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I watched this yesterday! I funnily enough I've been following KuroMyu pretty much since it first came out on DVD by some random coincidence I came across the musicals and enjoyed them (obviously this was after I began reading the manga but... I think before I even started the anime!!). So I was SUPER pumped to see this! Especially because they were gunna be doing one of my favourite arcs in the world; the circus arc!! <3
Useful Links
Official Site
Press 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
PreShow
I will admit the stage looked freaking amazing on standby and it had some many thngs going on and it loked super kool!
I was also somehow lucky enough to get an arena seat which I've never experienced at Tokyo Dome City Hall before!! So I felt super VIP because I know how hard it is to get a ticket for arena for like Tenimyu and I know KuroMyu is super popular too so I think myself miraculously lucky to get such a seat!
The musical started with two comedic people coming on stage and doing tricks like juggling and playing with kendama and it was very funny, also some people walked in later while they were walking around the arena and they stalked them over to their seats and then asked another girl who she'd come for and such and if the tricks ever went wrong they were like 'It's cos I'm not taking it seriously yet' xD
I'm not going to discuss the plot, I'm sure you can find the summary of the circus arc here.
Okay let's do ALL the aesthetics first
Aesthetics // Staging
I already spoke about how cool the stage is right? xD the set up was really interesting and there were A LOT of parts to it and it was nice how they'd move while the actors were using them and how they used them for the different scenes was interesting!
BUT, it was VERY distracting and very noisy. For example; Ciel, Undertaker and Seb are talking at the front of the stage and people in black cloaks are coming onstage to move parts back and then you saw the curtain close SO slowly and every time it never really actually closed because of the AC blowing the curtains about so you could STILL see behind at times. Also, you could clearly hear them fiddling about behind the curtains and moving, as well as you could hear the actors stepping onto the parts behind the scenes getting in position and such and just personally distracting for me.
The projection mapping was really good!! I enjoyed how they used it and I liked the flashback clips they did and such. For example they use it to show a carriage that takes away the children away. And I really liked how they used it to have Ciel's dad on stage and such. Also it was very good quickly projections too.
Also the costumes were naturally very amazing! But more on that in the individual characters/actors section next.
Actors // Characters
CAST
Sebastian Michaelis - Furukawa Yuuta
Sebastian Michaelis - Furukawa Yuuta
Ciel Phantomhive - Uchikawa Reo
Joker - Miura Ryousuke
Snake - Tamaki Yuuki
Beast - Tano Asami
Dagger - Mitsuya Ryo
William T Spears - TERUMA
Souma - Jinnai Sho
Agni - TAKUYA
Baldroy - Washio Noboru
Finnian - Kawaharada Takuya
Mey-Rin - Sakata Shiori
Undertaker - Izumi Shuuhei
Fred Abberline - Takagi Shun
Sharpe Hanks - Terayama Takeshi
Doll - Shitara Ginga
Peter - Kurachi Ayuka
Wendy - Chinen Saya
Jumbo - Gotou Takenori
Baron Kelvin - Kote Shinya
Doctor - Kyou Nobuo
+Ensemble
+Ensemble
Lets go in order shall we?
I will admit Furukawa Yuuta is a MUCH better Seb than Matsushita Yuya ever was! Furthermore, Furukawa's voice is SO good! I was very impressed with his singing. I also enjoyed his sassy facial expressions he would make to the audience when something unfortunately amusing would had to Ciel or another character. I really enjoyed his and Ciel/Reo's interactions and relationship, I feel like the two actors probably do get on very well and I enjoyed this possessiveness his Seb had over Ciel at times.
However, something about his Seb is missing. He felt a little too light and not mysterious enough and didn't have this dark aura to him...Seb is supposed to be this 'can have his light moments of humour but in general he's dark, mysterious and you should be terrified if he's around' type of guy and from Furukawa's performance I never felt his was mysterious, dark or even threatening. Also Seb's supposed to be sexy right? Furukawa doesn't do it for me >.< sorry Furukawa! But his cute attempted at a cartwheel was cute!
However, something about his Seb is missing. He felt a little too light and not mysterious enough and didn't have this dark aura to him...Seb is supposed to be this 'can have his light moments of humour but in general he's dark, mysterious and you should be terrified if he's around' type of guy and from Furukawa's performance I never felt his was mysterious, dark or even threatening. Also Seb's supposed to be sexy right? Furukawa doesn't do it for me >.< sorry Furukawa! But his cute attempted at a cartwheel was cute!
Now let's get to the real star of the show! Uchikawa Reo!!! Holy moly this kid. When the show started I wasn't sure about him but I was VERY quickly won over! Wow I feel he fits Ciel perfectly; he is Ciel(!), and his acting was amazing! I'm so impressed by him and not only did he keep it together during the comedy parts, but he was also to switch between the strong Ciel and go into this vulnerable very easily. Especially the scene towards the end when he like collaspes to the ground, his slow behavoural change was very good! Seriously, I cannot speak highly enough of this boy's performance! Also his scream at the beginning when he was in the cage!! <3 amazing!
