Big Damn Tokyo Report, June 10th - 13th
Okay, it’s been a couple of weeks since my big birthday trip to Tokyo, and my schedule has finally calmed down enough that I have the chance to sit down and write about it! This will be a fairly in-depth report including stuff that’s not theatre-related.
Cut for hugeness. This thing is over 5,000 words long and contains reviews of [KILL THE BLACK], [Boukensha-tachi], [Conton Club], and the Japanese production of [CHICAGO].
Thursday, June 10th
I started the day by going to school, though I only had one class, and I left after I finished my kyuushoku. After that I had to drive home and pack, which was kind of hectic because I was at the school that’s farthest from my house, and I ended up getting a later Shinkansen than I’d wanted, so I had to change to the faster train at Sendai in order to make it to [KILL THE BLACK] on time, and I was really pushing it. I got off the Shinkansen at Ueno, put my suitcase in a locker, and walked as fast as I could to the subway to go across Tokyo. I got to Shinjuku-sanchome at about 18:45, fifteen minutes before the show started, and after a brief but panicked consultation of my map I headed in what I thought was the direction of the theatre. I turned out to be right, thank god ^^;;
I went into the theatre, got my trading card (Yousuke! He’s cute), bought my program, and went in to find my seat. I had a really excellent seat that night - the seventh row back, and right on the aisle. For the record, Theatre Moliere is TINY, so just about any seat there gives you a good view of the stage. Also, they had cameras set up that night, so I’m pretty sure that they were recording the DVD. And before the performance started they had the standard “Thank you for coming, please silence your cell phones and don’t film the performance” message playing on the speakers, but whoever had recorded it (it sounded like Akishin but I’m not sure XD) tripped over his words a lot, so it was pretty amusing. Also, I don't want to perpetrate false rumors so don't quote me on this, but I might have been sitting behind Halu's grandma. XDDD
Anyway, [KILL THE BLACK] was the first EXILE Hanagumi show I’ve ever seen, and it did not disappoint. It was fantastic. I have to say it’s the funniest zombie apocalypse story I’ve seen since Shaun of the Dead. And at the same time, there were parts of it that were very poignant and sad; it had an excellent balance of humor and sadness.
The plot, from what I understood, was something like this (drkparadise, feel free to correct me if any of this is wrong XD;;): there was some sort of zombie apocalypse due to a disease, but the zombies aren’t really zombies in the traditional sense; they’re still pretty functional and can talk and everything. Most of them aren’t dangerous, and they’ve been living in a commune on an island away from the uninfected population since their zombification. The uninfected humans are planning to destroy the commune somehow (I think), but there’s an uninfected human who’s living in the commune, so the government sends two agents - Minato Sousuke (Akishin) and Amari Misora (Yousuke) to try to retrieve him before they destroy the compound. Suffice it to say their mission doesn’t go well. Minato and Misora are attacked by one of the few violent zombies, but are rescued by ZOMBIE HUNTER KUZE AOI (Halu!), who is kind of mental and trigger-happy and carries at least three or four guns, one of which is a huge assault rifle. It was hot. He also had some ridiculous 80s-cop-style sunglasses. Kuze lets Minato and Misora into his hideout, and eventually they are able to find the boy Minato and Misora are looking for, Tenma Hiroki (Shirahama Alan of EXILE Kazegumi). Tenma is violently opposed to going with them though; he’s been living with the zombies in the commune and wants to stay there. Anyway, it’s at around this point that it’s revealed that the zombies can talk - and they’re hilarious. There are three zombies who have been living with Tenma - Mitsuo (Aoyagi Sho), Kunio (Ozawa Yuuta), and Satoru (JONTE!). Also, Kunio’s older brother Ponse (also played by Ozawa XD) is the violent zombie who attacked Minato and Misora earlier, but he’s not part of the commune. So the trio of zombies from the commune try to get Tenma back through peaceful negotiation (“Hello, this is the negotiator.” “Hello, this is Yonekura Ryoko.”) but are unsuccessful. After a while Kuze throws Minato out of the hideout - he’d gotten bitten by Ponse before and is now infected, though he hasn’t undergone the full transformation yet. Minato is really freaked out by this, naturally, and Mitsuo and Kunio’s jokes about it aren’t really helping, hilarious though they are. Also, it turns out that Mitsuo and Minato used to be classmates in high school (in Hokkaido, I think), and Minato makes a point of mentioning that while Mitsuo is still as useless as ever, Minato himself has gone on to become an elite government agent, and tries to use this as a reason why he shouldn’t be turning into a zombie - how can he be a zombie when he’s worked so hard to climb to the top of his field! Though the thing that distresses him most is that he’s going to lose his good looks:
Minato: I’m turning into a zombie, even though I’m such an ikemen! I was really popular!
Mitsuo: Oh, and one more thing. Once you become a zombie, you can’t have sex anymore.
Minato: But! I’M SO GOOD AT SEX! *cries*
Eventually Minato passes out and they haul him offstage so that Akishin can put his zombie makeup on and… I’m kind of fuzzy on the details after that /o\ Eventually it comes to light that Tenma is living with the zombies because Satoru was his piano teacher before the infection started. And Tenma murdered him for some reason (from what I gathered, Satoru was an unparalleled piano genius… and that meant Tenma had to kill him. IDEK). But then he came back to life as a zombie? IT WAS VERY CONFUSING. Tenma is still very attached to him in spite of murdering him earlier (Satoru even still has the knife in his chest from when Tenma killed him), so he stayed with him after the infection started spreading. And Satoru-sensei is the most respected zombie in the commune I guess, since he was a teacher pre-infection and the rest of them were NEETs XD Actually, I believe the title of the play comes from another term they use for NEETs - kuro.
