Last night I went and watched Tono Monogatari which is Seto's newest play. It actually has a rather long run and the theater has three floors! It was fully packed! I honestly had no idea what it was about and was under the impression that because it was starting at the end of October, that it was going to be a horror story. But on Sunday a student kindly informed me that Tono is an area in Japan that's famous for monsters, ghosts and yokai, so naturally my mind changed on as to what the story would be about.


*Important Links

Official Website here
Image credits and new article coverage here and here
Seto Video Comments here and here



Thanks to the FC lottery I got a really good seat! Row F! So I was super close to the stage! Thank you Seto Koji! BUT I was surrounded by either couples (which is odd but they were much older so I can understand that) or girls who were obviously there because of Seto but more so the former. In fact 90% of the audience were much older (50s and 60s) and I'd say at least 40% were male! Clearly a crowd I'm not used to but have experienced now and again through the year. It's only naturally because the two main characters and actors are not only very famous, but also in their 50s-ish so it matches the audience.


The beginning starts off which the main actor (who also wrote the script) explaining how he'll be using a lot of different dialects (Tokyo, Tohoku etc.) in the story including his own which is kansai-ben. He also released tension in the room by cracking a few jokes which I wasn't expecting and surprisingly it continued on into the story too, but I'll explain that more later.

Cast



Nakamura Tooru
Seto Koji
Yamauchi Takaya
Iketani Nobue
Yasui Junpei
Hamada Shinya
Ando Wakou
Ishiyama Renge
Ginpuncho

*PS. My kanji reading for names is getting so good! I hardly had to google how to read these! xD

Story

I'll try my best but:

This is like story within a story within a story --> As you can see from the picture below we have the professor and author watching the story (Seto and the old woman) happening but we're supposed to see this as the author explaining the story to the professor. Make sense? I hope so.



The overall arching story is that one professor has come into a police station and is deciding if this author's book is fact or lies (however why he's been arrested for that I have not idea) and thus this professor has been given two hours (to match the lenght of the stage also) to listen to the author's story and to make a decision.

So we now enter the first story which is the author explaining how he went to Tono in Tohoku Area (which is the north side of Japan just below Hokkaido so like Akita and Aomori) and there he encounted some mysteries and creatures and learnt about a village of people who daren't go into the mountains and how people (especially the daughters in the village) are being kidnapped and taken away to the mountains by ookami/wolves and kappa*. The author meets Seto's character called Sasaki and (we enter another story) the author learns he's like a paranormal detector and Sasaki can take dead people's experiences and remember them as if he really was there and he speaks of a red creature (assumed tengu*) who took a girl from his village.



So the author decides to stay with Sasaki at his house but on the way, Sasaki's grandmother dies BUT she comes back as a ghost and often talks to the author. The girl who went missing comes back 3 years later and can now do fortune telling and can read min. However, after getting married, her husband ends up killing her in bed when he thinks she's cheating on him cos she keeps laughing in bed when no one's with her.



In the end, the professor decides it's all fiction, even though right at the end Sasaki (as a ghost) comes right at the very end to talk to him, and the author is taken away in cuffs...

Unfortunately, I didn't hear the final line of the play because my mind was off (most likely) thinking about Seto - oops - but it was a one liner ending to black, so it must've been an important line xD double oops.

*Kappa = youkai demon in traditional Japanese folklore. Kappa are usually mischievous troublemakers. Their pranks range from the relatively innocent, such as looking up women's kimonos, to the malevolent, such as drowning people and kidnapping children.
*Tengu = depending on the time in history and the folklore, tengu are either large, monstrous birds or dog-like creatures, and often with a red face or an unusually large or long nose. They can possess people, especially women and girls, and speak through their mouths.

Did any of that make sense?! Now for what I thought of the story...

I quite liked the story within a story aspect and sometimes the characters from the main story would stay on stage and 'watch' the story as if they were listening to the author talking -- this may sound confusing but I hope it makes some sense! I also really liked Sasaki's character and story. As well as the whole tangu, kappa, ookami, ghost aspects were really good! ^_^ But, I wish there'd been a bigger reveal towards the end. There never really felt like we were getting climaxs or important reveals because there was really no big reactions or anything. I felt like we needed more answers too. Why are there monsters, why are girls being kidnapped, what did she see when she was kidnapped; for example the girl who comes back after 3 years, she never says who took her or even what happened! All that happens is the dead grandma says 'it's okay, you can say you saw it,' and she just goes 'yeh I saw ' and that could've been anything! It's implied it was a tengu BUT it could've easily been a kappa! So I wanted more concreate answers BUT in true Japanese style it's left up to the audience to decide. and more answers.

One final thing is; at first I did really enjoyed the scary/comedy balance and was surprised that they did have comedy in it, but by the end of it, I really wish it'd been more just scary. I think that's partially my fault; I was in the mood and under the impression anyway that it was going to be a scary play. Also look at that leaflet! It looks creepy! So my own expectations and mood is more of the problem rather than the play itself.




