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sambart93 · 7 years ago

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2017.10.06/09 Awatenboi no Yoi Doretachi Review!

Come on.. it’s me going to HirokiKun’s play again! This time though, it was his first ever LEAD ROLE stage!! I’m so proud of him! And it was so good and such an interesting set up and -- I’ll get to it!

Official Twitter here Ticket/Stage Information here

CAST and CHARACTERS* *I may get the names mixed up or forget them a bit because there’s no pamphlet or anything.

Tanaka Hiroki as Yamato Tanabe Toshiki as Master Mizuki Momoko as Naho/Nao Yanase Saki as Ageha Mizuno Natsuki as Tomoko Kondou Yousuke as Rikiya Aoki Kuroudo(?) as Otaku Geek Hachifuku Mizuho as Kotori Moto Shige as Kotori’s husband

NON-SPOILER REVIEW

Overall: This was so good! First off, the set is amazing; it’s in an actual bar and they served us drinks when we came in like real barmen. We sit in actual bar/customer seats and they basically act AROUND us for the 90 minutes. The first 30 minutes or so is very much just adlib and improve with some actual story sprinkled in and then the last 30/40 minutes is to a script. It was a simple but good story and I loved the hilarity and the adlibbing/improv that went on. Hiroki was just a pure baby <3 I’m so proud of him; the way he’s able to switch from genuinely laughing hard at an adlib to suddenly getting into actor mode and being this scared, timid character who’s crying his heart out is just so amazing to witness- he’s very talented, but I already knew that! They were all great and they’re already in talks for a second stage! Rating: 8/10

SPOILER REVIEW

Story

It’s been 6 months since Yamato turned up one night at the bar and started working there. He’s also dating his coworker Naho but hasn’t yet told his boss - who also has a slight crush on her. One evening, a man named Rikiya, comes into the bar while Yamato is on his own in the front and threatens him to return the money his father has borrowed from them years ago. If he doesn’t pay it back then it won’t be pretty. Rikiya notices that Naho is in the back and tells Yamato; you either return the money, or use her body to pay me back. We also have other running storylines such as an Otaku who’s too obsessed with 2D to realise that a regular customer has a massive crush on him; we have a husband who appears to be cheating on his wife, and she’s found out; and we also have a hostess who’s with the husband and trying to earn as much as money as she can for something (revealed towards the end).

The Play Itself

This was very interesting and had a nice balance of serious and comedy. As stated above, the first part of this is just pure adlibbing and improve between Yamato and Master and both times I saw this stage, it was hilarious.

Between the adlibs in the first part, we see Naho come to the store and go in the back to change and get ready for work. The master who has a crush on her tries to open the staff room door while she’s part way through changing.

Eventually the master leaves the bar to do something and in comes Rikiya who threatens Yamato, (pulling him over the bar partially and then throwing him down to the ground) to pay him back asap. Towards the end of this conversation, Naho comes out from the back and to the bar where Rikiya implies ‘pay me back or use her body to get the money’ and he leaves. Yamato says that’s his Aniki (which means both older brother and yakuza-partner), so Naho assumes it’s his brother. Naho brushes the subject off and asks Yamato if he’s told the master about them yet. She momentarily goes in the back for something and Yamato takes the chance to take all the money out of the cashier.

Yamato’s Otaku friend comes in after shopping in Nakano Broadway. he’s obsessed with 2D characters and carries a figure with him all the time; conveniently the figure is called Naho and he also has somewhat of a crush on Naho too and anytime he does something wrong to even slightly annoy or upset her, he would beg for forgiveness on the floor xD He was followed by Ageha and (who turns out to be) Kotori’s husband. It looks like they’re a couple but neither of them explicitly say what’s going on between them. This is where another higawari takes place from Kotori’s husband, but I only remember the one from the 6th:

Kotori’s husband: Butai Ni hamatteru/ Recently I’m into watching stages. Master: Fujiwara Tatsiya? Husband: Sonnani fueteinai Tanaka Hiroki to iu / Not someone that famous. He’s called Tanaka Hiroki *HirokiKun immediately starts to flush in the face* Master: What’s he in? Husband: Next month he’s in something like….. (nan toka) Something something blue. It’s around November 12… Hiroki whispers: 8th to the 15th Master: How do you know Yamato? Hiroki: Oh I don’t! I just figured it was that. Husband: So it’s western Blue or…. Hiroki whisperes again: Marker Light Blue Master: HOW DO YOU KNOW?! Hiroki: Well it sounds right

He got so embarrassed and it was adorable!