After a while Minato comes back onstage, having fully transformed into a zombie, and is all “Oh noes, I’m so ugly and miserable now ;_;” and then there’s a long series of funnier-than-you’d-expect zombie dick jokes. I think the point of them was that zombie penises fall off pretty easily? XDDD And apparently Minato’s had already fallen off so he was all DDDD8 while Mitsuo tried to grope Kunio since apparently Kunio still had his. To which Kunio was like “Noes, leave Jon-kun alone!” I got the sense that he was sort of referencing Jonte, which just made it funnier XDDD The whole thing ended rather badly for Kunio and Jon-kun though; Mitsuo did finally get a grope in but, as previously mentioned, zombie penises fall off really easily. After that whole spectacle, Minato decides that he’s had enough of being a zombie and puts his gun to the side of his head and is about to shoot himself… when all of a sudden some sort of supernatural being in a weird blue hat and long white nightgown comes onstage to talk him out of it. It was very baffling and also one of the funniest scenes in the show. I think the being referred to himself as a Persona, and he was played by Jonte with a really bizarre accent. The whole scene was adlibbed, or most of it anyway. The Persona gave Minato a long and hilarious speech about how up until now, Minato’s life has been set to Very Easy Mode, but from now on it will be on Very Hard Mode. I don’t remember much about the adlibs from this performance, unfortunately, but that’s okay because they’ll be on the DVD ^^; So in the end Minato doesn’t kill himself after all.
There’s a lot more that happens in the middle, but I really can’t remember what order it happens in. I know there were scenes between Misora and Kuze where they talked about trying to help Minato - Minato is Misora’s sempai, so they’re very attached to each other - and there was also a scene where Misora tied Tenma up to keep him from running back to the zombies and Tenma kissed him just to startle him XDDD And there’s a scene that I didn’t quite understand where Halu wore a skirt and heels. I wasn’t sure if he was supposed to be an entirely different character or if he was Kuze inexplicably disguised as a woman. But it was Harukawa Kyosuke in a skirt and heels so it wasn’t like I cared about it making sense in the context of the story.
So towards the end of the show, Tenma has some medicine or something that he wants to give to the zombies. Kuze is all “Oh no worries bro, I will give that to them and not replace it with poison, you can trust me.” Spoilers: HE TOTALLY LIED. Kuze gives the zombies a box of the not!medicine, and tells them that they can negotiate for Tenma in half an hour, after the medicine takes effect. Kunio drinks some of it and then he and Mitsuo go to give it to the rest of the zombies in the commune, only to find that everyone who drinks it dies (including Kunio, giving Ozawa a chance to go offstage and change costumes…). Tenma is of course outraged at the deception, and runs back out to join the zombies. And somewhere in here I think Kuze shoots Mitsuo, so he’s dying. Tenma figures out that none of them are getting out of this alive, so he pulls the knife out of Satoru and stabs himself, and both of them die. Then Misora tries to call in to the government base or whatever to have them come pick him up, since Tenma is dead, but they tell him that it’s too late and they won’t be rescuing him before they destroy the island. Minato wants Misora to live, so he bites him to turn him into a zombie, but when Misora realizes he’s becoming a zombie he kills himself. Minato is shocked by this, and then he goes to try to help Mitsuo up but Mitsuo dies too, telling Minato to run and save himself. Minato runs offstage. After another moment Kuze slowly comes out of his hideout.
Kuze: *looks around* Everyone’s dead. But I’m still alive. …I am so cool.
And just as Kuze is thinking he’s won, the destruction of the island starts, and Ponse bursts out of the floor to kill him.
THE END :V
Also, after the main performance ended, there was a short break while they ran the credits (no really, they didn’t have bows, they ran a video of the guys instead because they needed to take off their zombie makeup and get changed backstage), and then there was an awesome taiko drum performance with lasers and blacklights. It was really cool *_* They had some real bows after that, and a post-show message by… Aoyagi, I think, I don’t remember that well, and then the show was over. Again, the whole thing was really great, and I can’t wait until I can go see another Hanagumi show. Which, according to Halu’s blog, won’t be until December. T_T Oh, and I intend to draw fanart of this show at some point, though IDK if I’ll be able to share it here since I don’t have a scanner or anything.
After that I went back to Ueno to pick up my suitcase, and checked into my hotel for the night!
Friday, June 11th
This was the day that I had to go to the American Embassy, which was the whole reason I came down on Thursday instead of Saturday like I’d originally intended. My experience with the embassy was a good one for the most part (at first I was in the wrong line but once that got cleared up things went very smoothly; there is a special line just for Americans!). They were able to notarize the document that I had to send to the DMV, and I was in and out in about an hour, so everything turned out fine on that front. After that I did some shopping in Akihabara and changed to a different hotel before heading to Sunshine City in Ikebukuro to see [Boukensha-tachi].
Sunshine City is a big mall complex that also has a theatre attached to it. I got there a few hours before the show started, so I had some time to wander around and shop. I ended up going to the Animate Ikebukuro flagship store, because it’s just across the street from Sunshine City, and my credit card took a mighty hit. It was totally worth it though - I made another step towards having a complete collection of the K-ON! figma series(Mugi-chan! <3), and also there was tiny miniature food. I have a huge weakness for miniatures, you have no idea. It is ridiculous. I ended up buying a whole box of the “Minna de FamiResu” series, and a display case to put them in ^^;; Also, it always impresses me how huge the Animate stores in Akiba and Ikebukuro are. Morioka Animate is just a little guy.
After my Animate adventures, I went back to Sunshine City in search of food. At this point I hadn’t eaten since about 9 am, and it was almost 5 pm @_@ This trip had me skipping meals in order to be able to afford pamphlets, it was kind of sad. I found an EL TORITO in Sunshine City though, and they even took credit cards, so at that point my mind was made up. I went to El Torito and ate so much Mexican food, omg. I never get to eat Mexican food anymore so this was very exciting. I even took pics so I could include them in here XDDD I realize this looks like a heckton of food for one person, and it is, but remember, I hadn’t eaten for about 8 hours.
Chips and salsa!
Marguerita! Why yes, I did start drinking before 5 pm. Don’t judge me XDDD
Beef taquitos with guacamole
Rice :D
Chicken and beef fajitas with salsa, guacamole, and real sour cream
…It was Mexican food, okay, it’s a rare thing in Japan. :P
After I finished my meal it was just about time for the doors to open at the theatre, so I wandered on over there and went in, bought my pamphlet and postcard set, and then went to find my seat. The Sunshine Theatre is pretty big; I would say it’s about the same size as Akasaka ACT. It was very different from Theatre Moliere the night before.
