Dream Live 5th Review, Part 2
Part 1 is HERE!
Then a ship’s horn sounded!!!
20. Viking Horn
Everyone cheered, of course, and then out came Higa. Kai was FLYING. !! He was wearing bright red and was like Peter Pan, really flying beautifully (as opposed to descending staidly on a platform). He was terribly enthusiastic, waving his arms and legs up and down as he sang.
Luke C as Kite was in a captain’s suit, a beautifully grand dark blue long coat.
Take-chan as Chinen, like the rest, wore vests and striped shirts, and they ALL can-canned to Viking Horn!! Partway through it, Kai descended, and was unbuckled by people in black hurrying out from the curtained exits. But towards the end, he took off into the air again.
When he landed, Tanishi Kei pretended to take the buckles off him, but in reality, backstage staff were buckling Tanishi up and he said HE wanted to fly. When he did, he did BIG BANG from the top and during Senshuu, the audience shouted along with him…
…before he realized it was a little too high, and he begged to be let down, which he was.
Puns followed, dreadful ones which appeared on the huge screens at the side.
There was a question and answer section; for example, a question that resulted in the words “minna” resulted in Higachuu singing the first line of their Dark Horse song, “Minami…” (an island in the south) ^^;;
ETA: NB: They sang this first line for the Senshuu too, though I'm not sure how they led up to it.
Then there was another question and answer thing which read, in katakana: “Dou you habu a habu?” and the two possible answers were 1) something in hiragana which I didn’t copy fast enough and 2) in English, “Yes, I have”. XD (because the line in katakana can be read as “Do you have a have?” and answer 2 would fit that English question, of course. …^^;;)
English-speaking parts tended to be said by Luke C or Yasuka (Hirakoba Rin). E.g. in Senshuu, Rin said, “Sorry” and I think he read out, “Yes, I have.”
For Senshuu, the questions and answers involved thanking Tokyo Arena, and something about hair.
Take-chan (Chinen) got to clap his hands twice, and the crowd joined in!
THEN came one of the magical surprises of the night!
Two people, dressed in coats and hats, appeared on the SUB-STAGE!!!!
THE PLATINUM PAIR!!! AAAAAH! (As we had seats near the sub-stage and had originally resigned ourselves to the fact that we would see almost nothing because we didn’t know of its existence until Sonoko-san told us (thank you!), this was GODLY FOR US.)
21. PETENSHI DA
They were in very smart aristocratic-looking coats themselves, black for BBT and bright red edged with white fur (alsepang’s help here) for Niou! And they wore their Rikkai uniforms underneath. They had black top hats, and sunglasses, and Niou wore this tremendously shiny garland-cum-necklace!
They danced, new dance moves in perfect sync with each other, filmed all the time by cameramen carrying heavy cameras on their shoulders. Baba Tooru had one camaeraman exclusively focused on him; the other cameraman was glued to Masa Niou. Such slick dancing, such fluidity and grace, as if their feet were moving on air. Such perfect timing, as if they were two halves of one whole. Better yet, they were projected onto the large screens face to face as mirror images (thanks to the separate cameramen!).
They had to move their fingers one joint at a time, then their hands like robots, and their torsos…perfect. Those dance moves were slick - and no doubt coloured by fanservice needs. There were moves that required them to be within an inch of each other’s bodies and faces, and even one where their hands shimmied in the air close over each other’s bodies - as if touching. Exquisitely and professionally executed by both Baba Tooru and Masa Niou (and no doubt making many a fangirl swoon from the fanservice).
Alsepang on Senshuu
During the line “ARTISTE…” (that’s what it sounds like), when it was Yagyuu’s turn to sing, instead of singing, he paused and let the audience sing it!
And when Niou sang his parts, Yagyuu was motioning to the audience to come on and sing loudly! He kept beckoning to the audience and putting up a hand behind an ear as if he couldn’t hear the audience loudly enough!:D
At the end, it was off with the sunglasses, the hats (I saw a gap in BBT’s top hat, I thought…) and Niou took off his garlands. I think that in Senshuu, BBT threw something into the crowd-his sunglasses?? Yes, he did!!!!
Then…
22. Golden Pair
YES! I miss this song SO MUCH.
On the main stage were Saeki and Itsuki, Ono-Kirihara, Fuji-Kawamura, Kaidoh and Momo, and, of course, in the front, Oishi and Eiji. Rin (Yasuka) and Take-chan (Chinen) as well. The platinum pair stayed on the sub-stage.
Seigaku’s GP wasn’t very in sync, but it’s okay! :) because I am biased. While I do miss Takiyuki and Setomaru’s perfect body angles, …uh…I do like this Golden Pair.
After the song, there was fanservice, and alsepang saw it all, because I was busy watching the Golden Pair.
Here is alsepang’s description!
Morning show
Niou kept reaching up to try to touch Yagyuu’s face and Yagyuu kept batting away Niou’s hand sternly. Niou finally stopped trying to touch Yagyuu’s face. After a few seconds whilst the two stared into each other’s faces, YAGYUU REACHED OUT AND SLID HIS HAND RIGHT UNDER NIOU’S CHIN, LIFTING IT SLIGHTLY. The audience around them swooned and screamed. THEN YAGYUU GENTLY CHUCKED NIOU’S CHIN TWICE. Possibly the crowd died from sheer joy at this moment. Then, abruptly, the two pulled apart, and the Platinum Pair pointed to the main stage where the Golden Pair were, re-directing the attention of the audience to the main stage.
