And on the fifth day, Julie fangirled.
Hello, lovely people of LiveJournal. For those of you who don't read lokaichan, I should inform you that on the 17th I arrived in Japan and have been pretty busy and crazy for the past four days. Also, my laptop isn't working so right now my posts may be few and far between.
I had to write about today, though. Today I made my first pilgrimage to Takarazuka since I've been back.
When I arrived at the station it was all I could do not to run all the way to the theater. It's probably best I didn't, though, because if I had I might have completely missed Asaka Manato.
Yes, Asaka Manato. That Hanagumi baby who's been doing rather well for herself lately. It was a little after 12:00PM, so she was probably going out for lunch or something. I don't know. All I know is I had just crossed the street and was making my way to the theater like usual and then I looked up and there was this tall woman with short hair walking toward me and it was Asaka Manato. Wearing glasses. I didn't really have time to react except to stare dumbfoundedly as she passed (she was probably staring confusedly at me too) and I gave myself a bit of whiplash as I looked over my shoulder in disbelief.
Now I wasn't going to the theater to see Elisabeth or anything, unfortunately - just to buy goodies and hopefully catch a glimpse of a 'sienne or two. So I made my way to that spot where everyone waits for iri/demachi, and there were 15 or so people standing around in small groups.
Less than two minutes later, Ranju Tomu showed up.
She had an entourage of maybe 5 fanclub members, and she waved at them as she went in, and I waved too which was silly because obviously she wasn't waving at me but it didn't matter because omg I saw Tomu.
My fellow fangirls, what followed was a Soragumi Upperclassmen Jackpot. I saw, in this order: Miwa Asahi, Ayazono Yuki, Natsu Hiromi (so skinny!!), Suzuna Saya, Suzu Haruki (she had one fanclub lady with her who gave her a paper sack with a lunch or something - cute!!!), Karin Moyuru (also so skinny!! but technically not an upperclassman, come to think of it), Misato Maya (kumichooo~! <3333!) aaaaaaaand Hokushou Kairi! Actually Micchan was special. I just saw her inside the building - she came around the corner to talk to the people at the front desk thingy for whatever reason and I was like OMG IT'S MICCHAN and stood around inwardly flailing. And noticing that her hair looks shorter and had gel in it or something. And yeah.
To tell the truth, there were also 6 or 8 younger girls who went under my radar as they walked in. I only hope they weren't Sora babies, because then I would have to hate myself for not recognizing them. One of them even had two fanclub ladies with her, and there was also a pretty (and skinny) musumeyaku who had one fanclub lady.
I think I probably scared the other people standing around, because I was trying to contain myself and be all reserved like the rest of them and only partly succeeding. Basically what it amounted to was every time another 'sienne came around the corner that I recognized my hand flew to my mouth and I may have been shaking or bouncing on my heels a bit. And once they were out of sight I pulled out my notebook and wrote their names down so I'd remember who all I saw.
It was, all in all, a very religious experience.
By about 1:00PM the onlookers were dispersing and no one else seemed to be coming. I hung around a little longer vainly hoping that any minute Arisu would come around the corner, but after a few more minutes I felt silly standing there all by myself and finally turned around to go into Quatre Reves.