So [Boukensha-tachi], right. It’s thoroughly adorable. Like, it is a musical about mice going on an adventure! What’s not to love! The mice were all precious, of course. I won’t list them all, I just want to go through my favorites:
Ganba: The main character! He was a bit of a sue but he was cute so I didn’t mind too much.
Manpuku: Ganba’s BFF. I adored this one, he was always so enthusiastic about food!
Shijin: The town durnk! Also, played by Hirata Yuuichiro. Anyone being played by a former Kaidoh gets extra points in my book :D Anyway he was drunk and ridiculous and TOTALLY SAVED THE DAY :D
Yoisho: The one who I expected to be the leader. He had an eyepatch and was a tough guy. And a little ways into the show I started thinking, “Hey, this guy’s voice sounds really familiar, especially when he’s singing or when he’s extra fired-up… TAKA-SAN?!” And as it turned out, he was indeed played by Kawamoto Naru, Taka-san’s voice actor from the PoT anime. This was a very awesome surprise for me, as I love Taka-sans. ^_^
Ikasama & Gakusha: I have to list these two together because they’re my OTP. Gakusha, as you might have guessed from his name, is a studious type complete with smart guy glasses. Ikasama is a somewhat roguish gambler. Gakusha, being a smart guy, thinks gambling is stupid. Ikasama has a whole song about gambling, which all the other mice get really into, except for Gakusha who is rolling his eyes the entire time. It was only natural for me to ship them after that XDDD Also towards the end of the show they had a tsundere “Hey, you’re not so bad” moment together, which solidified them as my OTP.
Bobo: BOBOOOOOO. He was played by Satopii and was just the cutest thing. He was a mouse who wanted to be a fish! It was precious.
Anyway they were all really cute. And there were some other awesome characters too, like the seagulls with their enka song (it really reminded me of Sebastian’s song for the Undertaker in the second Kuromyu, actually XD And the lead seagull was Masuda Yuki, Niou's voice actor :O). Also, I found the antagonists genuinely terrifying o_o Well played, show, well played. The whole thing was really fun except for the random horrible deaths :V I’m pretending that the horrible deaths didn’t happen and that it was just happy times though XDDD
After the show I booked it on down to Shibuya to meet some friends to go drinking in this weird Italian/gothic place that had delicious lychee beer. A+++ would drink again.
Saturday, June 12th
This was my birthday! I’m older now.
I spent most of the day in my hotel room, actually XDDD I was tired and didn’t want to do much and was running out of cash, so I decided to just hang out in the hotel with the A/C cranked up.
Eventually I headed over to Shinjuku-sanchome to take in my second showing of [KILL THE BLACK]. This time the trading card I got was Aoyagi. I didn’t have as good of a seat this time; I was two rows closer to the stage, but I was right up against the wall on the far side of the theatre, and the row wasn’t elevated at all so I had to try to look over everyone’s heads. The show itself was just as awesome the second time, and there were a few things that were different that I want to share:
In the opening scene where Halu/Kuze first makes his appearance, instead of the 80s cop sunglasses, he had these incredibly ridiculous-looking wrap-around shades XDDD
During the Persona scene, Jonte actually messed up his first line, which resulted in many lols:
Jonte: Misora Sousuke desu ka?
Akishin: Minato desu.
Audience: LOL
Jonte: *covers his face with his gloves for a minute to hide the fact that he’s laughing before shrugging us all off and starting over* Minato Sousuke desu ka?
And the scene just got funnier and funnier after that, with Akishin trying desperately not to laugh at the nonsense Jonte was coming up with while Aoyagi and Ozawa were laughing hysterically in the background. One of the bits involved the Persona scolding Minato for always choosing what girls he dates based on their bra cup size:
Jonte: What cup size do you think I am, huh?
Akishin: *glances over, still trying not to laugh* …An A-cup?
Jonte: WRONG! The answer is… World Cup.
Audience: *bursts into laughter and applause*
Also, I don’t think Jonte talked to Aoyagi and Ozawa at all during this scene the first time I saw the show, but by this point in the second show he was just on such a roll that I guess he decided to keep going and go talk to them too. I don’t recall a whole lot of what he said to them, other than that he very sternly told Aoyagi to “apologize to Jon-kun” XDDDD
Another adlib moment that was different was when Ozawa came out into the audience; in the first show I saw, he made a girl stand up and then stole her chair (Aoyagi promptly returned it with a lot of apologies). This time, though, there were some empty seats in the audience, so Ozawa went into the audience, sat down, and told Aoyagi to do something onstage instead. Aoyagi sort of just stood there laughing, like “What do you want me to do?” It was great. Oh, and during Halu’s crossdressing scene, there was a moment where he pulled his skirt up and flashed a bit of his thigh. Naturally we all went nuts over that XDDD
On a slightly more serious note, since it was my second viewing I was able to pay attention to more ~thematic~ things. For instance, brothers are a theme throughout the play - Ponse and Kunio are brothers, Minato says that he thinks of Misora as a younger brother, Kuze tells a story about his dead younger brother and later says that he too thinks of Misora as a younger brother. But by the end of the story, all the younger brothers are dead, while the older brothers who failed to protect them are still alive. I just thought it was interesting. The other thing that stuck out to me was that the story felt… allegorical, almost? Like, I don’t think I can concretely describe what I mean, but it seemed to me that there was some point that was being made about class, especially with the contrast between Mitsuo and Minato - they started in the same place, and Minato worked really hard to get out and get ahead, but he ended up in the same place as Mitsuo again in the end. Was the whole thing really about Minato’s inability to truly escape his roots? Or how some things (like disease) don’t differentiate between classes, and don’t care how hard you’ve worked or how good at sex you are? Or maybe it was all a metaphor for how mainstream society scorns people who live alternative lifestyles. Or maybe I’m thinking about it too hard XD;;
Oh, so at the end, they did the taiko performance again, and it was just as great as the first time. This time Halu got kind of overzealous with his drumming, and ended up breaking one of his drumsticks in half. They have replacement drumsticks with them in case that happens though, so he just pulled out a new one and kept going. After the performance ended, he picked up the broken drumstick and brought it with him when they came up for the bows. Here is what my thought process was like at that moment:
“Oh, he’s bringing it up with him? I bet he’s going to throw it into the audience or something… Or maybe… Maybe… He’ll ask if it’s anyone’s birthday today, and I will say yes, and then he’ll give it to me! *______*”
It really seemed as if the universe was aligning for such an event to transpire! My heart swelled with hope!