After this scene the husband pulls Master aside and says that he’s noticed his phone is in a different place every time he wakes up recently, so that means his wife knows about the affair!

After Ageha and the husband leave, Naho’s friend Tomoko, a very shy easily shaken girl, who we soon learn has a huge crush on the Otaku, turns up. Yet both Yamato and Naho are like ‘what’s there to like about him?!’

Once the master comes back Naho drags Yamato and Tomoko outside to try and figure out how she can confess her feelings to the Otaku. The master is left to ask the guy ‘do you even know what love is? Are you even a man? Don’t you want to become a man?’ and Otaku gets intrigued and wants to find out what it is. The master explains how to get his foot in the door of the Mans World. It is at this point where he grabs the top of two cocktail shakers and goes ‘Oppai!.... Op...pai.... O...P...P....A....I...OPPAI!’ and he and Otaku end up doing this huge ‘OPPAI OPPAI!’ celebration dance WHICH Tomoko walks in on and is naturally hugely scared away.

Then the master gets an even better idea; he remembers Naho mentioning she had gotten her bikini dry cleaned and that bikini is in the staff room. ‘Do you want to see Naho’s underwear?’ and he runs into the back and brings the bikini out. He entices Otaku into going to sniff the bottoms of her bikini, but just as they go to sniff, Naho and co storm in (Tomoko obviously told them the situation she had walked in on) and in a flurry Master stuffs the bikini bottoms in his back pocket, out of sight, before they could sniff them.

And now we have the huge entrance of Kotori. She storms in and demands to see her husband who isn’t there and that she knows about the affair and she’s going to divorce him. Within this scene we get a lot of hilarious parts, such as Master going ‘why is he with someone so ug-’ ‘Were you going to call me UGLY?! I am not ugly, I am CUTE!’ as well as her trying to get on the bar stool but because of her weight, she keeps pushing it away with her big bum rather than getting on it, so she eventually jumps on it and then because she kept pushing it further down the bar, she’s practically sitting on Tomoko too and her reply is ‘WAH?! Why you so close to me?! Look at all these space on my right side!’

After being upset about her husband, she tries to cheer up when Rikiya walks in and she’s like ‘we got a customer! Come on everyone! Lets go go go!’ and she disappears from behind the bar. The stage’s atmosphere takes a turn, Rikiya is unforgiving and doesn’t care if the bar is full and that his friends are here, he wants his money and he’ll get it back right now. Just at that moment, Kotori’s husband and Ageha come back to the bar and a rather funny exchange occurs where Kotori and her husband are having a conversation while Ageha and Rikiya (turns out they used to be together) are having a conversation. The two conversations blend so well that at a few points it sounds like Rikiya is replying to Kotori’s words rather than Ageha and it created a lot of comedy. It would be something like.

Kotori’s husband to Kotori: I didn’t do anything I swear! Ageha to Rikiya: You were mean and you didn’t care about anyone else. Kotori to husband: But you love me right?! Why would you do that? Rikiya to Ageha but sounds like he’s replying to Kotori: I never said that!

I’m not doing it justice but it was very funny!

After this quarrel, we get back to the main story which is Rikiya demanding money from Yamato, and Rikiya takes none of it and none of the apologies from Yamato, and starts to get violent: throwing the master, Kotori’s husband and Yamato violently to the ground a lot and hitting them etc. But part way through there’s a rather funny scene where Kotori is like ‘I’m a black belt! Let me at him!’ and as soon as she sizes up to him (she’s about half a foot shorter than him to begin with) she yells ‘OUCH CRAMP!’ and gets out of there immediately.

