Alice-chan and... Tsukigumi?
A lot is happening in my life right now. Maybe half of you know about it and half of you don't. But right now I'm Not Talking About It, and instead focusing on my past two days of Takarazuka fangirling.
Today was the last day of okeiko iri/de for Alice-chan... well, for all of Soragumi, before they go to Tokyo. ;____; She looked beautiful as ever, and had her hair in a sweet little side-ponytail, and wore a blue sleeveless blouse trimmed with lace, and jeans, and oh, my angel. <3 <3 <3 There were a bazillion people taking pictures, too, so some might turn up on Y!J.
I didn't get to say much to her today, but yesterday I was alone at iri and learned that Alice-chan was invited to perform in All Shook Up ALL THE WAY BACK IN MARCH during Never Sleep the okeiko. And, I mean, I don't know how things are done in the world of Japanese theatre but I just think it's AMAZING that it wasn't like she auditioned for an outside performance or anything; they just ASKED her. WE WANT YOU, they said. LOVE.
One thing I didn't think about, though, that other fanclubbers (all four of them) brought up - it will be really hard to get tickets to All Shook Up. T____T;;; I was mostly just thinking along the lines of SQUEE ALICE OUTSIDE PERFORMANCE WANT TO SEE, but even more people will be going SQUEE WATARU-SAN. And ten thousand fangirls are surely thinking SQUEE JOHNNY'S BOY. Silly Johnny's boy! I knew that would only mean trouble. Your popularity will outshine my angel, Sakamoto-san. >.>;;;
So yeah, what with all the troubles I'm Not Talking About and Harada-san saying she couldn't guarantee that the fanclub would be able to get any tickets for us, I have no idea if I'll be able to see GreaseMonkey!Alice-chan. ;________; I can maintain a fragile little hope, but who knows...
*sighs* Anyway. After iri today, Fukuda-san said she'd been thinking about getting a toujitsuken for Mahoroba / Magician no Yuutsu. And what with all the Other Things I've been worrying about, a little part of me had been wanting to do that too, and so even though I shouldn't be spending the money... I did. ^^;; We chose first floor A-seki over second floor S-seki, so that was better on my wallet at least. Very last row and right in the middle, just like where I was for the Valencia senshuuraku. (One seat left of where I sat before, in fact.)
But first Fukuda-san and I got brunch, and talked about how she doesn't know Tsukigumi as well now as she did when Mami was top, and how Takarazuka doesn't do enough comedies, and who's going to be the next top of Hanagumi, and lots of things. :-D Fukuda-san has become my best friend from the fanclub. ^____^ <3
So, let's see if I can write a review now.
MAHOROBA
Fukuda-san had been saying she doesn't like performances that are revue first and then the play, and I realized I'd never seen one, on DVD or otherwise. But it's true that when the show is first it goes by really fast. So what I remember of Mahoroba is mostly a blur of gorgeous costumes, awesome shamisen-influenced music, and lots of dances involving objects.
Dances with poles. Dances with wine-jugs. Dances with golden parasols. Dances with swords. And my favorite, dances with bows. (Bows as in bows-and-arrows; not hair-bows, arlecchinic. ;-)
But before that was my actual favorite number, with Asako and Mihoko on a ship during a storm, and there was just something about how the music was so intense and Mihoko's voice was so lovely and I just got chills all over. <3 <3 <3
I'm totally going about this in the wrong order. ^_^;; But Fukuda-san and I both agreed that the second half was better than the first... anyway. Mahoroba is a story-like revue involving the gods and demigods of the Kojiki, of which I know hardly anything, so I didn't really understand who was who and how everything was related. And I barely recognized anyone, being so far back and not having opera glasses and all.
But I did get that Taki-san was Amaterasu, Ban-san was Susano-o and Misa-san was Tsukuyomi. <3 (Taki-san's voice is even more wonderful live, but there was so not enough of Ban-san singing.)