…And then he just handed it to someone in the front row.
Because, you know, sitting in the front row hadn’t been awesome enough.
And that’s the story of how Halu broke my heart. I realize that it is perhaps unreasonable of me to hold this against him, but it was my birthday! And he gave it to someone whose birthday it almost certainly wasn’t! You’re a pitiless heartbreaker, Halu. T_T
The girl who was lucky enough to get the broken drumstick was really nice about letting everyone else take pictures of it, though XDDD So here is a picture of the drumstick that Halu didn’t give me:
The quality on this pic is really crappy, but on the side of the drumstick it says “Gekidan EXILE Hanagumi Harukawa Kyosuke”.
Anyway, I swear I’ll shut up about this incident someday but I’m. I’m still kind of not over it yet /o\ *is overdramatic*
So after that I picked up the pieces of my broken heart and went to Harajuku to meet my friend and her boyfriend for dinner. We went to an Indian restaurant, which was awesome because I haven’t had real Indian food in almost a year (I’ve had microwavable naan and instant curry and stuff but it’s not the same). And afterwards we got some crepes, because you have to have crepes when you go to Harajuku! It is practically the law. And then I went back to my hotel room and crashed.
Sunday, June 13th
I got a somewhat earlier start on Sunday because I had two shows to go see: [Conton Club] in the afternoon and [CHICAGO] in the evening. Plus my phone was dying and I needed to go to Yodobashi Camera for a portable charger. So off to Akihabara I went. After picking up the charger I stopped by the Sony 3D TV demonstration booth that was set up outside and tried 3D TV for a bit.
It was trippy as hell. Like, stuff is clearly in front of other stuff! It blew my mind. Also, it gave me a terrible headache and moderate nausea after a few minutes, so I don’t think I’ll be investing in a 3D TV any time soon, but damned if it wasn’t cool.
So then I headed back to Shinjuku to go to [Conton Club]. Theatre Sun Mall was quite a bit bigger than Theatre Moliere, though it didn’t have a balcony and the first several rows of seats were all on the same level. They had a fair amount of merchandise there, too; there was a booth where you could reserve a copy of the DVD, and there were also some photos of the actors you could buy. I didn’t have enough cash left for the DVD at that point, so I just got the pamphlet and some photos (mostly of Masuda).
The show itself was fantastic. I didn’t know this beforehand, but it was a sketch comedy show! So rather than one overarching story it was just a series of shorter skits and things, some of which were screamingly funny.
I went to see the show for Kane-chan, Masuda, IRE, and JURI, but ended up liking the rest of the cast too! There was an especially awesome group called the Hallelujah Sisters who were in the show. They’re three plus-size girls who are totally amazing singers and are hilarious comedians to boot. I kind of want to join them, but I don’t think they’re auditioning, especially not for foreigners.
Anyway, I can’t really give a summary of this show because it didn't have a plot. I can list a few of the sketches, though I’m not sure the humor will come across like this XD;; One of my favorite sketches was one where Masuda and IRE were classmates, and Masuda faked a love confession to IRE just to freak him out. There was another one where Masuda and IRE and one of the girls played preschoolers. Masuda had a tiny ponytail, it was so cute XDDD I really enjoyed seeing my myu boys again, I love those dudes so much. I liked the show a lot, but the one problem I had with it was that Kane-chan and Masuda weren’t in any sketches together. I hope they’ll have some interaction in [abc] in August.
So after [Conton Club] ended, I took the subway over to Akasaka to go to Akasaka ACT for [CHICAGO]. I ended up just bumming around the TBS area for a while, trying to find a restaurant that accepted credit cards so I could eat something. By this time I had less than 3,000 yen left, and I knew that most of that would have to be for my [CHICAGO] pamphlet, so I ended up not eating before the show.
Inside the theatre there were a TON of flower arrangements that various people had sent for Yonekura Ryoko to congratulate her on being in the show. I took a couple of pictures of the ones from people whose names I recognized:
Kitamura Kazuki
The one on the left is from Shirota Yu. I thought it was really cute that he sent her flowers, since they were in Koshonin together ^_^
As for the show itself…. *_* There are no words for how great it was. It was my first time seeing a Fosse show live, and. It was just so sexy and gorgeous. Like, there was this one dancer who I seriously couldn’t take my eyes off whenever he was onstage, he was beautiful. And wearing a see-through shirt. XD And Yonekura Ryoko, oh my gosh. She was incredible, and it was fun to see her live, even though I really don’t like the character of Roxie at all.
The most interesting thing about the show, in my opinion, was how they mixed English and Japanese. The woman who played Velma, Amra-Faye Wright, came from the recent Broadway production, so a fair amount of her lines were in English, particularly in her songs. But she also memorized a lot of lines in Japanese! I was really impressed, because it’s hard to memorize things in another language. I wanted to punch the people in the audience who were laughing at her accent, because fuck you, she memorized half a play in a language she doesn’t speak, I’d like to see any of you even try. >:[ Also, Velma is my favorite character from Chicago, and Amra-Faye Wright did a great job playing her, so I loved her performance.
The rest of the cast was impressive too. I loved the woman who played Mama Morton, and the guy who played Amos was so adorable. All the dancers were incredible; I was really impressed with the choreography for Razzle Dazzle just because of the sheer complexity of the acrobatics they pulled off. I doubt that they’ll release a DVD of this show, but if they did, I’d buy it in a heartbeat.
After the show ended I took the remainder of my yen and went to Burger King so I could eat something, and then it was back to the hotel! I went home the next day on the first Shinkansen of the morning, and then went straight to work from the station. It was pretty crazy.
