#toukenmyu

[majestimecosplay]

Recently, I did Horikawa Kunihiro (kimono version) from Touken Ranbu. I’m so happy to do him because I love this child XD. 

A part about Horikawa  I discovered is He was thrown into the sea after Hijikata’s dead. Somewhere, I feel like him and sorry about him. 

Even so, I really love this cuty and happyness child XD

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Dont know if anyone else noticed but Nikkari wasnt in the Otokomichi song of Shinken Ranbu Sai.

He went and slipped out to change into his full garment.

Whoops?!

[torippiyos]

Touken Ranbu ~Bakumatsu Tenrouden~ Live Viewing Experience and Afterthoughts

So I posted on this blog about a week ago and on my Twitter that I would be going to see the Live Viewing of Touken Ranbu ~Bakumatsu Tenrouden~, and how lucky I was to be able to get a good seat and to even have the live viewing shown in my country in the first place, and the fact that this was their very last show. 

Before you continue, please note that there are SPOILERS, so if you plan to watch this on DVD please don’t read this! I’ll try not to give away too much though!

A very brief synopsis of the show: The musical is set during the unsettled days of the end of the Edo period, especially so for the Shinsengumi, covering Okita Souji’s contraction of tuberculosis and Kondo Isami’s execution, thus handing over (albeit temporary) leadership to Hijikata Toshizo. Of course, that would make the story revolve around their swords, Kashuu Kiyomitsu, Yamatonokami Yasusada, Nagasone Kotetsu, Izuminokami Kanesada, Horikawa Kunihiro, and their captain, Hachisuka Kotetsu. 

Starting off with my experience of the live viewing -- it was done in a fairly decent sized theatre, and it was only showing in one cinema, so this viewing was really exclusive here. I rushed for tickets on the day bookings could start and I was pleasantly surprised to find out that half of the seats had been booked, but I was lucky enough to get a good seat since I was going alone.

As much as I enjoy watching musicals in real life, I didn’t quite have a choice with this one, and the good thing about seeing a live viewing is that you can scream as much as you want and it’d still be deemed appropriate. Because the theatre was just filled with screams. (As for myself, I screamed “TORICHAN AISHITERU” until I had no voice left). The stream itself was super smooth and super high quality, it felt like you were watching a blu-ray on a really big screen, and the stream only lagged for a split second at the beginning. 

The Touken Danshi also delivered a special message to everyone who watched the live viewing and not to the audience that was physically there after the entire show was over, so I thought that was a good treat. 

Based on the stunning main visual, you would have thought that this musical would have centered around Nagasone and/or Hachisuka. Or, based on the fact that Kashuu Kiyomitsu has been in all the other Touken Ranbu musicals leading up to this point, you would have thought that Kashuu would play a very key role in this musical as well.

That’s what I thought, at least. But boy, was I wrong. Don’t let the visual or order of cast credits fool you: this is a story revolving around Yasusada.

Without giving too much away, the story is very strongly built on Yasusada’s feelings towards Okita, and you can see that there is a very strong connection from sword to master and not the other way around (because Okita doesn’t know of Yasusada’s personified existence), even to the point where Yasusada joins the Shinsengumi temporarily under the alias “Okisa” to keep an eye on Okita. This created a very touching story about the one-sided relationship between Yasusada and Okita and Yasusada fighting his own personal battles regarding Okita. 

Another master-sword relationship we see in this musical is between Nagasone and Kondo, albeit very briefly. As sturdy and strong as Nagasone’s character may be, his also one-sided relationship with Kondo creates a softness in character in him as well as also helps to build on the relationship between him and Hachisuka, which was a nice deviation that I liked seeing. 

On the topic of character relations, there are a few main ones being built. There’s Yasusada’s own personal connection with Okita as mentioned earlier, Hachisuka and Nagasone, as well as Horikawa and the rest of his team. 

(in the musical that I went to watch tori bent over backwards like ryuji in this scene www)

Notice how I didn’t mention Kashuu and Yasusada, that’s because in my opinion there was no character relations to be built, it was just there. Rather than focus on building the relationship between Kashuu and Yasusada, the musical works with their existing relationship and plays out the entire thing based on the trust these two have of each other.