Oh, and there was heavy usage of the video screen too. The rising sun, the land forming, snow falling, a storm raging, etc. All shown in silly LEDs. At first I found it distracting, but after a while I got used to it. ^^;; And in the end, with the "Asako turns into a heron" number, the image of white birds flying in the background was kind of cool. <3
Sometimes I was reminded a tiny bit of Sora Fantasista!, just because it starts out with Creation and there's a cool fire-themed number (although the Mahoroba fire number was distinctly lacking in a Sexy Top Musumeyaku and instead had Asako, Yuuhi and Kiriyan dressed as women. Not that you could really tell; the costumes were all so big and billowy anyway, a lot of them were pretty genderless. But yeah, that was the number with the wine jugs and The Trio dressed as women getting Ahi, Sonoka, Morie & co. drunk in order to save Ai-chan, Remi and Nene. Wow, did I just write a whole paragraph in parentheses?). But still, this revue was no Fantasista. ;-P
God, it's really clear to me now how little justice those revue summaries on the website do for shows. And how little the website really tells you about people's parts in the play. And that's how I'm going to make my transition to...
MAGICIAN NO YUUTSU
After the play I wrote a list of out-of-order reactions, and then the basics of what happens after the official summary (which runs out pretty quickly). So I guess I'll post the reactions first, and leave the spoilery stuff at the end in case people don't want to read it.
* Masaki-chan = <3 <3 <3 caithion, you will be so proud when you see her. She's grown up a lot, but is still ridiculously adorable at the same time. Especially when she's standing up and singing on a couch with Eri-san, or being smacked by Taki-san for sitting on a table. ;-)
* Eri-san also totally got her due with a nice, large role for her final show. Sueko, on the other hand, did not. :-(
* This show had a lot of humor and the audience was laughing a lot the first half. Some of it was cheap "physical" humor, sometimes it seemed a little forced, but still. It was funny. <3 So let me list some of the funny bits. :-D
* Mihoko, Nene and Touka Yurino busting out their Mad Fighting Skillz on Asako. LOVE. Especially Mihoko twisting Asako's arm, Asako singing as she jauntily fights back, Yurino putting Asako in handcuffs, Asako immediately breaking out of them... Yes. Love. <3
* Prince Kiriyan having a long conversation with Asako, in which Kiriyan stands and paces, Asako attempts to rise from her chair at least six times and every time Kiriyan motions for her to sit down while the prince is talking, dammit. XD The last time she just stops mid-sentence and stares pointedly until Asako humbly takes her seat again. (That's what I mean by "cheap physical humor". It's not a complicated joke, but it was still funny.)
* After the snipe attempt on Asako's life, Asako & Mihoko hiding behind one pillar and Kiriyan & co. hiding behind another, only Kiriyan is very anxious to make sure Asa is alright and keeps trying to stand up or crawl over to her and her lackeys are like DOWN, YOUR HIGHNESS and forcibly push her down until they're practically on top of her. In fact I think one of them was lying straight on top of her by the end. XDDD
(By the way, those lackeys? MAGGIE AND MIRIO. That's what I mean about the website totally lying about role-names. Just because Maggie was a news reporter in the third scene doesn't mean it was her only role. :-\ So if anyone wants to romanize スカローシ and ネクチュイ, those are Maggie and Mirio's character names. <3)
* Yuuhi and Eri-san doing their impersonations of Asako and Mihoko (respectively) in the unromantically formal way they speak to each other (well actually, I guess most of the formality comes from Mihoko). Only Yuuhi improvised at the end (an adlib, or no?)... Eri-san (very formally): "You haven't eaten anything..." Yuuhi: "Then I'll eat YOU~!" And then they disappeared offstage and everyone was still laughing. <3 <3 <3
* Misa-san and Shibi-san as the husband-and-wife gravedigger team. "NANI MO SHIRAN!!!!"
* Amano Hotaru as the overly helpful and ridiculously high-voiced bar wench was somewhat entertaining, but Kiryuu Sonoka as the spastic priest was not as funny as she was trying to be.