Senshuuraku
I missed a bit of the opening bit of the fanservice, but Yagyuu was holding up an admonishing finger to Niou. They seemed to be disagreeing about something. I turned my attention away to the main stage for a second and when I looked back the next second, Yagyuu was turning his back on Niou and Niou was turning away from Yagyuu, and both moved to diagonally opposite ends of the sub-stage. It looked a lot like a lover’s quarrel!!! After a few seconds, as the lights began to dim, Yagyuu turned back towards Niou and walked towards him. Niou also turned, very slightly, in Yagyuu’s direction, and began sidling towards Yagyuu slowly but surely. They’d just reached the point when they were about a half-arm’s length away from each other, both facing the direction of the main stage, when the lights went off -- SIMULTANEOUSLY, AS THE LIGHTS WENT OFF, YAGYUU REACHED OUT AND CLASPED NIOU’S HAND. THEY WERE HOLDING HANDS! JUST THAT ONE SECOND because in the next second, the lights went on AND SIMULTANEOUSLY, THEIR HANDS PROMPTLY PARTED. AAAAAAAAAAAH!!! I don’t think I was the only one in the audience celebrating their audacity. XD
Quite apart from the swooning - seriously, the acting was superb. It required perfect timing, which was executed right down to the last second. The acting was made all the more real because of the clear bond between the actors. I was also impressed by how they braved each other’s sweaty and sticky palms to hold hands for the fans.
23. …juudenkanryou?
Okay, at the end of the scene between the platinum pair, they both (in sync again) pointed to the front stage so everyone would look at it.
During the platinum pair scene, Oishi had actually been placing a feathery headband on Eiji’s head. SO CUTE.
Then they sang. I can’t remember the song’s name D: Let’s call it juudenkanryou.
It has Oishi
-->poking his racquet at Eiji during the dance (SO CUTE)
-->and then making pushing-forward movements with his arms and hips (see Taka-san in the Go-Go-Masei song in Rikkai 2nd Service, where he inexplicably thrusts himself…right…for no good reason other than…)….
-->and do you remember Kotani in his Burning song in Hyotei/DL3, which requires him to put his hands beside his hips and wiggle? Well, Oishi did that too.
Seigaku was dancing in the background at around the time the second move appeared. They didn’t have the interesting moves that Toyoda-Oishi did, though.
HAMAO IS SO DARN CUTE. Yes, he is!!!!!!
Anyway, unexpectedly, Kai popped up onstage from a trapdoor! Then Kazuma, in the centre, then Marui on the right!! They each had a verse to sing!!! When it came to Marui’s turn, Kikumaru tried to take centrestage, but Marui pushed him aside and after he sang his part, he turned to the crowd and said, “Dou? Tensai teki?” WAAAAAAAAH!!!!!
Kikumaru is cute as heck. He was so bouncy and so PRETTY and smiley. He’s got a brilliant smile. We’re sold!!!!
The ichinen appeared also, on the second tier, before they danced down. They had pom-pom-like sleeves, puffy and colourful ^^
After that song, Momo appeared and spoke about…having a song? Being on stage? He even put his hands to his heart to make a doki-doki movement. ^^;;
But then Kaidoh (Version: Tomo) appeared behind him. Interestingly, the crowd was quite quiet.
And then Kaidoh ETA: started clearing his throat like he was going to sing, and then he came forward and he said he was the third generation Kaidoh, and he was a mamushi!
24. Kaidoh’s solo
Then he got to DANCE and he was awfully cool. He sang, and when he started, he was really awfully Kaidoh-like, and I was so, so, so happy!! The song involved embracing his racquet at the end of each chorus.
Alsepang says the microphone stopped for a moment in the middle of his song and picked up again during the morning show, but I couldn’t tell; and in senshuu, to avoid that, they in fact upped the volume at the point where the music had stopped briefly previously (she identified the moment).
T_________________________________T
Alsepang thinks there was in fact feedback during that moment T_T
He sang better in Senshuu then in the morning show. Um, actually, he was quite off in the morning show. ;_; (That said, it seems he had very little time to do this, what with saxophone practice for some show, and D-stage and such. And he was very Kaidoh-like AND HE GOT TO DANCE COOLLY….all my biases are climbing out of the cupboard now.)
After the song, in Senshuu (unlike morning show), he bowed to the audience in three directions, and the crowd screamed, in waves, TOMOooooooooooooooooooooooo.
Eg. faintly, "Tomoooo", then, screamingly, "TOMOOOOooooo". That happened quite a lot.
I was pretty glad. It was quite different from the morning show, as in, there were louder screams and this time it was clear they were REALLY screaming his name.
Then Seigaku came out with 4th Kaidoh and they had a message from Hirata Kaidoh (very specifically announced as 4th generation Kaidoh) to Tomo, which ended with how he wouldn’t lose.
Senshuu message was different, something about Hirata and Tomo working together? Can't remember.
Then Tezuka spoke.
In the 11 am show, he opened with a joke; he took a line that Kaidoh often says and which begins with “Kaidoh Kaoru” (see Higamyu backstage where Hirata is interrupted by Shougo) and he replaced the name “Kaidoh Kaoru” with “Tezuka Kunimitsu”. Can’t for the life of me remember it. Kaidoh Kaoru won’t lose? Bfft.
But for Senshuu, it was different. He said, thank you, and the crowd screamed Tomo’s name.
You could see from the big screens that Tomo was trying not to cry, because he was blinking quite a lot.
He thanked everyone, Rikkai, the staff, etc. In the Senshuu show, he thanked Rokkaku too, and said how with everyone he named, he could be Kaidoh, and talked about how much they’d helped him. Whilst he was talking, the crowd was respectfully silent, although you could hear people crying and sniffling, and random people calling out plaintively, “Tomo!” The girl next to me was wiping tears.
In the morning show, he announced the new song, The Regulars.
In the Senshuu, either Ryoma or Tezuka announced it.
25. The Regulars
YAY, AN OLD CHESTNUT which we so adore.
Oishi sang first, and he was great.
Kikumaru sang next, and …he was better in Senshuu.
Momo sang next.