Ah, Quatre Reves, the wonderful shop of shiny. The current background music there is selections from Elisabeth - in German. ^^;; I heard about two full cycles while I was there. Anyway, I of course made a bee-line to the Soragumi DVDs because my main objective was A/L, which went on sale yesterday. I didn't have quite enough money for two DVDs, which is just as well because then I would have had to decide on one (I probably would have gotten Yu's Purple Shadow which also went on sale yesterday). Instead I did a lot of perusing and vainly attempted to be as sensible with my money as possible. It didn't turn out so well, especially after I checked my purse and realized I had about 4000 more yen than I thought I did. T__T;; So I ended up with:
- A/L DVD (obviously)
- June Graph (it's not even June yet!! But I knew I had to get it because there's two pages of MY BABY)
- Lavender Monologue program (much Tom hotness and baby goodness)
- I have a dream program (the cast pictures are ADORABLE)
- Understudy program (SQUEE)
- Understudy bromide card of the poster (now I can carry Arisu and Eriko around with me everywhere! <3)
- bromide card of the Valencia poster (portable Tani, Ume-chan, Tomu & Micchan is good too)
- two photos from A/L (one is for me, featuring Lupin!Tani and WeddingDress!Ume-chan, and one is for a certain Chigi-lover ;-)
- one photo from Never Sleep (there weren't any of Arisu *sob*, and I considered the one of Cowgirl!Machami, but I ended up only getting a shot of Eriko roughing up Kimitsun for mon_bouche <3)
- Soragumi ringed notebook (I've been wanting a new notebook; I just couldn't resist it)
I dallied around in the store for almost an hour. Around 2:00PM people started coming out of today's performance and I knew it was going to get really crowded, so I paid for my things and skipped out. I also realized I hadn't eaten anything all day. There was a small crowd gathering for demachi or something, but I knew I had to put food in my stomach or I might fall over. Rather than choosing something of substance, however, I went to the little ice cream stand halfway down the street - in honor of arlecchinic. I then took my ice cream and went back to the stage door. Unfortunately I missed it if anyone went by in the 20 minutes I was gone, because just as I sat down everyone was leaving. T___T;;
I'll skip the boring bits about my subsequent quest for real food and the train ride home and all that, but I forgot to mention the flower shop that had a poster in the window (as many shops in the area do) for a show called Rhythm & Dance. I stared at the poster for a while wondering if it was an OG or something since I didn't recognize the title, but then I realized it wasn't from Takarazuka at all - it was a NewOSK show! With Kiryuu Asaya! caithion, I remembered her name and everything! Aren't you proud of me? ;-)
Soon after I got home, I watched A/L. <3 I don't think I can write a proper review right now, but certainly I can record a few notes.
- Micchan!Holmes + Mii-chan!Watson = so freaking adorable. They came down the aisle at the beginning and talked to the camera and it was just love.
- Mii-chan in a dress = also adorable. ;-D
- Tani's makeup = too light. I'm not a huge fan of the uncombed wig look either.
- Tani in general = hotness, even when she's wearing a silly sparkly scarf over one eye (obstensibly to conceal her identity, which is of course ridiculous).
- Ume-chan = so sweet. They called her the "tomboy angel" about ten zillion times in the show. She also cried near the end, bless her.
- Evil!Tomochin = awesome. And tall. XD
- Hacchan = spent at least half of the show with her sleeves rolled up. <3
- Tacchin's makeup = too dark.
- Tacchin in general = didn't get as big of a part as I expected. I mean she got to be in the middle and sing and say a bunch of lines in the "crowd" scenes, but there wasn't a lot to her character.
- Chigi = shamelessly chased after Tacchin the entire show. Also had very mussed-up hair most of the time, and briefly impersonated Lupin.
Oh and did I mention there's a costume party near the end, where Tacchin wears a green China dress that looks just like the one Chigi wore in Neo Voyage? I think those two are trying to tell us something, seriously. Actually that's the part where Chigi dons her imitation Lupin outfit. And there was also someone dressed as Andre at the party - at first I thought it was Micchan, but then she showed up later in her Sherlock outfit and I saw the baby in the Andre costume had blonde hair so it must have been Kai-chan or Kasuga or somebody. Susshii-san's outfit looked rather like Ebira Kaoru's Pharaoh from A Song for Kingdoms.
And speaking of internal references, there was a cafe scene where Ume-chan and Tani made blatant Hello!Dancing and Never Sleep jokes and no one laughed. ;____; I felt kind of bad for them.
I won't spoil the ending, but it was sad, and kind of a "typical 'Zuka" sort of ending. I didn't cry, though. What made me cry was the end revue right before the pair dance, when Hacchan got to stay onstage for five extra seconds and do a few steps with Tani. *SOB*
I wish I could share the shiny with you all more properly, but at the moment I'm borrowing someone else's computer - a rather slow laptop that belongs to the lady I'm staying with for a few weeks. Chiyoko-san told me some interesting things this afternoon, actually. Well, earlier she told me that she likes enka and karaoke, which puts her in good standing in my book. Then today as I was showing her my goodies she said that back in the day her friend was a big fan of Migiwa Natsuko and sometimes she went with her friend to performances. More importantly, apparently a classmate of hers is Charlie's mother. o_O Chiyoko-san couldn't remember the name Takumi Hibiki, actually, but when she said "she retired a few years ago because of illness" of course I knew who it was. <3 Come to think of it, Charlie's mother might have been the friend she was talking about. Silly Japanese and its ambiguity. Anyway, I started to watch A/L while Chiyoko-san was there, and she watched some of it with me, but she had somewhere to go and left before the first act was over. She made me promise to show it to her again when we both had time to watch the whole thing. ;-)
And I think that's enough babbling for one day. I can't promise a lot of fangirling reports in the near future, considering my broken laptop and my lack of time and money, but I'll try to keep in touch. Until next time~! <3
I had to write about today, though. Today I made my first pilgrimage to Takarazuka since I've been back.
