#dmmd butai

[ghostoftheyear]

And here's the other half of the scans. I did my best with my scanner and I know they're not perfect. I am sure they'll be showing up on secondhand market sites soon (some already have been all over Mercari), so if you want your own copies, I'd advise checking out sites like Mercari, suruga-ya, or Mandarake. (Especially if you want the pamphlet, which has a lot of extra photos and even outtakes.)

And yes, of course I couldn't forget about these.

[ghostoftheyear]

we will have better pictures at some point, I swear (also whoever started calling these things pamphlets, I stg they were not right in the head. this is A5 size, printed is on good paper, bound, with a lovely cover complete with spot-gloss. if you're thinking of an 8.5"x11" piece of paper folded in thirds, get ready to have your mind blown)

This Pamphlet is 👌

First of all, thank you @ghostoftheyear for showing me these pictures. 🤩

The amount of detail they put into the source material is 👌

I had to employ a local buyer again to get me two. One for me and one for a friend. (Shifty eyes.)

And the creme of the crop...

[moonlit-manifesto]

The DRAMAtical Murder stage play is still going on! I played the games in highschool and oh man the feels of DMMd being dredged up from my memories. Clear is my favorite so I'll be translating some of the actor's tweets. Clear is played by Yamagata Yuuki!

[12/26/19 - Tweet Translation]

Thank you for today's performance ( ˘ω˘ )

Tomorrow is the final Clear's Route show. Allow me to crash "one show, one soul" into your brains and etch it into your hearts. You don't want to miss a second of it (っ ॑꒳ ॑c) I'll be waiting at the theater along with my master [Aoba] =͟͟͞͞( 'ヮ'=͟͟͞͞ 'ヮ' )=͟͟͞͞ ☂️

#domasute

(@yuki_y_1012)

[ghostoftheyear]

I really felt like the fandom needed to see all of the bromides that came out, but if I’m being honest I scanned them for me because I wanted to see all the details up close and these things are small. Anyway, here’s the first half or so.

(There are two sets of Aoba because they opted to release the Seiichiro bromides as well as Naotake’s, since Naotake was such a last-minute replacement. Seiichiro is also Aoba in all of the couples bromides.)

[ghostoftheyear]

Happy Valentine's Day.

(I just really love this shot, but of course I really love these two in particular, so I cropped it for my iPad wallpaper. There's something I can't adequately put down in words about how perfect Allen is styled as Koujaku with the hair down and loose around his neck, his little smile, and the way he's looking at Seiichiro as Aoba. I've gushed about this whole bromide before, so I just want to stare at the details of them this time.)

[hazukiyouka]

Oh please, careful of what you wish for.... 🫠🫠

yuki's laugh is so cute i'm gonna bite my arm off 😔 ✌️

[ghostoftheyear]

So I survived the Koujaku route... somehow. My heart will never be the same, though.

All I have to say is this.

(I am recording but it seems the delayed viewings are better for that. I did not watch ViTri last night because I was so exhausted I couldn’t stay awake for it, so that’ll have to wait. Clear and Mink were both fantastic, I’m excited to see Noiz and Ren, but this is where my heart lives now. And yes, I will post all the recordings once they’re all done.)

[ghostoftheyear]

I feel bad that I've fallen off with doing these, so I took a break from the other thing I've been working on and finished up this one tonight. Seiichiro as Aoba. Still sad we didn't get to see him again even though Naotake was amazing.

[ghostoftheyear]

I was very fortunate to have a friend in Japan who decided (like almost completely of her own free will, lol) to go to see the DMMd plays while they were running. She very kindly picked up a bunch of stuff for me, so now I have all of the solo bromides, my own copy of the special Valentine’s Day bromide, and all of the couples bromides -- as well as duplicates of the Clear, Sei and Ren ones. (And soon I’ll also have dupes of most if not all of the couples ones due to my inability to control my impulse purchasing on Mercari.)

There are... a lot of bromides. I’ve scanned them all and I’m very slowly going through and editing them. It’s gonna take some time, but for now, here’s a little teaser.

[ghostoftheyear]

The clear cards are really hard to photograph, being glossy and also half transparent, so I haven’t attempted to digitize them. But this one. It’s Clear’s Re:Connect title art. They did that. And I love it.

[ghostoftheyear]

The DMMd Stage Plays

No one asked, but I can’t shut up about them, so I thought I’d talk a bit about these.

There’s a tradition, it seems like, of making stage plays about just about every subject imaginable in Japan. Search any anime you’re into on youtube and add “stage play”, and you will find everything. There are stage plays for Haikyuu!, Demon Slayer, SK8 the Infinity, Sailor Moon, Persona 5, Sarazanmai, Revolutionary Girl Utena, Given, Ace Attorney... that’s just off the top of my head. The productions are always creative and interestingly staged. If you’re into theater at all, I do recommend investigating.

It was a bit of a surprise, no doubt, that a stage play for DMMd ran in 2019, given that the game came out seven years prior; still, it did well enough to warrant another run, so we can’t argue with that. The production ran over a two-week period (stage plays don’t seem to be long-running; following any of the actors on social media, you’ll see they do several plays a year), and what’s particularly fascinating is that they did all of the love interest routes in that time period on alternate days.

The cast:

Nagata Seiichiro as Aoba

Kohatsu Allen as Koujaku

Yamagata Yuki as Clear

Tomizono Rikiya as Noiz

Takanori Yamaki as Mink

Yamazaki Shogo as Ren/Sei

Iwaki Naoya as Mizuki

Tominaga Yuya as Virus

Yoshioka Yu as Trip

Hayato Moriya as Akushima

The cast is rounded out by four dancers who added to the background in a variety of ways; Hayato Moriya also played multiple roles as a member of Bug Bomb, the person welcoming Aoba to Platinum Jail, and so on.

