Tenimyu - Seigaku vs Hyoutei - Nationals!
On the 24th and 25th I was in Tokyo to watch Tenimyu three times (Yes, three >.>) and Frogs. On the 24th, after cafe hopping with my friend, we parted ways and I headed to the Tokyo Dome City Hall for my first viewing of Tenimyu Seigaku vs Hyoutei Nationals. I got there early, mostly to abuse their air conditioning, but also because I wasn't sure how busy it would be. Apparently an afternoon weekday show isn't that busy and I was able to get in and buy my goods in about ten minutes. Not bad!
I then wandered the floors (There's 4 of them so plenty to wander) and poked at the various 'Inui notes'. In celebration of the 1000th show earlier in the week, they had the notes set out so you could leave a message. I liked flipping through them and seeing the amazing artwork that other fans had drawn inside of them.
Eventually I made my way to my seat.
I had bought it during general sales and had selected side seat since Jess had told me that it was a good way to get closer and the view wasn't too cut off from being so far to the side. Since I normally got side seats in Osaka, I thought I'd give it a shot, even if the TDC side seats seem more awkwardly placed than the Osaka ones.
I managed to get row 1 seat 48 for my first show. I was pretty ecstatic at the row 1 part of it (who wouldn't be? Even if it is a bit too close) but I was worried that 48 might be too far over.
So when I was walking to my seat I was pleased to discover that while far to the right it was at the very corner of the stage and that none of the equipment was blocking my view. It was a very horizontal view meaning that the left side of the stage seemed quite far away and that I was in for some very awkward views during the show when boys stood in that corner. But, I was still excited!
This is when I should point out that my ticket for the evening show was for the exact same seat. I feel like the odds of this happening, especially during general sales, has to be extremely low. And while it was amazing to be so close two times, I was happy to be on the left side and further back for my third viewing. You get a better sound mix further back and also my neck was starting to get a kink in it from looking so far to the left. Also, while everything is up close in seat 48, you do get some odd angles and restricted views at times. There is also that weird feeling of embarrassment I felt when I was sitting in the same seat, knowing that I sort of stand out (white girl in Japan) and thinking some of the boys might notice me at both shows (I'm looking at you Kousuke!) Though that's also a bit of arrogant thinking since most boys probably didn't notice me at either show let alone both. Still awesome seats but even awesome seats can have drawbacks....
Settling in, I could hear a lot of stomping going on behind the curtains as the boys warmed up and undoubtedly acted like their crazy selves. So noisy! Finally the buzzer went and the announcement came on about theater rules and then Mario - Kikumaru Eiji - greeted us over the announcements. Yay!
My second show had Hiro who is so soft spoken and sweet as himself and thanked us so nicely when we clapped for him after his introduction. He switched to his Kabaji voice at the end and it's amazing at how different he sounds.
For the third show, I had Tomotsune Yuuki and he's a bit wild and crazy just like second season Tanishi has turned out to be. But I adore him anyway so I was happy.
As always, the show opened with the tennis court sounds before the walkways in the audience leading up to the stage were lit. But it wasn't for Hyoutei, who opened the show in the first season. It was Higa walking toward the stage singing a strange a capella version of their Higa song. Higa has definitely embraced the role of comic relief/scene set up that they shared with the Trio.
Speaking of the Trio, they then came out and gave us the real first opening song. They changed the arrangement of the song and cut out the introduction part of it but it's generally the same. The end of their song, The Top.
It sounds amazing, as 7th cast always does when singing as a group. They even all sounded pretty strong on their solo lines, too.
At the end of the song, we see Jirou sleeping on the ground in casual work out clothes, he wakes up and then nods back to sleep only to be woken up when Hiyoshi and Gakuto walk in and find him. Rest of Hyoutei shows up and they talk about Seigaku, Nationals, Atobe... basically the usual.