* Transitioning into not-as-funny things, Asako's "staff" of Taki-san, Eri-san, Yuuhi, Ahi and Masaki are mostly just... there. There to sing songs with her and throw out advice and stuff with basically none of their own character development. Yuuhi and Eri-san get a little more stage time than the rest, and of course everyone is cute and funny and all, but they're still mostly one-dimensional. (Yet it amused me how they - or at least Yuuhi - seemed to randomly switch between two sets of costumes for no apparent reason.)
* Ai-chan takes FOR-EV-ER to show up. When she does show up she gets a really cool dance with a bunch of musumeyaku, but in the end her would-be bodyguards (Mihoko, Yurino, Nene) get more stage time than she does. (Fukuda-san says Masatsuka-sensei doesn't use musumeyaku right. I wonder how many more sentences in this entry are going to start with "Fukuda-san says". XDD;;)
* sumire_no_hana was worried about Maggie and her non-character-name, but I believe I've resolved that issue. The one we should all actually be worrying about is Morie. She got one - admittedly rather fun - scene near the beginning as an adventurous nobleman who wants to go back to his lover in the Congo, and then briefly showed up as a Menacing Man who will be covered in the spoilery section, but that was it! (Opening and ending scenes where she appears with all the other Generic Noblemen obviously don't count.) Why!? Why no love for Morie??
* There was a sign posted saying that Asanagi Mana is taking a break for health reasons, just like Eriko did. Only she's just a little ken-4 baby and not 5-bante like Eriko, so she doesn't get all the website announcements and drama that Eriko did. Or maybe it's because whatever she has isn't that bad and she'll be back in a few days?
And now, the spoilery stuff. Read the summary if you haven't already, and then I'll start around where it cuts off...
After the assassination attempt, Asa & co. meet in a pub. Asako talks about getting out of the country and going into hiding. They order wine from the enthusiastic bar wench and are about to drink to breaking up the gang when Mihoko & co. burst in. Mihoko is upset that Asa is out carousing in public right after an attempt on her life. She vows never to leave Asako's side until the situation is resolved. Asako tries to get her to lighten up, drink and dance. Tough Bodyguard Mihoko can't dance very well.
Later, Asa meets with Kiriyan again and asks to have another look at Ai-chan's room. Asako has an improvised and overacted moment of "clairvoyance" in which she unwittingly convinces Kiriyan that Ai-chan is actually alive. They (or rather, Shibi-san and Misa-san the grave-keepers) dig up the coffin and find only dust, causing even Asako to grudgingly conceive that perhaps the princess really didn't die in the accident. She asks for time to rest and renew her "powers" and goes to the nearby church to think. True to her promise to stay at Asako's side, Mihoko follows her. Sonoka the priest comes to speak to them, but is soon interrupted by three nameless Men in Black - Morie, Ryuuki Kazuto and Isuzu Hikari. Mihoko subdues one of them at the same time that Morie pulls out a gun. Mihoko threatens to kill the man, Morie says she'll just die too, Mihoko tries to talk Asako into fleeing, Asako obviously isn't going to.
They are thrown into a large underground tomb piled with skulls. Cue Ai-chan's awesome dance with ghost-musumeyaku surrounded by mist and bones. She disappears when Asako and Mihoko enter. Mihoko, despite having been very strong-willed and no-nonsense before, is terrified of the skulls and loses her nerve when she trips over a skeleton hand. Asa convinces her to close her eyes and hold her (Asako's) hand as they search for an exit. Cue a silly moment where Asako and Mihoko suddenly emerge from behind a pillar holding Shibi-san's hands instead of each other's. Mihoko screams. Ai-chan appears. Mihoko faints. Shibi-san explains that Ai-chan lost her memory in the accident (she clings to Shibi-san in a very childlike fashion) and that Shibi-san has been taking care of her for the last three years. She is either hiding Ai-chan from "the soldiers" (兵隊) or was ordered by them to keep Ai-chan alive in secret. Something like that. Anyway. Despite initial protests, Asa convinces Shibi-san to go and tell her staff of their whereabouts.