In conclusion, I had a great time in Tokyo in spite of the whole running out of cash thing.
Cut for hugeness. This thing is over 5,000 words long and contains reviews of [KILL THE BLACK], [Boukensha-tachi], [Conton Club], and the Japanese production of [CHICAGO].
Thursday, June 10th
I started the day by going to school, though I only had one class, and I left after I finished my kyuushoku. After that I had to drive home and pack, which was kind of hectic because I was at the school that’s farthest from my house, and I ended up getting a later Shinkansen than I’d wanted, so I had to change to the faster train at Sendai in order to make it to [KILL THE BLACK] on time, and I was really pushing it. I got off the Shinkansen at Ueno, put my suitcase in a locker, and walked as fast as I could to the subway to go across Tokyo. I got to Shinjuku-sanchome at about 18:45, fifteen minutes before the show started, and after a brief but panicked consultation of my map I headed in what I thought was the direction of the theatre. I turned out to be right, thank god ^^;;
I went into the theatre, got my trading card (Yousuke! He’s cute), bought my program, and went in to find my seat. I had a really excellent seat that night - the seventh row back, and right on the aisle. For the record, Theatre Moliere is TINY, so just about any seat there gives you a good view of the stage. Also, they had cameras set up that night, so I’m pretty sure that they were recording the DVD. And before the performance started they had the standard “Thank you for coming, please silence your cell phones and don’t film the performance” message playing on the speakers, but whoever had recorded it (it sounded like Akishin but I’m not sure XD) tripped over his words a lot, so it was pretty amusing. Also, I don't want to perpetrate false rumors so don't quote me on this, but I might have been sitting behind Halu's grandma. XDDD
Anyway, [KILL THE BLACK] was the first EXILE Hanagumi show I’ve ever seen, and it did not disappoint. It was fantastic. I have to say it’s the funniest zombie apocalypse story I’ve seen since Shaun of the Dead. And at the same time, there were parts of it that were very poignant and sad; it had an excellent balance of humor and sadness.
The plot, from what I understood, was something like this (drkparadise, feel free to correct me if any of this is wrong XD;;): there was some sort of zombie apocalypse due to a disease, but the zombies aren’t really zombies in the traditional sense; they’re still pretty functional and can talk and everything. Most of them aren’t dangerous, and they’ve been living in a commune on an island away from the uninfected population since their zombification. The uninfected humans are planning to destroy the commune somehow (I think), but there’s an uninfected human who’s living in the commune, so the government sends two agents - Minato Sousuke (Akishin) and Amari Misora (Yousuke) to try to retrieve him before they destroy the compound. Suffice it to say their mission doesn’t go well. Minato and Misora are attacked by one of the few violent zombies, but are rescued by ZOMBIE HUNTER KUZE AOI (Halu!), who is kind of mental and trigger-happy and carries at least three or four guns, one of which is a huge assault rifle. It was hot. He also had some ridiculous 80s-cop-style sunglasses. Kuze lets Minato and Misora into his hideout, and eventually they are able to find the boy Minato and Misora are looking for, Tenma Hiroki (Shirahama Alan of EXILE Kazegumi). Tenma is violently opposed to going with them though; he’s been living with the zombies in the commune and wants to stay there. Anyway, it’s at around this point that it’s revealed that the zombies can talk - and they’re hilarious. There are three zombies who have been living with Tenma - Mitsuo (Aoyagi Sho), Kunio (Ozawa Yuuta), and Satoru (JONTE!). Also, Kunio’s older brother Ponse (also played by Ozawa XD) is the violent zombie who attacked Minato and Misora earlier, but he’s not part of the commune. So the trio of zombies from the commune try to get Tenma back through peaceful negotiation (“Hello, this is the negotiator.” “Hello, this is Yonekura Ryoko.”) but are unsuccessful. After a while Kuze throws Minato out of the hideout - he’d gotten bitten by Ponse before and is now infected, though he hasn’t undergone the full transformation yet. Minato is really freaked out by this, naturally, and Mitsuo and Kunio’s jokes about it aren’t really helping, hilarious though they are. Also, it turns out that Mitsuo and Minato used to be classmates in high school (in Hokkaido, I think), and Minato makes a point of mentioning that while Mitsuo is still as useless as ever, Minato himself has gone on to become an elite government agent, and tries to use this as a reason why he shouldn’t be turning into a zombie - how can he be a zombie when he’s worked so hard to climb to the top of his field! Though the thing that distresses him most is that he’s going to lose his good looks:
Minato: I’m turning into a zombie, even though I’m such an ikemen! I was really popular!
Mitsuo: Oh, and one more thing. Once you become a zombie, you can’t have sex anymore.
Minato: But! I’M SO GOOD AT SEX! *cries*
Eventually Minato passes out and they haul him offstage so that Akishin can put his zombie makeup on and… I’m kind of fuzzy on the details after that /o\ Eventually it comes to light that Tenma is living with the zombies because Satoru was his piano teacher before the infection started. And Tenma murdered him for some reason (from what I gathered, Satoru was an unparalleled piano genius… and that meant Tenma had to kill him. IDEK). But then he came back to life as a zombie? IT WAS VERY CONFUSING. Tenma is still very attached to him in spite of murdering him earlier (Satoru even still has the knife in his chest from when Tenma killed him), so he stayed with him after the infection started spreading. And Satoru-sensei is the most respected zombie in the commune I guess, since he was a teacher pre-infection and the rest of them were NEETs XD Actually, I believe the title of the play comes from another term they use for NEETs - kuro.