As for Hachisuka and Nagasone, this is quite a pivotal relationship in the musical as well as among the Touken danshi. The way the two evolve from the extreme tension to the point where they would willingly look out for each other with genuine care and concern not only brought themselves together, but made the whole team more whole overall. Not to mention this aspect is extremely touching and almost made me cry, for reasons I shall not reveal. ;-;

LIke Kashuu and Yasusada, the musical goes on Horikawa and Kanesan’s existing relationship and doesn’t seem to do much building. However, on Horikawa’s side, I felt that he played more of the role of the ‘messenger boy’, not to say it in the bad way, but he was one of the factors that connected all the Touken danshi together, playing the role of not only a responsible team member but a caring friend. He was the one who tried to ease the initial tension out of Hachisuka, and he was the one who tried to change Yasusada’s mind about leaving the village come back to us sasuke. So I would say Horikawa’s role in this musical is quite pivotal as well. 

I won’t dwell too much on the relationships amongst the three from the Shinsengumi or much about Yasusada’s relationship with Okita, for both feels much too intimate to talk about without giving away spoilers.

To those who don’t know the format of this musical and why it’s run time is a whopping 210 minutes long, the musical is split up into two parts, with an intermission of 15 minutes in the middle. The first 2 hours is the entire story, whereas the last hour is mainly a concert put up by the Touken danshi, consisting of a small taiko segment by the Shinsengumi trio. 

That’s right, they played out the entire story without having an intermission in between. That’s a feat for such a taxing stage play, if you ask me. I was amazed Takahashi Kensuke (Hachisuka’s actor) either went off to the washroom really quickly in between scenes or held it in until the musical segment. If you can see in the image above, there was a scene where Horikawa poured him and entire pint of “sake” (it’s sake but they can’t really drink on stage), and, yes, he downed the whole thing on stage. 

There’s not much to say about the concert segment, other than the fact that I was really surprised when so many people pulled out light sticks, and that they all seemed like a giant idol group with backup dancers and all. And that they stripped three times on stage. And Tori did a flip. And Tori flashed his midriff really cheekily and that was the only time in the entire musical where I burst into tears. 

I’m not entirely familiar with the songs sung during the concert segment, but most of them were from the Touken Danshi CDs released quite some time back from the other musicals. 

Moving on to the technical aspect of the musical, which is something I absolutely ADORED. Like the other Touken Ranbu musicals, the set was nice and simple, there were no huge, fancy transitions from scene to scene, but they kept everything simple and in my opinion almost clutter free. The location transitions were marked out via projection, written in kanji where the Touken danshi had just travelled to. Other scenes such as the village were marked out by having just two buildings by the side and of course with the props carried by the Shinsengumi. Other than that, nothing really deviates from the setup you see in the image above. The two staircases pictured can move and join up to become one single giant one. 

If you haven’t seen any other stage plays that are not sports anime stage plays, you would know that a lot of projections are made use of to fancy up the play or to indicate certain happenings. Here there would be a rumbling projection to indicate the Touken danshi launching into battle, and a projection of the night sky to indicate the time of day. Those were the two most common. (There is one more, but it’s a spoiler.)

The swordplay in this is fantastic. Of course it’s not the smoothest and can’t really compare to what’s done in real life, but the actors, both main and supporting, really do a good job bringing those battle scenes to real life, where it’s just so happening and you can’t keep your eyes focused on one point alone. The Touken danshi’s fighting styles are also quite adequately demonstrated, I would say moreso in Yasusada, Nagasone and Hachisuka, though. 

The soundtrack is absolutely fantastic, and it’s really something I would want to have a CD of and listen to it over and over. It creates a nice blend of east and west, with traditional Japanese elements incorporating more global movements like techno. And this applies to both the soundtrack as well as the song segments. The music (or lack thereof) was also quite key to playing out the mood of any given scene, like any other musical/play. This is something the story segment managed to achieve, an appropriate balance between serious and comedy, which was something I enjoyed very much. 

