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sambart93 · 7 years ago

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2017.10.16/17 Honoo no Mirage 4th Stage Review!

Official Website here Official Blog here Official Twitter here Press Coverage 1, 2 PreOrder DVD/BR here and here

CAST and CHARACTERS

Tomita Sho as Kase (Uesugi Kagetora) Hiramaki Jin as Kasehara (Naoe) Tsukui Minami as Mari (Kakizaki Haruie) Igarashi Maasa as Ryo (Yasuda Nagahide) Onogawa Aki as Minako Kanegae Kou as Takasaka Tadamasa Miyagi Koudai as Tetsuji Yuasa Masayuki as Masa Masuda Yuuki as Kuchiki (Oda Nobunaga) Hayashi Shuji as James D Hando/Hands (Mori Ranmaru) Kasahara Shinji as Sasaki (Irobe Katsunaga) Mizutani Atsushi as Master Ensemble: Sugawara Takeshi, Hosokawa Akihiro, Kitamura Kai, Tanaka Ryo, Kaneko Kayo, Kidera Nao

QUICK BACKSTORY

So when this stage got announced and we learnt that literally half of the cast, including Aramaki Yoshihiko (Maki-Chan), had been switched out; I was furious! I was so upset and so angry! I LOVE ShoSan (Tomita Sho) and MakiChan together and this was a BL stage were I could have them LITERALLY together as canon! But MakiCahn wasn’t returning; I was so angry! I’d watched the third stage the previous year (review here) and I’d fallen in love with the world and the series! I wanted MakiChan to continue. However, it was clear that I wasn’t the only fan outraged, and MakiChan took to both his blog AND a livestream to explain why he wasn’t returning; it’s not that he didn’t like the series but that he felt he wasn’t good enough for the role; he explained how many times he just couldn’t understand what Naoe (his character) was thinking nor what his motives were so he had a lot of trouble bringing the character justice and that’s why he stepped down. I calmed down after he explained and decided to get tickets for it anyway so that could at least support ShoSan - who I haven’t seen act since... TouStage. Naturally I followed the rehearsals and kept track of ShoSan and Hiramaki’s twitters and stuff (Hiramaki was replacing MakiChan), and slowly but surely I started getting super duper excited for it. I rewatched some of the previous stages before going this time and it reestablished my love for this world and story so it ended up being more of a ‘I’m going because I love the series’ rather than being a stickler on the cast change.

NON-SPOILER REVIEW Overall: This was amazing! I am SO glad I went and I’m super glad I went twice but I’m super upset I didn’t go at least 3 times; that’s how good this was! Once again I was sucked into this world and just wanted to know more and more. The ShoSan x Hiramaki pairing was absolute perfection. I have nothing BUT praise for Hiramaki as Naoe - he exceeded my expectations and did an amazing. I am now currently super obsessed with him (which is strange because looks like I’ve been to a lot of his plays in the past - TOEI HERO, PuriStage, Dance with Devils; so it’s not like it’s anything new.. I’m going off point..) Once again the visuals, projection mapping, and music was absolutely amazing. I am so upset there are only about two stages left in this series and that the book series finishes next year! I cried SO hard at this stage. The only down point to this play is there's a lot of storylines and plots brought up in this particular stage, the two hours feels like 3 hours because you’re trying to understand it in your head and click the links together between the stories. And I do think Minako’s story is bollocks and should be cut out for the most part but I get it’s there to create tension between Kagetora and Naoe. BUT it definitely wasn’t boring; just a lot to process which (at least the first time) made the play feel long. Rating: 8.5/10

SPOILER REVIEW

it’s been a while since I’ve gotten such a close seat in Theatre 1010 - I always get really good seats like aisle or smack in the middle but I rarely get within the first section of the seating area, so it was nice to be so close this time around xD

I don’t really know where to start with this so I think this will be all over the place xD But I’ll try!

STORY

The main story continues where the second stage finished; stopping Oda Nobunaga from whatever world ruining plans he has. But they soon learn just what his plans are this time; with the help of him creating babies with the possessive powers.

We also have side stories such as; Kase trying to stop his feelings for Minako; Minako who currently is engaged to someone else but really wants Kase; Naoe who’s jealous that Minako is the one Kase wants; yet Kase thinks and worries about Naoe constantly; Tetsuji turns out to be supernatural kid who can use the same powers as them (as in the main cast group) as well as possess a sort of psychic power; Mari can no longer sing because Oda took that power fro her; Mari and Sasaki have to look after this new power kid; Master gets shot.

