2017.01.17 Touken Ranbu Stage Saien LV Review!
FINALLY! FUCKING FINALLY!! FAN FRIDGING-TASTIC FINALLY!!! I FINALLY FUCKING WATCHED TOUSTAGE (somewhat) IN PERSON LIVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! GIVE ME A MINUITE TO CALM!!!
I have been waiting months....
Months....
MONTHS!!!!
ALMOST A WHOLE YEAR IN FACT!
I fought in ticket battles every BLOODY time and didn't hit.
I even used two different email accounts in order to try and get tickets! I still didn't hit!
I tried Toujitsuken (on the day ticket) and DIDN'T HIT....
I followed FAN REPORTS every PERFORMANCE!!
THERE WERE 37 PERFORMANCES IN TOTAL THIS TIME!!
I EVENTUALLY HIT FOR THE LIVE VIEWING SENKOU!
SHIT SEAT
DID NOT MATTER!!!
BECAUSE IT WAS FOUR (YES FOUR!!!!) GLORIOUS FUCKING HOURS WHERE I LAUGHED AND CRIED!
AND NOT ONLY THAT!!!
AT THE END THEY FUCKING ANNOUNCED THEY'RE DOING A SECOND ONE IN JUNE AND JULY!!!!
MAKICHAN IS BACK!!!!! (more details later)
I AM IN SWORD HELL AND I DO NOT CARE!!!
I FUCKING LOVE TOUSTAGE!!!!!
Lets get onto the review now that I've calmed down....
Now I'm not gunna write everything out; we all know Toustage, we all know the story of it; we've all seen the first DVD multiple times. So I'm just going to write down everything that was different this time including the gungi scene, the curtain call etc. Ready?! Okay!
Oh Official Website here.
The Opening: I feel like the first half of the stage was changed a lot. Especially the scenes between Ranmaru and Akechi; I'm pretty sure their first scene was extended.
Next is when Fudou is brought into the Hanamaru and meets Manba through Jiji. He does the whole trying to touch him and Manba stops him but (maybe because it was the final) Fudou tries to touch him again, Manba stop hims, he goes to try a third time but stops mid-way making the audience and Manba (who is duh Makichan <3) laugh. He then stops and goes behind Manba and LIFTS his cape up! I don't think MakiChan expected this either!! xD
Also we get a giant chunk after Fudou joins the hanamaru where they (I don't remember who... maybe Namazuo) explain about Manbachan's past which I'm pretty sure wasn't in the original run. And when they do tell Fudou Manbachan's history, Manba is like 'you told him?!' and is super hurt.
As I'd already read in reports and confirmed with my own eyes the stage directions for coming off and on had been swapped for all the actors.
This time around the play was a lot more comedic than it was serious. The first chunk of this play has a HUGE amount of laughs and comical moments in it. A lot more adlib as well I feel was brought into it.
Also I noticed that Namazuo and Kousetsu's parts were extended! When Sayo is recovering after getting hurt and Souza and Kousetsu are left with him Seto (who plays Kousetsu) has this HUGE monologue - which I personally don't remember being in the first run of this show. Also I noticed Kousetsu's fighting style this time around; he moves VERY slow, almost like he only moves when it's absolutely necessary and when we first see him fight I thought we were watching slow mo because then Ichigo comes on and he moves SO freaking fast in comparison but Ichigo was moving at normal speed; so Kotetsu is definitely a slow moving fighter which I found interesting. I still SUPER love Namazuo's fighting style <3 he slids across the floor and he had this head cock which pisses the enemy off xD I love it. Kento (who has replaced Someya as Tsurumaru) has sped up the choreography - he still has the same choreography as what Someya did, but his feet tap (you all know which moment I mean!) was much faster this time and such. AND of course I'm always impressed that MakiChan can fight with the GIANT cape blocking his viewing and making it more difficult to swing a sword. BTW!!!!! I think he had new choreography because in his finally fighting scene he FLIPS his sword in the air and catches it before doing his final strike!! It was SUCH a good flip!!! I hope you all noticed it when you see the DMM << which I will buy ASAP!!!!