Tomo sang Kimeru’s part, and in the 11 am show, it didn’t go very well >.<
But in the Senshuu, there was this sudden silence after the first Tomo line, though the background music was still playing, and on the big screens we saw that Tomo was looking away and crying, and trying not to cry, all through the rest of the lines, as Seigaku realized and started to move towards him (Ryoma was already there, because he was nearby). T______________________T T___________________________T
T____________________T
But then the crowd picked up the song and sang it for Tomo. With the crowd singing with him, he managed to sing the last line of his part.
The rest to sing should be Oga-san, possibly Tezuka (though he didn’t appear on the screen), Inui, Fuji, who sounded good, and then Ryoma, who was good.
Rokkaku appeared in the ARENA sub-stage during the song!!!
The rest of the schools appeared for the rest of the song, guests, Higa, Rikkai, Seigaku, ichinen…
Then they all vanished…
And then from the darkness on the main stage came Ouji.
26. Kimi wo Shinjiteru
Aka Ore wa Iku yo...
Yukimura stood on the main stage and sang his part.
AND THEN!!! SANADA appeared on the Arena sub-stage! And he sang his part out to Ouji.
In the 11 am show, someone was off for the entire last line. It was fine in the Senshuu. *pause to hyperventilate over Sanada singing so nearby*
And then, at the end, they stretched their hands out to each other, to reach out across that immense gap. “Sanada,” called Yukimura. “Yukimura,” responded Sanada. Umph. The audience swooned and screamed, and YukiSana fans wanted more. =p
Then Sanada walked away, and Ouji (whose jacket came off in Senshuu/slid off his shoulder, and had to put it back on) turned to go away.
Nanjirou came out from the right hand side of the stage, and in the 11 am show, they exchanged a couple of words, but in the Senshuu, they didn’t.
Nanjirou came out and talked and talked.
For Senshuu, I could’ve sworn he discussed how far away Sanada and Yukimura were in that song before it, because he indicated the distance between the stages, but I would need a confirmation on that. Um, anyone? Haha. Oh, wait, I bet he was talking about having two stages! :D
He said thank you to the Yokohama Arena, how it had come so far to DL5, and thanked everyone for supporting, and asked for the continuing support or something, and he poked fun at people.
During the 11 am show, he mentioned “blank-blank-blank” (dom-dom-dom), also known as “blank-blank-maru”, who had some habit or other.
During the Senshuu, he mentioned Tezuka and what a (thumbs-up) good voice he had, and such stuff.
In the 11am show, he noted the time (it was fast approaching the 1.5 hour-mark which I thought the website said was the length of the show), and then he said that this was 4th generation Seigaku’s ballad.
26. Ai koto ga/Ai kotoba
Also known as SEIGAKU VICTORY FOREVER, VICTORY FOREVER, FOREVER.
It was beautiful, and I think it won’t be as hard to learn to sing as eg Luke C’s song for the Tezuka-Luke C battle.
It was nice and echoey.
Let me describe Seigaku’s suits. They all wore white (more or less) with huge blue flowers with giant petals, hard to describe, sort of raffia-like petals, huger than their mouths, of course.
Tezuka and Ryoma appeared first.
Ryoma was wearing a white cap, white calf-long Bermudas and an open white short-sleeved collared shirt, and I think the shirt inside that open shirt had some design on it.
Tezuka wore a white jacket with RUFFLES! The lapels were huge ruffles, and he had some folds of cloth round the neck of his shirt.
Inui fortunately was not wearing pyjamas, unlike some previous musicals. He wore a white shirt with a loose gigantic tie (must’ve been wider than his wrist), and a chain on the right side of his chest. The flower was relegated to the left side.
Oh dear, for Oga-san I have very little, I was just blown away by the blooming flower he was wearing, it says “flower” on my notes. And he wore long sleeves, very useful for telling him apart from Oishi and Momo.
Kikumaru was so cute. He wore a white beret perched on the back of his hair, and a blue scarf. Hmm, this sounds familiar. I’ll go look at Dream Live 4th!
Oishi wore a grey vest and a rolled-up white sleeved collared shirt and a huge blue flower. Kind of like Toyoda’s style, actually ^^;;
Momo wore a blue collared shirt that was open, and a white-grey shirt inside.
Hirata (whom I thought was Tomo at first until the camera zoomed in on him!! Should’ve guessed from the walking…no wonder I thought he moved like Ryoma. But it was so hard to tell D:) wore a white hat, and normal white jacket and pants.
Fuji wore a white collared shirt and a kind of scarf was draped round his neck.
They sang, very very well. In this order, I think: Inui, Tezuka, Oga-san, Kikumaru, Oishi, Momo, Hirata, Fuji, Ryoma.
There was some moment where Ryoma even sat down in the middle of the stage.
They went down the runway at some point, like the runway collection for Versace. They even turned to face the sides and stood still for a while.
And they blended their voices exquisitely. *_*
Right after that…
27. Forward my men Reprise
New Seigaku started with Forward My Men. Gosh, Tomo never got to sing this song on stage…
Alsepang liked Hirata’s dancing very much.
Kikumaru also dances very very well :)
Randomly, Fuji flicked his scarf in the song, very coolly. Aaaaah.
And that of course segued into…Seigaku/etc FIGHT!
Seigaku had disappeared off the stage and Rikkai appeared first!
The crowd sang, “RIKKAI FIGHT!” and then Rokkaku appeared, and the crowd shouted, “ROKKAKU FIGHTO!” and then Guests appeared, and since we had to choose our schools, most of the crowd shouted, “HYOTEI, FIGHT!”…well.
As a fan of the older rivals…it was hard to choose! I wanted to sing Guest, Fighto, but that was hard ^^;;
Naturally, this meant Try Again went on.
It seems that Tomo was the Kaidoh here, because right then, we went straight into…
28. REUNION! Heat UP II
At first I didn’t like this song, but by the time DL5 came around, I did, and it’s great.
Well. It kind of looked like Hirata at points, but at Senshuu, it was Tomo there. Yes, that mattered to me.
Rikkai appeared first, then Seigaku, Rikkai, then Higa. Higa alone, Rokkaku joined them, guests came in.