After a while Minato comes back onstage, having fully transformed into a zombie, and is all “Oh noes, I’m so ugly and miserable now ;_;” and then there’s a long series of funnier-than-you’d-expect zombie dick jokes. I think the point of them was that zombie penises fall off pretty easily? XDDD And apparently Minato’s had already fallen off so he was all DDDD8 while Mitsuo tried to grope Kunio since apparently Kunio still had his. To which Kunio was like “Noes, leave Jon-kun alone!” I got the sense that he was sort of referencing Jonte, which just made it funnier XDDD The whole thing ended rather badly for Kunio and Jon-kun though; Mitsuo did finally get a grope in but, as previously mentioned, zombie penises fall off really easily. After that whole spectacle, Minato decides that he’s had enough of being a zombie and puts his gun to the side of his head and is about to shoot himself… when all of a sudden some sort of supernatural being in a weird blue hat and long white nightgown comes onstage to talk him out of it. It was very baffling and also one of the funniest scenes in the show. I think the being referred to himself as a Persona, and he was played by Jonte with a really bizarre accent. The whole scene was adlibbed, or most of it anyway. The Persona gave Minato a long and hilarious speech about how up until now, Minato’s life has been set to Very Easy Mode, but from now on it will be on Very Hard Mode. I don’t remember much about the adlibs from this performance, unfortunately, but that’s okay because they’ll be on the DVD ^^; So in the end Minato doesn’t kill himself after all.
There’s a lot more that happens in the middle, but I really can’t remember what order it happens in. I know there were scenes between Misora and Kuze where they talked about trying to help Minato - Minato is Misora’s sempai, so they’re very attached to each other - and there was also a scene where Misora tied Tenma up to keep him from running back to the zombies and Tenma kissed him just to startle him XDDD And there’s a scene that I didn’t quite understand where Halu wore a skirt and heels. I wasn’t sure if he was supposed to be an entirely different character or if he was Kuze inexplicably disguised as a woman. But it was Harukawa Kyosuke in a skirt and heels so it wasn’t like I cared about it making sense in the context of the story.
So towards the end of the show, Tenma has some medicine or something that he wants to give to the zombies. Kuze is all “Oh no worries bro, I will give that to them and not replace it with poison, you can trust me.” Spoilers: HE TOTALLY LIED. Kuze gives the zombies a box of the not!medicine, and tells them that they can negotiate for Tenma in half an hour, after the medicine takes effect. Kunio drinks some of it and then he and Mitsuo go to give it to the rest of the zombies in the commune, only to find that everyone who drinks it dies (including Kunio, giving Ozawa a chance to go offstage and change costumes…). Tenma is of course outraged at the deception, and runs back out to join the zombies. And somewhere in here I think Kuze shoots Mitsuo, so he’s dying. Tenma figures out that none of them are getting out of this alive, so he pulls the knife out of Satoru and stabs himself, and both of them die. Then Misora tries to call in to the government base or whatever to have them come pick him up, since Tenma is dead, but they tell him that it’s too late and they won’t be rescuing him before they destroy the island. Minato wants Misora to live, so he bites him to turn him into a zombie, but when Misora realizes he’s becoming a zombie he kills himself. Minato is shocked by this, and then he goes to try to help Mitsuo up but Mitsuo dies too, telling Minato to run and save himself. Minato runs offstage. After another moment Kuze slowly comes out of his hideout.
Kuze: *looks around* Everyone’s dead. But I’m still alive. …I am so cool.
And just as Kuze is thinking he’s won, the destruction of the island starts, and Ponse bursts out of the floor to kill him.
THE END :V
Also, after the main performance ended, there was a short break while they ran the credits (no really, they didn’t have bows, they ran a video of the guys instead because they needed to take off their zombie makeup and get changed backstage), and then there was an awesome taiko drum performance with lasers and blacklights. It was really cool *_* They had some real bows after that, and a post-show message by… Aoyagi, I think, I don’t remember that well, and then the show was over. Again, the whole thing was really great, and I can’t wait until I can go see another Hanagumi show. Which, according to Halu’s blog, won’t be until December. T_T Oh, and I intend to draw fanart of this show at some point, though IDK if I’ll be able to share it here since I don’t have a scanner or anything.
After that I went back to Ueno to pick up my suitcase, and checked into my hotel for the night!
Friday, June 11th
This was the day that I had to go to the American Embassy, which was the whole reason I came down on Thursday instead of Saturday like I’d originally intended. My experience with the embassy was a good one for the most part (at first I was in the wrong line but once that got cleared up things went very smoothly; there is a special line just for Americans!). They were able to notarize the document that I had to send to the DMV, and I was in and out in about an hour, so everything turned out fine on that front. After that I did some shopping in Akihabara and changed to a different hotel before heading to Sunshine City in Ikebukuro to see [Boukensha-tachi].
Sunshine City is a big mall complex that also has a theatre attached to it. I got there a few hours before the show started, so I had some time to wander around and shop. I ended up going to the Animate Ikebukuro flagship store, because it’s just across the street from Sunshine City, and my credit card took a mighty hit. It was totally worth it though - I made another step towards having a complete collection of the K-ON! figma series(Mugi-chan! <3), and also there was tiny miniature food. I have a huge weakness for miniatures, you have no idea. It is ridiculous. I ended up buying a whole box of the “Minna de FamiResu” series, and a display case to put them in ^^;; Also, it always impresses me how huge the Animate stores in Akiba and Ikebukuro are. Morioka Animate is just a little guy.
After my Animate adventures, I went back to Sunshine City in search of food. At this point I hadn’t eaten since about 9 am, and it was almost 5 pm @_@ This trip had me skipping meals in order to be able to afford pamphlets, it was kind of sad. I found an EL TORITO in Sunshine City though, and they even took credit cards, so at that point my mind was made up. I went to El Torito and ate so much Mexican food, omg. I never get to eat Mexican food anymore so this was very exciting. I even took pics so I could include them in here XDDD I realize this looks like a heckton of food for one person, and it is, but remember, I hadn’t eaten for about 8 hours.
Chips and salsa!
Marguerita! Why yes, I did start drinking before 5 pm. Don’t judge me XDDD
Beef taquitos with guacamole
Rice :D
Chicken and beef fajitas with salsa, guacamole, and real sour cream
…It was Mexican food, okay, it’s a rare thing in Japan. :P
After I finished my meal it was just about time for the doors to open at the theatre, so I wandered on over there and went in, bought my pamphlet and postcard set, and then went to find my seat. The Sunshine Theatre is pretty big; I would say it’s about the same size as Akasaka ACT. It was very different from Theatre Moliere the night before.
