Sakura Taisen Kayou Show 5 - Kaijin Bessou
The show is around 3 hours long and there are totally 10 sessions :
The ticket I bought was a S seat (2nd floor) on 8/17, the second last day of the show. Stephen Lee and I was in the Avex Mode Anime Rave 2001 event in early afternoon that day. Sakura Taisen Hana-gumi members were also there. They left the event at around 16:00 to go back to Shinjuku to prepare for the Kayou Show. Stephen and I stayed a little bit longer till around 16:30 to watch the Sakura Taisen Paris Hana-gumi performance. We left Ariake Big Sight, took the TRW to go to Shinkiba, changed to Subway and arrived at Shinjuku 3-chome at around 17:15. Met up with Richard "Pocky" Kim in Shinjuku 5-chome and went to the venue. When we arrived, there was already a long queue there, same as previous Kayou Show. Many Sakura Taisen Cosplayer there. Nearly all the Sakura Taisen main characters had people cosplaying them. And same as last year, they had put a large block of ice in the corridor where people were queuing to cool the air. When we were approaching the tail of the queue, Dandy Boss, Takeda, Nishimura, and Kaneda-sensei were saying hello to the people queuing up. I managed to shake hands with Kaneda-sensei. ^_^ They let people to go inside the venue at 17:30. As usual, large number of people rush to the kiosk to get the Sakura Taisen Kayou Show goods after camera check. This year's goods are :
Many goods were sold out in minutes. I think both Richard and Stephen bought the Ramune Set, Omamori, and Pamphlet. I only bought the pamphlet and Omamori. The Ramune set has Iris's Omake because there is a song in the Kayou Show sung by Iris : Ramune no Uta. The last lyric of the song is "Shuwaa". ^_^ The Omamori (guardian charm) is like those Omamori sold at the shrines. On the outside, it is written "Arataka Jinja", which is the place where Sakura's sword Arataka was placed. Inside the Omamori, it is a letter written by Sakura's father Kazuma to Sakura, which is same as the Omamori used in this Kayou Show. At the other side of the hall, a stall is being setup to sell the advanced ticket of the upcoming Sakura Taisen movie, with a Sakura Taisen Clear File illustrated by Matsubara Hidenori as bonus. Stephen and I queued up to buy the ticket. However, Stephen was the last one who bought the advanced ticket with clear file, which meant they sold out right in front of me ! ;_; Just before the show started, Hiroi Ohji (original concept of Sakura Taisen, director and overall producer of the Kayou Show. In the Kayou Show world, Hiroi is a stage worker working under Oyakata) came out and addressed the audience. Oyakata joined him after a few minutes. Unlike previous year's Kayou show, Hiroi did not reminded people not to stand up during the show except the final Sakura Taisen OP song : Geki! Teikoku Kagekidan. During the talk, Oyakata stated that the Kayou Show was planned for a 5-year period only, and this year is the 5th year. After some more talk, Hiroi said that there will be a "big Kayou show" next year. However, please do not read into this too much, as Hiroi has a record of announcing big during previous year's Kayou show but failed to compile. E.g. he said in the 2nd year that the next year's show would be perform throughout the whole country, which failed to materialized. When the show finally began, Richard spot a familiar figure sitting in the middle of the first row in the second floor. It was Inoue Kikuko ! Sitting to the right of her was Kozakura Etsuko, and sitting to the left of her was her manager/sister Yayoi onee-san. Another seiyuu, Kimotsuki Kaneta, was seated a few seats behind her.
Hana-gumi RevueThe whole Hana-gumi came out and sang Hana-gumi Revue.