To go over the acting really quickly (because this is getting insanely long), the acting was beautiful. And, to me, the one who really stole the limelight was... Torigoe. No, it’s not just because he’s my bias (I love you Torichan), but it should be obvious because this was really Yasusada’s show. Tori manages to convey the heart wrenching aspects of this play and make it a very convincing performance. When Yasusada looked like he was about to cry, I thought I was about to cry.

The story segment is very, very emotional. It’s not just light-hearted, fun swordfighting, but it is very emotionally taxing in my opinion. That’s why I am so grateful to each and every actor for their wonderful and convincing performance. And this contrasts greatly from all the other roles I’ve seen Torigoe portray, be it in the Pedal stage plays or even the smaller ones like Usagi Restaurant, where he’s usually carefree. Not to say that his previous roles weren’t serious, they did very well have serious scenes, but his performance with Yasusada really takes his emotion to the next level. 

I have never seen so many actors actually cry on stage, no matter how little stage time they might have. Takagi Tomoyuki and Gomoto Naoya, hats off to you, you were fantastic. At that point half the cinema was in tears, and I think that makes this self-explanatory. 

For my final thoughts before I end this off:

Overall, Touken Ranbu ~Bakumatsu Tenrouden~ was an experience that anyone has to go forth and enjoy. Whether you’re a big fan of Touken Ranbu or not, this musical really captures your attention, and not just because of the pretty boys and costumes. The story went so much deeper than I thought it would, and a star-studded performance of the highest quality was delivered to make this musical an experience I would pay to live through again. 

This musical is really fantastic, and I think about it each passing day. The moment blu-ray comes out, please buy it. You do not want to miss this instalment, it is really top-notch. 

That being said if any of you have any of the Touken danshi merch ESPECIALLY of Torigoe Yuki I would gladly pay for it because the live viewings overseas don’t bring in merchandise and I’m very sad. ;-;

The live viewing was really an experience, and I would loved to have seen it live. If any of you do have the chance please please PLEASE, you have to watch it.

With that, as how Kashuu addressed all the aruji (I only just realised that it’s aruji and not saniwa), “This is it, bye bye.” 

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ミュージカル『刀剣乱舞』 ～つはものどもがゆめのあと～ ゲネプロ【ガルスタｃｈ】

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「刀剣乱舞」新作ミュージカルが開幕

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【動画】ミュージカル『刀剣乱舞』～つはものどもがゆめのあと～公開ゲネプロ | エンタステージ

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Basically, Katsugeki episode 12 in a nut shell

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AnimeOnStage & Buying services experience

Hello Tumblr,

I’m back. (kinda not really) I’ve taken a hiatus from this place and have found respite on other social medias. I still love my musical boys to death but life has caught up with me and has had me plenty busy. I still log in once in a while but you can definitey find me at other SMS where I’m much more active.

but I’m here to touch base on a subject that I’ve had some people DM me about since I guess my ASK box isn’t working? (Welp then)

I didn’t feel the need to make this post only because I feel so much of us have already have our ways to get our grabby little hands on all our favorite butai merch but to those who are new to the game and are looking at the right places to buy, tumblr and other butai blogs have long extensive lists and more detailed posts on how to procure your merchandise, as well as how to access DMM or even how to be a member on Toumyu’s website.

I’ll be blunt, I have a JP address and a card that allows me to gain access to all that.

How to get your own JP Address? Tenso. it does require you to do some verification but its really simple and easy from there. they will even provide you a phone number to use to gain access to all the other stuff They offer ems, dhl and regular shippping. Their basically a forwarding service, you buy the items yourself and you get it shipped to your tenso address and the warehouse guy wil contact you to let you know your stuff is in and forward it to your US/UK/overseas address.

Downside to tenso: Again you need to procure the items yourself, meaning you bid on your own and etc.

FromJapan: Good place to shop. They will source all items from rakuten, amazonjp and yahoo auctions and more. they are also a buying proxy with very good rates. They offer a variety of shipping and will do bids on your behalf.

