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kokitanaka · 4 years ago

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Thought on Koki's "OLD maid-JOKER" Play

Finishing watching Koki's last show today and I think I need to write down my thought (and sometimes the thought is just too difficult to express in Japanese :p).

The last time I saw him on stage for a play was ten years ago when he was flying in The Imperial Theatre as the boxer champion. To be honest, I was obviously very upset when he and Johnny's parted because he left my favorite group. I was also very disappointed because it also meant it would be difficult to see him starring in anything in the future. I love him singing and dancing. I also love him acting.

Comparing to many talents, I don't think he had that many roles in the past. However, each one is memorable, in My Boss My Hero as a hooligan, in Tokkyu Tanaka 3 Go as the goofy college student, in Hissatsu as the tailor, in Ooku as the monk and in Dream Boys as the boxer champion. I always enjoy his acting.

Finally, "OLD maid-JOKER" happened. Written/Directed by Hyouga Tanaka. I have never seen his brother's work and I couldn't really guess what the play was about. At first, I was just very excited to see Koki starring in a play again. However, this play was beyond my expectation.

Old maid is a card game that players collect pairs and try not to be left with the joker card. Whoever gets the joker card at the end loses. The story says that the world is like the old maid card game. Most people can find their pairs. They have people who support them. However, only the joker is left alone. No one likes the joker and the joker has no one to be paired with.

Koki played a character with the same name, KOKI, a lonely boy who doesn't understand love, born as a mistake and left by his mother. He was the joker of the story. However, KOKI still desired love, family, friendship, and affection. In the story, we followed him through the past, present, and the future. Sometimes the scene was in reality and sometimes it was in the imagination (or was it all imagination? I don't know). Comparing to other roles, this role didn't have a lot of dialogue. However, I think Koki did such a good job walking us through this character's mind.

There was a scene that he was looking into the past with his mother. His body language and the way he talks were just like a young child.

There was also a scene that he was desperate for love from his mother. We could see his sorrow and the broken heart from his tears.

I felt some emotions of the character echoing Koki in real life. However, this is still a difficult character to play. In this 90-minute show, we could really feel all these emotions in this character, which make us feeling sorry for him, wanting to hug him, wishing him can find his happiness eventually.

However, just when we thought good things were happening to him, the story continued to go dark. There was a scene that KOKI felt betrayed and desperate. While the main story was carrying on in the front of the stage, KOKI stood alone in the back, without any dialogue, we saw him turned from suffering and hopeless to psychopathic. It was like the monster came out of him causing him to make mistakes that he could not take back.

In the end though, not sure if it was in reality or out of his imagination, we also saw KOKI finally met someone who brought him the light. This was also my favorite part of the story. The show was somehow difficult to watch because it was dark almost the whole time. However, there was a character with pure good who finally walked in KOKI's life. We finally saw him laughing from his heart. Did he finally get his happiness? The story ended with INKT's "Zutto" playing.

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I really think Koki is such a good actor. You really cannot tell he hasn't done any acting in 10 years. Obviously, everyone in the play is a professional actor. Among them, Koki is like one of them. He said that his personal goal for this show is to make sure that he wouldn't use "because I haven't acted in 10 years" as an excuse for anything. His co-star also said that he felt Koki really is a star. He got better and better every day. He was better on stage than in the rehearsal.

Apparently, Koki was quite nervous during the first day. He said he couldn't really eat and he was under so much pressure that he had ulcers in his mouth XD However, I felt he was able to relax and enjoy more after the first day. Koki also said that he was into the character more and more. Sometimes he cried out of nowhere at home because he felt like the character. There was a scene that he had to choke a person to death. Koki said that he had to be careful not to really choke him because his character really hated that person XDDD

I was also very impressed by Hyouga. What he wrote and directed was something deep which I wasn't expected. I watched this play 9 times and every time I had a new discovery or a new explanation for the story. Also, I felt because he knows Koki the best. He really created the play that shows Koki's talent to the fullest. Besides acting, the opening song was 2U and the ending song was Zutto (both Koki's songs). There was a dance act in the beginning. I felt I saw so many parts of him on stage that I love.

