Yu Yu Hakusho stage play
Aaaaaah! I still can't believe that this actually happened, and that I was there to see it ;_; The Hunter x Hunter musical was the first anime musical that I ever saw (before Tenimyu even), but I was into Yu Yu Hakusho way before HxH, so who'd have ever thought they'd make a musical of it, 25 years after the manga ended... Can it be considered a classic now? Some of the actors in the musical weren't even BORN when the manga was ongoing! There was only about 1 week of Tokyo shows and only one weekend, and even though I applied 2 times for all shows I could go to I only got one ticket, so I was really lucky to get it! =D
My seat was on the first balcony, but first row, so I had a great overview of the stage!
I was surprised to see that the audience was 95~99% women, though. There were almost as many actresses as actors, and Botan, Keiko, Atsuko, etc were all super cute, so you'd think there would be more male fans coming to see them, especially the fact that YYH ran in Shonen Jump... But I suppose that theatre-going is more of a feminine activity in general? Or maybe the popularity of the main cast prevented anyone but the most crazed fans from getting tickets... And they did play up the Yusuke x Kuwabara and Kurama x Hiei subtext quite a bit, lol.
From the way the story was set up, it seems like they already expected the audience to be familiar with the entire story until the end. Remember the plot twist regarding the anime's narrator near the end, and the reveal that we had been watching Koenma's video tape records of the characters' lives? Well, that was pretty much used as the set-up for the entire stage play! It was really clever, actually!
I was so surprised when the anime theme song Hohoemi no Bakudan started playing, while the characters were introduced one by one while fighting random lackeys. The whole audience was getting super into it, until just before the last "Arigatou gozaimasu~" Koenma showed up with a remote control and 'turned the music off' and sang the remaining line himself, lol. xD Then he started explaining how he was watching old footage of Yusuke, Kuwabara, Kurama and Hiei's battles so far, in order to find out what they are lacking / what they must do to become stronger. So I'd guess it actually "takes place" somewhere around the Dark Tournament, or maybe even the Makai Tournament?
Because of this convenient plot device, Koenma could simply "skip" through the scenes with short explanations in between, which allowed the stage play to cover a lot of material! Well, technically it "only" covered up to Yusuke getting the three Regalia of Darkness back, but still, it covered nearly EVERYTHING that happened up until that point, starting from when Yusuke met Kuwabara, and Kurama met Hiei... Yes, they even managed to squeeze the content from "Two Shots" in there!!! (Otherwise Hiei and Kurama wouldn't have much to do in the first half, lol) It's been ignored for so long, and now it got an anime AND a stage adaptation, OMG! They even cast an actress for Maya O_O I loved how much time was spent on exploring the characters and their relationships and motives <3
I'm not that familiar with the guy who plays Yusuke, but his acting and facial expressions were the best! They even included the scene where Yusuke makes funny faces for the kid whose life he saved - twice! And that's where he got the biggest applause, lol He sounded so much like Yusuke in the anime, too, and his mannerisms were so in-character too!
Everyone's were, really! Gomoto Naoya as Kuwabara was just as perfect! I didn't know he was capable of letting out such high-pitched screeching yells, lol. The scenes between Kuwabara and Yusuke while Yusuke was a ghost were especially hilarious, and the scenes with Kuwabara trying to protect his friends by not fighting anyone were so sweet <3
Kurama appeared almost as much in his short-haired form as in the long-haired one - my only complaint was that he looked a bit old in the "Two Shots" scenes, but I suppose they couldn't very well have cast a younger, shorter actor for half of the play, lol. His voice sounded more like dub Kurama, but I guess it's hard to perfectly imitate his voice as a male actor. Suzuki Hiroki actually seemed to be using the same voice as he does for Mikazuki in Touken Ranbu, but it fit well enough xD He looked so pretty, and his fighting was so graceful. He made the unflattering purple school uniform look super cool, lol. The wig was spot-on too, which I know is really hard to style >w< And he flew though the air while throwing rose petals around *-* I guess they needed the wire setup for Botan, so they might as well use them for other characters.
