#he goes with shin and sabine on their dates

[peachyhoolagan]

I can’t even put it into words how much of a girls girl ezra is. Like he is ONE OF THE GIRLS

[forgotten-fool]

Ahsoka Series, Ezra's longing for home, Sabine's connection to The Force, and the relationship between Shin and Baylan

I have some THOUGHTS on the newest Ahsoka episode so lets have a conversation! Feel free to let me know if I get anything wrong, or disagree with my conclusions!

Now, this may just be me and my tragic writer brain, but am I the only one who feels that Ezra talking about feeling like he's going home or that he's finally going to go home are huge death flags? Like, if I wanted to write a character who was going to die so far from his home and sense of normalcy, I'd have them talk about wanting go home eventually. That may be the fatal flaw that kills him, that helps bring on the return of Thrawn.

His gambit at the end of Rebels, it was supposed to be a one-way ticket. He knew, going in, that chances of surviving were likely slim, let alone returning at some point. So this yearning, this attachment to Lothal and to home, it could potentially make him hesitate, however minutely, in a critical moment that allows Thrawn to return.

OR MAYBE

Ezra has to choose between Lothal and Peridea. Between the place that raised him, or the people he has chosen to protect. Which place is truly his home? The place he gave the rest of his life for, or the place he has spent the last nine-twelve years? (I couldn't get an exact date) In other foreshadowing news, in the past few episodes, we have seen Sabine fail to utilize the force to move things twice. Once, on the ship when she fails to move a cup, and the second during her fight with Shin, when she holds her hand out and Shin flinches, as if expecting The Force, only to find nothing. She could not connect to the force.

"You have no power." Of course, Sabine uses her Mandalorian tricks and disarms her with a wrist rocket, or something like that. But it seems like they are setting up a pattern to break. She reaches, and she fails. She reaches again, and she fails again. She reaches a third time, and finally, something moves. But we're seeing that she's getting more connected already. Another subtle hint that The Force is not a power exclusive to the Jedi and Sith, but within all beings. She's connecting to the force, opening the door, and the gap is growing. Where do we see this? In the battle where Ezra, Sabine, and Ahsoka are fighting Shin and the Night Troopers. While Ahsoka is fighting Shin, Ezra and Sabine go against the many Night Troopers. During one of the shots with Sabine fighting, we see her spinning her lightsaber as she turns a corner, deflecting a blaster bolt into the dirt. That's a Jedi ability, we see it all the time in Star Wars media, but always from beings more powerful in The Force than Sabine was.

She's going to reach for it a third time, and The Force will answer her call. No idea how, but I'm calling that shot right now. And now it's time to talk about Baylan Skoll and Shin Hati.

Baylan grew up surrounded by The Light side of The Force. Even if he had his issues with the order, he was surrounded by beings of The Light. He may have even had a padawan in The Order at some point. And when Order 66 fell, and he had to hide. And in hiding, he lost his faith in The Light. He found the Jedi weak.

Then Shin Hati enters his life, and he starts his training of her. She seems to be around Sabine or Ezra's age in the show. She's grown up in the shadow of The Empire. Darkness is all she knows. She learns to survive.

Baylan leaves Shin to fight Ezra and Sabine. He goes to either find the thing he's wanted to find on this planet, or to fight Ahsoka on that hill.

Either way, she's frustrated by this. He's not going to help? Seriously? But she deals with it and he gives her advice and leaves.

He fights Ahsoka and he watches as she steals his weird dog-horse thing and rushes to help Sabine. He watches as a seasoned Jedi rushes to fight alongside her apprentice, to fight his apprentice. He watches her go and then walks in the opposite direction.

He abandons his apprentice, a mirror to every other Dark-sided teacher we've seen in the series. Every time the student has needed saving, the teacher abandons or destroys them. Sidious allows Maul to "die" to make way for grooming Anakin, Dooku attempts to kill Ventress the moment Sidious says to, Maul makes trouble for Sidious's plan and teaches by destroying Maul's brother. Sidious only "saves" Vader on Mustafar to use him more. Maul himself abandons Ezra multiple times, only returning to use him on his own mission to destroy Kenobi. The Dark side is corrupting his want to make something new, using this mysterious thing on Peridea, and it's causing him to abandon the closest person to him.

God, I can't wait for the next episode.

[zukadiary]

Hoshigumi Small Theaters ~ Spring 2019

I am five entire shows behind on reviews and I hate it!!

But I finally make it to Kansai!! I conveniently managed to see these guys on back to back days upstairs and downstairs in the same building. If nothing else I think I am 500% more educated on Hoshigumi after this trip.