AmazonJP: By far my favorite place to shop as their pricing are very very *very* competitive. If anything, sometimes even way cheaper than the regular retail price. for example: bakuten bluray originally was approx $85-95 USD. At amazonjp it was $65 USD with free global dhl shipping. Downside to buying from amazon or frommJP sellers, like buying from auction houses, your basically buying from a 3rd party seller and if your intention is to ‘support the show directly’ your better off buying directly from their sales division either by a 'in-person proxy’ or directly from the shows website and using tenso or personal shopper to buy in your place.

This post is getting quite long but let me get straightto the point as to why I’m bringing this post up, this was meant to be a walk through or talk through on my buying experiences with AnimeOnStage.

Let me start with, I’m not here to bash on a business, I’m not out to destory their reputation or anything like that. but its very apparent that so many people have been rather unhappy with their services as of late (ie; see twitter please)

Now, before we go on the whole 'why this business is bad and why you shouldn’t shop from them’, no. Stop. check yourself. And remind yourself that they are also a small business. For the fans by the fans if their motto, and for the longest time I appreciate what their trying to do. And that is to bridge the gap between western and eastern fans and basically feed us our 2.5D merch needs.

I’ve used their services a few times in the past and so far haven’t had any issues.

(but Chisa! Why would you use them when you have all these other accesses? - I’m lazy. Simple as that. I’ve said this so many times on all my other posts — yes guys i’m sorry i still have half the audio rips from the shinken ranbusai that i’ll eventually put up LOOo see how lazy i am?!.

but basically, I opted to join in on their 'group orders’ for certain live plays coz hey, i figured their going to watch the show and buy merch anyway I might as well put in a request for an item or two coz the price isnt any different if i pay for ems or dhl…etc…)

So how does AOS stage play orders work? let me run down on this real quick, they will post up the merch list on what will be on sale, you fill out the form on what you want and they invoice you for it. Simple enough right? After a few weeks when your merch is in their hands (in the US) they’ll then forward you a email/2nd invoice to shipping within the US. So in the end, you basically just pay priority mailing which is approx $7-10 depending on how heavy your package is. Simple enough.

Now, heres my gripe with them lately… their a small business, I get that. They travel all over the place, traveling wears you outand takes a lot of time. Vending at cons isn’t easy. I’ve been there, done that. So i’ve been pretty patient. But, I’ve been waiting on hold on my Engekki jacket orders for well over 9 months now, how long ago was the engekki reprisal show when the jackets were first announced? Still no word… Now fast forward June 2017…I’m waiting to hear from them.

I’ve emailed them a few times before and as of this post today, I’m still waiting on my refund. (Its been a few weeks, I won’t name a number because I’m trying to give them the benefit of the doubt here)

again, I want to stress I’m not out here to destroy their reputation, I know a lot has been going on at twitter on how their business practices are; ie bootleg merch and all. But I would like to point out that from one thread I found on twitter (I won’t link them, please feel free to search on there) that they had no intentions on selling bootleg mech and will offer refunds to those who mistakingly bought bootleg items. So, I atleast gotta hand them that.

Tl;dr I’d shop with them at your own discretion. Because lgr, you could be duped by another seller when your trying to bid on items online but atleast finding bootleg merch on JP buying sites is almost impossible atleast.

So what happened to my engekki jacket orders? Basically, from what I can disect is that they were unable to procure the said jackets at the time of the event, for months I was led to believe that maybe they were on a pre-order basis considering the only people I’ve seen sporting them were the cast of engekki hq themselves and no other fans were posting them…but fast forward a few months later, I sent in an inquirey and the response I got was; “Hi, xxxx!

We are still trying to source the parkas from a reliable source and we deeply apologize for the delay. If you would like a refund at this time, we totally understand! ”

now, I knew full well that the jackets were gonna be a hot item to be sold at the venue so I guess in my mind it made sense that they would probably be on a pre-order basis but this response / email made me think other wise. Reliable source? As in, purchasing it elsewhere?

Anyways its been a good few mins since I started drafting this post and as I was about to hit 'post’ I got an email response from them (Finally, after a twitter blast later as well) and got a refund from a personal account. Ok.

I didn’t want to back track and rewrite the whole post. But this is my experience with AOS.