Also Kudo's to the camera men! Naturally you're going to get a few dodgey shots but some were so perfectly timed that we got the most perfect shot ever!! One example is when Yagen looks back at Souza and it's such a beautiful close up of him!! Another is when Maki (in the background) says his line and then Suzuki goes to talk (he's in the foreground) and the camera so flawlessly switches focus from MakiChan to Suzuki!!! ALSO the freaking gungi!! (full details below) but after MakiChan has apologised to Wada and goes to continue his line, he cracks the most perfect smile ever at Wada (cos MakiChan is still laughing inside over it) and only the people watching the LV could've seen that shot (maybe people who were actually in the front row and had binoculars could've seen it too) but everyone in the LV theatre (I was in at least) were laughing so hard at MakiChan's cracked smile at Wada for that milisecond xD well done camera men!
I'm pretty sure I mention this every time even when I watched the first run's dvd but I freaking love the music in this SOOOO much!!! Even during the LV last night the music would take my attention at points <3
They used fake blood this time on Ranmaru and Fudou at the end and it looks SO realistic! I thought the actor for Ranmaru had cut his face and neck because it looks realistic and was just all over him! But then when Fudou has it during his Shinken scene then I realise it was just damn good fake blood!
BACK to the story! So the next comedic part is when ManbaChan is showing him around the Hanamaru and what they do on a daily basis and he meets Yagen and Souza and this time around both Fudou AND Yagen go 'ahhhh!!!' at each other xD Then we get to the horse rearing and this time they upgraded the horse and the ensemble cast guy has a hump attached to him which he uses to hit Hasebe and he goes flying across the stage xD
Then of course Fudou actually meets Hasebe and the classic 'AHHHH!...who are you?' happens xD
Finally at the end of this sequence Jiji "finds" them and Fudou went off stage so MakiChan turns around and is just dead silent "...where's Fudou?!" and Fudou brings the fucking horse back on and says they both have reigns xD I was dying. MakiChan was dying too and he yells at the horse to go back to where he came from xD I feel like this was one of those 'It's the last one so lets really fuck Hasebe and ManbaChan and their actors up in real time".
Another great point is right at the end when Tsurumaru does his 'sneaking up on ManbaChan' and of course he did the digging into his knees so he fell back and Tsurumaru catched him so well but THEN preceeded to drag ManbaChan back and his SHOE came off xD when Tsurumaru finally let go of MakiChan he was just on his knees wetting himself laughing. Suzuki kindly picked up MakiChan's shoe and put it in front of him. MakiChan put his shoe back on. But obviously everyone in the crowded were dying of laughter and he was clearly embarrassed slash enjoying that accident xD And then AFTER this moment Tsurumaru and ManbaChan go to walk off stage but Tsurumaru stops asks 'how much Mochi did you make?' 'Enough' 'How much is enough?' and MakiChan does a big ball in the air, Tsurumaru is like 'that much? That's a huge amount! If you had that much mochi then your skin would become super soft like mochi! ... That's why you're beautiful (kirei)' and MakiChan get's flustered (clearly not expecting Kento to even stop!), the entire audience are like 'woooooo!' and he does the classic Manba line of 'utsukusii toka iu na (don't call my beautiful)' and then does this flamboyent cape flip and strutes off stage and Tsurumaru is like 'you sure you mean that?!' xD
OMG!!!!! I don't remember it being in the first stage BUT MAKICHAN GETS TO YELL 'HAJIMEYO!' at one point!!!! Also he yells "Shutsujin da!' and I was flailing so fucking hard when he yelled those two lines!!!!
Naturally I fangirled when ALL my favourite lines were said:
Dare de arou ga
Ahhhh anta... dare da?!
Utsukushii toka iu na
Kore de mo jissen muki dane
Anata... dare ka ni fukushuu nozomu no ka
Mada mada!
Yokikana Yokikana
Yare Yare
Doushite arujiga oda no katanatachi wo honnoji ni kasetano ka... Ima ha sukoku wakaru... tsuyokuare... aruji ha sou itteru youna ki ga suru. <3
Hajimeyo!