Shibi-san and Misa-san apologetically explain to Taki-san & co. that yes, the princess is actually alive and Asako and Mihoko are there with her in the underground tomb. Slightly amusing moment where they all rush off one way, Sonoka comes in belatedly to tell them about the secret entrance, and then they all run across the stage the other way after Sonoka.
Kiriyan and Ai-chan are reunited. Yay and mush. "I don't care if you don't remember me, just having you back is enough"; "maybe one day I'll grow to love you again", blah blah blah. ;-) They sing. Then Asako comes in asking what Kiriyan plans to do about finding out who's responsible for all this. Kiriyan mentions some big event that's going on for the king's something-or-other, and Asako says "leave it up to me".
Asako and Mihoko sing separately yet together. They have a Talk. Asako admits that this clairvoyance stuff is all fake. Mihoko barely bats an eyelash.
Then, the party. Asako is introduced as a guest, the great magician - but instead of doing any magic, she exposes Kitajima Mami and Takaki Amane as the hitherto unseen culprits. They are led away. Kiriyan reveals to everyone that Ai-chan is alive. Asako sneaks out amidst the cheers and Mihoko follows her.
Asako wants to escape her reputation and just go back to practicing magic. She plans to travel Europe, perhaps go to England. Mihoko happens to be from England. "Hey, why don't you come with me and be my manager." Only they decide to go to Wales instead of England for some reason. ^^;;; And they exchange 'suki da's and sing across the ginkyou, and everyone comes out to sing and then suddenly the rockettes are behind them and we move straight into the finale.
Rockettes, Kiriyan-led number, Asako-led number, pair dance, parade. The ookaidan was rolled in / lowered down as Asako and Mihoko were dancing. o__O Very distracting.
And... that's basically it! I took way too long writing this; my wrists hurt and I'm ridiculously tired. So unfortunately no stories of fun times at Mister Donut with Fukuda-san tonight. Hopefully I can write about that later. <3
Today was the last day of okeiko iri/de for Alice-chan... well, for all of Soragumi, before they go to Tokyo. ;____; She looked beautiful as ever, and had her hair in a sweet little side-ponytail, and wore a blue sleeveless blouse trimmed with lace, and jeans, and oh, my angel. <3 <3 <3 There were a bazillion people taking pictures, too, so some might turn up on Y!J.
I didn't get to say much to her today, but yesterday I was alone at iri and learned that Alice-chan was invited to perform in All Shook Up ALL THE WAY BACK IN MARCH during Never Sleep the okeiko. And, I mean, I don't know how things are done in the world of Japanese theatre but I just think it's AMAZING that it wasn't like she auditioned for an outside performance or anything; they just ASKED her. WE WANT YOU, they said. LOVE.
One thing I didn't think about, though, that other fanclubbers (all four of them) brought up - it will be really hard to get tickets to All Shook Up. T____T;;; I was mostly just thinking along the lines of SQUEE ALICE OUTSIDE PERFORMANCE WANT TO SEE, but even more people will be going SQUEE WATARU-SAN. And ten thousand fangirls are surely thinking SQUEE JOHNNY'S BOY. Silly Johnny's boy! I knew that would only mean trouble. Your popularity will outshine my angel, Sakamoto-san. >.>;;;
So yeah, what with all the troubles I'm Not Talking About and Harada-san saying she couldn't guarantee that the fanclub would be able to get any tickets for us, I have no idea if I'll be able to see GreaseMonkey!Alice-chan. ;________; I can maintain a fragile little hope, but who knows...
*sighs* Anyway. After iri today, Fukuda-san said she'd been thinking about getting a toujitsuken for Mahoroba / Magician no Yuutsu. And what with all the Other Things I've been worrying about, a little part of me had been wanting to do that too, and so even though I shouldn't be spending the money... I did. ^^;; We chose first floor A-seki over second floor S-seki, so that was better on my wallet at least. Very last row and right in the middle, just like where I was for the Valencia senshuuraku. (One seat left of where I sat before, in fact.)
