I am heading to the airport in like 3 hours so hopefully I can get this written and done in that time, so apolgise in advance if this is a much shorter and crapper version than what I usually give.



Official Website


The Postives:
- My seat was SUPER close to a sticky out part of the stage and the stage would lift up so it was great seeing them so close while they performed.
- Shunya and Saeki are too adorable and I am convinced they're actually dating. They would hug and piggyback and lift up and everything whenever they were on stage! It can't just be because of their characters xD
- Everyone can dance really well!
- The choreography is so good! It's very impressive to watch! Some of the moves were awesome!
- I like how it started with them requesting that everyone turn off their penlights and such so it could be this impactful opening.
- The spinning stage is gold, such a good idea!
- The balls of light that dropped down from the cieling were magical and pretty too.
- I don't mind seeing Arizawa in those performance live pants xD
- Ogotan oh my god.... he's such a fire cracker seriously... any dance move he put 10000% into and you could tell he was working MUCH hard than the other and it completely made him stick out from the other guys. His performance, as usual, was full throttle and amazing! He was jumping around as well and his interactions with Kane-san was great too!
- Hachitsuka surprised me. He acted very much like a gentleman and it made me like him just a tad. Shhh...
- I'm SO happy Shinsengumi performed Tsume to Kiba
- I'm SUPER SUPER happy that Yoshitsune(&)Co sang Shouri no Hata!!! Everyone was freaking out when they came on stage!!
- I am VERY happy with the fact that Yoshitsune&Co and the Shinsengumi got to perform a song!! << these parts were probably my favourite.
- I was surprised at how many PURPLE lights (for both Iwatooshi and Hachitsuka) there were!
- Also surprised at how many Kane-san bags I saw!
- Also Nagasone could ACTUALLY sing this time! First time I saw him at Aiia his singing was terrible! But at this he was really good! He can actually belt out some good notes!
- I loved that they did an extended drum performance BUT there was one point where I got really concerned for Benkei's act. He looked absolutely knackered and everytime he got a breather he's just hold his head back and breathe! =S I know he's old so like my alarms in my head where going mental! I was so concerned.
- Mario's voice was a huge surprise. When he tried to sing deep or quietly he sounded AWFUL, but when he really blasted out those notes he sounded amazing!
- Also I am convinced Mario and Suzuki are exactly the same person just born in different years because holy crap Mario's performance of Jiji yesterday was SPOT ON with how Suzuki plays him! With the whole, 'I'm gunna murder you' face and the wide eyes of craziness and everything. It was chilling and creepy and I loved it! <<<< I MUCH prefer the stage/musical versions of Jiji cos I hate Jiji in the game/in general << just getting that out there xD
- I managed to pull the random badge I wanted and got a hold of a streamer at the end of the show.


The Negatives:

- The sound quality was ATROCIOUS! It completely ruined the experience. Saeki's mic was awful! It didn't pick him up at all! So his singing parts were just music and they NEVER fixed it the entire two hours! Also the mics would start really quiet, as if the tech guys were confused as to who's mic they were supposed to turn on next! I am SO pissed and angry about this. It completely ruined my experience and I honestly did contemplate to LEAVE half way through just so I could scream and complain to the staff. The mics didn't probably pick up anyone voices either! It's like wave in and out as to whether their singing came out loud enough or too quiet. And the music itself was WAY too bass-y and AGAIN such bad quality and SO quiet that I could hear people around me talking rather than the music and the voices itself! Oh my god. I can't with this. AND ALSO! When they came out in the naibu outfits, everyone was screaming and (this proves how bad the sound quality and levels were!) I couldn't hear WHAT they were talking about at all! I have no fucking idea what they said because I couldn't hear a sound out of the speakers! All I could hear was fangirl screaming.
- I dislike how simple they made the dance choreography in Kashuu's solo song.
- Still don't like Torigoe or Yasusada.
- I dislike how they went serious at the end with this 'Kashuu you must choose; us or them' it's a game where the owner can keep like 100 swords at once! This conversation is totally illogical and unnecessary!
- This one is super sensitive and I know I really shouldn't complain about it and I understand how rude it is for me to say this ruined my experience but; I'm tiny both in weight and height BUT I was sat next to two girls who were definitely at least twice my size. So not only were they sitting on their chair AND part of mine, but it also meant I couldn't really move my arms to swing my pen lights to the music cos of how cornered they made me. So yeah, I couldn't go all out and have fun. I would say anyone who has a first floor ticket and who's taller than average and is over 60kilo will have a hard time with the seats because of how tightly packed it all is.
- People couldn't decide if they were allowed to stand or if they should stay sat. Everyone in the arena were stood up from the moment it started. Second floor looked like they were almost all standing too BUT the first floor standings area was half sat, half stood and it was super weird. When I was stood up, I felt weird cos no one else around me was, but when I was sat down I totally wasn't into the concert. And then AFTER the show, SO many tweets were like (from the audience) 'Caution: please don't stand! I couldn't see!' and I'm like 'why the fuck didn't you stand then?!'
- My friend told me I'd need a towel for one of their songs but.... I was like the only person swinging it! And the song is like 2 minutes long! So no, I didn't need it... tis a nice towel though.
- I'm also SO pissed that Shinsengumi and YoshitsuneCo only got ONE song. ONE SONG! Yes they got to perform a super extended drum session which I highly appreciated but ONE SONG?!?!?!?!!? As I said, everyone LOST THEIR SHIT when the guys came out to sing so it's like 'MISTER DIRECTOR! THEY'RE POPULAR! Give them more songs and raise their wages!'
- Another thing I really shouldn't complain about BUT, the girl in front; Kashuu came over and conincidently waved our way (we all know Ryuji is blind and probs didn't put contacts in) and the girl screamed so hard! She screamed like she'd found a dead body and then proceeded to fall to the floor from lack of oxygen in her brain and (maybe it's my age, although I've never been this way) I was just utterly disgusted by her reaction. She's definitely like 19/20 years old but just.... that's the reaction of a 14 year old. I found it laughably ridiculous. The girl next to me too, she was defo older than me and everytime Iwa and Hachi were on the screen or came on stage she was (how do I describe this...) whining (yeah like dog whining) and the only thing I could think was 'these poor actors....'
- Leading in from that point; about half way through I strongly came to the conlusion of 'these guys are actors, not idols. This isn't their job! They shouldn't be doing this type of shit!' and while it's mostlikely the actors are getting confidence and huge ego boosts from doing things like this, I can't help but think, 'your job is as an actor, go and perform on stage and give me good performance, you shouldn't be doing these things like singing in concerts as a made up character... if you wanna sing, go and be a singer. If you wanna be an idol; go be an idol'.... I dunno... is something wrong with me to think this way?!?!
- The first floor seating was very strange. Because it's in a sumowrestling venue, the first floor seats are arranged in those kabuki/sumo audience boxes. So they ended up putting three chairs in each audience box. Is this making sense? It's like this:



BUT because the arena and second floor were just normal seats with none of these boxes, the actors could easily running around the audiences during songs so first floor COMPLETELY missed out which sucks!
- Also they throw balls at one point; Ishigirimaru was on our side but only threw to the second floor. He completely ignored arena and first floor which I think is very rude and unfair.
- I was personally very underwhelmed by the whole thing. Normally something has my full attention but I found myself drifting off in thought a few times and, as I already said, sometimes I even thought of leaving completely. Especially cos I think the tickets were more expensive than a usual Touken musical ticket, you would've thought they'd wanna really make everything... amazing. But to be honest... I rather see them at AiiA; it's a better venue, it automatically makes you close to the actors and you defo get the chance for the actors to ACTUALLY go past you and see you at AiiA. So thanks but no thanks.


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I do contribute a lot of my lack of enjoyment to the awful sound system; if it doesn't sound good then it really does ruin the entire thing. Also I think just personally I don't think actors should be doing this type of thing and I don't think I'll go to one of these again... I want to see my actors actually perform. Not be surrounded by like 5000 fans who mindlessly scream just because they've come out in their naibu outfits (seriously, was there any need for all that screaming?) and screaming the name of a made-up character. I figured I'm very much a 'support the actor' not 'support the character' type of person unlike everyone else...