There is another hilarious scene throughout this, when the master is thrown to the floor and Naho spots her bikini bottoms in his pocket. She’s like ‘what is that? ... WHAT IS THAT? ... and what were you going to do with them? .. WHAT... were you going to do with them?!..... *switches to cutesy voice* could you tell me your plan with them?’ and the master (he’s bricking himself) goes ‘Me and Otaku were-’ to which Tomoko butts in and defends Otaku ‘DON’T YOU DARE BRING HIM INTO THIS! HE DID NOTHING WRONG!’ so Master is left on his own and he replies ‘....I was going to... put them on my head....’ and Naho sizes up to him and says ‘then... put.... them... on’ and he does and everyone in the room was just dying of laughter. BUT Rikiya is pissed that everyone is just going off on tangents whereas he’s there and means business so he pushes Naho and the master to the ground. It’s at this point where Yamato is on his hands and knees in front of Naho, protecting her, beginning for Rikiya to stop and that he’ll find a way to help him out. But Rikiya yells that he’s tired of waiting, he either gives him the money now or uses Naho’s body to get it back.

It’s then at this point too that the master gets back up and defends Yamato saying that he’ll protect him, that he did nothing wrong, that he’s there for him... and then you just hear Naho go ‘Master.... the pants are still on your head’ and everyone cracked a giggle as he quickly realises and pulls them off quickly. Of course this enrages Rikiya even more and throws Master to the ground hard.

It’s at this point, Ageha blurts out that she’s pregnant with his kid and that the only reason she’s working as a hostess is so she can afford to look after the child and she hates what Rikiya has become and has decided she’s going to raise the child herself rather than it know what an awful man the father is. But then she also says ‘you were once Yamato! You’re doing exactly the same thing to him as was done to you! That’s why you became one of them, you had no way out! And now you’re doing it to Yamato too!’

Rikiya takes a moment and approaches Yamato and Naho who are now stood up and near each other; they instinctively flinch and Yamato throws his arm around Naho and his back to Rikiya to protect her. But instead of hurting them Rikiya drops a lawyer’s business card to the floor and says that guy can help him out, and he leaves with Ageha following, saying she’ll at least give him one last time to talk to her about it all.

And END.

So as you can see, a simple story that’s got a good balance of drama and comedy! It’s really good you guys, wish more people could’ve seen it.

Some Comments

It’s amazing how easily the tone changes when between the adlibbing with Yamato and Master at the beginning of the play and when the play actually starts and Rikiya walks in. Seeing the transition in Hiroki was amazing! It got serious so quickly! I love how professionally and so flawlessly he transitioned in that ‘scared out of his wits’ atmosphere and body language.

Also, towards the end, there is so much slamming onto the floor and throwing people around. How no one was hurt, I have no idea! Especially Master/Toshi when he kept getting thrown down because he would always land on his right knee first!

There’s a moment towards the beginning of the play where Toshi would approach a female audience member and often them a drink that HirokiKun would make. On the 6th, HirokiKun didn’t close the cocktail shaker enough and some of it came out and on him. On the 9th, Toshi also asked a male audience member if he wanted Naho to make him a drink so she also gave out a drink. Both times Hirokikun called the drink COUNTRY ROAD and Toshi was like ‘DASAI! // That’s an atrocious name. Why Country Road?!’ xD

I seriously, seriously love that moment where Yamato protects Naho with his body at the end! It was done so flawlessly and it’s just such a sweet moment!

The 6th Differences/Notes

When I walked in Toshi and Hiroki greeted me (they were behind the bar making drinks for everyone) and:

Toshi: What would you like? Me: Do you have any recs? Hiroki: What do you like? Sweet ones? Me: yes! Hiroki: Then I recommend a KashiOrange Me: okay I’ll take that

And he made my drink for me and gave it to me ^_^ Toshi just left us to it.

Before the show started, I got an email saying I’d hit for Hiroki’s play in December ‘Ikazuchigaoka ni Yuki ga Furu / Snow Falls in Ikazuchigaoka’ (see here) so I was super duper happy!