This was also the point that I made awkward eye contact with Shishido (Kuwano Kousuke). After he talks, he moves to my corner of the stage and stares out and down at the audience and that's right where I was. And as he was taking up my whole view of the stage, I had very little choice in where to look.
orz
Between shows, I told Jess I was going to be bold and stare at him right back. But when it came time for it, our eyes met but he was giving this really serious expression. In the first show he didn't look so intense and was smiling a bit. Eeep! It was too intimidating so I kept darting my eyes away from him. Eye contact fail!
Kabaji finally comes in followed by Atobe. And they then start Hyoutenka no Jounetsu. It used to be the opening song of the musical but is now bumped to here and I think the placing works well since it gives us more time with Hyoutei and their thoughts on the upcoming match. Also, I find it interesting that the first time we see Hyoutei, they are all in casual clothes.
Hyoutenka no Jounetsu has also been updated with more harmonies and counter melodies. If you listen and hear those gaps between the lines, well Yuushi, Ohtori, Shishido and Taki (?) are now filling them with a line. It really makes the song feel fuller and more epic and intense.
The trio come back out to do some chatting and then some of the Seigaku members talk about the upcoming match and we see Higa sneak on in behind them. The black see through screen is down and they're in front of it as they walk in synch to the middle. They then start Versus VS and it's also had a make over, adding in more English, counter points, harmonies and all that good stuff. And I have to say that there is a lot more English in these Hyoutei National songs than I realized. Tenimyu often has English thrown into their songs but some of these are reaching the point of being more English than Japanese.
As they sing, the court gets set up behind them and Atobe and Tezuka appear at the net, eventually joined by rest of their team. Higa leaves, singing Versus VS and the screen rises. I think this works better than having Higa come out when Momo and Oshitari are just about to start playing. It really builds the tension between Seigaku vs Hyoutei! And who will be the champion (well, if we didn't already know). It also gives Higa a bit more of a spot light without having to share it which I think is nice for the supporting teams to have.
Momo then throws his towel and shows off his new weather reading skills and the match gets underway. I feel it unfolds in much the same way as the first season including running into a pole, getting 10 minutes, the Poker Face Player and Active Volcano song and the ending. After Momo's match, I liked watching Oishi play nurse and wipe the blood off of Momo's face with towels before bandaging him up. I have no idea why. Maybe just because it was close to me and easy to see.
Up next is D2, Hiyoshi and Gakuto pair vs Inui and Kaido. Gakuto comes up and insults Inui's data and Kaidoh goes in to hit him but Gakuto jumps away and Hiyoshi blocks the racket. It was really well choreographed and looked pretty fluid and cool from all the angles I saw it from.
As I was watching Gakuto jump and flip around the stage pretty much non-stop I thought to myself that 'Wow, JunJun's been working really hard at this' and then I remembered that he was in the Tumbling 3 play so of course his tumbling got better.... but at least his non-tenimyu roles has helped him be even more awesome in Tenimyu!
Hiyoshi and Gakuto are doing well and go into their song Sekkachi. The choreography is a bit pumped up and fast pace compared to the first season and I especially like their little hand movement for 'quickly'. If you watch the benches you can sometimes catch Ohtori doing it to Shishido and he'll either do it back with a look of 'what's this' or just give a 'what are you doing?' type look to Ohtori.
Also, if you watch the bench at the start of the song, you might spot Atobe smiling and bopping along to the song. Jess says that he has different reactions to the song depending on how he's feeling I guess. Which vary from all out smiley and bopping along, to just a small foot tap to the music to a more frowny faced version.
I also really like the dynamics of the Gakuto and Hiyoshi relationship. Hiyoshi pushed Gakuto out of the way at one point to make a shot and Gakuto is all 'did you see that?!' at rest of Hyoutei but they sort of don't pay him much attention. In one show, I saw Hiyoshi doing the Gakuto type stretching jumps and then Gakuto bopped him upside the head. So their bickering partnership is cute.
Rest of the match is more or less the same as the first season show including Kazu to Gekiryuu. While both boys have improved their solo singing since the previous musical, I find Inagaki Seiya can still be a bit hit or miss with his singing at times.
Oh, forgot to mention that Taki is there with his speed gun checking Inui's sever speed which is something like 212km/h. Fast!