For example, in this scene it's a story about how a girl came home to find all the people in the restaurant dead thanks to a deadly poisonous mushroom they had all eaten and so this is suppose to be a bad and scary scene right?! But THEN as they try to move one of the bodies (who unfortunately is a woman with a bit of weight to her) the other bodies stand up and try to haul the body out and it becomes this comedy scene and it's just something I don't enjoy or at least didn't last night. If you wanna be dark then stay dark, if you wanna be comedy then don't go so dark and then jump back from it. Yuhiden did very well in having this overall dark story and only about two time had a hilarious scene -- that type of balance I much enjoy rather than this constant flipflopping between dark/scary and comedy.


The Stage/Visuals

The set is really cool! As you might be able to see from the pictures, the stage is slanted and we start with a table and two chairs and stool. The actors easily use this stage RIGHT up to the edge which was a little scary during some of Seto's parts because we all know how my anxiety is when I watch plays xD It was interesting that this stage is actually HUGE but they only have this SMALL tiny mini stage section at the front that they used as the actual stage so you could see them taking ages to walk of stage but still staying in character and during the 'story within a story' concept the usually sat to the side of this mini stage and watched what was happening on stage. Some even got changed BEHIND the mini stage (but still on the bigger stage) between scenes going on, I'm sure there was a point to this but can't really think of one.

The actually background setting was really cool too! I like how it was either red or green depending on the mood. The more lighter scenes had the background back and green and the darker scene changed to this hectic blood red and black scene. It was really cool how it changed with the light -- yes this is not projection mapping! And the smokes that floated at the back of the stage too helped with the atmosphere and the setting.



Side note: Before the play started, a girl behind me took a picture but the silly woman didn't put Live mode on so the (stereotypical-Japanese-stop-perverts-camera-noise) shutter was super loud and naturally got caught straight away. I almost turned around while the staff were deleting the pic with her and be like 'oh you gotta do this and you'll never get caught' xD but I restrained.

The Acting/Characters

Lets get everyone else out of the way first before I start fangirling over Seto okay?
Overall I think everyone did a very good job. Solid acting, good shifts when the atmosphere changed, if they had multiple characters to play then they could easily switch between them.
Notable mentions would be Nakamura Touru; I really liked how his character went through lots of emotions and his angry scenes were very well done too. His character was interesting also. Great reactions during the comedy scenes too.
I really liked Iketani Nobue's performance too and there's a scene where she has to laugh a lot and it sounded very natural which really impressed me - I definitely wouldn't be able to do it.
For the most part I enjoyed Ishiyama Renge's acting. I think it was more her character's fault as to why she bored me at times, BUT her acting was really good! She very easily switches from this very happy girl to this girl with literally dead eyes and no emotion and then can suddenly switch right back to being happy. I really liked her performance. Also she's this tiny gorgeous thing. Very pretty.
However, I do feel Ando Wako needs a LOT of work. She feels very 1D and she felt wooden and sloppy. She was the weakest in the cast unfortunately.

And now to Seto!!!





I really enjoyed Seto's acting! But what else would you expect from me to say! Although I've been following Seto for years, it's always completely different between seeing him on a screen comapred to see him in person. Whether event, stage etc. he ALWAYS surprises me whenever I see him in person and this was no different. In this I felt his acting was so fluid! He could so flawlessly go from being this fine, normal, happy Sasaki and then as soon as he starts recounting a story he starts freakung out and tears well up in his eyes and seriously, it was an amazing performance and transition to see and he does it several times throughout the play. This is probably also biased but I think his story and character was the most interesting in this play.
I always forget how tall he is until I see him in person too... And lets not forget how freaking SKINNY he is! I mean damn! Those lanky smooth arms and legs of his, and then he has these two giant hands! One of which I've High-Five'd with <3 But I'll stop my fangirling there. Yes, amazing performance and blown away from him as usual.

Extra

I want to take this moment to state how much I HATE Tohoku Ben! Tohoku ben is the North region dialect and I first heard when Makenyu used it in chihayafuru and at the time I thought 'he doesn't sound Japanese... it must be because he was brought up in a America for a while...' BUT I heard Seto speak it tonight whch made me realise it wasn't Mackenyu's natural accent and it's in fact the actual accent and innotation of the Tohoku dialect which made Makcneyu (and Seto) sound so weird! I can't explain it but it's just a disgusting dialect, sorry North Japan. It honestly sounds like when a foreigner is trying to speak Japanese but they can't do the pronunciation correctly! The intonation is wrong and in the wrong places and they elongate a lot of their words and just I really cannot stand it. If you ever get a chance to properly listen to Mackenyu in Chihayafuru then please do and please tell me I'm not alone is hating how it sounds!

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And there we have it! This review took longer than expected but it definitely didn't take a much time as it normally does. I hope it was coherent enough to be understood, especially in the parts where I try to explain the story dynamics.

Have a good day! ^_^