PrologueThen the Deputy Manager of the Daiteikaku Gekijou, Kaede, received an order from Manager Yoneda that the next play to be performed by Hana-gumi would be based on Kaijin Bessou, written by Izumi Kyoka. She was troubled as she had only 3 days' time to settle the script.Kaede was talking with Gekijou's resident script writer Kaneda-sensei when they bumped into Dandy Boss. Dandy-san suggested to go to an onsen to write the script. So they took a bus to go to the onsen (song: Bus wa Yuku Yuku Yume Jousete)
Act IMeanwhile, somewhere in Tokyo, next to an Inari Jinja, there was a Inari-sushi shop. (Note: Inari is a kind of thin sweet bean curd. Inari-sushi is wrapping sushi rice with an Inari sheet. It is said that Fox like Inari very much according to folklore. Inari Jinja is a shrine dedicated to the spirit of fox, which is believed to be. a very spiritual animal.)Kohran and Iris walked by, Iris got her first taste of Ramune. (song: Ramune no Uta). The Inari-sushi shop was very famous in previous generations, but the current owner, Matsukichi, was not up to the standard of his ancestors and the shop was in the blink of out of business. Takeda, the self-procliamed Brazilian Japanese, went to the Inari- sushi shop to make Matsukichi return the money he borrowed from Takeda. Orihime and Reni walked by. It turned out that the whole Hana-gumi was around as they went to a nearby temple to get some Sakura-mochi. Sakura was trying to find the Omamori she lost earlier. The omamori was given to her by her father Kazuma. Maria joint her later for the search. Later Kohran, Iris and Kanna were also searching for Sakura's Omamori. (song: Kangaeru Ashi) Kanna was very hungry but she had forgot to bring any money. She then ate the Inari offered to the fox spirit at the Inari Jinja. Nishimura Yantaro walked by, fell off the staira, and dropped his wallet. During his search for his wallet, he found an Omamori. Sumire walked by. (song: Shiawase na Yume) The Shirokitsune no Rei (white fox spirit) appeared and thought it was Sumire that stole and ate the offering. Sumire fought the 5 minor fox spirits and got captured. In this session, right before the fight, Sumire got her balance off and fell down, one of the minor fox spirit help her got up. Hana-gumi members were around to try to find Sumire, as she had not turned up. The Shirokitsune no Rei appeared, and the Hana-gumi got into a verbal war between them. The exchange was so fast, and Kanna gang called the spirit some name which he denied furiously. The audiance seems to enjoy the name calling very much. Unfortunately, I did not get the name they were calling the spirt. The spirit then "attached" itself into Sumire, becoming a Sumire with white furs. Sumire then fought other Hana-gumi members. Sakura then appeared and used her special spiritual power from her sword to "purify" Sumire and made the fox spirit went away. (song: Guchi Zusamu Uta)
Showtime : Hana-gumi Iwai TaikoAll 8 members performed Iwai Taiko. Taiko is a kind of big durm used by Japanese during festival. The Taiko performance is much much better than the Spring Kayou Show one. You can feel that they had practise for a long time.The performance consists of sevreral parts with no break between them. The rhythm changed for every part and the focal persons changed in an organized way. There are solo foreground parts by every individual of the Hana-gumi. IMHO, Sakura's solo part was the best of the group.
IntermissionUnlike previous Kayou Show, there was no special performance during the intermission.We found that Kikuko and Yayoi-onee-san was leaving their seats. A few minutes later I bumped into Yayoi-onee-san in front of the ladies' rest room. I think she was waiting for Kikuko there. Later, Stephen went talking to Kikuko and told her he had watched her performance in the Avex Mode Anime Rave 2001 event earlier that day.
Act II : Izumi Kyoka's Kaijin BessouUnkokusai narrated the introduction : time was Taisho, when the people in this era depended on stream energy; place was deep in the sea, where no people living on land knew it's existence. The young master of the sea world in his villa was waiting for his lover to descend from above the sea......The heir of the master of the sea, Maria, was feasting with his advisor (Oyakata) and his subordinates (Kaede, Orihime, Iris). (song: Umi no Utage, Hana no Utage) They were waiting for the arrival of the lady originally from the land (Sakura), who was accompanied by another lady (Sumire), and guarded by the captain of the soldiers (Reni). During their wait, Oyakata mentioned something "not lucky" about the way Sakura came. They then consulted the Sea Doctor (Kohran). After checking some literature, Kohran said the rules of the land was different from the rules of the sea, so it would not be "not lucky". (song: Kono Kakimono wa) Meanwhile, Sakura was riding on a "dragon-horse", accompanied by Sumire and Reni, went towards Maria's villa. Sakura was not too sure if she wanted to go to the villa. (song: Yoru no Kurage) At the same time, the red villain (Kanna), was leading her troops to attack the villa. Kanna was very funny when she performed this villain part. At last, Sakura arrived at the villa. After several rounds of talked between her and Maria, which is too long for a "Kayou Show" IMHO, Sakura finally settled her thought and decided her coming to the villa was a correct choice. Suddenly, the troops of Kanna attacked the villa. After rounds of VERY VERY funny fights, Maria drove Kanna's troops away. Tanaka Mayumi is a natural stage performer, as shown in her previous Kayou Show performance, especially in Kayou Show 3 when she was Akechi Kojiro in Beni Tokage, where she was crying for Beni Tokage's death. This time, her ability to make the audiance ROTFL is in full gear. Now that the villain was defeated, Sakura and Maria had the grand final. (song: Subete wa Umi he)
FinaleThe Hana-gumi sang the song Hana-gumi Revue again with 22 dancers. Then the dancers performed line dance (rocket dance).Next is the final song : Sakura Taisen OP - Geki! Teikoku Kagekidan, where all the experienced audiance stood up and performed the specific gestures together during the chrous. As mentioned earlier, since Hiroi Ouji had not told the audiance about the stand-up part and the gesture part, many people in the second floor did not stand up. After the show ended, as usual, some audiance in the first floor initiated the audiance clapping sequence "ban ban ban, ban ban ban, ban ban ban, ban". After I went back to the hotel, I had some time to study the pamphlet in more details. I found something:
I have been to 3 of the 5 summer Kayou Show, and I still find it very interesting. I am looking forward to next year's "Big Kayou Show", if it materialsed.
similar web pages
|