Anyways, everyone enjoy your day!

I had been eyeing this one since Konchuuger ended and I finally gave in and bought tickets for it last month. Once again, another MMJ production with a stella cast but felt like more people were toujitsuken-ing it than actual people who bought tickets previous to the stage starting and I don't know why because I have been left impressed two now. And you'll see why...



PreShow

I don't know what was going on but at about row 6 or 7 there seem to be like 2 or 3 manager looking people and some could-be-actors young guys and like a guy two rows behind them stood up and greeted them and shook hands and clearly some business deal or something was going on. So could've been scouters or managers taking their newbies to see a stage or something? Whatever it was, they were definitely people from the business. Was interesting to watch...


Oh and the flower outside the place were gorgeous! Normally I don't really pay attention to what the flowers look like but this time some REALLY caught my eye and I had to take pictures! The last flowers are my favourite <3






And once again I got super lucky(!): smack in the middle! How do I always manage to get this luck?! I guess it does run out (we all remember the ticket fails of June and July right?!) but yes I was super happy! But also made me super nervous at the end when all the lights were up and like yeah, in direct eye line for Someya!





Story

So it's about 6 best friends who have just turned twenty and it's set 20 years after the Meiji Era begins and the Edo Era ends. Our main guy (finds pamphlet), Nagase decides that it's time for him to find a job and so informs his friends that he's gunna join the police force and become a police man. His friends aren't sure at first but like best friends, and also the fact they have no idea what to do with their lives, they end up following him to Police Training Camp where we find there are three other groups: The Reds known as Satsuma group: The senpais of the group that have been there the longest and are rather aragont about their position in the camp and are very forward thinking about the Meiji era; The Blues known as The Shizuoka Group: came over from Shizukoka and therefore are still very old fashioned and have a strong dialect and are seen as the outsides because they're the only two not from Tokyo, and akso, in true Sugie style, they're a little camp (xD); and The Yellows known as Edo: the most traditional of the group; one follows the way of the samurai and the other, the way of the ninja. The 6 friends are Green as known as Wakasamagumi (meaning something like 'Young Masters Group') because of A. how young they are and B. how irresponsible they are.
So we follow them as they go through their training which is interrupted when Nagase's childhood friend, and crush, Koizumi, is shot at twice and killed and the murder is pinned on Nagase, so now they try and find the real culprit.

The Cast


Irie Jingi as Nagase
Miyazaki Karen as Koizumi
Kubota Hidetoshi as Soneyama
Someya Toshiyuki as Fukuda
Akimoto Ryuutarou as Hirata
Yasukawa Junpei (<3) as Koyama
Saeki Daichi as Oonou
Kido Yuuya as Minagawa
Kamakari Kenta as Tamai
Ozeki Riku as Sakuma
Wagou Shinichi as Osamu (?)
Sugie Taishi as Himeda
Itakura Takeshi as Kondou
Iwai Kenshirou as Toya
Aoki Juna as Kitao
Nemoto Masakazu as Nakamura
Nakamura Seijirou as Ariba


( ( Brace yourself for a big one! ) )


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And there is my accidentally MASSIVE review which took me like 4 hours to write over the course of 4 days xD

This review may seem a but more tame and longer and more professional compared to previous ones. I have something ticking away in my brain and I guess I'm unconciously and conciously working towards it to see if it's a possibility in the very near future. So yeah... vague I know xD

ANYWAYS, if you're still reading by this time and you read all that ^^^ then seriously give yourself a cookie! Cos it was a lot!! ^_^

Overall: Oh my this was so good! I was thoroughly impressed once again by a MMJ production and they're definitely going on my radar as a company to trsut and follow because this is the second time they've impressed me (they did Konchuuger). This play was SO funny, so hysterical, all the characters are unique and amazing and I wanted to be able to either see it a second time, and/or have 12 pairs of eyes so I could watch everyone! The props were unique too and I loved the dancers! I'm definitely gunna be buying this DVD, if I hopefully have money in October (that's when the preorder finishes).
Rating: 9/10