Koki was on stage almost all the time for 90 minutes. Sometimes there were activities after the play such as photo sessions, talk shows and mini lives. I don't know how he could be so emotionally involved in this dark character for 90 minutes and turned right back to Koki Tanaka, the artist and started singing. Otsukaresamadesu! Really! I really hope through this play, there are more opportunities in the future for him to act in other things.

ps. For the last show today, as the captain of the play, Koki asked each co-star to say something at the end which is rare (usually only the captain talks). After the show, he even wrote messages on twitter to each co-star, one by one. Sometimes I felt he failed a lot in real life. If people only knew him from the news, it is easy to dislike him, just like the joker in the story. However, when people get to know him, seeing how sweet he is, it is hard not to like him or support him. I think it is also the reason that people who have worked with him never say bad things about him.

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sambart93 · 7 years ago

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2018.01.12 Ikemen Kakumei Stage [Review]

Can you believe the full title is: ‘Ikemen Kakumei: Alice to Koi no Mahou Episode Kuro no Ace Fenril = God's Speed’ What the hell xD and Koudai even said the FULL title during the curtain call yesterday! That’s way too long xD ANYWAY!

Official Website here Official Twitter here Official Game Site here Official Game Twitter here Press Coverage 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

CAST and CHARACTERS

Miyagi Koudai as Fenril Domoto Shohei as Rei Hashimoto Shinichi as Sirius Oomi Shouichiro as Ruka Matsumoto Hinata as Sesu Maeuchi Takafumi as Yona Maeda Taisho as Edgar Kunta as Zero Tanaka Hyouga as Kairu Muro Tatsuki as Bran Koga Ruito as Olvier Kubota Kouki as Harle Hattori Muo as Loki Shiokawa Wataru as Lancelot Takeuchi Yume as Alice Ensemble: Inoue Keita, Umetsu Taiki, Kutou Hiroki, Hasegawa Yuu, Wada Shogo, Nakajima Takuto

NON-SPOILER REVIEW

Overall: I really wish I had the time and money to see this at least 2 or 3 times total. I really, really enjoyed it! But in true Alex style, I went on the freaking day it was being filmed! I seem to have a habit of been there the day it’s filmed!! This was so much fun! I thoroughly enjoyed myself! If you don't know, I am a huge sucker for Alice in Wonderland themed stuff so this was right up my alley. Also, I've recently been loving everything Koudai has been doing so being able to see him again, and as the lead, was awesome. And after Pizza (review here) I totally fell for Hinata so was glad to see him so soon. Just the entire cast in general is a golden cast! It was nice seeing Domoto acting on stage after breaking his wrist and seeing how okay he was, which was a relief! The story was simple yet great and I did get pretty emotional towards the end; and I super hope there is a continuation because I need more! I want this to be in the same style as HakuMyu; pretty much the same story every time but the main girl lead changes and who she ends up with every time changes too. The fight choreography was definitely interesting and you can probably tell from the cast list, that some of them were taking skills they'd learnt in other stages *coughcoughMessiahandPuristagecoughcough* and putting it into this one! The Aftertalk was freaking hilarious too! I need another installment; WITH the same cast and I need it to be at a time when I have more money so I can spend and go crazy with ALL the photosets and ALL the randoms! Rating: 8/10

SPOILER REVIEW

PRESHOW

The character ita-bag game was strong here! I was so surprised, especially for the game/anime characters! Lately I've been seeing less and less ita-bags at events and stuff, so seeing here and seeing how strong the competition was, really made me happy. Also it was surprising that there were more anime/game fans than actor fans I think. People seemed to be obsessed with Ruka; both character and actor.

I ended up with an aisle seat which I really hoping I wasn’t going to have. And it ended up being on the freaking FILMING DAY! So many times they were RIGHT next to me so that’s gunna be all over the damn DVD if they choose that show recording for the dvd *dies* why do I always go on filming day *cries*

Also, I love how they had the Disney Alice In Wonderland music playing while we were waiting for the show to start. It really helped set the mood and if you don’t know, I really, really, really love Alice in Wonderland << I have no idea why! Someone explain this to me.

STORY

I'm pretty sure the stage follows the games story faithfully. But just in case it is different:

So Alice is from 19th Century London but one day she gets transported to their world, the world of Cradle which has been split into three regions; The Red Side, The Black Side and then the DMZ Zone where the normal people who don't want to get involved and just live normal are.