Hiei was super cute! Not quite as short as he's supposed to be, but close enough. I've never seen a cosplay wig so good as the one this actor had, either *-* I loved the way his coat 'flowed' around him too, the fabric looked so nice and silky. The things you pay attention to as a cosplayer, lol. His fighting scenes were really cool too, he could jump so high O_O Obviously he didn't turn green during his fight with Yusuke (what the heck was that anyway, that never appeared for the rest of the series), but it was really impressive. It's too bad he didn't have that many lines during this part of the story, but I guess that's just Hiei being Hiei xD
As for the other characters, Koenma was really funny! I didn't know Araki could talk in such a high pitched voice either, and he talked with his pacifier in his mouth the entire time O_O It's impressive how intelligible all his lines were like that. O_O Gouki didn't look all that threatening, other than the horns he was just a dude xD A very muscular dude, but still... He was supposed to be about 3 times Yusuke's size, right? So that fight was a little underwhelming, though it was funny how he showed up as Koenma's lackey after he died, sort of taking on the place of the blue ogre Jorge xD
There were a surprising lot of minor characters present too, such as Kuwabara's friends, Keiko's friend (I think that was the same actress as Maya though), Keiko's mom, Kurama's mom, the kid Yusuke saved, Kuwabara and Yusuke's mean teacher at school (the one Yusuke first used his Spirit Gun on) and even Genkai... What was Genkai even doing there? Even though I'd seen promotional pictures of her both in her old and young form, she never appeared without her mask and had about all of two lines, talking to Koenma in the 'afterlife' while watching the videos with him... So I don't understand why they even bothered casting an actress for her? Is this hinting that there's going to be a sequel??? At least they've already announced a DVD, so that's something ^o^
Poster on the door ^o^
Flowers from Togashi-sensei and Sasaki Nozomu, Yusuke's voice actor. Apparently a lot of seiyuu from the anime went to see the show and took pictures with their characters xD
I thought I had more to flail about, but if I start getting into the way that specific scenes were handled, this post is never going to end, so I guess I'll leave it at that and recommend that everybody buys the DVD ^^;
My seat was on the first balcony, but first row, so I had a great overview of the stage!
I was surprised to see that the audience was 95~99% women, though. There were almost as many actresses as actors, and Botan, Keiko, Atsuko, etc were all super cute, so you'd think there would be more male fans coming to see them, especially the fact that YYH ran in Shonen Jump... But I suppose that theatre-going is more of a feminine activity in general? Or maybe the popularity of the main cast prevented anyone but the most crazed fans from getting tickets... And they did play up the Yusuke x Kuwabara and Kurama x Hiei subtext quite a bit, lol.
From the way the story was set up, it seems like they already expected the audience to be familiar with the entire story until the end. Remember the plot twist regarding the anime's narrator near the end, and the reveal that we had been watching Koenma's video tape records of the characters' lives? Well, that was pretty much used as the set-up for the entire stage play! It was really clever, actually!
I was so surprised when the anime theme song Hohoemi no Bakudan started playing, while the characters were introduced one by one while fighting random lackeys. The whole audience was getting super into it, until just before the last "Arigatou gozaimasu~" Koenma showed up with a remote control and 'turned the music off' and sang the remaining line himself, lol. xD Then he started explaining how he was watching old footage of Yusuke, Kuwabara, Kurama and Hiei's battles so far, in order to find out what they are lacking / what they must do to become stronger. So I'd guess it actually "takes place" somewhere around the Dark Tournament, or maybe even the Makai Tournament?