So guests were on the top tier, Rikkai in the middle, and Seigaku, ichinen, Higa and Rokkaku smushed on the ground tier.
There was a HUGE golden explosion at the end, immensely shockingly loud.
Then darkness…
…but the racquet in the backdrop glowed purple still, and people cheered for an encore, until…
29. FGKS!!!!!
There was only one Kaidoh (Tomo) for the 11 am show.
At Senshuuraku, though, there were TWO Kaidohs, of course, moving together for the Kaidoh parts. That feels freaky, come to think of it, but it was sweet and moving.
Seigaku ran into the audience, and Ryoma was in the right aisle.
During the 11 am show, Tomo and Fuji had to slide aside to avoid bumping into each other, and when Tomo-Kaidoh met Inui, they exchanged hand grips in a rare sign of off-stage friendship between a Kaidoh and an Inui, this coming from someone who has long thirsted. Sorry, 4 years 15 days and 2 months is very touching and all that, but a little more interaction and friendship is nice everywhere.
Speaking of which, the 4th cast is adorable…when Kikumaru was dancing at the top with Oishi on one side and Inui on the other side, first he and Inui exchanged happy glances, and then he and Oishi exchanged happy glances. It’s nice seeing 4th cast this close. And then when Kikumaru went down to the ground stage, he and Oga-san (Taka-san) did arm gripping or something.
According to alsepang, while I was busy adoring the Seigaku members as they ran past, Saeki and Juri were having fun dancing ridiculously at the very top tier of the stage.
What I noticed was that as they ran back to the stage, Toyoda-Oishi touched the hands of the girls who were reaching out! Not all of them, of course-he paused to hand-grip Tezuka, possibly, but definitely he did. Wow. That’s sweet. And sweaty.
For Senshuu, if I’m not wrong, it was at the end of FGKS that Kai jumped onto Luke C’s back!! Luke C. promptly piggy-backed him off the stage to loud squeals from the audience!
Then darkness after it was over…
The girls started up the clapping for an encore again…
Then the screens showed the audience, and the opening lines of On My Way appeared on the screen as subtitles…;_;
30. On my Way
It was so, so, moving. Both Kaidohs were here for both shows.
They went on stage and danced, and part way through the show, Rikkai jumped off the stage to run to the Arena sub-stage to dance! Rikkai was dancing to the audience near the sub-stage, with these huge, happy grins on their faces! Alsepang said that Ouji was blowing kisses at the audience!
Now, when it came to the part where Shirota and Katou Kazuki used to blend and harmonise, in Senshuuraku, SOMEONE was blending! It was an original blend (of coffee), different from the Shirota and Katou Kazuki version, and it went well for one line and badly for another one or two lines, but picked up properly later.
It was probably Miyano Mamoru and it sounded as if Saitou Takumi joined in, too. Very nice!
And then at the end of the song, for the 11 am show, Tomo just kept jumping and jumping in the air (he was on the stage for the whole song, I think), really jumping, with his knees up to his chest, that sort of jump, with every beat, until Fuji (Furukawa Yuuta) came over and patted him and put an arm around him or something. Kaidoh-Hirata was dancing normally next to him.
Now, if you’ve seen Higamyu, you’ve seen that at the end of On my Way, Golden Pair put their arms around each other and jumped together happily. And I really thought that that was great but probably a fluke, just once-off.
But for the 11 am show, they definitely did it again, putting their arms around each other and jumping. You could see them kind of looking at each other early in the show. I like it when a Golden Pair is close-you can’t play doubles if not.
For the interested, Toyoda says in the pamphlet that the secret weapon (of the Golden Pair) is the trust between the Golden Pair. Hamao doesn’t mention the Golden Pair ^^;; But he was captain of his secondary school team (in his third and final year in secondary school before he went into high school), he said, in the Higamyu booklet.
For the Senshuuraku, when the rest of the cast (except Seigaku) had left, they had put their arms around each other and jumped away happily and waved at the audience for what felt like the longest time, on the left hand side of the stage…
…embarrassingly, not noticing that Tomo was on the OTHER END, the far right of the stage, and that the rest of Seigaku had gone to surround Tomo (the other Kaidoh on the right, I remember), and then Fuji did to Tomo what looked like what Aiba did to Tomo in backstage Rikkai 1st Service, you know, attacking him from the side with a kind of hug or something. Then someone had the brilliant idea of kneeling and waving his hands around Tomo, so some of the rest picked that up and it looked like…Tomo was surrounded by some waving hands presenting him. (It was exactly like in Dream Live 1st, when Kimeru as Fuji was surrounded by the waving hands of the Seigaku 1st cast).
Except for the Golden Pair.
Who were still (embarrassingly), waving and jumping and smiling at the audience on the far left of the stage, with their arms around each other, and then they ducked into the left-hand side curtained exit together, not noticing that Seigaku was like, somewhere else altogether!!!
Then Tezuka (I think) disappeared into the middle curtained exit (maybe to drag them out), but then it was over in seconds before anyone reappeared, and everyone went off and the lights went out.
I hope that Osaka Senshuuraku is long and good and bids a proper full farewell to Tomo, because he really, really deserves it.
REFLECTIONS
Alsepang: Watching a Prince of Tennis Musical live is totally different from watching it on DVD, It’s not just because of the atmosphere and the heady realization that the boys are there, in the flesh. It’s because when watching it live, you can really feel the blood, sweat, guts and tears they must have shed to get to that level. You can feel that they put in a huge amount of work and that they’re singing, dancing and acting their hearts out for the audience who came to watch them. The fact that Kai and Daisuke took on those dangerous stunts - no joke, flying high above like that when a single fall could cause them terrible injury- for the sake of the fans… well, I am extremely moved. I really, really appreciate what they’ve done.
grumpychild says: The special thing is really being with so many fangirls and trying to send out your support for the boys because your one penlight sends that message of encouragement when it joins the light from a gazillion other throbbing hearts' penlights :)
Then a ship’s horn sounded!!!