But first Fukuda-san and I got brunch, and talked about how she doesn't know Tsukigumi as well now as she did when Mami was top, and how Takarazuka doesn't do enough comedies, and who's going to be the next top of Hanagumi, and lots of things. :-D Fukuda-san has become my best friend from the fanclub. ^____^ <3
So, let's see if I can write a review now.
MAHOROBA
Fukuda-san had been saying she doesn't like performances that are revue first and then the play, and I realized I'd never seen one, on DVD or otherwise. But it's true that when the show is first it goes by really fast. So what I remember of Mahoroba is mostly a blur of gorgeous costumes, awesome shamisen-influenced music, and lots of dances involving objects.
Dances with poles. Dances with wine-jugs. Dances with golden parasols. Dances with swords. And my favorite, dances with bows. (Bows as in bows-and-arrows; not hair-bows, arlecchinic. ;-)
But before that was my actual favorite number, with Asako and Mihoko on a ship during a storm, and there was just something about how the music was so intense and Mihoko's voice was so lovely and I just got chills all over. <3 <3 <3
I'm totally going about this in the wrong order. ^_^;; But Fukuda-san and I both agreed that the second half was better than the first... anyway. Mahoroba is a story-like revue involving the gods and demigods of the Kojiki, of which I know hardly anything, so I didn't really understand who was who and how everything was related. And I barely recognized anyone, being so far back and not having opera glasses and all.
But I did get that Taki-san was Amaterasu, Ban-san was Susano-o and Misa-san was Tsukuyomi. <3 (Taki-san's voice is even more wonderful live, but there was so not enough of Ban-san singing.)
Oh, and there was heavy usage of the video screen too. The rising sun, the land forming, snow falling, a storm raging, etc. All shown in silly LEDs. At first I found it distracting, but after a while I got used to it. ^^;; And in the end, with the "Asako turns into a heron" number, the image of white birds flying in the background was kind of cool. <3
Sometimes I was reminded a tiny bit of Sora Fantasista!, just because it starts out with Creation and there's a cool fire-themed number (although the Mahoroba fire number was distinctly lacking in a Sexy Top Musumeyaku and instead had Asako, Yuuhi and Kiriyan dressed as women. Not that you could really tell; the costumes were all so big and billowy anyway, a lot of them were pretty genderless. But yeah, that was the number with the wine jugs and The Trio dressed as women getting Ahi, Sonoka, Morie & co. drunk in order to save Ai-chan, Remi and Nene. Wow, did I just write a whole paragraph in parentheses?). But still, this revue was no Fantasista. ;-P
God, it's really clear to me now how little justice those revue summaries on the website do for shows. And how little the website really tells you about people's parts in the play. And that's how I'm going to make my transition to...
MAGICIAN NO YUUTSU
After the play I wrote a list of out-of-order reactions, and then the basics of what happens after the official summary (which runs out pretty quickly). So I guess I'll post the reactions first, and leave the spoilery stuff at the end in case people don't want to read it.
* Masaki-chan = <3 <3 <3 caithion, you will be so proud when you see her. She's grown up a lot, but is still ridiculously adorable at the same time. Especially when she's standing up and singing on a couch with Eri-san, or being smacked by Taki-san for sitting on a table. ;-)
* Eri-san also totally got her due with a nice, large role for her final show. Sueko, on the other hand, did not. :-(
* This show had a lot of humor and the audience was laughing a lot the first half. Some of it was cheap "physical" humor, sometimes it seemed a little forced, but still. It was funny. <3 So let me list some of the funny bits. :-D
* Mihoko, Nene and Touka Yurino busting out their Mad Fighting Skillz on Asako. LOVE. Especially Mihoko twisting Asako's arm, Asako singing as she jauntily fights back, Yurino putting Asako in handcuffs, Asako immediately breaking out of them... Yes. Love. <3
* Prince Kiriyan having a long conversation with Asako, in which Kiriyan stands and paces, Asako attempts to rise from her chair at least six times and every time Kiriyan motions for her to sit down while the prince is talking, dammit. XD The last time she just stops mid-sentence and stares pointedly until Asako humbly takes her seat again. (That's what I mean by "cheap physical humor". It's not a complicated joke, but it was still funny.)