The story is, she must wait until the next full month before she can return back to the London she knows, so during this month she decides to take refuge under the Black Clan. But obviously, she has some magical powers that the Red Clan want to get a hold of and use against the Black Clan. Furthermore we have a third clan which is like a secret underground occult who also wish to get their hands on Alice and her power. Finally, we have Loki and Harle who, to be honest, we don't really know what their motivations are or what they want to do; they just like to cause mischief it seems.

So naturally, throughout this month, regardless of the fact she and Fenril make some rules:

1. Don't fall in love with anymore 2. Leave the world smiling

Their feelings for each other flourish and romantic drama ensues while people are trying to capture and kill, not just her, but each other.

I don't think I've done this story ANY justice. But it's good okay!!

GOOD POINTS

Oh man where to start?!?!

Alice is so pretty! She was next to me during one pat of the play near the beginning and just her skin is flawness and she was just.... SOOOO DAMN PRETTY! also I LOVED her outfit!

I actually had a midlife crisis during this play because I saw her outfit and I thought 'aww that's so cute! I wish I could wear something like that' to which the other side of my brain went 'IN A FEW MORE YEARS YOU'LL BE TOO OLD TO WEAR SOMETHING LIKE THAT! SO YOU BETTER START WEARING THIS KIND OF STUFF NOW!' and I just had my mind explode of 'oh shiiii I really am running out of time! Why didn't I have the confidence to wear this shit when I was like 16, 18, 20, 21, 23! Now it's too late for me! Noooo!' It really hit me hard. If anyone has any kind words of confidence for me then let me know *cries*

The cast definitely utilised their PuriStage (Hinata) and Messiah (Shinichi and Koudai) skills that they had learned. Hashimoto was all with the fighting techniques, almost a carbon copy of stunts in and from Messiah; Koudai was doing all the gun movements that you’d expect to see someone like Itsuki doing in Messiah - with the cockiness and all! Also Hinata with the jumps and part parkour movements when he’s fighting. I super enjoyed and love the fact they incorporated those skills into this stage.

One of the ensemble, Kudou Hiroki, did a crap ton of stunts and was the main guy when helping Shinichi and co doing difficult stunts too! He was really damn good.

Can we take a minute to talk about Hinata and how freaking cute and pretty he is! Like seriously, TOO PRETTY! No wonder he's in a group called CANDY BOY. I also really enjoyed his character and thought it fit him really well. He played a very cute and very sweet character but I think that's also part of his personality. There was a moment during the opening scene when Koudai dropped one of his knives or guns and Hinata very smoothly very over, picked it up and gave it back to Koudai; it looked so naturally too but he stayed in character and all cute and elegant. It was nice xD

AND!! PreShow; I noticed most of the trades were for Ruka and I couldn't figure out why; he isn't technically an actor I'm familiar with and I didn't really care for his character visual but damn after seeing the character on stage; I totally get WHY everyone was wanting Ruka’s stuff because he is adorable! AND cool! At the same time! He has so many great scenes! First we see him as this shy and quiet guy and then as soon as Alice is nice to him and compliments him, he gets all shy and embarrassed and starts acting like a cute little school boy. Also he can cook!Fenril was a good character. He obviously looked really cool, but not only that, I thought he was a sweet and straight forward character and I love the moments he has with Alice; not only is he there to support her, but there's also a tough moment for him where he's crying and she, in return, supports him.

Honestly, I ended up really liking the couple (Fenril and Alice) and almost cried when they had to break up, and I felt all the feels again at the end for them.

I really enjoyed the songs they did, and we were allowed to clap along which was obvious fun - I love when you can do that in stages. The White Clan's song was my favourite. Especially because it had Kunta in there who can really belt out some notes and he ws definitely the loudest singer!

Even during the final end song, Kunta was singing loudly which was hilarious and great to hear because he really is a damn good singer; I totally get why he was a Johnny’s Junior. Even his laughing voice is loud but I'll get to that later. I also really liked his character and I love how he had an inside orange shirt while Fenril (supposed to be his rival match) has a green inside shirt; I think that was a cute detail.

Fenril was a good character. He obviously looked really cool, but not only that, I thought he was a sweet and straight forward character and I love the moments he has with Alice; not only is he there to support her, but there's also a tough moment for him where he's crying and she, in return, supports him.

I was super surprised when I saw Tanaka showed up! I’ve been thinking about him a lot recently because I loved him in Soul Flower but haven’t seen him in anything else since even though I’ve been to many ASSH stages since that one. So I was happy to finally see him again in something! His character was really amusing; he was a doctor who loved alcohol! I think we know a few people like that xD Also I love how he's one of the neutral characters. Even though he wears white and is part of the White Clan, he will also help aid the Black Clan. Which is what he does when Ruka gets severely injured.