20. Viking Horn
Everyone cheered, of course, and then out came Higa. Kai was FLYING. !! He was wearing bright red and was like Peter Pan, really flying beautifully (as opposed to descending staidly on a platform). He was terribly enthusiastic, waving his arms and legs up and down as he sang.
Luke C as Kite was in a captain’s suit, a beautifully grand dark blue long coat.
Take-chan as Chinen, like the rest, wore vests and striped shirts, and they ALL can-canned to Viking Horn!! Partway through it, Kai descended, and was unbuckled by people in black hurrying out from the curtained exits. But towards the end, he took off into the air again.
When he landed, Tanishi Kei pretended to take the buckles off him, but in reality, backstage staff were buckling Tanishi up and he said HE wanted to fly. When he did, he did BIG BANG from the top and during Senshuu, the audience shouted along with him…
…before he realized it was a little too high, and he begged to be let down, which he was.
Puns followed, dreadful ones which appeared on the huge screens at the side.
There was a question and answer section; for example, a question that resulted in the words “minna” resulted in Higachuu singing the first line of their Dark Horse song, “Minami…” (an island in the south) ^^;;
ETA: NB: They sang this first line for the Senshuu too, though I'm not sure how they led up to it.
Then there was another question and answer thing which read, in katakana: “Dou you habu a habu?” and the two possible answers were 1) something in hiragana which I didn’t copy fast enough and 2) in English, “Yes, I have”. XD (because the line in katakana can be read as “Do you have a have?” and answer 2 would fit that English question, of course. …^^;;)
English-speaking parts tended to be said by Luke C or Yasuka (Hirakoba Rin). E.g. in Senshuu, Rin said, “Sorry” and I think he read out, “Yes, I have.”
For Senshuu, the questions and answers involved thanking Tokyo Arena, and something about hair.
Take-chan (Chinen) got to clap his hands twice, and the crowd joined in!
THEN came one of the magical surprises of the night!
Two people, dressed in coats and hats, appeared on the SUB-STAGE!!!!
THE PLATINUM PAIR!!! AAAAAH! (As we had seats near the sub-stage and had originally resigned ourselves to the fact that we would see almost nothing because we didn’t know of its existence until Sonoko-san told us (thank you!), this was GODLY FOR US.)
21. PETENSHI DA
They were in very smart aristocratic-looking coats themselves, black for BBT and bright red edged with white fur (alsepang’s help here) for Niou! And they wore their Rikkai uniforms underneath. They had black top hats, and sunglasses, and Niou wore this tremendously shiny garland-cum-necklace!
They danced, new dance moves in perfect sync with each other, filmed all the time by cameramen carrying heavy cameras on their shoulders. Baba Tooru had one camaeraman exclusively focused on him; the other cameraman was glued to Masa Niou. Such slick dancing, such fluidity and grace, as if their feet were moving on air. Such perfect timing, as if they were two halves of one whole. Better yet, they were projected onto the large screens face to face as mirror images (thanks to the separate cameramen!).
They had to move their fingers one joint at a time, then their hands like robots, and their torsos…perfect. Those dance moves were slick - and no doubt coloured by fanservice needs. There were moves that required them to be within an inch of each other’s bodies and faces, and even one where their hands shimmied in the air close over each other’s bodies - as if touching. Exquisitely and professionally executed by both Baba Tooru and Masa Niou (and no doubt making many a fangirl swoon from the fanservice).
Alsepang on Senshuu
During the line “ARTISTE…” (that’s what it sounds like), when it was Yagyuu’s turn to sing, instead of singing, he paused and let the audience sing it!
And when Niou sang his parts, Yagyuu was motioning to the audience to come on and sing loudly! He kept beckoning to the audience and putting up a hand behind an ear as if he couldn’t hear the audience loudly enough!:D
At the end, it was off with the sunglasses, the hats (I saw a gap in BBT’s top hat, I thought…) and Niou took off his garlands. I think that in Senshuu, BBT threw something into the crowd-his sunglasses?? Yes, he did!!!!
Then…
22. Golden Pair
YES! I miss this song SO MUCH.
On the main stage were Saeki and Itsuki, Ono-Kirihara, Fuji-Kawamura, Kaidoh and Momo, and, of course, in the front, Oishi and Eiji. Rin (Yasuka) and Take-chan (Chinen) as well. The platinum pair stayed on the sub-stage.
Seigaku’s GP wasn’t very in sync, but it’s okay! :) because I am biased. While I do miss Takiyuki and Setomaru’s perfect body angles, …uh…I do like this Golden Pair.
After the song, there was fanservice, and alsepang saw it all, because I was busy watching the Golden Pair.
Here is alsepang’s description!
Morning show
Niou kept reaching up to try to touch Yagyuu’s face and Yagyuu kept batting away Niou’s hand sternly. Niou finally stopped trying to touch Yagyuu’s face. After a few seconds whilst the two stared into each other’s faces, YAGYUU REACHED OUT AND SLID HIS HAND RIGHT UNDER NIOU’S CHIN, LIFTING IT SLIGHTLY. The audience around them swooned and screamed. THEN YAGYUU GENTLY CHUCKED NIOU’S CHIN TWICE. Possibly the crowd died from sheer joy at this moment. Then, abruptly, the two pulled apart, and the Platinum Pair pointed to the main stage where the Golden Pair were, re-directing the attention of the audience to the main stage.