Again, I want to stress that their not a bad business, I’ve been pretty patient waiting all this time on their responses and I’ve been pretty forgiving coz I know how its like to run a small hub of a business and I just hope that this experience (and other peoples orders) go smoothly and would serve as a learning step or building block for them to grow their business better and to continue to (re)build their reputation coz I’d hate to see a vendor like this crash and burn because of a few unhappy clients. There is room for growth, I hope that they will continue to grow into being a better service provider by supplying legit merch if they insist on charging the prices they charge for other merch.

(But I would say that their buying service charges are actually very reasonable imho)

[leciell]

GOODLUCK KASHUU! MESSAGE FROM SANJOU!

ありがとうございました。 共有しないように注意してください。 あなたがチーム三条からこの特別なメッセージを見ることに興味があるなら、あなたはパスワードを入力する必要があります。 おかえりなさいあるじさま !!! だけど！ なしで！ ありがとうございました！

Oh my god. I love team Sanjou so much! Their so cute and I miss them so much. I still really love their energy and support for each other! We know Ryo is BFF with Ryuji and Shunya, so its really cute. Dadchi...though LOL... sounds like a dad...

Tsubasa sounds like a proud mama and I'm sure hes also really excited for his own role.

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『ユメひとつ』PV（フルサイズ）Yume no hito

Premium Members Only PV Yume no Hito Touken Ranbu PV Please do not re-upload / reshare without permission leciell.tumblr.com

Please support the boys and purchase their CDs & DVDs now available on CDJapan! [intl shipping]

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Hitohira no Kaze

Do not reshare without permission. 

Please support and buy their DVD which recently released! International buyers can buy it from CDJapan! 

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So just a quick overview on the EP / CDs that came out for Touken Ranbu Bakumatsu Tenrouden.

Because I'm sure some people we're confused on them, so just like before with Team Sanjou, each character got their own CD.

The pre-ordered CDs (if you bought the specialedition one) will include a DVD with it. And those that didnt will just get an audio CD with approx 6 songs

3 of which will be Karaoke (no vocals) versions

6 Characters with 6 different 'character CDs'

the thing that makes each CD or character CD unique is 1 of the songs in each one.

Each cD will include Yumehitotsu and Hitohiranokaze and 1 off song. Depending on which character CD you buy you will either get 'heart-to-heart', 'prologue' or 'utsukushii higeki' which will be sang by the pertaining character on the CD cover.

Be warned that this CD is considered a 'single' or mini album as it will not include ALL the songs sang throughout the musical, you'd have to wait for the album to come out (like with Sanjou)

My suggestions is, you buy your pertaining touken danshi and just buy the other 2 songs individually. They run at about $1.29 USD or 250Yen each

So to group them up: Kashuu Kiyomitsu & Kanesada will both have the 'heart-to-heart' song Kunihiro & Nagasone will have 'Prologue' Yasusada & Hachisuka will have 'Utsukushii Higeki' as their character songs.

It wouldn’t be the most cost effective thing to buy each individual CDs unless you’re a super die-hard fan. dontlookatmebutillberippingthedvdswhentheyarriveonfridayssssh

And I thoroughly enjoyed listening to them on a studio setting and cannot wait to hear the full album 

And yes, these are availble for purchase via itunes both international market and JP market! To find them on the international market, simply type in ‘Touken Danshi team Shinsengumi’ and they will pop up!

Enjoy! 

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Do not repost without permission or credit.

Screen shots taken from the  Itsukushima Shrine Concert

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So I got all my TKRB dvd/cds today...

the 'individual' dvd/cd combo is as we expected LOL nothing special unlike Sanjou who got to go to Kyoto to shoot a PV. Bakuten is just a compilation of clips focusing on each sword.

But I did also want to note that the DVD version of Bakumatsu Tenrouden comes with 3 CDs! 

the 3rd CD is basically the whole play + dance musical number in a fixed camera view where you get a full view of the entire stage as if you were there watching it live from the Mezzanine area :D I think thats pretty neat tbh! //waves own sticklight as well//

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Itsukushima Photobook.

Please do not remove credit or epost anywhere else without permission or proper credits.

You can purchase your own copy of the photobook via https://musical-toukenranbu.jp/. The proceeds will go towards the support of the Itsukushima Shrine. Its for a good cause!