I think that’s all. It’s A LOT don’t you think? It definitely hurt my brain the first showing >.< the second time around, I was able to enjoy it a lot more and I got so much more invested the second time around; the amount of times I cried! And the curtain call; we were all a mess (all meaning the audience, only Mari’s actress cried on stage).

As stated above, I feel like the Minako story line was bullshit. We first met her in the first stage where she gets possessed by evil spirits and Kase saves her but even in the second stage we know she’s going to get married, so the fact she comes back into Kase life and is like ‘I’ll break up with him. I’ll through away even my family so long as I can be by your side’ and Kase, obviously knowing that she doesn’t know just how dangerous his life is and how much of a risk she would be staying by his side. She’s so stupid. Part of this story line I find acceptable to be kept in the play because with her in the picture, it really messes up Naoe; he’s clearly in love with Kase and totally possessive of him and so to have her pop up and Naoe can clearly see that Kase has feelings for her back, Naoe gets really jealous and he gets really confrontational with Minako, and he gets really snappy with Kase because of it. It also leads Naoe to be really manipulative but also it makes him flipflop between pretending to be nice in front of them and just not giving a shit as to what they think and simply saying and doing what he feels. So for those scenes and moments I accept her story. BUT there’s parts of her training with Kase to become stronger, and there’s two separate scenes where it’s her and Kase talking about how she wants to stay by his side. I wish they’d done that in just one scene because in one scene she gives him a scarf because it’s getting cold and then in the second one she’s like ‘I’m ready to go. Come with me’ and this is when Naoe walks in; I wish the scarf scene and Naoe walking in on them had been just one scene, because during the scarf scene (the first time around) my brain went ‘OH YES! NAOE IS GUNNA SEE THIS AND GO MENTAL!’ but he didn’t, yet he does in the second scene so it seemed like a waste of time and seemed right that he’d butt in on the Christmas present scene better. I’m sure I’m not making any sense because no one else has watched it but... I wanted that to be one scene because I flt they dragged her story out so much and she practically just said the same things every time. The scenes where she AND Naoe was involved were so much more entertaining because you could see Naoe cracking inside and just couldn’t bare seeing them together.

The other slightly negative thing about the story that I noticed was the lack of comedy; in the past three stages they’ve at least had some decent amount of comedy sprinkled in, but in this fourth stage there is literally nothing. It’s 98% serious and dark and it’s very mentally draining, so that’s another reason why this stage felt a lot slower. There is no comedy relief for a good 80/90 minutes and then finally the lovely Koudai comes on stage and he gives the atmosphere some life and energy. But even his story quickly gets dark too =[ It always baffles me when a stage series changes something major about their set-up, for example TouMyu stopping Otokomichi for their lives in Mihotose, and in this one when suddenly they’ve decided to get rid of the comedy completely; you’ve set up THREE stages where we get at least a good 2 or 3 good laughs and some relief, you can’t change such a necessary, predominate aspect of your series it in your FOURTH stage.

SCENES/COMMENTS

The opening is SO loud and powerful!!! It was so good!! The music as always is amazing and I love, love, love the projection mapping as always - especially for the opening scene!

As mentioned above; this stage was intense. There’s not really a moment you can breathe, at least not until Koudai comes on stage, and he’s this happy, clapping guy for the most part and helps raise the atmosphere somewhat.

The showdown between Kase and Hands was interesting because Kase is like ‘why do you stay by Oda’s side’ and stuff. I gets really heated.

I also really love when Hands approaches Naoe and tries to persuade to join him and there’s this moment of complete silence as we wait for Naoe to answer him and then he slaps Hands plans/money out of his hand and goes ‘No thank you’ it’s so cool!

I loved the showdown between Kase and Oda too when they’re drinking together and then once they’ve finish their drinks, their civil masks come off and BAM(!) their shoot their powers at each other.