Senshuuraku
I missed a bit of the opening bit of the fanservice, but Yagyuu was holding up an admonishing finger to Niou. They seemed to be disagreeing about something. I turned my attention away to the main stage for a second and when I looked back the next second, Yagyuu was turning his back on Niou and Niou was turning away from Yagyuu, and both moved to diagonally opposite ends of the sub-stage. It looked a lot like a lover’s quarrel!!! After a few seconds, as the lights began to dim, Yagyuu turned back towards Niou and walked towards him. Niou also turned, very slightly, in Yagyuu’s direction, and began sidling towards Yagyuu slowly but surely. They’d just reached the point when they were about a half-arm’s length away from each other, both facing the direction of the main stage, when the lights went off -- SIMULTANEOUSLY, AS THE LIGHTS WENT OFF, YAGYUU REACHED OUT AND CLASPED NIOU’S HAND. THEY WERE HOLDING HANDS! JUST THAT ONE SECOND because in the next second, the lights went on AND SIMULTANEOUSLY, THEIR HANDS PROMPTLY PARTED. AAAAAAAAAAAH!!! I don’t think I was the only one in the audience celebrating their audacity. XD
Quite apart from the swooning - seriously, the acting was superb. It required perfect timing, which was executed right down to the last second. The acting was made all the more real because of the clear bond between the actors. I was also impressed by how they braved each other’s sweaty and sticky palms to hold hands for the fans.
23. …juudenkanryou?
Okay, at the end of the scene between the platinum pair, they both (in sync again) pointed to the front stage so everyone would look at it.
During the platinum pair scene, Oishi had actually been placing a feathery headband on Eiji’s head. SO CUTE.
Then they sang. I can’t remember the song’s name D: Let’s call it juudenkanryou.
It has Oishi
-->poking his racquet at Eiji during the dance (SO CUTE)
-->and then making pushing-forward movements with his arms and hips (see Taka-san in the Go-Go-Masei song in Rikkai 2nd Service, where he inexplicably thrusts himself…right…for no good reason other than…)….
-->and do you remember Kotani in his Burning song in Hyotei/DL3, which requires him to put his hands beside his hips and wiggle? Well, Oishi did that too.
Seigaku was dancing in the background at around the time the second move appeared. They didn’t have the interesting moves that Toyoda-Oishi did, though.
HAMAO IS SO DARN CUTE. Yes, he is!!!!!!
Anyway, unexpectedly, Kai popped up onstage from a trapdoor! Then Kazuma, in the centre, then Marui on the right!! They each had a verse to sing!!! When it came to Marui’s turn, Kikumaru tried to take centrestage, but Marui pushed him aside and after he sang his part, he turned to the crowd and said, “Dou? Tensai teki?” WAAAAAAAAH!!!!!
Kikumaru is cute as heck. He was so bouncy and so PRETTY and smiley. He’s got a brilliant smile. We’re sold!!!!
The ichinen appeared also, on the second tier, before they danced down. They had pom-pom-like sleeves, puffy and colourful ^^
After that song, Momo appeared and spoke about…having a song? Being on stage? He even put his hands to his heart to make a doki-doki movement. ^^;;
But then Kaidoh (Version: Tomo) appeared behind him. Interestingly, the crowd was quite quiet.
And then Kaidoh ETA: started clearing his throat like he was going to sing, and then he came forward and he said he was the third generation Kaidoh, and he was a mamushi!
24. Kaidoh’s solo
Then he got to DANCE and he was awfully cool. He sang, and when he started, he was really awfully Kaidoh-like, and I was so, so, so happy!! The song involved embracing his racquet at the end of each chorus.
Alsepang says the microphone stopped for a moment in the middle of his song and picked up again during the morning show, but I couldn’t tell; and in senshuu, to avoid that, they in fact upped the volume at the point where the music had stopped briefly previously (she identified the moment).
T_________________________________T
Alsepang thinks there was in fact feedback during that moment T_T
He sang better in Senshuu then in the morning show. Um, actually, he was quite off in the morning show. ;_; (That said, it seems he had very little time to do this, what with saxophone practice for some show, and D-stage and such. And he was very Kaidoh-like AND HE GOT TO DANCE COOLLY….all my biases are climbing out of the cupboard now.)
After the song, in Senshuu (unlike morning show), he bowed to the audience in three directions, and the crowd screamed, in waves, TOMOooooooooooooooooooooooo.
Eg. faintly, "Tomoooo", then, screamingly, "TOMOOOOooooo". That happened quite a lot.
I was pretty glad. It was quite different from the morning show, as in, there were louder screams and this time it was clear they were REALLY screaming his name.
Then Seigaku came out with 4th Kaidoh and they had a message from Hirata Kaidoh (very specifically announced as 4th generation Kaidoh) to Tomo, which ended with how he wouldn’t lose.
Senshuu message was different, something about Hirata and Tomo working together? Can't remember.
Then Tezuka spoke.
In the 11 am show, he opened with a joke; he took a line that Kaidoh often says and which begins with “Kaidoh Kaoru” (see Higamyu backstage where Hirata is interrupted by Shougo) and he replaced the name “Kaidoh Kaoru” with “Tezuka Kunimitsu”. Can’t for the life of me remember it. Kaidoh Kaoru won’t lose? Bfft.
But for Senshuu, it was different. He said, thank you, and the crowd screamed Tomo’s name.
You could see from the big screens that Tomo was trying not to cry, because he was blinking quite a lot.
He thanked everyone, Rikkai, the staff, etc. In the Senshuu show, he thanked Rokkaku too, and said how with everyone he named, he could be Kaidoh, and talked about how much they’d helped him. Whilst he was talking, the crowd was respectfully silent, although you could hear people crying and sniffling, and random people calling out plaintively, “Tomo!” The girl next to me was wiping tears.
In the morning show, he announced the new song, The Regulars.
In the Senshuu, either Ryoma or Tezuka announced it.
25. The Regulars
YAY, AN OLD CHESTNUT which we so adore.
Oishi sang first, and he was great.
Kikumaru sang next, and …he was better in Senshuu.
Momo sang next.
Tomo sang Kimeru’s part, and in the 11 am show, it didn’t go very well >.<
But in the Senshuu, there was this sudden silence after the first Tomo line, though the background music was still playing, and on the big screens we saw that Tomo was looking away and crying, and trying not to cry, all through the rest of the lines, as Seigaku realized and started to move towards him (Ryoma was already there, because he was nearby). T______________________T T___________________________T
T____________________T
But then the crowd picked up the song and sang it for Tomo. With the crowd singing with him, he managed to sing the last line of his part.