After the match all of Higa is there and Tanishi talks Chinen into re-enacting Oshitari vs Momo and then with Kai and Rin they do Gakuto and Hiyoshi vs Inui and Kaidoh. Seeing their interpretations of these boys is quite funny and it got lots of laughs in all the shows I saw. Hyoutei myu also makes me like Higa a bit more since they really aren't that badass and scary but are just insane. I feel sorry for Kite, he has to put up with these guys.... though he's just as weird.
Singles 2 is then introduced and it's Tezuka! Oishi seems a bit surprised by this and they have a little chat before Tezuka goes to the net to greet Kabaji. Also, I think Atobe just likes yelling out Tezuka's name. He does it about three times in the musical despite not playing him. Tezukaaa~ Though Shishido also gets a Tezukaa in here, too.
Tezuka's song, Jimonjitou, thankfully has a much shorter interlude. I didn't realize how long the first season one was until I was listening to it on the bus and I thought my player died because it was quiet for so long and I couldn't hear the quiet background music. Instead of a drawn out flashback scene we see a sillhouette of Miyuki hitting a couple balls and then getting hit or missing the third one (I forget) and you get to see Tezuka's reaction to it on the stage as he cringes at it. Tawada's reactions and acting in this part really make this shortened flashback work. It's short, but it gets across his feelings at the time really well especially combined with the lyrics.
And without such a long break, the flow of the song stays pretty intense and all I can say is wow. Tawada's voice and acting is just a joy to watch. It was just this skinny guy on the stage holding a racket but I was completely captivated. I hope his charisma comes through on camera.
Again, the match goes like the first season including Futoufukutsu e no Homage though I think Ikkei's Oishi is even more passionate and forceful than the first season ones when he starts the song. Also, it always makes me sort of frowny face at them that they don't have faith in Tezuka to be able to win this. If they were going to gang up on him, it really should have been during the Atobe vs Tezuka match.... At least Echizen rallies them so that instead of telling Tezuka to stop they're all 'he's insane but that's our captain <3' about him.... wait, is that better? Oh well. It's an awesome song regardless.
The match ends, D1 is cancelled due to rain, there's some smack talking, they walk off and instead of going right into Heavy Rain we get Tezuka talking to 'Ryuzaki and we see Oishi practicing outside. Eiji comes and they practice together, Fuji watches for a bit and as Oishi serves, the Heavy Rain music starts.
In the second verse, Oishi and Eiji switch out and Ohtori and Shishido come in and Atobe sings his part of Heavy Rain. He and Fuji then duet together for the next part. Yata and Tsune's voice blend beautifully together and I was a bit sad to see Atobe walk off stage since I would have liked to hear them more.
The song ends with a shot of Eiji and Oishi practicing in the rain. And while I think it's a bit gratuitous to have real water fall down as rain, they did it a better way this time. It's just a curtain of rain with Eiji and Oishi on the other side so they aren't actually getting soaked with it. They just swing their rackets through the water to make it splash around a little more. Also, their tarp to collect the rain matches the stage design so you barely notice it there.
End of the first act!
And the second act opens with.... Hyoutei! They also walk through the audience to the stage and then sing Hyoutenka no Jounetsu II.
I forget how they made their exit, but then the trio, with their blue umbrellas were on the stage, checking if it was still raining and then putting them away to sing. I actually really like this song and think it's cute. But instead of going into The Top II, Higa interrupts with a new song. It's a bit weird but the choreography is fun and the layered parts they have is interesting.
As Higa finishes their song, we see that doubles 1 has already started and as Higa goes off, we see the last part of a rally and Seigaku get the point. In the first show I saw, when Eiji was doing his racket twirls, he didn't catch it and it landed on the ground at Tezuka's feet so he had to go and get it. I guess everyone is allowed an off show. Poor Mario. But at least most of the attention was on Hyoutei who were talking at the time.
They play and Taki is there with his speed gun seeing how fast Ohtori can get it. And Ohtori finally breaks Inui's record.