Miura Ryousuke... I'm going to admit it; my expectations of him were ridiculous unreachable. I was expecting this amazing Joker performance and my expectations got the better of me. I've tried to spend today carefully thinking about this musical and I'm going to be honest; I don't remember any of his scenes in the part act at all(!) except one scene where he has a very high pitched solo song which I personally feel just did not work and I didn't enjoy that song =/
I much preferred his performance in the second act but maybe that's because I'm a super messed up person who likes seeing actors act as characters who are in both mental and emotional pain. I really liked seeing his character crumble and it was a good act but still I was pecting more... I DID enjoyed his song (as he was dying) at the end and it did tug on my heart a little. In fact that song and only one or two others are songs I feel were necessary to the musical. << more on the music later.
I'll get it out of the way; I agree with my friend when it comes to Tamaki Yuuki in those leather pants and boots! Oh mama he looks very dashing in them and he looks amazing as Snake! I very much enjoyed the sight!! Also I feel Tamaki did a perfect job in portraying Snake! He definitely brought Snake to life and justifingly so. Also his voices for the different snakes he had were spot on ^_^ fortunately my qualm with his character does not come from his performance but more from the script -- he was HARDLY on stage! Snake is supposed to be a KEY part to not only the circus story but in connection to the Phantomhive house(!) and he's on stage like... four times! And he doesn't interact with Ciel and Seb (at all I think!) so much. Also, unfortunately for some reason I couldn't hear the lyrics to his solo song properly SO I felt that song was kind of unneccesary but the performance he gave of it was good... Tamaki did amazing but what they wrote the script and used his character was such a loss of both character and actor potential.
Tano Asami as Beast was very good. The best part about her performance was her voice! It's very very good! I enjoyed listening to her sing.
I kinda wish they'd made her leggings where her metal/bone leg is more obvious; from where I was, it just looked like someone had perminant-markered a diamond on her slightly darker coloured leggings. Wouldn't been better if they'd made the leggings more dark and made the bone/knee structure part look more obvious. But I'm not fashion and costume expert am I! I could be completely wrong.
Also I am in rage over the sex scene!! I am SO disappointed in the sex scene! You do realise how much of a big deal this is in the manga and how sexy it is right?! I'm not saying show me on stage but... Sebastain actually seduces her properly and slowly in the manga and it's this dark but sexy moment, but in the musical they just sung a song and hugged a little. I was (and still a little am) angry at the execution of this scene.
Now we get to the main character problem; Dagger and Mitsuya Ryo. I love Dagger as a character so of course I was worried about Mitsuya being cast and Mitsuya's performance of him and once again my expectations were high for him. As soon as the video of him doing the unicycle hit twitter I knew 'ah damn I ain't gunna like this Dagger'. Call me stupid but isn't Dagger's talent supposed to be throwing daggers? Yet he spends almost all his time on that DAMN unicycle instead. Sure, I was impressed by Mitsuya's unicycle skills at first (no way I can do that!) but you have to remember that that is not Dagger's character, so it didn't feel faithful. Also he used it too many times as if they put it in so many times just because he's good at it. In all honestly, maybe it would've been better just to have Mitsuya have center stage performance for a ten minute performance and that's all, because that's just not the Dagger I know. ALSO! Why did Dagger/Mitsuya get SO much stage time(?!) Give some of that time to Snake! Jesus...
On a positive; the way Mitsuya plays Dagger when Beast is around is perfect and very faithful to his character. But again going back to the negative; his death scene. He gets shot like a billion times and Mitsuya doesn't even move. He just stood there and then dropped to the floor. I feel like if you're being shot, your body should jolt and move as the bullets hit your skin, but that's not what he did and I found that odd.
And now to a fabulous performance! Teruma as William T Spears. Wow Teruma you're good!!! First of all those damn pants! Where can I get them?!?! I love his and Seb's interactions too! Also his solo was SO good! I really enjoyed his solo song <3 And that final act one scene when he comes out in his pajamas was great too!
Unfortunately I felt his character kinda falls under the radar in the second act which is a shame and is probably down to the script's fault again, but his entire first act performance? Holy moly show me that all day every day!
Jinnai as Souma was perfectly solid and in all honestly I never could have imagined Ryuki doing the part of Souma; Jinnai is the better choice out of them in terms of we know what to expect from Jinnai in this type of role. Which could actually be seen as an unfortunate loss for Ryuki because it would've been a character he'd never done before and a side of his acting that he'd never shown fan before so really both actor choices have their good and bad points. The bad side to Jinnai's performance is that, I'm so used to this type of character from Jinnai that it feel like Jinnai is just playing himself here -- which he CAN do perfectly, but because of that I was very concious of the fact that it was him on stage and not Souma. He did entertain me though; his duo dance scene with Agni was entertaining.