This time around, we witness the Master getting shot! I was so shocked! BUT it was only his leg so fingers crossed he comes back -- although the actors (Atsushi) already stated this is his last one *cries* I really liked the scene before this one where he and Masa watch Mari perform on the bar’s stage for the last time and Masa and Master get all emotional and start crying, it’s amusing. And then in this scene when he gets shot, Masa FINALLY speaks and he goes ‘MASTER!’ in shock as he tries to help him up =[

Towards the end when Oda’s powers transform and he becomes this unstoppable, powerful, force, just as he and Kase go all out on attacking and killing each other, Kenshin (Kase’s adoptive father) pops up and completely shuts down the fight. I looked like Kenshin was abandoning Kase and it crushes Kase hard and he’s like ‘why are you leaving me? What did I do wrong?!’ and Kenshin explains that they have to work together (he and Oda) in order to stop the world from... going to shit(?). I’m super interested in seeing if Kenshin will continue to pop up. I assume he’ll finally reveal himself properly (he was back-lighted in this stage so we didn’t see his face or anything, and it’s obvious an ensemble guy was playing Kenshin because he hasn’t properly been cast) in future stages.

One of the very small comedy scenes which brought a smile to my face is when Miyagi is in the background eating Nabe (hotpot) and it just such a happy boy as he eats <3 it’s such an adorable moment and he runs over to Ryo and Kase and is like ‘come and eat with nabe with me!’ he’s so adorable! And then Kase orders Ryo to stay with Miyagi as he goes off and when Ryo sits down, across fro Miyagi, the scene starts to fade to black but Ryo slaps him across the head -- it’s very funny. Unfortunately in the first show, no one else laughed (besides myself) BUT luckily in the second show, everyone laughed!

A quick note: the height difference between Sho and Igarashi, and Sho and Jin is hilarious yet totally cute at the same time!

I also like the scene just after Naoe’s parents’ funeral and Naoe goes to his now burnt down house and is trying to clean it up somewhat but naturally he just breaks down on the floor - I cried so hard, it broke my heart so much - and Kase is there giving somewhat moral support.

Speaking of Kase and Naoe being together! I need to talk about how ShoSan and Hiramaki became my new OTP within like minutes of seeing this stage!!!!

MY NEW OTP!

I ship Shosan and Jin, and Kase and Naoe SO HARD after seeing this play! Holy moly WHERE TO BEGIN!

The OPENING CREDITS scene, Kase and Naoe come on stage together but then Minako shows up from the left side of the stage, so Kase goes towards her and we see Naoe on the opposite side of the stage just DEATH STARING her down. Another scene is when Kase hugs Minako and Naoe is top right part of the stage and he just looks in horror and shaking his head and slowly backs away but looking totally heartbroken(!) -- it’s SO powerful and Jin’s facial express in both moments is amazing!!

As I mentioned above; I really wanted Naoe to walk in when Minako gives Kase the scarf. But before this scene we have Naoe talking to Kase and he’s like ‘who are you think about right now? ... It’s her sin’t it. Why do you get involved?’ and then the scarf scene Minako asks ‘who are you thinking of right now? It’s Naoe isn’t it. You really care for him’ BUT Kase never expresses his emotions NOT EVEN ONCE! So it’s like KASE WHO DO YOU LIKE?! WHO DO YOU WANT?! But I feel like he loves both of them but in different ways; Minako is just a quick infactuational love and would rather be far away from her so she can live happily and survive, whereas Naoe has ALWAYS been there for him and they worry and care about each other just as much as the other and therefore are practically soulmates; both in a romantic and platonical sense. Does that make sense? Whatever, these two belong to be together!

And towards the end, after Kase breaks down after he sees Kenshin abandon him, Naoe hugs him from behind, and it looked like Kase was gunna hold his hand (my hearts is super dokidoki right now xD) but Kase holds for a milisecond before just pushing Naoe back!! Ohhh myyy!! KASE JUST ACCEPT HIM! LET HIM LOOK AFTER YOU! *cries*

The kiss scene!!! Ohhh myyy! I’m calling it a kiss scene!! They techinically didn’t kiss but they were literally millimeters away!!! AND Jin has the back of his head to the audience blocking our view so they could’ve been kissing really! I also love how Tetsuji walks IN on this and just screams and falls to the floor xD

Oh god I’m getting so emotional over these two... not only are the characters amazing but I think Jin and ShoSan work so freaking well together! is is their second or third time working together. Straight after this stage, ShoSan and Jin filmed a movie together too! So they obviously get along well too o_O <3

Can we get some APPRECIATION here?!