They finally make it to a tie break and Eiji is putting a lot of pressure on himself and ends up faulting his serves. Oishi tells him it's okay and to just play normally and after a bit of a rally and Shishido talking, we get the flashback of them on the green bin.
And then one of my favourite moments of the musical. A new D1 song! Eiji sings, then Oishi and then they sing together and it's nice but then Shishido and Ohtori get to sing. Yay for spreading the Doubles song love to Hyoutei. And then all 4 sing together and every time I watched it, I was focused on Shishido, despite Eiji being closer. Because he's just so passionate when he sings. It's an amazing song and I can't wait to hear it again. The chorus is amazing. I would squee and fangirl this song for longer but I think you get the picture...
At the end of that song, Oishi and Eiji immediately go into synchro. And instead of Shishido and Ohtori singing about it, it's Jirou that starts the song and Gakuto sings too before Seigaku and Higa come in to finish it. I really like the change of having the spectators sing instead of Shishido and Ohtori as they get to focus on playing the game instead. It also means the choreography of the song can be a bit more intense as they don't have to sing.
And I have to give props to Ikkei and Mario who did a great job during synchro. They were really well choreographed and together and they both mastered that blank eyed trance look. I also couldn't help but notice how much Mario looked like Mao during this song. It was sort of freaky.
I feel like the ending of the song finishes with Eiji stopping Oishi and not having it after the song. But I could be remembering that wrong.
After the song, the pairs head back to their benches and Higa and the Trio start having one of their many talks. I'll admit that I have no idea what they were saying because off at the Hyoutei bench Ohtori and Shishido are cooling down. And this involves helping each other stretch.... It's very distracting and a little bit awkward to see one of them sat on the floor with their legs out and the other pushing on their back... especially when they're pressed right up against each other. They then switch places and do it again. At least when I saw it the third time, there was a bit more space between them when they were pushing. The second time I saw it, Shishido just fussed with Ohtori's towel which had ice in and made sure it was properly around his neck before towelling himself off. Not nearly as distracting. But still, when the Trio and Higa are on the far left side of the stage,and Hyoutei is right in front of me, I can't really be expected to pay attention to them, can I? In all the versions, Shishido's hat ends up the right way on his head though a bit askew. It looks adorable with his hair sticking out
Before Atobe comes out, Jirou walks out to play singles 1 and does a bit of an ad lib comedy routine.
The first time, he walked out to the courts and there was no opponent so he started singing a song about himself and who he'd play. I think the tune was to Synchro but I can be pretty bad at identifying songs so don't take my word for it. He was singing about how he'd play anyone, Fuji, Tezuka, Momo or even Horio and that playing tennis was fun~.
The second time he can't find his racket. He's looking around the Hyoutei bench and can't find it so he spots Seigaku and goes marching over. I love how game Mario (Eiji) is for all of these random adlibs. He has a huge smile on his face and is waving at him as he comes over. Jirou gets in front of them and is all “Seigaku!” and we're all waiting to see him accuse them of stealing his racket but he then bows and is all 'konnichiwa~' and we all laugh.
He then asks if they've seen it and I think he says that Kaidoh has it under his bandana and is also suspicious of Horio. He can't find it so he goes to the court and forfeits his match. When he walks back over to the Hyoutei bench, Taki pulls out Jirou's racket and gives it to him.
The third version had him going to play but since there was nobody to play against so he started re-enacting previous matches as his own game. He talked about how his own serve was only 89km/h so he'd have to serve 3x as fast to match up. And he did ikyuu nuu kon serves and Shishido and Ohtori's reactions were cute. And then he was volleying and ran 'into the pole' that Momo did and fell on the court and delivered the lines that Momo did about not taking his racket and wanting ten minutes. Which got the Seigaku bench reacting. And I think it went on a bit more before Atobe cut it short.
I feel that it must be hard for the stoic characters to keep a straight face during these parts. Tomoru is just too good at being an energetic and adorable Jirou who delivers great adlibs.