The rest to sing should be Oga-san, possibly Tezuka (though he didn’t appear on the screen), Inui, Fuji, who sounded good, and then Ryoma, who was good.
Rokkaku appeared in the ARENA sub-stage during the song!!!
The rest of the schools appeared for the rest of the song, guests, Higa, Rikkai, Seigaku, ichinen…
Then they all vanished…
And then from the darkness on the main stage came Ouji.
26. Kimi wo Shinjiteru
Aka Ore wa Iku yo...
Yukimura stood on the main stage and sang his part.
AND THEN!!! SANADA appeared on the Arena sub-stage! And he sang his part out to Ouji.
In the 11 am show, someone was off for the entire last line. It was fine in the Senshuu. *pause to hyperventilate over Sanada singing so nearby*
And then, at the end, they stretched their hands out to each other, to reach out across that immense gap. “Sanada,” called Yukimura. “Yukimura,” responded Sanada. Umph. The audience swooned and screamed, and YukiSana fans wanted more. =p
Then Sanada walked away, and Ouji (whose jacket came off in Senshuu/slid off his shoulder, and had to put it back on) turned to go away.
Nanjirou came out from the right hand side of the stage, and in the 11 am show, they exchanged a couple of words, but in the Senshuu, they didn’t.
Nanjirou came out and talked and talked.
For Senshuu, I could’ve sworn he discussed how far away Sanada and Yukimura were in that song before it, because he indicated the distance between the stages, but I would need a confirmation on that. Um, anyone? Haha. Oh, wait, I bet he was talking about having two stages! :D
He said thank you to the Yokohama Arena, how it had come so far to DL5, and thanked everyone for supporting, and asked for the continuing support or something, and he poked fun at people.
During the 11 am show, he mentioned “blank-blank-blank” (dom-dom-dom), also known as “blank-blank-maru”, who had some habit or other.
During the Senshuu, he mentioned Tezuka and what a (thumbs-up) good voice he had, and such stuff.
In the 11am show, he noted the time (it was fast approaching the 1.5 hour-mark which I thought the website said was the length of the show), and then he said that this was 4th generation Seigaku’s ballad.
26. Ai koto ga/Ai kotoba
Also known as SEIGAKU VICTORY FOREVER, VICTORY FOREVER, FOREVER.
It was beautiful, and I think it won’t be as hard to learn to sing as eg Luke C’s song for the Tezuka-Luke C battle.
It was nice and echoey.
Let me describe Seigaku’s suits. They all wore white (more or less) with huge blue flowers with giant petals, hard to describe, sort of raffia-like petals, huger than their mouths, of course.
Tezuka and Ryoma appeared first.
Ryoma was wearing a white cap, white calf-long Bermudas and an open white short-sleeved collared shirt, and I think the shirt inside that open shirt had some design on it.
Tezuka wore a white jacket with RUFFLES! The lapels were huge ruffles, and he had some folds of cloth round the neck of his shirt.
Inui fortunately was not wearing pyjamas, unlike some previous musicals. He wore a white shirt with a loose gigantic tie (must’ve been wider than his wrist), and a chain on the right side of his chest. The flower was relegated to the left side.
Oh dear, for Oga-san I have very little, I was just blown away by the blooming flower he was wearing, it says “flower” on my notes. And he wore long sleeves, very useful for telling him apart from Oishi and Momo.
Kikumaru was so cute. He wore a white beret perched on the back of his hair, and a blue scarf. Hmm, this sounds familiar. I’ll go look at Dream Live 4th!
Oishi wore a grey vest and a rolled-up white sleeved collared shirt and a huge blue flower. Kind of like Toyoda’s style, actually ^^;;
Momo wore a blue collared shirt that was open, and a white-grey shirt inside.
Hirata (whom I thought was Tomo at first until the camera zoomed in on him!! Should’ve guessed from the walking…no wonder I thought he moved like Ryoma. But it was so hard to tell D:) wore a white hat, and normal white jacket and pants.
Fuji wore a white collared shirt and a kind of scarf was draped round his neck.
They sang, very very well. In this order, I think: Inui, Tezuka, Oga-san, Kikumaru, Oishi, Momo, Hirata, Fuji, Ryoma.
There was some moment where Ryoma even sat down in the middle of the stage.
They went down the runway at some point, like the runway collection for Versace. They even turned to face the sides and stood still for a while.
And they blended their voices exquisitely. *_*
Right after that…
27. Forward my men Reprise
New Seigaku started with Forward My Men. Gosh, Tomo never got to sing this song on stage…
Alsepang liked Hirata’s dancing very much.
Kikumaru also dances very very well :)
Randomly, Fuji flicked his scarf in the song, very coolly. Aaaaah.
And that of course segued into…Seigaku/etc FIGHT!
Seigaku had disappeared off the stage and Rikkai appeared first!
The crowd sang, “RIKKAI FIGHT!” and then Rokkaku appeared, and the crowd shouted, “ROKKAKU FIGHTO!” and then Guests appeared, and since we had to choose our schools, most of the crowd shouted, “HYOTEI, FIGHT!”…well.
As a fan of the older rivals…it was hard to choose! I wanted to sing Guest, Fighto, but that was hard ^^;;
Naturally, this meant Try Again went on.
It seems that Tomo was the Kaidoh here, because right then, we went straight into…
28. REUNION! Heat UP II
At first I didn’t like this song, but by the time DL5 came around, I did, and it’s great.
Well. It kind of looked like Hirata at points, but at Senshuu, it was Tomo there. Yes, that mattered to me.
Rikkai appeared first, then Seigaku, Rikkai, then Higa. Higa alone, Rokkaku joined them, guests came in.