And now for my heartbreak of the night is Kawaharada as Finnian... he got like 10 minutes on stage! 10 minutes!! That's all?!?! Kawaharada plays Finnian delightfully! Finnian himself is a delight!! Kawahrada is a sweetie! Is Finnian and Kawaharada not worth more of anyone's time?! I'm so disappointed in how much stage time he got... even in the songs he didn't really get solo parts. I'm so upset about this the most...ALSO! The moment when the three of them get to kick some ass at the Phamtomhive house? It's over within minutes! It started and I was like 'yes the house battle is here!' and it's over so quickly! I remember being so pumped reading/watching this scene and then crying hard at Dagger's death but the musical completely brushes over it all and just... the Dagger/Beast relationship isn't developed enough in the musical that his death isn't emotional. It was such a short lived but what should've been epic house battle... so little stage time...
Finally let's finish on a big positive shall we?
Shitara Ginga as Doll -- wow another young actor that blew me away and did an amazing job!!! He was the one that got me crying! His final scene! Oh my the tear (or three) dropped! Seriously Ginga and Reo; these two kids!! Just give me a Ciel and Doll ONLY stage where I can watch them interact for an entire play with just them two! This is honestly the first time I've seen kids act on stage and been like 'yes these two are needed!' Both of them are amazing!!
PHEW! Glad that's over with... but now how many death threats am I gunna be getting because of my thoughts?
The Sound // The Music
I had two major problems with the songs/music and to be honest, they're both my fault. Firstly, I found it hard to hear them when they were singing for some reason. When they were talking it was no problem and the sound was perfectly clear and understandable but a lot of the songs I couldn't hear the lyrics, so unfortunately because of that, I couldn't understand the point of the songs were and therefore felt most of them were totally unneccesary.
I've already mentioned some specific songs and voices above that either impressed me or felt weren't need so I won't repeat myself on those.
The second (most likely my fault) thing is; I kinda wish it was a stage instead of a musical. I understand KuroMyu has been going for a long time and I have honestly enjoyed the previous ones. However, when I really think about it, even in the previous musicals in this series: entertainment came first; atmosphere of the story second.
I feel the songs and the music in this made it a show of entertainment and brought the story to this this happy fun time level when it really shouldn't be. It should've been this a dark, mysterious and slightly scary atmosphere that the anime and manga has.
EDIT 2016.11.24: One specific example I can think of is towards the end when Baron Kelvin is singing about how he discovered Ciel in the past; when he wasn't singing but was talking and acting in between I felt his performance was amazing but as soon as he went about to singing the story out I definitely lost something for me; he was no longer being a crazy mental man. If the song hadn't been in I really do believe his performance in this scene would've been phenomenal! The song is what pulls him out of character unfortunately.
If this had been a stage, I think it would've been easy to make a lot darker and ultimately would've been a more satifying of production for me.
Anything else?
Going back to me wanting my dark Kuroshitsuji; the comedy was honestly all a bit too much. In the beginning it was fine but then we as we got further into the story it was still being ridiculous. Especially in the last part (now this did annoy me) where clearly everyone's mood in the audience is down because Doll just got killed, so why (OH WHY?!) are you trying to pull a joke immediately after?! It really did NOT fit that mood!
There was no comedy/story balance throughout in this too in my opinion. The first act was entirely fun and full of jokes and then in the second half it was completely dark -- now I naturally really enjoyed the second act -- but you can't expect most people to jump in on the darkness after you've spent the first 90 minutes being so light about everything. It's just not balanced at all. You need to implement some dark in the first act and slowly build up on the dark through out the play if it want it to work properly!
As for the story itself; A LOT was cut out of the original story and this leads to main actors and characters (I'm looking at you Tamaki) not getting enough stage time. Also it really ruined the character development of people like Joker because you weren't letting the audience spend enough time with him and his development!
Finally; PLEASE STOP doing that opening Ciel/Sebstian contract scene?! It's a waste of time because you've put it in almost every single KuroMyu thus far; we all know what happens, we all know how it began. It's no longer needed and you could've cut it out and used that time more wisely.
Okay I'm done! How many want to kill me?
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Overall: While I was super impressed with the entire look of it all and those kid actors were/are seriously amazing. I felt too much of what Kuroshitsuji is supposed to be was cut out for the sake of replacing it with the entertainment-factor, which is not what I want from my Kuroshitsuji's.
Rating: 6.5/10 << Yes I understand I said a lot of positives in this review but I already don't particularly feel anything for this musical so I can't really put it anything above a 7 or something.
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