* After the snipe attempt on Asako's life, Asako & Mihoko hiding behind one pillar and Kiriyan & co. hiding behind another, only Kiriyan is very anxious to make sure Asa is alright and keeps trying to stand up or crawl over to her and her lackeys are like DOWN, YOUR HIGHNESS and forcibly push her down until they're practically on top of her. In fact I think one of them was lying straight on top of her by the end. XDDD
(By the way, those lackeys? MAGGIE AND MIRIO. That's what I mean about the website totally lying about role-names. Just because Maggie was a news reporter in the third scene doesn't mean it was her only role. :-\ So if anyone wants to romanize スカローシ and ネクチュイ, those are Maggie and Mirio's character names. <3)
* Yuuhi and Eri-san doing their impersonations of Asako and Mihoko (respectively) in the unromantically formal way they speak to each other (well actually, I guess most of the formality comes from Mihoko). Only Yuuhi improvised at the end (an adlib, or no?)... Eri-san (very formally): "You haven't eaten anything..." Yuuhi: "Then I'll eat YOU~!" And then they disappeared offstage and everyone was still laughing. <3 <3 <3
* Misa-san and Shibi-san as the husband-and-wife gravedigger team. "NANI MO SHIRAN!!!!"
* Amano Hotaru as the overly helpful and ridiculously high-voiced bar wench was somewhat entertaining, but Kiryuu Sonoka as the spastic priest was not as funny as she was trying to be.
* Transitioning into not-as-funny things, Asako's "staff" of Taki-san, Eri-san, Yuuhi, Ahi and Masaki are mostly just... there. There to sing songs with her and throw out advice and stuff with basically none of their own character development. Yuuhi and Eri-san get a little more stage time than the rest, and of course everyone is cute and funny and all, but they're still mostly one-dimensional. (Yet it amused me how they - or at least Yuuhi - seemed to randomly switch between two sets of costumes for no apparent reason.)
* Ai-chan takes FOR-EV-ER to show up. When she does show up she gets a really cool dance with a bunch of musumeyaku, but in the end her would-be bodyguards (Mihoko, Yurino, Nene) get more stage time than she does. (Fukuda-san says Masatsuka-sensei doesn't use musumeyaku right. I wonder how many more sentences in this entry are going to start with "Fukuda-san says". XDD;;)
* sumire_no_hana was worried about Maggie and her non-character-name, but I believe I've resolved that issue. The one we should all actually be worrying about is Morie. She got one - admittedly rather fun - scene near the beginning as an adventurous nobleman who wants to go back to his lover in the Congo, and then briefly showed up as a Menacing Man who will be covered in the spoilery section, but that was it! (Opening and ending scenes where she appears with all the other Generic Noblemen obviously don't count.) Why!? Why no love for Morie??
* There was a sign posted saying that Asanagi Mana is taking a break for health reasons, just like Eriko did. Only she's just a little ken-4 baby and not 5-bante like Eriko, so she doesn't get all the website announcements and drama that Eriko did. Or maybe it's because whatever she has isn't that bad and she'll be back in a few days?
And now, the spoilery stuff. Read the summary if you haven't already, and then I'll start around where it cuts off...
After the assassination attempt, Asa & co. meet in a pub. Asako talks about getting out of the country and going into hiding. They order wine from the enthusiastic bar wench and are about to drink to breaking up the gang when Mihoko & co. burst in. Mihoko is upset that Asa is out carousing in public right after an attempt on her life. She vows never to leave Asako's side until the situation is resolved. Asako tries to get her to lighten up, drink and dance. Tough Bodyguard Mihoko can't dance very well.