Because of this convenient plot device, Koenma could simply "skip" through the scenes with short explanations in between, which allowed the stage play to cover a lot of material! Well, technically it "only" covered up to Yusuke getting the three Regalia of Darkness back, but still, it covered nearly EVERYTHING that happened up until that point, starting from when Yusuke met Kuwabara, and Kurama met Hiei... Yes, they even managed to squeeze the content from "Two Shots" in there!!! (Otherwise Hiei and Kurama wouldn't have much to do in the first half, lol) It's been ignored for so long, and now it got an anime AND a stage adaptation, OMG! They even cast an actress for Maya O_O I loved how much time was spent on exploring the characters and their relationships and motives <3
I'm not that familiar with the guy who plays Yusuke, but his acting and facial expressions were the best! They even included the scene where Yusuke makes funny faces for the kid whose life he saved - twice! And that's where he got the biggest applause, lol He sounded so much like Yusuke in the anime, too, and his mannerisms were so in-character too!
Everyone's were, really! Gomoto Naoya as Kuwabara was just as perfect! I didn't know he was capable of letting out such high-pitched screeching yells, lol. The scenes between Kuwabara and Yusuke while Yusuke was a ghost were especially hilarious, and the scenes with Kuwabara trying to protect his friends by not fighting anyone were so sweet <3
Kurama appeared almost as much in his short-haired form as in the long-haired one - my only complaint was that he looked a bit old in the "Two Shots" scenes, but I suppose they couldn't very well have cast a younger, shorter actor for half of the play, lol. His voice sounded more like dub Kurama, but I guess it's hard to perfectly imitate his voice as a male actor. Suzuki Hiroki actually seemed to be using the same voice as he does for Mikazuki in Touken Ranbu, but it fit well enough xD He looked so pretty, and his fighting was so graceful. He made the unflattering purple school uniform look super cool, lol. The wig was spot-on too, which I know is really hard to style >w< And he flew though the air while throwing rose petals around *-* I guess they needed the wire setup for Botan, so they might as well use them for other characters.
Hiei was super cute! Not quite as short as he's supposed to be, but close enough. I've never seen a cosplay wig so good as the one this actor had, either *-* I loved the way his coat 'flowed' around him too, the fabric looked so nice and silky. The things you pay attention to as a cosplayer, lol. His fighting scenes were really cool too, he could jump so high O_O Obviously he didn't turn green during his fight with Yusuke (what the heck was that anyway, that never appeared for the rest of the series), but it was really impressive. It's too bad he didn't have that many lines during this part of the story, but I guess that's just Hiei being Hiei xD
As for the other characters, Koenma was really funny! I didn't know Araki could talk in such a high pitched voice either, and he talked with his pacifier in his mouth the entire time O_O It's impressive how intelligible all his lines were like that. O_O Gouki didn't look all that threatening, other than the horns he was just a dude xD A very muscular dude, but still... He was supposed to be about 3 times Yusuke's size, right? So that fight was a little underwhelming, though it was funny how he showed up as Koenma's lackey after he died, sort of taking on the place of the blue ogre Jorge xD
There were a surprising lot of minor characters present too, such as Kuwabara's friends, Keiko's friend (I think that was the same actress as Maya though), Keiko's mom, Kurama's mom, the kid Yusuke saved, Kuwabara and Yusuke's mean teacher at school (the one Yusuke first used his Spirit Gun on) and even Genkai... What was Genkai even doing there? Even though I'd seen promotional pictures of her both in her old and young form, she never appeared without her mask and had about all of two lines, talking to Koenma in the 'afterlife' while watching the videos with him... So I don't understand why they even bothered casting an actress for her? Is this hinting that there's going to be a sequel??? At least they've already announced a DVD, so that's something ^o^
Poster on the door ^o^
Flowers from Togashi-sensei and Sasaki Nozomu, Yusuke's voice actor. Apparently a lot of seiyuu from the anime went to see the show and took pictures with their characters xD
I thought I had more to flail about, but if I start getting into the way that specific scenes were handled, this post is never going to end, so I guess I'll leave it at that and recommend that everybody buys the DVD ^^;