So [Boukensha-tachi], right. It’s thoroughly adorable. Like, it is a musical about mice going on an adventure! What’s not to love! The mice were all precious, of course. I won’t list them all, I just want to go through my favorites:
Ganba: The main character! He was a bit of a sue but he was cute so I didn’t mind too much.
Manpuku: Ganba’s BFF. I adored this one, he was always so enthusiastic about food!
Shijin: The town durnk! Also, played by Hirata Yuuichiro. Anyone being played by a former Kaidoh gets extra points in my book :D Anyway he was drunk and ridiculous and TOTALLY SAVED THE DAY :D
Yoisho: The one who I expected to be the leader. He had an eyepatch and was a tough guy. And a little ways into the show I started thinking, “Hey, this guy’s voice sounds really familiar, especially when he’s singing or when he’s extra fired-up… TAKA-SAN?!” And as it turned out, he was indeed played by Kawamoto Naru, Taka-san’s voice actor from the PoT anime. This was a very awesome surprise for me, as I love Taka-sans. ^_^
Ikasama & Gakusha: I have to list these two together because they’re my OTP. Gakusha, as you might have guessed from his name, is a studious type complete with smart guy glasses. Ikasama is a somewhat roguish gambler. Gakusha, being a smart guy, thinks gambling is stupid. Ikasama has a whole song about gambling, which all the other mice get really into, except for Gakusha who is rolling his eyes the entire time. It was only natural for me to ship them after that XDDD Also towards the end of the show they had a tsundere “Hey, you’re not so bad” moment together, which solidified them as my OTP.
Bobo: BOBOOOOOO. He was played by Satopii and was just the cutest thing. He was a mouse who wanted to be a fish! It was precious.
Anyway they were all really cute. And there were some other awesome characters too, like the seagulls with their enka song (it really reminded me of Sebastian’s song for the Undertaker in the second Kuromyu, actually XD And the lead seagull was Masuda Yuki, Niou's voice actor :O). Also, I found the antagonists genuinely terrifying o_o Well played, show, well played. The whole thing was really fun except for the random horrible deaths :V I’m pretending that the horrible deaths didn’t happen and that it was just happy times though XDDD
After the show I booked it on down to Shibuya to meet some friends to go drinking in this weird Italian/gothic place that had delicious lychee beer. A+++ would drink again.
Saturday, June 12th
This was my birthday! I’m older now.
I spent most of the day in my hotel room, actually XDDD I was tired and didn’t want to do much and was running out of cash, so I decided to just hang out in the hotel with the A/C cranked up.
Eventually I headed over to Shinjuku-sanchome to take in my second showing of [KILL THE BLACK]. This time the trading card I got was Aoyagi. I didn’t have as good of a seat this time; I was two rows closer to the stage, but I was right up against the wall on the far side of the theatre, and the row wasn’t elevated at all so I had to try to look over everyone’s heads. The show itself was just as awesome the second time, and there were a few things that were different that I want to share:
In the opening scene where Halu/Kuze first makes his appearance, instead of the 80s cop sunglasses, he had these incredibly ridiculous-looking wrap-around shades XDDD
During the Persona scene, Jonte actually messed up his first line, which resulted in many lols:
Jonte: Misora Sousuke desu ka?
Akishin: Minato desu.
Audience: LOL
Jonte: *covers his face with his gloves for a minute to hide the fact that he’s laughing before shrugging us all off and starting over* Minato Sousuke desu ka?
And the scene just got funnier and funnier after that, with Akishin trying desperately not to laugh at the nonsense Jonte was coming up with while Aoyagi and Ozawa were laughing hysterically in the background. One of the bits involved the Persona scolding Minato for always choosing what girls he dates based on their bra cup size:
Jonte: What cup size do you think I am, huh?
Akishin: *glances over, still trying not to laugh* …An A-cup?
Jonte: WRONG! The answer is… World Cup.
Audience: *bursts into laughter and applause*
Also, I don’t think Jonte talked to Aoyagi and Ozawa at all during this scene the first time I saw the show, but by this point in the second show he was just on such a roll that I guess he decided to keep going and go talk to them too. I don’t recall a whole lot of what he said to them, other than that he very sternly told Aoyagi to “apologize to Jon-kun” XDDDD
Another adlib moment that was different was when Ozawa came out into the audience; in the first show I saw, he made a girl stand up and then stole her chair (Aoyagi promptly returned it with a lot of apologies). This time, though, there were some empty seats in the audience, so Ozawa went into the audience, sat down, and told Aoyagi to do something onstage instead. Aoyagi sort of just stood there laughing, like “What do you want me to do?” It was great. Oh, and during Halu’s crossdressing scene, there was a moment where he pulled his skirt up and flashed a bit of his thigh. Naturally we all went nuts over that XDDD
On a slightly more serious note, since it was my second viewing I was able to pay attention to more ~thematic~ things. For instance, brothers are a theme throughout the play - Ponse and Kunio are brothers, Minato says that he thinks of Misora as a younger brother, Kuze tells a story about his dead younger brother and later says that he too thinks of Misora as a younger brother. But by the end of the story, all the younger brothers are dead, while the older brothers who failed to protect them are still alive. I just thought it was interesting. The other thing that stuck out to me was that the story felt… allegorical, almost? Like, I don’t think I can concretely describe what I mean, but it seemed to me that there was some point that was being made about class, especially with the contrast between Mitsuo and Minato - they started in the same place, and Minato worked really hard to get out and get ahead, but he ended up in the same place as Mitsuo again in the end. Was the whole thing really about Minato’s inability to truly escape his roots? Or how some things (like disease) don’t differentiate between classes, and don’t care how hard you’ve worked or how good at sex you are? Or maybe it was all a metaphor for how mainstream society scorns people who live alternative lifestyles. Or maybe I’m thinking about it too hard XD;;
Oh, so at the end, they did the taiko performance again, and it was just as great as the first time. This time Halu got kind of overzealous with his drumming, and ended up breaking one of his drumsticks in half. They have replacement drumsticks with them in case that happens though, so he just pulled out a new one and kept going. After the performance ended, he picked up the broken drumstick and brought it with him when they came up for the bows. Here is what my thought process was like at that moment:
“Oh, he’s bringing it up with him? I bet he’s going to throw it into the audience or something… Or maybe… Maybe… He’ll ask if it’s anyone’s birthday today, and I will say yes, and then he’ll give it to me! *______*”
It really seemed as if the universe was aligning for such an event to transpire! My heart swelled with hope!