The Hyoutei chanting starts and Atobe/Kabaji along with Ryoma walk to the front of the stage. But Echizen beats Atobe to the finger snap and coat throw. On my second viewing, when Atobe throws his coat over his shoulder, it went too high and right over Kabaji's head. Hiyoshi picked it up and gave it to Kabaji. We were all chuckling and Tsune must have known something went wrong but he can't look to see what happened. Fortunately, after a couple of lines, he and Echizen exchange laughs so he could let it out then.
But it's okay, later in the match when Echizen throws his hat, during the second time I saw it, he missed Momo completely and it hit the lights at the front of the stage. Mashu was good at walking over to pick it up in a very Momo manner.
I feel the game played out rather like it did in the first season just with some differences in stagings. Koori No Sekai sounds more or less the same as does Ore Wa Moeru. Both Tsune and Ogoe sound great during their songs.
As they continue to play, I love watching Tsune's Atobe and just how much he's enjoying the game. Actually, throughout the show it's nice to watch his Atobe and see just how comfortable he's become with the role and being Atobe. You'll see what I mean about Tsune's confidence increasing (as well as his singing ability) when the Dream Live comes out!
After an awesome performance of Tie Break, Echizen and Atobe fall to the floor and the teams yell at them to get up. We get the voice over from Echizen listing the Seigaku members before finally standing and winning against Atobe.
And then while Seigaku celebrates, Hyoutei just leaves, abandoning Atobe on the court standing like a statue. >.< Really boys? That's how you're going to leave your captain?
Atobe is just standing there and Echzien comes back out with the razor. As he approaches, it's not Kabaji who comes out but Taki. He tells Echizen to take his hair instead. And then he goes into an adlib.
The first time it was something about being a man and not actually going to give in and he takes the razor from Echizen before snapping his fingers and the lights going dark.
The second time, he wants some time to say goodbye to his hair that he's had for 14 years. And as he's saying goodbye, Echizen is all 'this is taking too long' and getting annoyed. But as he comes to approach again, Taki snaps and the lights go out and he drags Atobe away.
The third time I think is my favourite. He wants one last picture of himself with his hair. So he pulls out his phone to take a self-shot but he's shaking too much so he finally asks Echizen to do it and they swap the phone for the razor. And Taki is all mada mada dane before snapping and the lights going dark.
I like Echizen's annoyed little comments at being foiled each time. And I'm impressed that Tsune can not only hold that pose for ages but he manages not to laugh. Though with the last one, it was a close call. His mouth kept quirking up. I wonder if Kento warns him what he's going do for the adlib or not.
Higa then comes back out.
Another adlib scene where Kite gives the team some random task that they never seem to be that into or like. The first time they had to think of new moves. So inspired by Kikumaru's step move, Kai does the Kai skip. Which Kite shoots down. Next Rin is all 'what's another Okinawa animal?” I didn't catch what one he went with but he picked up the bottom of his jacket and raised it over his head and was waving about and Kite told him he failed because he can't swing a racket like that. Tanishi really wanted to go for the third time but he picked Chinen. But he couldn't think of anything so Kite got annoyed at him being too slow and walked off. The others followed leaving a pouting Tanishi behind.
I don't remember what happened the second time I saw it. >.> whoops.
The third time, it was something about them being too heavy so somebody had to carry Tanishi. I think Kai was picked and he whispered something into Tanishi's ear and then Tanishi hopped up on his back. When they started running, Tanishi hopped down and ran with just his arms around Kai's neck. When Kite looked back he would hop up and act like Kai was running while carrying him. It was pretty cute and funny, but on the third or fourth time, Kite busted them. They all ran off except for Tanishi.
Tanishi stayed behind because he had to see Atobe walk across the back of the stage with his short hair and be all shocked by it.
They then go into Refresh, a song that I never cared too much for in the first season. But the second season added some more harmonies (or maybe I could just hear them more) and near the end the trio does some nice counter melody lines.
During the song, Seigaku comes out with their bentos and each time, one member doesn't go to the group but to the side of the stage. Rest of the team notices and runs up to him and on the screen behind we see what was in their bento. I didn't notice the first two times with Eiji and Inui, possibly because of the angle I was at so my attention was more at the boys at the front of the stage and not the screen behind them. But the third show, I saw Kaidoh's nicely traditional bento.