This was apparently not the highest-budget production out there, but they got around that with a stage resembling a generic Rhyme field onto which could be projected a variety of images, using that and lighting to make its appearance change significantly to the plot.

Unfortunately, due to (I believe) contractual issues, DVDs were not released for this production. They were livestreamed, and the final route was pro-filmed and can be rented on JP Hulu and U-Next, but that’s all we got. Sadface. However, there was a special after-show “curtain call” segment where the audience was allowed to film on their phones, resulting in a wave of clips that can be viewed here. In a couple of cases, Goatbed also performed “AI Catch” for this segment.

There was a wave of merch released for the plays, including bromides (postcard-size, collectible pictures, many of which can be found on secondary markets), a pamphlet, can badges and such. One presumes we will have another round of these with the new production.

Now the new production is coming up at the end of April 2023, and in addition to being “evolved” from the last one, a Virus/Trip route has been added. It’ll be interesting to see how this goes down, since before, it was only hinted at during the final route.

Recently and devastatingly, it was announced that Seiichiro would not be able to perform as Aoba again. While he was part of the initial lineup for this new cast, the official twitter stated that due to illness, he was being forced to step down and the role was recast with understudy Tsuchiya Naotake. I sincerely hope that Seiichiro is getting better and wish him all the best. Hopefully this is something he’ll be able to bounce back from. What’s particularly shattering is that Seiichiro has been working with Shogo on the recent run of Touken Ranbu in whatever incarnation it’s on now, so to have them not be reunited again absolutely sucks.

In other casting news, both the roles of Trip and Akushima were recast. Trip is now being played by Isono Dai, and Akushima by Makita Tetsuya. Presumably the dancers are all new as well; at the very least, I don’t recognize any of their faces, though as all the cast photos have everyone masked for safety, that makes it more of a challenge. The play is being directed by the same person as before, however.

As to whether DVD/BRs will be released this time, we can only hope that the legal issues have been worked out and we’ll get actual releases. If not, I’m sure there will at least be livestreams, though I haven’t seen anything announced yet. We will no doubt need a VPN for them at minimum; beyond that, we’ll have to wait and see.

[ghostoftheyear]

My order came in with everything from Zenmarket! Despite being several items/separate orders, it was all quite small because the clear cards are literally smaller than standard trading cards.

In addition to all this, I also wound up with even more duplicates of the couples bromides, so I am going to offer those up for sale. They will be $3 each, and I'll pay for shipping within the continental US/Canada/Mexico.

Right now the duplicates I have are:

Koujaku/Aoba: 1x

Mink/Aoba: 1x

Clear/Aoba: 1x

Ren/Aoba: 2x

Sei/Aoba: 1x

Virus/Trip/Aoba: 1x

In addition, I have one extra Mink clear card which will also be $3.

I am even more hopeful to get the rest of the acrylic stands now that I've seen them, but gosh they are so small. Definitely won't need to much room to display them, anyway.

[ghostoftheyear]

Naotake posted today on twitter about the DMMd streams being back on DMM and said that he likes going back and watching his work, and that he's glad he met Aoba. And I don't know why, but that made me cry a little. Like, I'm always glad when an actor enjoys a role and has respect for it, but that was such a nice personal way to put it.

He's such a sweetheart and I'm glad he's doing stuff like Chainsaw Man and Paradox Live now. I hope he keeps getting great opportunities.

[ghostoftheyear]

I did it! I got up at 4:30 and got everything set up, and it looks like everything recorded OK! (Aside from the two times when the stream froze, but the actual recording is good.)

Much more emotional and difficult watching the closer angles on everyone in the Mink route. But also so so sweet at the end. And they included the curtain call dance AND the after-talk with Naotake and Takanori! (I didn’t realize they were coming back with that, so I missed a tiny bit of the beginning.) They answered a bunch of questions sent in on Twitter and I have no idea what they said, but I was too enraptured watching Takanori to care. And at the end, they pretended to ride off on a motorcycle together. So worth it. Even if my cat had to yell at me for the entire two hours and I didn’t get a moment to think.

Can’t wait for Clear’s route at midnight tomorrow... tonight? I’m going to be taking a long nap today...

[ghostoftheyear]

I still get notes on this every now and then and it reminds me that, as improbable as it seemed, we got the stage play again. It really happened. That week feels like a fever dream when I remember it, between the stress of making preparations to move, getting up at 4 am or attempting to stay up to 3 am, bleary with exhaustion. But I'd do it all over again, because. Them. And then getting the bromides and the pamphlet and all. I was lost in the sauce and I'm not over it.

please sir, may we have some more?

There have been a lot of lovely photos coming out of the new run of the stage play, and I am beyond grateful to finally have clear, up-close images of my boys, I can’t even tell you how amazing it’s been. But I think this most recent one from this 4gamer.net article finally did me in. At this point I’m not actually sure I’ll survive the livestream.

[ghostoftheyear]

Apparently there is no end to the good news as far as DRAMAtical Murder goes, because the stage plays are getting a revival.

The official twitter described it as an “evolution”, and also mentioned that an additional Virus/Trip route is being written. All of Most of the original actors are returning for their roles (Seii-chan already tweeted about being excited to apply all the things he’s learned since the original staging).

It’s a goddamned Christmas miracle is what it is.

[image ID: several Japanese actors’ headshots as tweeted for the return of the DMMd stage play. Top to bottom, left to right: Seiichiro Nagata, Allen Kohatsu, Rikiya Tomizono, Takanori Yamaki, Yuuki Yamagata, Isono Dai, Yu Yoshioka, Naoya Iwaki, Tetsuya Makita, Shogo Yamazaki. End ID]