THE ACTING

Tomita Sho as Kase (Uesugi Kagetora): ShoSan is always phenomenal. He knows how to play a cold, unemotional, sometimes mean (especially towards Naoe) character very well. But he also has subtle switches between when he’s being Kase and when he remembers that he’s also Kagetora. During the AfterTalk on the 16th, the cast members mentioned how even though the audience can’t really see it, the switch in his eyes when he’s either Kase or either Kagetori is scary! His eyes are (I quote) ‘so cold and soul-piercing when you’re Kagetora!’. He’s such a great actor. I love whatever he does! And I love him as Kase.

Look how sexy he is!! ^^^ *dead*

Hiramaki Jin as Kasehara (Naoe): I cannot with Jin. All the priase seriously. I have nothing but praise for him. His Naoe was/is PERFECT! I was SO pissed when MakiChan stepped down, yet Hiramaki Jin took what MakiChan had made of Naoe and added to it. Jin acts VERY similar to MakiChan, especially their voices are similar when they both yell which was a little weird at first for me to hear. I was like ‘HE SOUNDS EXACTLY LIKE MAKI! But.. that’s in!’ xD Jin’s facial expressions and how he looked towards say Kase as opposed to say Minako is such a huge difference. And it’s SO obvious when Naoe is just brewing with either jeaous or hatred thanks to Jin’s facial expressions; they’re phenomenal! I think it was partially the scripts help but I mainly want to applaud Jin on his performance of Naoe because I REALLY fucking understood Naoe this time around. I walked out of that threate on the first show thinking ‘I love how layered Naoe is!‘, and I walked out of the second show thinking ‘Fuck Naoe is SO complicated but it’s SO realistic and very human.’ I totally understand WHY MakiChan had such a hard time understanding and being Naoe and his motives; MakiChan is clearly just too purehearted and not messed up enough because I TOTALLY related to Naoe in this one.

Let me give you an explain of just how complex Naoe is:

One scene he approaches Minako with such a light air and all smiles, and says he’ll help her and Kase escape and live a happy life to which she’s super happy and she goes on to talk about how she wants to be by Kase’s side, Naoe then mentions softly ‘but don’t you already have someone? A fiance?’ and she says she’ll break that off if it means she can be with Kase. To which, Naoe’s jealous side immediately comes out and he does a complete 180 straight away and snaps at her ’you have a fiance, why are you messing with Kase? Just leave him! You already have someone! Just go off and be with them! Why does it have to be Kase?!’ and obviously she is shocked and confused by his complete switch within minutes.

He did something similar to Kase, he said gently ‘you should go with Minako, get out away from here. Go somewhere safe. We can handle Oda with just us three’ but Kase turns around and orders that it is Naoe who should go with Minako and get to safety, but of course Naoe cracks and goes something like ‘why her?! And why are you making me go with her?! I want to be by your side! I want to protect you! I’m suppose to protect you!’ and Kase is like ‘you’re protecting me by protecting my heart (which is with her)!’ and Naoe is like ‘then what about me?! Do I not matter?! What am I to you?’ and the scene ends with ‘THIS IS AN ORDER FROM YOUR MASTER. You will leave and go with her!’ to which Naoe can only kneel and go ‘Yes Kagetori-sama’.

I totally understand Naoe. He’s in a constant battle with his brain and his heart. He wants Kase to be happy, so Kase should go with Minako. But Naoe can’t stand the thought of Kase being with anyone else but him, so he wants to crush Minako and have her out of Kase’s life. But he also wants to keep Kase safe and one way is by making him runaway with Minako, but then that means he can’t be by Kase’s side which makes him angry and jealous all over again. And they’re master and servant so Naoe should keep his feelings towards Kase a secret and stay professional but sometimes it’s just too much and his feelings and actions from those feelings burst out which Kase clearly keeps rejecting somewhat which confuses Naoe and hurts him even more yet he can’t give Kase up. It’s just a constantly cycle of internal fighting that Naoe has going on and I can completely relate << my entrie teenage years were this cycle’

I got ALL this out of two performances from Hiramaki Jin; if that doesn’t show you just how amazing of an actor he is then please get out of my life xD

I’ve watched so much of Jin’s stuff and gone to stuff because he’s been in it (among with others in the cast) and I always buy his goods. I really like Jin. He deserves a hell of a lot more stage work xD

Isn’t he adorable!

