other stuffs at the last sentence, I wasn’t abe to do it and I think it won’t work.

  • Also I did use Proton VPN (Free version) and it didn’t work.

The NicoNico site server system is a lot smarter (I think) for telling which IP address is from Japan or not. So it a bit troubling to watch exclusive content from far away.

So for now, I’m going to stop and come back later with a difference VPN (like SurfShark, I hope!), and do a bit more knowledge and ask around of how to watch lock NicoNico video.

Nevertheless, thanks u/LaughingDash.