Another partially neutral character is Yona. While he is full of White Clan pride and will always fight for White Clan; turns out his brother is Ruka who USED to be in the Whites but transitioned over to the Blacks. And it is actually Yona who attacks and injures Ruka but he does it in order to stop him from actually getting killed. It's complicated but basically Yona injured his brother to save him so he wouldn't get killed by anyone and the way he injured him was so exact that it was enough to make it seem deadly but, with the skilled White Doctor's skills, actually Ruka is able to recover without being seriously affected.

There is a cute scene where Yon actually tries to sneak into the Black Clans hide out to see how Ruka is doing and he gets caught straight away because he comes in carrying this huge box of sweets and chocolate and teddies for Ruka that he can barely carry and while he denies at first that he cares for Ruka, he soon admits and the Blacks let him have this one special pass to go see his brother and stay by his side while he recovers. It's a really cute and touching, while also funny because he can barely carry the box, scene.

The two jokers, Loki and Harle, seem very interesting but had very minutes roles in this, but they were in it enough to interest (at least) me. There's a few scenes where Loki is running around and being nosey and seeing the development between Fenril and Alice. Then there's a scene where Harle and Loki actually meet the main characters and they're very cryptic and don't really explain what they know. But here there is a such cute moment where Alice compliments Harle and immediately Harle starts backing away from Alice any time she got close because he was now shy and embarassed to be near her; it was adorable! So I really hope we get some more development from them in the next stage.

Also, Hashimoto looked so cool! He usually plays like a geeky or unpopular/uncool character, but in this one, with the super kool stunts and fight moves, along with his outfit and visual, he looked real cool!

And now can we talk about Domoto now?!?!

Honestly love how freaking awkward Domoto is and how done he is with stages once they've finished. For example, during the curtain calls, the rest of the cast had barely started going off stage when he was like ‘peace out’ and was the first off the stage. He literally dodged the rest of the cast to get off stage first. It seriously cracked me up but I totally understand where he's coming from. It's not that he's rude or he doesn't care; he just did his job and he wants to go home, also he gets really nervous being himself in front of crowds and fans and stuff, so I totally get why he acts the way he does; and to be honest, and it's very obvious that, I love it! I really do love his personality; the good, the bad and the ugly <<-- at least what I know of it so far (which is quite a lot after his very drunk Birthday Event xD). ALSO(!) I seriously died whenever he cracked a smile during this stage!! It’s just so precious! He’s so precious when he smiles!!! He stops being this cool, closed off guy and immediately becomes all adorable and precious when he breaks into a smile. It just melts my heart!! ANNND, my heart started racing really badly during the opening dance scene with him just becaus of how cool he looked and the flash of the smile and it made me so happy to see that his hand was okay (he broke it back in November) and just my heart couldn't take it <3 Speaking of breaking his hand; in this I noticed Domoto switched between both of his hands to use his sword. And there is one moment where his character is thrown to the ground and onto his right wrist and right side which got me super worried because that was his broken wrist! But he seemed okay so PHEW! xD

There's one really funny moment with Domoto that cracked me up a lot. There is one guy, who is played by the ensemble and part of the Black Clans soldiers, who was trying to disarm and twist Shohei's arm, but he couldn’t do it! Shohei showed him and did it to him about 3 times but he just couldn't do it in return. This is actually during a more serious moment between Fenril and co because of the White Clan trying to attack them, but quiet a few of us were too busy watching and giggling at what Shohei and this soldier were doing instead. It was hilarious!

Did I mention how cool he is?!?! JUST LOOK!!

Also, I know I love Domoto but because I ended up liking the main girl so much, I wouldn't mind if in the next stage (I keep talking like there WILL be a next stage, but I seriously hope there's another installment!) it's Domoto's character Rei and Alice who are the main couple. I'd like to see Domoto do a... happier role. And it'd be interesting trying to see Domoto do a romantic role xD I think it'd be super adorable and cute!

ANYWAY! Moving on from Domoto! Just a final few things.

During the ending song, Black Clan were on the left side of the audience while the White Clan were down my side. Edgar was stood RIGHT next to me!