Man from Algiers / Estrellas 2.0

Man from Algiers ticks all the National Tour buttons—old, done many times, ambiguous time period (useful for traveling costume recycling, i.e. why not just use the rainbow sports jackets we need for Estrellas anyway!)—and while I’m not surprised that Coto can make just about anything good, I was a bit surprised at how much I enjoyed the show itself (this was the first time I’d seen it at all, which was a blessing as the surprise ending was my favorite part). 

I can definitely envision it in all its original 70s glory, and it made me wonder if they really just wanted to exploit a West Side Story aesthetic’s swoon-inducing abilities and came up with the plot later; the opening looks and choreography were awfully familiar. Am I saying it didn’t work?

No I am not saying that.

(And the resulting prologue number was really cool).

The story, while dated, was simple and easy to follow, and does a great job of making sure you understand each character’s motivation with minimal info (difficult AND clutch for one-acts). There’s a good summary on the wiki, I’m including spoilers not mentioned there.

Team National Tour is definitely the lighter side of the troupe split, especially with regard to upperclassmen, but I thought Algiers was a good fit for this particular arrangement of members, and everyone really nailed their characters. Most notable: 

Julien is a despicable person, and it’s a testament to Coto’s pure heart and brimming talent that she made him a totally valid protagonist, complete with moments that made my heart lurch a little (when his old friends are bullying him in his cute little chauffeur outfit; how quickly he abandons everything to stand by Sabine when everything goes to hell at the end). 

It was very weird first not to see Aichan in Ocean’s and then to see her hanging out with a percentage of Hoshigumi, but this cast needed her. Her Jacques (albeit very reminiscent of her Bernardo) was a good balance for Coto; they both played unsavory people, but Aichan playing bad has kind of a darker streak that suits the more evil friend well, whereas Coto playing bad still has an undercurrent of goodness that gets you fully on board with his journey to reform.

Otoha Minori as Sabine was a good choice not only for her abs in the gold night club bikini dress, but for her maturity, which lended sincerity to Sabine’s fantasy-level selflessness in her concern for Julien and her desire to watch over him. When she shoots Jacques in her dressing room to get him out of the way so he can’t interfere with Julien’s new life, I was so impressed that it read as an act of sacrifice (however excessive and stupid) purely out of love and desire to see Julien continue to grow and succeed, instead of “look at what I did for you, come back to me!”

Asamizu Ryou played Bollinger, the dude who takes Julien in and grooms him for upper-crust success, opposite not just Coto (her senpai) but Shirotae Natsu (her mega-senpai), and she did it with a surprising amount of gravitas. She’s got that face which definitely helps, but she was a little scary and exuded a lot of authority. Shirotae Natsu was hilarious as the extraordinarily airheaded wife, and her interjections may have even been singlehandedly responsible for keeping the pacing of the show brisk and entertaining. 

Sakuraba Mai played the Bollingers’ daughter Elizabeth. She was detestable, but in the way that indicates a great acting job. She’s at that awkward spot where it looks like she’s getting almost heroine weight roles in small theaters and disappearing in grand theaters. I hope they keep pushing her because she’s very strong.

Number one heartbreaker Kozakura Honoka (voice of an angel!) played blind Annabel, daughter of Kumichou/a very influential duchess. She mostly stays inside alone, and then Julien woos her with the intention of climbing the social/political ladder (while developing feelings for Elizabeth and also really never getting over Sabine). Annabel overhears Julien confessing his feelings to Elizabeth and asks her attendant Andre (Kiwami Shin, in love with Annabel) to let her kill herself. Honoka apparently put an immense amount of time and research into acting blind and it showed. 

Fellow American Sayaka Rin had probably the most lines she’s had yet, in a role formerly held by both Takashio Tomoe and Hyuuga Kaoru <3 

My personal MVPs of this show were Shidou Ryuu and Kiwami Shin, Shidou not even for doing anything particularly spectacular, but just just for having grown so much since I first became aware of her existence via the Koumori shinko 3+ years ago. She’s always going to be on the cute side rather than the devastating side IMO, but she’s developed enough confidence and control in her acting that she’s become a really lovable best friend/brother type; her character’s relationship with Julien and secret-but-obvious admiration of his far superior coolness was really adorable. Andre (Shin) isn’t a super juicy role until the very end, but the way Shin did Andre’s quiet breakdown when Annabel was explaining she didn’t want to live anymore, and then her poise when Andre came out of nowhere and shot Julien just as he and Sabine were trying to run away from shooting Jacques (?!??!) was like, my jaw actually dropped. Granted she’s still super young, but Shin isn’t someone who has thus far impressed me proportionately to the amount they’re pushing her, so this mini breakout was nice to see. 