Before the show started and they were just waiting for the last few people to arrive, Toshi was like ‘Yamato (Hiroki) is very good at monomanes/impersonations, right?!’ and Hiroki stopped what he was doing and was like 'eh?! …. well how about you? What are you good at?’. Toshi replied 'I’m good at stories’ so he told the story about the foreigner who wanted to get a kanji tattoo and his Japanese friend said you should get ‘cool guy’ tattooed…. it ended up being the kanji of 冷子 as in literally a COLD/cool kid xD and then Toshi was like 'I ain’t gunna start the stage until you do a monomane’ so Hirokikun did this awful Dragon Ball impression, and was like 'I hope NAHO turns up soon’ and she came through the door to start the show. He was so embarrassed he had to do an impression.

The 9th Differences/Notes

Instead of forcing Hiroki to do impersonations before Naho walks in. This time Hiroki had printed off parts of Line Conversations between the two of them and showed us some really embarrassing pictures of Toshi pulling the worst faces ever. And then Toshi got his revenge; he had printed off one of Hiroki’s Marker Light Blue pictures and said ‘this looks very similar to something else.... an AMERICAN MONKEY!’ and showed us a picture of the monkey too. It was so cruel of him and Hiroki yelled ‘I can remember all the people here who laughed just now!’ xD

Then during the scene where Master tries to open the staff door to see Naho change, she stormed out and slapped him with a magazine and stormed back in and Toshi just stood there in shock, ‘did you just see what she did? I didn’t expect her to actually do it!’

It was so much more emotional at the end this time around for the second show -- it was their final show too - and I cried so hard.

FINAL CURTAIN CALL FOR FINAL SHOW

HirokiKun cried during the curtain call, but I don’t think it helps that I was crying hard. I had started crying from the tense Rikiya part all the way to the end, and he was stood right next to me and saw me crying so we both just kept rolling out water from our eyes xD

Rikiya’s actor came back into the room at the end with the 2D anime doll in his hands and everyone started laughing xD

Naho’s actress got really emotional and said she was happy she got the role she had and happy she could work with HirokiKun and as his pair. I think me and her kept looking at each other two and making each other just cry more. Ageha’s actress was next to Naho and kept looking at me too, I think I cracked her emotions by looking at me too a few times.

Kotori’s actress said at the curtain call that if she gets the chance next time, she wants to be Ageha in the next stage. Rikiya’s actor said he’d like to try Kotori’s husband’s role but now if Mizuho is Ageha next time xD

They’ve talked about doing it in an actual stage next time. But I prefer the bar setting. It’s more intimate, more real; it’s just a very different experience to what I’ve tried before.

They also mentioned that when they first got the script, no one had a set character yet so they had all tried the different characters, to which Rikiya’s actor Kondou said ‘I want to see Hiroki play now and me play Yamato right now’ and Toshi was like ‘YES! LETS DO THIS!’ and so Kondou gave Hiroki his yakuza jacket and it was so big on him; he looked even more like a manchild xD

So with Hiroki playing Rikiya at the end, he stormed into the room (they re-enacted the very first scene between Rikiya and Yamato) and immediately Toshi starts wetting himself hard and can’t take it easy at all. But Hiroki held it together almost the entire time and kept in character. But a few times we all broke was when Hiroki had to sit on the bar stool and Toshi straight away - before Hiroki each pulled the chair out - blurted out ‘can he even get on there?! (cos he’s so tiny) and so Hiroki tried but couldn’t get in the chair normally, so jumped up and into it. His voice worked very well as Rikiya but his actions and his height - and Toshi’s laughing - made it hilarious. He tried to grab Kondou from over the counter but because he’s so short he could barely keep his tiptoes on the stool as he lent over, and then he had literally no strength to throw Kondou down to the floor xD It was SO funny.

GOODS

A guy from the Friday night show was also there again on the Monday/last show! We got along rather well and spent time before and after the play talking; he was there for Ageha’s actress. He was sweet and we could trade our photos together luckily!

And that’s all! I really hope we get a second stage really soon!

#tanaka hiroki #田中宏輝 #review #stage #stage play #舞台 #tanabe toshiki

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