Later, Asa meets with Kiriyan again and asks to have another look at Ai-chan's room. Asako has an improvised and overacted moment of "clairvoyance" in which she unwittingly convinces Kiriyan that Ai-chan is actually alive. They (or rather, Shibi-san and Misa-san the grave-keepers) dig up the coffin and find only dust, causing even Asako to grudgingly conceive that perhaps the princess really didn't die in the accident. She asks for time to rest and renew her "powers" and goes to the nearby church to think. True to her promise to stay at Asako's side, Mihoko follows her. Sonoka the priest comes to speak to them, but is soon interrupted by three nameless Men in Black - Morie, Ryuuki Kazuto and Isuzu Hikari. Mihoko subdues one of them at the same time that Morie pulls out a gun. Mihoko threatens to kill the man, Morie says she'll just die too, Mihoko tries to talk Asako into fleeing, Asako obviously isn't going to.
They are thrown into a large underground tomb piled with skulls. Cue Ai-chan's awesome dance with ghost-musumeyaku surrounded by mist and bones. She disappears when Asako and Mihoko enter. Mihoko, despite having been very strong-willed and no-nonsense before, is terrified of the skulls and loses her nerve when she trips over a skeleton hand. Asa convinces her to close her eyes and hold her (Asako's) hand as they search for an exit. Cue a silly moment where Asako and Mihoko suddenly emerge from behind a pillar holding Shibi-san's hands instead of each other's. Mihoko screams. Ai-chan appears. Mihoko faints. Shibi-san explains that Ai-chan lost her memory in the accident (she clings to Shibi-san in a very childlike fashion) and that Shibi-san has been taking care of her for the last three years. She is either hiding Ai-chan from "the soldiers" (兵隊) or was ordered by them to keep Ai-chan alive in secret. Something like that. Anyway. Despite initial protests, Asa convinces Shibi-san to go and tell her staff of their whereabouts.
Shibi-san and Misa-san apologetically explain to Taki-san & co. that yes, the princess is actually alive and Asako and Mihoko are there with her in the underground tomb. Slightly amusing moment where they all rush off one way, Sonoka comes in belatedly to tell them about the secret entrance, and then they all run across the stage the other way after Sonoka.
Kiriyan and Ai-chan are reunited. Yay and mush. "I don't care if you don't remember me, just having you back is enough"; "maybe one day I'll grow to love you again", blah blah blah. ;-) They sing. Then Asako comes in asking what Kiriyan plans to do about finding out who's responsible for all this. Kiriyan mentions some big event that's going on for the king's something-or-other, and Asako says "leave it up to me".
Asako and Mihoko sing separately yet together. They have a Talk. Asako admits that this clairvoyance stuff is all fake. Mihoko barely bats an eyelash.
Then, the party. Asako is introduced as a guest, the great magician - but instead of doing any magic, she exposes Kitajima Mami and Takaki Amane as the hitherto unseen culprits. They are led away. Kiriyan reveals to everyone that Ai-chan is alive. Asako sneaks out amidst the cheers and Mihoko follows her.
Asako wants to escape her reputation and just go back to practicing magic. She plans to travel Europe, perhaps go to England. Mihoko happens to be from England. "Hey, why don't you come with me and be my manager." Only they decide to go to Wales instead of England for some reason. ^^;;; And they exchange 'suki da's and sing across the ginkyou, and everyone comes out to sing and then suddenly the rockettes are behind them and we move straight into the finale.
Rockettes, Kiriyan-led number, Asako-led number, pair dance, parade. The ookaidan was rolled in / lowered down as Asako and Mihoko were dancing. o__O Very distracting.
And... that's basically it! I took way too long writing this; my wrists hurt and I'm ridiculously tired. So unfortunately no stories of fun times at Mister Donut with Fukuda-san tonight. Hopefully I can write about that later. <3