Estrellas (a revue that I loved!), like all tour revues with less than half the cast and no staircase, felt quite small, at least from the B-seki side box. But in the smallness, normally unseen people get to shine, and there were moments that had me bouncing in my chair. Amato Kanon is going to grow up dangerous (if Tennis Daughter doesn’t just consume all the otokoyaku below 98th); in the opening with everyone else beaming she was smoldering. Aichan and Anru took Kai’s medley (with different songs) and made it a very cute douki thing. Sazanami Reira needs to dance closer to the front more often. Ruri Hanaka (who, bless her heart, cannot sing, at least not like a musumeyaku) somehow snagged Airi’s part in Tonight is What it Means to be Young, and despite the singing, absolutely killed it; that girl can DANCE and she’s got sass and arm muscles for days and a look in her eye like she’ll superglue you to your makeup table if you cross her. 

And boy, Coto looks good in that top position. The talent is really stupid, but on top of that she has such warmth. I’m really excited for her Hoshigumi.

Kamatari

Kamatari accomplished a feat, because admittedly I went in having already biased myself against it; I thought Beni and Airi getting a weird nihonmono for their last small theater was dumb and just about as NOT THEM as you can get.

But I take it back! It was lovely!

For starters it was visually stunning, which feels like the thing you say when you’re trying to convince yourself that you liked a nihonmono you didn’t actually understand a word of... but in this case, it really was just a bonus. The story (summary here) is not actually all that complicated, and the dialogue was even on the friendly side for nihonmono—no weird dialects (beyond what it always takes to decipher Beni), no 12th level keigo. 

Act 1 introduces Kamatari (Beni) and Soga no Iruka (Hanagata Hikaru) meeting as youths in school and developing a friendship, and then takes us, as far as I can tell, fairly historically accurately through the events leading up to and including the Isshi Incident. Act 2 was a little harder for me to follow; but it seems to be just a progression of Kamatari’s struggles living under the new post-incident emperor Naka no Oe (Seocchi), with whom he’d conspired to eliminate Soga no Iruka, and the former empress/Naka no Oe’s mother (Kuracchi), who wants to see Kamatari suffer, because she both loved Iruka and couldn’t side against her son. 

Most of the roles were pretty small so there are fewer standouts, but here they are:

This was the third in a progression of Hoshi shows I saw live (the other two being Another World and Elbe) that really helped cement my respect for Beni and Airi’s brand of chemistry. At the beginning of her top run, I was skeptical about Beni’s ability to generate romantic chemistry with anyone at all (Scarlet Pimpernel didn’t really help me with that, and I haven’t seen anything between that and Another World). They definitely don’t have sizzling hot chemistry, and they don’t have that cute newlywed chemistry either, but I noticed watching Kamatari that in the last few Hoshi things I’ve seen, I’ve found it very easy to believe how deeply Beni loves Airi in whatever world they’re portraying. They have like, comfortable old married couple chemistry (yes, even when they’re playing love at first sight). Their moments in Kamatari were very tender, but in a wholesome “aw, she cooked for him” kind of way. Yoshiko (Airi) also had a lovely part at the end, where the two of them are old, and Kamatari’s health is failing, and they go back to the spot where they met, and she says their life wasn’t always easy, and they suffered, and they struggled, but in the end she can honestly say she had fun, and she’s truly happy. I teared up! It was sweet and meta! That alone convinced me it wasn’t a bad last small theater for them.

Hanagata Hikaru was SO much the star of Act 1 that it had me wondering if this was gonna turn out to be HER taidan present (but then she died and didn’t appear in Act 2 at all). I can’t complain because she kicked ass. I feel like I said this exact thing re: Another World, but Mitsuru is normally about as vanilla as it gets for me, but she blew me away. The pompous genius school kid to the idealistic young man to the uncertainty that comes with the reality of seizing power to the change to tyranny mixed with love for the empress and complicated feelings for his childhood friend all flowed seamlessly.

Not that I’ve watched a ton of Hoshi recently, but this was the best role Tenju Mitsuki has gotten in GOD I can’t even remember how long. Esaka is in service of the (state? empire?) as a historical record keeper, and serves kind of as a narrator as well (along with Itsuki Chihiro). I don’t even know how to describe how she characterized him... he’s odd? Maybe a little off? Regardless, she was brilliant. Watch it.

Arisa Hitomi has that empress energy for sure. I read up on the history of the events afterwards, and the explanation of why she had to give up the throne after witnessing such violence (the idea back then that an empress couldn’t be sullied by such things), and that made the sensitivity with which Kuracchi portrayed her feel even more poignant the more I sat with it afterwards.

This was the first show where to me Seocchi felt like she belonged up there with Beni and Mitsuru. She definitely put some weight behind Naka no Oe and was very princely. NOW I wanna see her tackle a more interesting/challenging (and tbh more Hoshigumi) role from up in this spot. 

All in all now I’m a little sad I won’t be around for God of Stars.