And now for something different: A review of Ai to Shi no Arabia/Red Hot Sea

[muffin_song]

(Note: Spoilers contained within)

Okay, it wasn’t quite as bad as I heard, but it was still pretty bad.  Judging by the musical half, hanagumi is in pretty bad shape right now.  (Luckily the revue was absolutely awesome and completely reversed my opinion of the new hanagumi).  It’s not really the fault of the Takarasiennes, though.  This just

Comments

[fyrie]

It's going to take a while to shift the balance from Osagumi. They've been so used to it for years, it'll probably take at least a show or two for them to work out how they're going to use Hanagumi now.

But here's hoping, because Yuuhi is fantastic and deserves to do wonderfully well :)

[muffin_song]

I have nothing against Takarasiennes like Osa and Wao themselves as they're both extremely talented ladies, but I often feel like it's harmful to a troupe if a top star stays too long. It gets to the point where it's just really difficult to recover from their departure.

[fyrie]

Absolutely agreed. Especially with the Takahana combination. It took Cosmos a lot to get passed them, but now, it's great :)

[violet_tango]

*randomly steals your icon and runs off with it* :D

[muffin_song]

I'm sorry, I know all of this must be really hard for you :( Despite the bland role, however, your girl looks beautiful. And she gets to frolic around with Sumika-chan playing her young son in the second half.

[sumirepanther]

Thanks!
I'm going to see the new Hanagumi next week, and honestly I feel much relieved by your report on Red Hot Sea. (I have given up on Arabia a long time ago :P I know from my past experiences the end result of Tani Masazumi + o-hirome. )

My first hand information on Red Hot Sea was brought by a friend who went to see this show in Takarazuka and has a pathological dislike for Latin revues, fishy costumes in gaudy colors, and spiky wigs. Unfortunately this one seems to have all of them -_-; (She called it "a deteriorated Takarazuka Kenran").
But from what you have written, I see some hope in this show.

[tokugawa]

Un-chan is still freshening up a bit, though I loved her when she was Hoshigumi material and now as Hanagumi Top, I am so excited to see what she'll do next.

My feeling is this, Hanagumi just lost a longest running Top Star and to fill that void is kinda harder than what it is.

Glad to hear the revue was great though and if I purchased the DVD, this is the Disc I want to see but not just for dancing fishes but for tacky costumes and lots of tropical flavor into the show.

[jess_in_japan]

I had pretty much the same opinion about the show. I LOVED all of the gold in the beginning. I was like, "whoa... I'm in vegas... I mean... 'arabia'" And the other number I liked was ベドウィン・砂漠の民. But other than that, I was generally unimpressed and was like, "WHAT?!? THAT'S IT???" when it ended. But I liked Yuu-chan's charisma in the show... and her ability to seem Scottish, even in Japanese. I liked when she sang the Scottish song =) The show itself kinda sucked though.

The revue was good, even though I don't care for storylined revues. My favorite moment was the ghost ship scene!

Oh no, all this talking about it is making me want the dvd. Gah...