…And then he just handed it to someone in the front row.
Because, you know, sitting in the front row hadn’t been awesome enough.
And that’s the story of how Halu broke my heart. I realize that it is perhaps unreasonable of me to hold this against him, but it was my birthday! And he gave it to someone whose birthday it almost certainly wasn’t! You’re a pitiless heartbreaker, Halu. T_T
The girl who was lucky enough to get the broken drumstick was really nice about letting everyone else take pictures of it, though XDDD So here is a picture of the drumstick that Halu didn’t give me:
The quality on this pic is really crappy, but on the side of the drumstick it says “Gekidan EXILE Hanagumi Harukawa Kyosuke”.
Anyway, I swear I’ll shut up about this incident someday but I’m. I’m still kind of not over it yet /o\ *is overdramatic*
So after that I picked up the pieces of my broken heart and went to Harajuku to meet my friend and her boyfriend for dinner. We went to an Indian restaurant, which was awesome because I haven’t had real Indian food in almost a year (I’ve had microwavable naan and instant curry and stuff but it’s not the same). And afterwards we got some crepes, because you have to have crepes when you go to Harajuku! It is practically the law. And then I went back to my hotel room and crashed.
Sunday, June 13th
I got a somewhat earlier start on Sunday because I had two shows to go see: [Conton Club] in the afternoon and [CHICAGO] in the evening. Plus my phone was dying and I needed to go to Yodobashi Camera for a portable charger. So off to Akihabara I went. After picking up the charger I stopped by the Sony 3D TV demonstration booth that was set up outside and tried 3D TV for a bit.
It was trippy as hell. Like, stuff is clearly in front of other stuff! It blew my mind. Also, it gave me a terrible headache and moderate nausea after a few minutes, so I don’t think I’ll be investing in a 3D TV any time soon, but damned if it wasn’t cool.
So then I headed back to Shinjuku to go to [Conton Club]. Theatre Sun Mall was quite a bit bigger than Theatre Moliere, though it didn’t have a balcony and the first several rows of seats were all on the same level. They had a fair amount of merchandise there, too; there was a booth where you could reserve a copy of the DVD, and there were also some photos of the actors you could buy. I didn’t have enough cash left for the DVD at that point, so I just got the pamphlet and some photos (mostly of Masuda).
The show itself was fantastic. I didn’t know this beforehand, but it was a sketch comedy show! So rather than one overarching story it was just a series of shorter skits and things, some of which were screamingly funny.
I went to see the show for Kane-chan, Masuda, IRE, and JURI, but ended up liking the rest of the cast too! There was an especially awesome group called the Hallelujah Sisters who were in the show. They’re three plus-size girls who are totally amazing singers and are hilarious comedians to boot. I kind of want to join them, but I don’t think they’re auditioning, especially not for foreigners.
Anyway, I can’t really give a summary of this show because it didn't have a plot. I can list a few of the sketches, though I’m not sure the humor will come across like this XD;; One of my favorite sketches was one where Masuda and IRE were classmates, and Masuda faked a love confession to IRE just to freak him out. There was another one where Masuda and IRE and one of the girls played preschoolers. Masuda had a tiny ponytail, it was so cute XDDD I really enjoyed seeing my myu boys again, I love those dudes so much. I liked the show a lot, but the one problem I had with it was that Kane-chan and Masuda weren’t in any sketches together. I hope they’ll have some interaction in [abc] in August.
So after [Conton Club] ended, I took the subway over to Akasaka to go to Akasaka ACT for [CHICAGO]. I ended up just bumming around the TBS area for a while, trying to find a restaurant that accepted credit cards so I could eat something. By this time I had less than 3,000 yen left, and I knew that most of that would have to be for my [CHICAGO] pamphlet, so I ended up not eating before the show.
Inside the theatre there were a TON of flower arrangements that various people had sent for Yonekura Ryoko to congratulate her on being in the show. I took a couple of pictures of the ones from people whose names I recognized:
Kitamura Kazuki
The one on the left is from Shirota Yu. I thought it was really cute that he sent her flowers, since they were in Koshonin together ^_^
As for the show itself…. *_* There are no words for how great it was. It was my first time seeing a Fosse show live, and. It was just so sexy and gorgeous. Like, there was this one dancer who I seriously couldn’t take my eyes off whenever he was onstage, he was beautiful. And wearing a see-through shirt. XD And Yonekura Ryoko, oh my gosh. She was incredible, and it was fun to see her live, even though I really don’t like the character of Roxie at all.
The most interesting thing about the show, in my opinion, was how they mixed English and Japanese. The woman who played Velma, Amra-Faye Wright, came from the recent Broadway production, so a fair amount of her lines were in English, particularly in her songs. But she also memorized a lot of lines in Japanese! I was really impressed, because it’s hard to memorize things in another language. I wanted to punch the people in the audience who were laughing at her accent, because fuck you, she memorized half a play in a language she doesn’t speak, I’d like to see any of you even try. >:[ Also, Velma is my favorite character from Chicago, and Amra-Faye Wright did a great job playing her, so I loved her performance.
The rest of the cast was impressive too. I loved the woman who played Mama Morton, and the guy who played Amos was so adorable. All the dancers were incredible; I was really impressed with the choreography for Razzle Dazzle just because of the sheer complexity of the acrobatics they pulled off. I doubt that they’ll release a DVD of this show, but if they did, I’d buy it in a heartbeat.
After the show ended I took the remainder of my yen and went to Burger King so I could eat something, and then it was back to the hotel! I went home the next day on the first Shinkansen of the morning, and then went straight to work from the station. It was pretty crazy.
In conclusion, I had a great time in Tokyo in spite of the whole running out of cash thing.