So guests were on the top tier, Rikkai in the middle, and Seigaku, ichinen, Higa and Rokkaku smushed on the ground tier.
There was a HUGE golden explosion at the end, immensely shockingly loud.
Then darkness…
…but the racquet in the backdrop glowed purple still, and people cheered for an encore, until…
29. FGKS!!!!!
There was only one Kaidoh (Tomo) for the 11 am show.
At Senshuuraku, though, there were TWO Kaidohs, of course, moving together for the Kaidoh parts. That feels freaky, come to think of it, but it was sweet and moving.
Seigaku ran into the audience, and Ryoma was in the right aisle.
During the 11 am show, Tomo and Fuji had to slide aside to avoid bumping into each other, and when Tomo-Kaidoh met Inui, they exchanged hand grips in a rare sign of off-stage friendship between a Kaidoh and an Inui, this coming from someone who has long thirsted. Sorry, 4 years 15 days and 2 months is very touching and all that, but a little more interaction and friendship is nice everywhere.
Speaking of which, the 4th cast is adorable…when Kikumaru was dancing at the top with Oishi on one side and Inui on the other side, first he and Inui exchanged happy glances, and then he and Oishi exchanged happy glances. It’s nice seeing 4th cast this close. And then when Kikumaru went down to the ground stage, he and Oga-san (Taka-san) did arm gripping or something.
According to alsepang, while I was busy adoring the Seigaku members as they ran past, Saeki and Juri were having fun dancing ridiculously at the very top tier of the stage.
What I noticed was that as they ran back to the stage, Toyoda-Oishi touched the hands of the girls who were reaching out! Not all of them, of course-he paused to hand-grip Tezuka, possibly, but definitely he did. Wow. That’s sweet. And sweaty.
For Senshuu, if I’m not wrong, it was at the end of FGKS that Kai jumped onto Luke C’s back!! Luke C. promptly piggy-backed him off the stage to loud squeals from the audience!
Then darkness after it was over…
The girls started up the clapping for an encore again…
Then the screens showed the audience, and the opening lines of On My Way appeared on the screen as subtitles…;_;
30. On my Way
It was so, so, moving. Both Kaidohs were here for both shows.
They went on stage and danced, and part way through the show, Rikkai jumped off the stage to run to the Arena sub-stage to dance! Rikkai was dancing to the audience near the sub-stage, with these huge, happy grins on their faces! Alsepang said that Ouji was blowing kisses at the audience!
Now, when it came to the part where Shirota and Katou Kazuki used to blend and harmonise, in Senshuuraku, SOMEONE was blending! It was an original blend (of coffee), different from the Shirota and Katou Kazuki version, and it went well for one line and badly for another one or two lines, but picked up properly later.
It was probably Miyano Mamoru and it sounded as if Saitou Takumi joined in, too. Very nice!
And then at the end of the song, for the 11 am show, Tomo just kept jumping and jumping in the air (he was on the stage for the whole song, I think), really jumping, with his knees up to his chest, that sort of jump, with every beat, until Fuji (Furukawa Yuuta) came over and patted him and put an arm around him or something. Kaidoh-Hirata was dancing normally next to him.
Now, if you’ve seen Higamyu, you’ve seen that at the end of On my Way, Golden Pair put their arms around each other and jumped together happily. And I really thought that that was great but probably a fluke, just once-off.
But for the 11 am show, they definitely did it again, putting their arms around each other and jumping. You could see them kind of looking at each other early in the show. I like it when a Golden Pair is close-you can’t play doubles if not.
For the interested, Toyoda says in the pamphlet that the secret weapon (of the Golden Pair) is the trust between the Golden Pair. Hamao doesn’t mention the Golden Pair ^^;; But he was captain of his secondary school team (in his third and final year in secondary school before he went into high school), he said, in the Higamyu booklet.
For the Senshuuraku, when the rest of the cast (except Seigaku) had left, they had put their arms around each other and jumped away happily and waved at the audience for what felt like the longest time, on the left hand side of the stage…
…embarrassingly, not noticing that Tomo was on the OTHER END, the far right of the stage, and that the rest of Seigaku had gone to surround Tomo (the other Kaidoh on the right, I remember), and then Fuji did to Tomo what looked like what Aiba did to Tomo in backstage Rikkai 1st Service, you know, attacking him from the side with a kind of hug or something. Then someone had the brilliant idea of kneeling and waving his hands around Tomo, so some of the rest picked that up and it looked like…Tomo was surrounded by some waving hands presenting him. (It was exactly like in Dream Live 1st, when Kimeru as Fuji was surrounded by the waving hands of the Seigaku 1st cast).
Except for the Golden Pair.
Who were still (embarrassingly), waving and jumping and smiling at the audience on the far left of the stage, with their arms around each other, and then they ducked into the left-hand side curtained exit together, not noticing that Seigaku was like, somewhere else altogether!!!
Then Tezuka (I think) disappeared into the middle curtained exit (maybe to drag them out), but then it was over in seconds before anyone reappeared, and everyone went off and the lights went out.
I hope that Osaka Senshuuraku is long and good and bids a proper full farewell to Tomo, because he really, really deserves it.
REFLECTIONS
Alsepang: Watching a Prince of Tennis Musical live is totally different from watching it on DVD, It’s not just because of the atmosphere and the heady realization that the boys are there, in the flesh. It’s because when watching it live, you can really feel the blood, sweat, guts and tears they must have shed to get to that level. You can feel that they put in a huge amount of work and that they’re singing, dancing and acting their hearts out for the audience who came to watch them. The fact that Kai and Daisuke took on those dangerous stunts - no joke, flying high above like that when a single fall could cause them terrible injury- for the sake of the fans… well, I am extremely moved. I really, really appreciate what they’ve done.
grumpychild says: The special thing is really being with so many fangirls and trying to send out your support for the boys because your one penlight sends that message of encouragement when it joins the light from a gazillion other throbbing hearts' penlights :)