When I arrived at the station it was all I could do not to run all the way to the theater. It's probably best I didn't, though, because if I had I might have completely missed Asaka Manato.
Yes, Asaka Manato. That Hanagumi baby who's been doing rather well for herself lately. It was a little after 12:00PM, so she was probably going out for lunch or something. I don't know. All I know is I had just crossed the street and was making my way to the theater like usual and then I looked up and there was this tall woman with short hair walking toward me and it was Asaka Manato. Wearing glasses. I didn't really have time to react except to stare dumbfoundedly as she passed (she was probably staring confusedly at me too) and I gave myself a bit of whiplash as I looked over my shoulder in disbelief.
Now I wasn't going to the theater to see Elisabeth or anything, unfortunately - just to buy goodies and hopefully catch a glimpse of a 'sienne or two. So I made my way to that spot where everyone waits for iri/demachi, and there were 15 or so people standing around in small groups.
Less than two minutes later, Ranju Tomu showed up.
She had an entourage of maybe 5 fanclub members, and she waved at them as she went in, and I waved too which was silly because obviously she wasn't waving at me but it didn't matter because omg I saw Tomu.
My fellow fangirls, what followed was a Soragumi Upperclassmen Jackpot. I saw, in this order: Miwa Asahi, Ayazono Yuki, Natsu Hiromi (so skinny!!), Suzuna Saya, Suzu Haruki (she had one fanclub lady with her who gave her a paper sack with a lunch or something - cute!!!), Karin Moyuru (also so skinny!! but technically not an upperclassman, come to think of it), Misato Maya (kumichooo~! <3333!) aaaaaaaand Hokushou Kairi! Actually Micchan was special. I just saw her inside the building - she came around the corner to talk to the people at the front desk thingy for whatever reason and I was like OMG IT'S MICCHAN and stood around inwardly flailing. And noticing that her hair looks shorter and had gel in it or something. And yeah.
To tell the truth, there were also 6 or 8 younger girls who went under my radar as they walked in. I only hope they weren't Sora babies, because then I would have to hate myself for not recognizing them. One of them even had two fanclub ladies with her, and there was also a pretty (and skinny) musumeyaku who had one fanclub lady.
I think I probably scared the other people standing around, because I was trying to contain myself and be all reserved like the rest of them and only partly succeeding. Basically what it amounted to was every time another 'sienne came around the corner that I recognized my hand flew to my mouth and I may have been shaking or bouncing on my heels a bit. And once they were out of sight I pulled out my notebook and wrote their names down so I'd remember who all I saw.
It was, all in all, a very religious experience.
By about 1:00PM the onlookers were dispersing and no one else seemed to be coming. I hung around a little longer vainly hoping that any minute Arisu would come around the corner, but after a few more minutes I felt silly standing there all by myself and finally turned around to go into Quatre Reves.
Ah, Quatre Reves, the wonderful shop of shiny. The current background music there is selections from Elisabeth - in German. ^^;; I heard about two full cycles while I was there. Anyway, I of course made a bee-line to the Soragumi DVDs because my main objective was A/L, which went on sale yesterday. I didn't have quite enough money for two DVDs, which is just as well because then I would have had to decide on one (I probably would have gotten Yu's Purple Shadow which also went on sale yesterday). Instead I did a lot of perusing and vainly attempted to be as sensible with my money as possible. It didn't turn out so well, especially after I checked my purse and realized I had about 4000 more yen than I thought I did. T__T;; So I ended up with:
- A/L DVD (obviously)
- June Graph (it's not even June yet!! But I knew I had to get it because there's two pages of MY BABY)
- Lavender Monologue program (much Tom hotness and baby goodness)
- I have a dream program (the cast pictures are ADORABLE)
- Understudy program (SQUEE)
- Understudy bromide card of the poster (now I can carry Arisu and Eriko around with me everywhere! <3)
- bromide card of the Valencia poster (portable Tani, Ume-chan, Tomu & Micchan is good too)
- two photos from A/L (one is for me, featuring Lupin!Tani and WeddingDress!Ume-chan, and one is for a certain Chigi-lover ;-)
- one photo from Never Sleep (there weren't any of Arisu *sob*, and I considered the one of Cowgirl!Machami, but I ended up only getting a shot of Eriko roughing up Kimitsun for mon_bouche <3)
- Soragumi ringed notebook (I've been wanting a new notebook; I just couldn't resist it)
I dallied around in the store for almost an hour. Around 2:00PM people started coming out of today's performance and I knew it was going to get really crowded, so I paid for my things and skipped out. I also realized I hadn't eaten anything all day. There was a small crowd gathering for demachi or something, but I knew I had to put food in my stomach or I might fall over. Rather than choosing something of substance, however, I went to the little ice cream stand halfway down the street - in honor of arlecchinic. I then took my ice cream and went back to the stage door. Unfortunately I missed it if anyone went by in the 20 minutes I was gone, because just as I sat down everyone was leaving. T___T;;
I'll skip the boring bits about my subsequent quest for real food and the train ride home and all that, but I forgot to mention the flower shop that had a poster in the window (as many shops in the area do) for a show called Rhythm & Dance. I stared at the poster for a while wondering if it was an OG or something since I didn't recognize the title, but then I realized it wasn't from Takarazuka at all - it was a NewOSK show! With Kiryuu Asaya! caithion, I remembered her name and everything! Aren't you proud of me? ;-)
Soon after I got home, I watched A/L. <3 I don't think I can write a proper review right now, but certainly I can record a few notes.
