TITLE Black Pearl

DIRECTOR Oikawa Takurou

SCREENPLAY Komine Hiroyuki

MUSIC Asakawa Takeshi (FLOW)

RUNNING DATE April 7-11, 2010

While searching for Sengoku Basara stage play links, I stumbled upon this post of eldoow from LJ. It was a stage play about mafias, and since I’ve always been a big fan of mafia-related stories ever since Katekyo Hitman Reborn, it caught my attention.

I watched this without subs so my review might be a little off since I only relied on attentive listening and I am not quite good at Japanese. I can understand almost 50% of the stage so, it’ll do, I guess.

So anyway, again, the play was about an unnamed mafia group searching for a black pearl that was stolen from their boss. The primary suspect was detective Takizawa’s (Yanagisawa Takahiko) assistant slash a tutor, Mitamura (Hirama Souichi). Vodka (Uehara Takuya), the right-hand man of Tequila (the mafia’s boss who owns the black pearl), together with his assistants Amazake (Aoyagi Ruito) and Rum (Yoshizawa Ryo) demanded that Takizawa and Mitamura find the black pearl until the evening; otherwise they would send a legendary hit man to kill them. Chaos ensue when an unnamed thief (Yoshimura Takuya), a hit man named Dustin Godder Chandler (Mizuta Kouki), and high school student Shimamura (Sakamoto Shougo) got involved with Takizawa and Mitamura.

If I’m not mistaken, this is the first time that I watched a detective-meets-mafia stage play. Also, this is the very first stage play I watched which made me laugh from the start until the end. Sure, there are other stage plays which had a fair share of comical and hilarious moments but this one just topped them all. I even caught myself laughing almost every three minutes. The comedic scenes broke the stereotype action-packed stories like this that I only saw on movies and television shows. I think executing the act in a hilarious way despite its serious plot was what made it unique. There were even some funny lines even though the characters were serious while saying them.

That leads me to the actors’ performance. I honestly think of giving them a perfect 10. As I’ve mentioned above, even though the actors were saying funny lines, none of them had the urge to laugh as they were all dead serious. I also praise their gestures as even the smallest ones made me laugh.

Everything took place in Takizawa’s detective agency, as the timeline was set in just a day. But that fact alone must not be overlooked since there was a big twist and that involved the office. Of course it was hard to notice the first time, but the second time I watched it, I knew something was off.

Anyway, I highly recommend this stage play. It was full of hilarity and the sequence of events will keep your eyes glued to the screen.

Some screenshots:

Good evening ( ´ ▽ ` )ﾉ 


I went to pedal training today as well!!


It's been a long time since I run, and as expected, it's tiring. LOL.


I was covered in sweat.


Well, today's photo is with Aoyagi-senpai's actor, Ryo.




 

I took the shot (of the picture) after running so my hair is ruffled.


Yesterday, I read the letters I received during Daiya (Diamond no Ace) from everyone. I became so happy and sad and emotionally unstable.


I'll write a reflection soon.


I wonder from where I should write.


I'm worried if it will turn to be a proper composition.


Please wait for it.


Good work today as well!!


Well then (^^)／~~~

Thanks to everyone who came!!

*And the surging waves around the area of performance also ended.

The only performance left is Tokyo.

Ah... I can sleep at home after a long time.

It's not like I dislike the hotel life but, it gets tiring when it's too long.

Somehow, there was a day off so I spent the day enjoying the area.

I had fun.

Well, today, there was a talkshow after the performance.

Thanks to a lot of people who were left!!

The picture's with the members of the talk show.




 

I also enjoyed the talkshow.

Alright!!

I'm going home!!

Well then (^^)／~~~

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.