Igarashi Maasa as Ryo (Yasuda Nagahide): He was a great Ryo! He did a really good job as Ryo. But he didn’t have enough stage time to really give us a sense of how Igarashi himself is putting a spin on Ryo. I hope in the next stage he gets more stage time so we can see his version of Ryo more fleshed out. Also, he was so sweet at the 17th’s curtain call; he wanted a Call and Response so we did:

Him: Yasuda Audience: Nagahide Him: Honoo no Audience: Mirage!

He was so happy we shouted so loud for his call and response ^_^

Kanegae Kou as Takasaka Tadamasa: His fight scene towards the beginning of the stage is SO cool! He jumps down fro the top back stage and so cooly just rearranges his hat and clothing between wooping bad guys’ butts! I also love how he was more ‘behind the scenes’ and watched the world starting to crumbling and almost narrating the events rather than getting involved. BUT I like how he saved Kase at one point so he clearly has some motive. In the AfterTalk on the 16th, Kanegae talked about the ‘him saving Kase’ scene and said ‘Suki wake janai / He didn’t do it because he likes Kase. He has an ulterior motive.’ which is very Tadamasa-like.

Miyagi Koudai as Tetsuji: I loved Miyagi’s character in Messiah (review here) and I loved his character in this too! He is very, very, very quickly becoming a favourite actor of mine! In this, he is playing a 15 year old(!) which makes it even better and explains why his character has an oversized sweater and looks a little disheveled and is happy and bouncy. Koudai on stage was a breath of fresh air! I enjoyed his character so much! I LOVE Naoe’s reaction when Tetsuji suddenly starts attacking Hands with his supernatural powers and Naoe is like ‘you...you’re?!’ and I love how Naoe protected Tetsuji during the bigger fights. I’m so glad his character Tetsuji has this untapped power similar to that of the main group, which implies he’ll be in he next one too! I hope so!

Koudai himself is adorable. I watched his AfterTalk and he talked about how he wasn’t sure he was the right choice for the role at first because he’s playing a 14/15 year old (again xD), and during rehearsals or backstage he would just be like ‘I’M A CHILD!’ so the other actors would remember too to treat his character more like a kid xD Also, during this AT, he said he and Tetsuji felt happy when he’s eating, and everyone replied 'why?!’ You’re not event actually eating!’ to which he answered that he feels his character didn’t have a happy life so being able to eat was something that made him really happy. Also at the FINAL curtain call, he was the very last to come on stage and because he was late to come on, he came charging onstage with his hand over his mouth; his face was full of food xD he wasn’t expecting a 4th curtain call nor to be called on during that curtain call xD ADORABLE!

Yuasa Masayuki as Masa: Masa was adorable! I was upset at first that they changed Masa’s actor but he was adorable! They even dragged him into the aftertalk and sat on the same seat with Master (Atsushi) xD I hope both Masa and Master can continue into the next stage even though it was implied it was their last stage and scene for Mirage *cries*

Sugawara Takeshi: He was in the third stage of Honoo and I was SO happy to see him back! I really like him as an ensemble member! And he got so many various speaking roles and characters and they were all great!

EXTRAS

On the 16th, Ryo’s previous actor was there watching xD and at curtain call Sasak was like ‘HOW WAS IT RYO?!.... I guess he won’t tell us in front of everyone. You’ll tell us backstage right?! ... I’ll take that as a yes’ xD

Jin explained that his Naoe is a little different every time – so he’s pulling a Mokkun (Mihotose reference there) xD

On the final show, there were 4 curtain calls; two of them were standing ovations. The writer was also there and so ShoSan got her to stand up and give her opinions about it and she thanked everyone and said she enjoyed the stage a lot and she’s sad that her next book in this series is her last one. On the very fourth and final curtain call, ShoSan did his signature 'I just have one last thing to say... KAERE!/go home!’ I love ShoSan so much!

ALSO these beautiful pictures surfaced during the run of this stage <3 ENJOY!

GOODS

I was only going to buy the pamphlet xD and my ticket came with a ShoSan FC limited bromide <3 BUT I ended up loving Koudai and Jin so much in this that I just had to!

Oh my god I ACTUALLY caught up! ALL my stage play reviews are done! AND there’s just MakiChan events missing now really <3 BIG KUDOS TO ME! xD

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