REVIEW: ENSEMBLE STARS! ON STAGE

[butaibaka]

TITLE Ensemble Stars! On Stage (Based on the game with the same name)

ORIGINAL WORK Happy Elements K.K

RUNNING DATE June 18-26, 2016 in AiiA 2.5 Theater Tokyo

WARNING: May contain spoilers and mention of other works

Prior to watching this stage play, I had no background whatsoever of Ensemble Stars as before, I would only watch stage play adaptations of the anime(s) I’ve watched. And like I said on one of my posts, I only decided to try this one coz I thought that Hashimoto Shouhei was one of the actors (he is a part now, though).

I had a hard time watching at first, because again, the story itself was unfamiliar. Additionally, Yamamoto Ikkei, Konishi Seiya, and Takasaki Shouta were the only actors I was familiar with given that the three were from Prince of Tennis musicals and that was the only stage play I was most fond of that time. And the biggest hurdle was that there was no subtitle file so I could not understand what they were saying. A few days later, thankfully, I found one so I was able to watch the play.

Thanks to Kitamura Ryo’s opening act; he made it seem like he was explaining to transfer students/visitors aka viewers how Yumenosaki Gakuen system works. That was also how I found out that Ansute’s all about idols singing and dancing. And since that was the case, I expected that they would sing live as if they were really doing a singing showdown. Well, given that I have four years of experience in watching musicals like Prince of Tennis and Kuroshitsuji, I can tell whether an actor is singing live or doing a lip-synch. As for Ansute, I honestly think that it was the latter.

Anyway, the storyline is new to me: a school made for idols who battle it out to be at the top. In Trickstar’s case, it’s an all-out war to cause a revolution in their school that had a rotten system for a period of time. Of course it doesn’t always go easy, as said unit’s members would face different trials that would discourage them and prevent them from obtaining their goal: mainly the student council and some rival units.

As for the actors, I’ll give it an 8 out of 10. Again, I was not familiar with most of them. I watched the stage first before reading the manga and playing the game. I say that everyone nailed their respective characters very well, especially Takasaki Shouta.

Shouta played the role of an almost-obsessive/possessive senpai (Sena Izumi) to Matsumura Taiichirou’s character (Yuuki Makoto) who was his former underclassman in their modeling days. For me, Shouta stood out the most among the actors. It was probably because I saw him playing only bubbly characters like Kikumaru Eiji and Toubu Toujo(Aoharu Tetsudou) and the fact that I recently watched Shinsen5 movie that time (He played the antagonist Yoshida Toshimaru). To be honest, I was overwhelmed up until now by his portrayal of Izumi who has a fair share of saltiness in character. What got me the most though was his line, “I even thought of you as my little brother” during his scene with Taiichirou.

Shouta was able to shift from being a provocative senpai to a pensive one in just a snap, and that was one of the reasons why he instantly became my favorite actor in that stage. A little bonus: his manner of speaking as Izumi was the same as Izumi’s voice
actor’s: Itou Masami.

As for the songs, I fell in love immediately with Akatsuki’s “Hyakka Ryouran”. The unit has a traditional Japanese style but modernity is present as well. It’s like two generations combined in one. The other songs I liked are Undead’s “Melody in the Dark” and the original stage song, “Singin’ Shine”.

I also liked the overall stage design as what a concert setup is like with pillar-like columns. The audience members had participation as well like they were an audience in a live performance with their cyalumes/penlights on.

And these are my favorite scenes:

Ikke’s Tsukkomi scene

Trickstar in sync

Akatsuki dorks

And let’s not forget the craziness during the curtain call...
Another doting senpai named Ozawa Ren Akehoshi Subaru

This self-proclaimed wolf being cute like a dog just because he forgot what he was supposed to say

And finally, Taiichirou’s “I’m the eldest!“

He was actually being adorable as the character being treated as
the youngest despite the fact that he’s the eldest among the cast. And like Yuu-kun, he’s pretty handsome without his glasses on.

ANYWAY! To sum things up,from the story to the actors, I really enjoyed watching Ensemble Stars and I am really looking forward to the third stage, especially that my favorite unit is finally complete. I hope that I could watch it live though.