Actually because of my aisle seat (which I was dreading) I had Edgar, Alice, Bran, Zero and some more next to me at least once. My poor heart and nerves!

Now for some things that were Higawaris (Daily Changes) or just cute/funny accidents that happened:

There's a scene where Ruka bakes some cookies for Alice and she tries one but the poor actress couldn’t eat her cookie quick enough and while she was trying to speed up the eating so she could say he next like, all the boys were just starring at her and slowly getting closer to her like 'what's wrong? Are you okay? Do you need tea? She needs tea! Do you want another cookie? YOU DO?! Oh, you don't?!' so she ended up part laughing, part trying to eat and part coughing because she was trying to eat while laughing. Everyone in the room was cracking up.

Hashimoto got called Ossan (old man) at one point. I'm not sure if it's part of the script or not but most of the crowd started laughing because (I think) he is the oldest in this cast and Hashimoto himself cracked out a laugh at the point and was like 'OSSAN?! I'm not an old man!'

Just after the opening scene (don't quote me on that), there is a scene where Loudai and Hinata are having an arm wrestle. It's really amsuing because we see Koudai's character Fenril struggle when Hinata is all calm and stuff. But just before Fenril can get Hinata's hand to the floor, he swings it his way and wins so easily and flawlessly and Fenril is just like 'no way....' xD

This was definitely an accident but, at one point, just after Alice joins the Black Clan, Hinata is talking to her and talks about how cute she is, but instead of lighting putting a hand under Alice's chin, he accidentally hit her chin upwards and Alice's actress started laughing and Hinata quickly rubbed her chin and put his hands on her face like 'are you okay?! sorry!' and continued his line. But everyone in the crowd and a few of the cast laughed.

All the mistakes that I saw just made the stage even better!

BAD POINTS

I seriously only have two bad points and they aren't even that negative!

So the first one is Koudai! He had me worried for most of the play because he has lost a lot of weight =[ I get it's because Brave 10 is coming back so he had to lose the weight again to fit his character and the visuals and the costume but... he is unbelievably thin. I just wanted to drag him off stage and take him to a buffet and just keep feeding him food He's tiny right now =[

And the second one is: GIVE ME A SECOND STAGE ALREADY GODDAMMIT! I enjoyed this WAY too much and I need MORE with this cast! xD

EXTRA POINTS

I was super shocked by how YOUNG both Oliver and Alice’s actors are! Oliver’s actor is only 13 and he’s damn tiny! His ickle little legs! xD And Alice’s is barely 18! Also she’s from the Sailor Moon stages which I thought was awesome and completely explains why the hell her singing was so damn good in this stage.

SERIOUSLY: I hope they do a continuation of this series and maybe do something like HakuMyu; the main boy character changes every time and Alice’s actress changes every time.

THE AFTERTALK

The aftertalk was absolutely hilarious! It was a little different to a normal aftertalk. Instead of just talking an answering questions, they infact picked three girls out from the audience via the ticket stubs and, conincidently, they all ended up being from my side of the theatre: F-22, F-25 and H-22.

So with the three girls on stage, the boys had to do like a Mune-Kyun (’make a girls heart race’) line. Usually it was with 4 boys (including the MC) but in this final one, there was only Hyouga, Kunta and the MC who was always Muro (Bran), so Hyouga was like ‘you (Muro) should join in and do it too’ which Muro really didn’t want to but he quickly gave it to Kunta, Hyouga and the crowd, and ended up joining in. He was so nervous and the girl he had to give the line to was like 'you can do it! Calm down' and he's like 'she's so nice! She's making my nerves worse'! xD

Also, during this Hyouga and Kunta’s laughs were so freaking loud and so funny! Muro was like ‘this is why I hate sharing a dressing room with you! You’re both so annoying!’ xD They couldn't keep their laughter quiet when Muro was doing his Mune Kyun so the rest of the crowd were dying.

Kunta's MuneKyun was average but Hyouga's was really, really good! And the girl grabbed and hugs him at the end of it xD so clearly she was emotionally moved xD

And we're done!

#domoto shohei #tanaka hyouga #kunta #hashimoto shinichi #miyagi koudai #review #stage #oomi shouichirou #matsumoto hinata #maeuchi takafumi #maeda taisho #mura tatsuki #kugo ruito #kubota kouki #kubota koki #hattori muo #shiokawa wataru #takeuchi yume #堂本翔平

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