After, instead of doing Hyoutenka no Jounetsu and The Top again, they did a full medley. It included those two songs but also a Higa song, Heavy Rain and the D1 song <3.
Finally we had the curtain call and then the encore.
The encore song is still We Are Always Together. They mix it up a bit a little about who is going to do the say yeah repeat parts. In the shows I saw we had
Momo - Say Don!
Higa - Was normally Haide and I don't remember who was doing it
Yuushi - Akan (The boys were all why are we doing this or really loving it)
Oishi - Say Yeah
Higa was Rin this time
Shishi - Doraa~ (He commented about it being a little embarrassing but do it anyway)
Gakuto called his lame and then did his (Which I forget)
Eiji - Say Yeah (Surprised his wasn't more original)
Hyoutei was Yuushi again
Jirou - pushed Atobe out of the center area and towards the back of the stage in his excitement to take over and was all Tannoshi!!
It's always fun watching the other boys to see how energetically (or not) they're doing the moves. Though I admit it's hard to look away from the main guy to watch the others.
After this part they run into the audience to wave at people (the naughty members of the cast might high touch though they aren't supposed to anymore) and they can run around being weird and bugging each other and it's impossible to watch everyone.
Generally, there are a lot of odd cross pairing moments going on as they poke at each other, dance with each other, pick each other up, throw arms around each other or anything else.
Tomotsune (Tanishi) always liked to bug the Trio for some reason whenever I saw him. Seigaku really enjoyed poking at Tawada (Tezuka) When he was standing over near my corner during the second show. And each time he'd look over wondering who it was and then smile this big brilliant smile when he saw who was behind him poking him. Too cute!
During the second show, when Shishido was in that corner, we made some non-awkward eye contact for once and he did an air double fist bump towards me, I returned it, he looked a little surprised but happy and gave another single air fist bump. Yay! Awkward eye contact success!
Tomotsune ran past and I got a wave from him as well as a bunch of other boys I don't remember. It's all very exciting and squee worthy at he time but by the time you get out of the theater it's hard to remember everything that happened during the excitement.
And then all the boys dash back onto stage for the final ending move and pose. Some boys rarely make it on time and in one of my shows, because they ended up so bunched together on one side of the stage, someone got elbowed during a dance move. I forget who now but it was funny.
Fortunately for my three shows, they all made it back on time (if barely) for the ending post and the curtain closing.
And then it was over.
Despite the odd angle at which I viewed the show the first two times, it was really fun. It is never not awkward to have to watch a good chunk of the musical through people's legs. Seeing Shishido's butt through Ohtori's legs for a good chunk of D1's match was also odd and unavoidable.
As the original musical came out in that time when I was just getting settled into Japan and was a bit overwhelmed with all the casts, I don't have much recollection of the original. I actually had to go back and watch them before seeing this show just to get an idea about it.
As usual with the second season, they improved a few areas that needed it and boosted up the difficulty of some songs or dancing. But like Higa, as we progress further into the later musicals, we get less changes as the first season had also greatly improved the staging, pacing and upped the song harmonies by this point.
However, I appreciated the changes they did make and despite not really enjoying the national matches as much as I did the earlier ones, I didn't find them that difficult or boring to watch. Even the Atobe and Echizen one was done quite well. Though most of that praise may have to go to Ogoe and Tsune who put so much into it, especially Tsune who, like I said, has become such a joy to watch.
I'll most definitely be going to see the daisenshuraku live viewing and I may yet be convinced to take in a Nagoya show. So unlike the Higa musical, I definitely had a more instant and thorough enjoyment of the show as a whole.
And since I fear I have ventured into rambling territory, I shall wrap this up by saying that Hyoutei's love for their characters really shines through and that 7th cast Seigaku keeps getting better and better. It'll be interesting to see them all again at the end of the run when they've had many more weeks of performing the musical under their belts.
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