Can you guess who says what?! It's weird seeing it all romanised though xD
Okay guys here it is January 17th 2017 Evening Performance Gungi/War Counsel: Zunda Mochi
Shokudaigiri comes in and says today is Zunda Mochi and that he was going to make it, he hands the tool (for making mochi) to ManbaChan who takes it and Jiji and Tsurumaru offer to help him so the three of them go off stage and for a good 2 minutes-ish you just hear them going 'Tsuku!' 'Hai!' over and over and just getting louder and faster xD
The three of them came back in after making the mochi and said they had failed and MakiChan was carrying the tool and as they went back to his places, MakiChan help the tool down a little and it smacked Hasebe/Wada in the face! At first it looked planned but you legit hear MakiChan go 'are you okay? I'm sorry... I'm so sorry... sorry' so I think he might've been an accident. But then the next moment when he's back to discussing their plans, the moment he looked at Hasebe (going back to the perfect timing of the camera men) he cracked a smile at Wada before pulling himself back together xD And then the moment when Hasebe stands up (before he gets Fudou) MakiChan grabs the tool again and says 'you wanna use it?' xD
During the curtain calls a few of them fucked up with what they wanted to say and obviously it was cute so we all giggled! But when Tsurumaru/Kento was talking he paused towards the end and you just heard (I think it was Yagen/KitaMu) someone go 'DON'T CRY!' and he said 'I won't.'. But when Seto went to speak to broke down towards the end. He couldn't keep it in and from what I saw, the camera only did a wide shot for like a milisecond) but, it looked like KitaMu was holding Seto's right hand while MakiChan put his hand on Seto's left shoulder as he cried the rest of his speech out. And then the get the mood light again Hide/Souza was like 'are you done?' xD MakiChan's speech was pretty solid until he fucked up and said 'Ranmaru Hideyoshi.... no wait.. Hidetada-- NO! ... Mori Ranmaru and Akechi Hideyoshi!' xD so cute.
MakiChan by the way was HYPER as hell! During the curtain calls, as he walked off, everytime he was waved to the audience with this massie wave (like he did in Tenimyu) and was jumping away. And then during the backstage video at the end he jumped in and was like 'THANK YOOOU! GET HOME SAFE!!!!' waved manically and jumped out of shot again, almost hitting the camera xD this boy lights up my life so hard xD he's always so positive and happy!!
KitaMu's curtain call was cute! He was like 'there's the Japan LVs and there's overseas LVs! (English) Thank you! (Chinese) She she! (German) Danke Shion! .... Arigatou!' xD
PS. Wada constantly looked like a deer in a headlight... his eyes were like O_O the entire time whenever he acted xD it amused me.
EDIT: OOOO! I forgot to say; you know the ending with the song and the umbrellas? THIS time around they have the character name written umbrellas that they carry AND this time the ensemble come and put umbrellas with their crests on next to them as they each bowed!! <3 So 24 umbrellas in total this time! ^_^ After all the curtain calls but before the new stage was released they did the Opening again but an Onrei (thanks) version and at the beginning when they take their swords out MakiChan didn't catch his right and grabbed the sword rather than the hilt and TonChan saw the moment and looked at him xD
New Stage
Like I said; we're getting a second stage in June and July! And Suzuki, MakiChan, Kento, TonChan and Saya are at least coming back and reprising their roles <3 and then we're also getting new characters Kasen Kanesada, Okurikara and Taikogane Sadamune! They haven't officially released who's playing them but we did get a shadowy dark visual video of them and twitter are under the impression that it's Wada Takuma, Ino Hiroki and Hashimoto Shohei playing them. We'll wait and see but everyone's pretty convinced even though Marv (the production company) are like "Kasen Kanesada - ???" just tell us already! xD All the swords belong to Date Masamune so looks like we're getting a Date story line next which is PERFECT timing because I've been dying to go to Sendai for AGE and decided that like this May was gunna be when I do! And Sendai is famous for Date Masamune (google him okay!).
Did I mention last night was 4 HOURS LONG?! It started at 7pm and I didn't get out of the cinema til after 10pm!!! =O It did feel a little long but I was super enjoying mself, BUT I didn't realise HOW long it was =O
**By the way I found it WEIRD when people weren't laughing clapping in the cinema during the curtain call and speeches. When I started clapping a few even turned around at me like I was the one in the wrong. Just because the actors can't see or hear you clap doesn't mean you shouldn't! I knew in my heart, if I didn't clap, I would've felt guilty as fuck about it, so I clapped regardless. Some other did too but I shocked --more like disgusted-- that people didn't clap when the play started and ended and during the speeches and everything.
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I think I'm done! I thought this would be quick bullet points but obviously became a review in itself xD