- Micchan!Holmes + Mii-chan!Watson = so freaking adorable. They came down the aisle at the beginning and talked to the camera and it was just love.
- Mii-chan in a dress = also adorable. ;-D
- Tani's makeup = too light. I'm not a huge fan of the uncombed wig look either.
- Tani in general = hotness, even when she's wearing a silly sparkly scarf over one eye (obstensibly to conceal her identity, which is of course ridiculous).
- Ume-chan = so sweet. They called her the "tomboy angel" about ten zillion times in the show. She also cried near the end, bless her.
- Evil!Tomochin = awesome. And tall. XD
- Hacchan = spent at least half of the show with her sleeves rolled up. <3
- Tacchin's makeup = too dark.
- Tacchin in general = didn't get as big of a part as I expected. I mean she got to be in the middle and sing and say a bunch of lines in the "crowd" scenes, but there wasn't a lot to her character.
- Chigi = shamelessly chased after Tacchin the entire show. Also had very mussed-up hair most of the time, and briefly impersonated Lupin.
Oh and did I mention there's a costume party near the end, where Tacchin wears a green China dress that looks just like the one Chigi wore in Neo Voyage? I think those two are trying to tell us something, seriously. Actually that's the part where Chigi dons her imitation Lupin outfit. And there was also someone dressed as Andre at the party - at first I thought it was Micchan, but then she showed up later in her Sherlock outfit and I saw the baby in the Andre costume had blonde hair so it must have been Kai-chan or Kasuga or somebody. Susshii-san's outfit looked rather like Ebira Kaoru's Pharaoh from A Song for Kingdoms.
And speaking of internal references, there was a cafe scene where Ume-chan and Tani made blatant Hello!Dancing and Never Sleep jokes and no one laughed. ;____; I felt kind of bad for them.
I won't spoil the ending, but it was sad, and kind of a "typical 'Zuka" sort of ending. I didn't cry, though. What made me cry was the end revue right before the pair dance, when Hacchan got to stay onstage for five extra seconds and do a few steps with Tani. *SOB*
I wish I could share the shiny with you all more properly, but at the moment I'm borrowing someone else's computer - a rather slow laptop that belongs to the lady I'm staying with for a few weeks. Chiyoko-san told me some interesting things this afternoon, actually. Well, earlier she told me that she likes enka and karaoke, which puts her in good standing in my book. Then today as I was showing her my goodies she said that back in the day her friend was a big fan of Migiwa Natsuko and sometimes she went with her friend to performances. More importantly, apparently a classmate of hers is Charlie's mother. o_O Chiyoko-san couldn't remember the name Takumi Hibiki, actually, but when she said "she retired a few years ago because of illness" of course I knew who it was. <3 Come to think of it, Charlie's mother might have been the friend she was talking about. Silly Japanese and its ambiguity. Anyway, I started to watch A/L while Chiyoko-san was there, and she watched some of it with me, but she had somewhere to go and left before the first act was over. She made me promise to show it to her again when we both had time to watch the whole thing. ;-)
And I think that's enough babbling for one day. I can't promise a lot of fangirling reports in the near future, considering my broken laptop and my lack of time and money, but I'll try to keep in touch. Until next time~! <3