Grisaia: Phantom Trigger stage play
On Thursday after work I got to go to the Grisaia: Phantom Trigger stage play! My company had arranged kankeisha seats for anyone who wanted to go, and I would've loved to go more than once if not for the run being so short >< The only weekday was Thursday the 2nd, and it's only running from the 2nd until the 6th, which is the end of the Golden Week holidays already. The theater, Hikosen Theater, was pretty small too with about 400 seats. I'm sure they could've done a longer run or filled a bigger theater - The show I went to was the very first show, and it seemed to be more or less sold out ^o^ And I totally get why, because it was really good!
I didn't know any of the actresses, apparently it was the first stage play for a lot of them, as they mentioned in the short talkshow after the play. But if they hadn't said it, I wouldn't have known it. They were all perfectly in character, their voices and acting were great, and the quality of the wigs, costumes, props and everything was very professional! They were also good singers and dancers! It was kinda surreal to see the Phantom Trigger characters dancing on stage, because initially that doesn't seem very in-character for them, but the actors were so good that it felt completely natural.
Interestingly, the male protagonist Haruto was played by a female actor (even though it wasn't an all-female cast - some of the villain characters were male actors). I really liked her portrayal though. She had super long legs and a slim, athletic build, so she looked perfect as Haruto! And her swordfighting skills were so cool! The only minor gripe I had is that maybe she could've lowered her voice a bit more, because from a distance it wasn't always visible who was talking, and sometimes I couldn't tell whether it was one of the girls or Haruto speaking ^^; In the aftertalk she said it was her first time acting a male role though, so maybe she'll get even better throughout the run. >w<
Another interesting choice was that the stage play used a lot of music, including the opening and ending themes, and I think even the sound effects, straight from the original games. Normally that's difficult to do considering all the copyrightholders involved, but since the play was entirely produced by Frontwing, which also owns the copyright to the games and all their content, they were able to do a near-perfect recreation of the world from the games on stage. =O They even used some of the eyecatch graphics with English captions like "Several hours earlier..." or "Two days later..." that I translated for the games at some point as projections on the background screen, haha. It felt like jumping straight into the world from the visual novels!
The theme songs were actually sung live by the actors on stage - they weren't the original artists of the songs, but their covers of them were very energetic and cute! After the story part, there was also a "mini live" with about 3 songs, including higawari solo songs for each character that were produced specially for the play. In the one I saw, Maki had a solo song, and Rena came on stage to wave a penlight for her, so cute! (I was glad I brought some penlights too!) The production values were crazy good for such a relatively small-scale production!
As if that wasn't ambitious enough already, the story was also entirely original! Instead of making a straight adaptation of one of the volumes of the visual novels, they created an all-new story that could've taken place any time around volumes 1~4, I think? The themes of the story were really similar to those of the games though, so it was totally believable that something like this could've taken place at some point at Mihama Academy. A lot of thought and effort was put into the "enemy" characters' backstories and costumes as well.
During the performance, they made use of the entire theater, including the pathways between the seats, and even the balcony. I wonder how many people even noticed it, but I thought it was super clever how during one of the action scenes, they had the sniper Tohka show up on the balcony and 'snipe' at the enemies from there. And in another scene, some characters took cover in front of the stage (on the floor between the first row seats and the stage) or behind the speakers or stage scaffolding, so it felt like you were in the middle of the action. The action scenes were really thrilling that way!
It was about 2 hours long, and after that there was a short talkshow with 3 actors, which is apparently also different for each day. The one I saw was Haruto, Arisaka, and also Mikako Izawa, the seiyuu for Arisaka from the games. (She wasn't in the play, but she appeared as a special guest) I really wish I could've gone more often to see all the different adlibs, solo song performances, and talk segments, but there will be an online stream of Senshuuraku on the 6th, so I'll definitely be getting that... or at least watching the archived stream, because it's the same day and time as Toumyu Senshuuraku so I can only watch one at a time ^^;;;;
I didn't know any of the actresses, apparently it was the first stage play for a lot of them, as they mentioned in the short talkshow after the play. But if they hadn't said it, I wouldn't have known it. They were all perfectly in character, their voices and acting were great, and the quality of the wigs, costumes, props and everything was very professional! They were also good singers and dancers! It was kinda surreal to see the Phantom Trigger characters dancing on stage, because initially that doesn't seem very in-character for them, but the actors were so good that it felt completely natural.
Interestingly, the male protagonist Haruto was played by a female actor (even though it wasn't an all-female cast - some of the villain characters were male actors). I really liked her portrayal though. She had super long legs and a slim, athletic build, so she looked perfect as Haruto! And her swordfighting skills were so cool! The only minor gripe I had is that maybe she could've lowered her voice a bit more, because from a distance it wasn't always visible who was talking, and sometimes I couldn't tell whether it was one of the girls or Haruto speaking ^^; In the aftertalk she said it was her first time acting a male role though, so maybe she'll get even better throughout the run. >w<
Another interesting choice was that the stage play used a lot of music, including the opening and ending themes, and I think even the sound effects, straight from the original games. Normally that's difficult to do considering all the copyrightholders involved, but since the play was entirely produced by Frontwing, which also owns the copyright to the games and all their content, they were able to do a near-perfect recreation of the world from the games on stage. =O They even used some of the eyecatch graphics with English captions like "Several hours earlier..." or "Two days later..." that I translated for the games at some point as projections on the background screen, haha. It felt like jumping straight into the world from the visual novels!
The theme songs were actually sung live by the actors on stage - they weren't the original artists of the songs, but their covers of them were very energetic and cute! After the story part, there was also a "mini live" with about 3 songs, including higawari solo songs for each character that were produced specially for the play. In the one I saw, Maki had a solo song, and Rena came on stage to wave a penlight for her, so cute! (I was glad I brought some penlights too!) The production values were crazy good for such a relatively small-scale production!
As if that wasn't ambitious enough already, the story was also entirely original! Instead of making a straight adaptation of one of the volumes of the visual novels, they created an all-new story that could've taken place any time around volumes 1~4, I think? The themes of the story were really similar to those of the games though, so it was totally believable that something like this could've taken place at some point at Mihama Academy. A lot of thought and effort was put into the "enemy" characters' backstories and costumes as well.
During the performance, they made use of the entire theater, including the pathways between the seats, and even the balcony. I wonder how many people even noticed it, but I thought it was super clever how during one of the action scenes, they had the sniper Tohka show up on the balcony and 'snipe' at the enemies from there. And in another scene, some characters took cover in front of the stage (on the floor between the first row seats and the stage) or behind the speakers or stage scaffolding, so it felt like you were in the middle of the action. The action scenes were really thrilling that way!
It was about 2 hours long, and after that there was a short talkshow with 3 actors, which is apparently also different for each day. The one I saw was Haruto, Arisaka, and also Mikako Izawa, the seiyuu for Arisaka from the games. (She wasn't in the play, but she appeared as a special guest) I really wish I could've gone more often to see all the different adlibs, solo song performances, and talk segments, but there will be an online stream of Senshuuraku on the 6th, so I'll definitely be getting that... or at least watching the archived stream, because it's the same day and time as Toumyu Senshuuraku so I can only watch one at a time ^^;;;;