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sambart93 · 7 years ago

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2017.06.06 Aru Kariya-kun no Jinsei

I managed to be smack in the front front row for this show! I was so obvious to everyone *hides* and they could see me flinch whenever action scenes started because I was so worried they’d fall off the stage xD But now to the good stuff!

Official Website here

Cast and Characters

Yamaoki Yuuki as Kariya Imade Mai as Kiyoko Otokawa Arina as Rina Nakashima Takami as Yuuji Karasuma Runa as Sayaka Sono Kazuki as Takayuki (? The name has to many readings and I don’t remember which one he is.) Yano Airi as Misato Sugahara Yutaka as Atsushi Nakamura Rena as Kozue Kawasaki Masahiro as Toshiko Hajikano Natsuki as Takako Tanaka Hiroki as Naoe Arisawa Mutsuki as Aya Shintami Naoto as Agent R Kamikoshi Shou as Agent S Maeda Yukari as Agent X Tsujimoto Shohei as Daisuke Fujita Sena as Miwako Watanabe Makoto as Hikikomorikun Fukuda Salo as Okaasan Nonaka Satomi as Yukari Uchibori Katsutoshi as James Ushima

*I saw the Black Team. There is a White Team also; check out the website for them.

Non-Spoiler Synopsis:

It’s Kariya and Kiyoko’s wedding day! They and their guests are having a wonderful time until someone gatecrashes, seeking revenge of the best man. Kariya dies trying to protect everyone else. But then he wakes up on a tv-like set, completely unharmed... Turns out when you die you get 24 hours to find a new ‘character’ and life, or else you simply disappear forever.

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NON-SPOILER REVIEW Overall: I always love coming to these more ‘indie’ like shows. Also with there being some actors I know and have seen before in it, I went into it without reading the synopsis (as usual with these smaller shows) and I freaking loved it! LiveDog once again managed to take a simple storyline and turns it into something more fantastical, entertaining and heartwarming! The adlibs definitely were crazy. I had so much fun with this stage and laughed until I cried on at least two occasions! Hiroki-kun played a badass which was amazing for me too ^_^ I cannot wait for the DVD! I’ll definitely be paying closer attention to LiveDog in future; they’ve proved twice in a row that they can produce really good stuff! Rating: 8/10

SPOILER REVIEW

The Story

It starts off with Kariya and Kiyoko’s wedding, but towards the end someone, calling themselves Daisuke, breaks into the party and claims he has some unfinished business with Yuuji who one of the guests. In an attempt to stop the fight, Kariya helps but ends up being stabbed and dies. He wakes up in a room thinking it was all a dream: turns out he IS dead and that there’s people in this limbo-like world, who not only write people’s live as if they were scripts of a tv show, but also they decide the hair, the make up and the style. Kariya refuses to believe that his entire life (and everyone else’s) was one already written out script and that every decision he ever made, even down his clothing, were not really his decisions. Meanwhile in the real world, Kiyoko is devastated but believes she must stay strong and carry on for his sake. Unfortunately that’s going OFF the script for her life (which should never happen), so Agents from the limbo-world intervene and kill her, making it look like a suicide. Kariya and Kiyoko’s friends are devastated at Kariya’s death and even more shocked about Kiyoko’s suicide! They believe it didn’t really happen. So with the help of a Medium they find a way into the limbo world to rescue their friends and figure out what’s going on.

Sounds both simple but amazing right?! Well it was!

I really like how they set up the stage and the pamphlet. They just quote ShakeSpeare:

All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players.

Which easily sets up the story if you think about it.

Staging/Aesthetics

I shit myself the entire time they fought because I was front row and smack in the middle. I definitely flinched a few times and they probably noticed me flinching. But nothing went wrong, no one fell off stage, it all went smoothly so PHEW!

This is the second time I’ve seen a LiveDog production (first one was Onigir, review here) and I’ve enjoyed both of them! I’ve been keeping an eye on what they do for about 8 months so safe to say there’s a production company I’m enoying and beginnig to trust in what they make. The other two I would say is Odd Etertainment and MMJ. << they did Soul Flower, Konchuuger, Konchuuger Saien, Wakasamagumi, Marker Light Blue.

The stage was a nice set up and they easily pulled parts on and off stage too and nothing too big. But of course with there being stairs my heart was a little worried. And it was a tiny stage compared to what their should be for (again) a cast of this size and the types of stunts they did.

Adlibs and Comedy

So much comedy though! I was honestly crying with laughter. So many adlibs. Here are some examples:

- When Kariya is first told he needs to find a new life and script to take on, his Agent Rina shows him two lives he could do:

☆ The first is he wants an easy life so the one she shows him is of Hikikomori-kun (Watanabe) who is obsessed with Sengoku warlords and will imitate them a lot ‘in my left hand I have... a sword!...and in my right hand I have...’ (I don’t remember the rest). He also gets his power from the bag of crisps (chips). Meanwhile he mother spends a lot of time banging on his door, trying to get him out and when she finally breaks in and opens his windows, he pretends to be dying.

☆ The second one is of a very very successful business man (played by Nakashima) who uses his high-end contact to get his way. He’s also popular with the ladies and has one for every night of the week/ But his downfall is... well honestly I was expecting his downfall to be that he’s gay but he’s self-conscious and low in confident to break all those women’s hearts...but in actual fact, he just has one shy but crazy, stalker girl who, when he rejects to go on a date with her, she kills him. This was a very, very funny story. Nakashima first comes on and smooths his hair back and spins then like does the gun hand thing to the audience, then he just continues to do it when Kariya is talking to Rina until he has to do the next part of the story. Also when he first came on he was like ‘yeah I am living! Say it with me! IKITERU (life)!’ and the audience didn’t respond, so he went ‘nah come on! IKITERU! *we replied* not enough! IKITERU! *we shout* Okay now really push it and go rrrrrrrrru! Again!Rrrrrrru! I! KI! TE! RU!’ and then he jumped off stage and to the back and got one girl to do it and then he gave her some chocolate and jumped back on stage (by the point Yamaoki and Otokawa were laughing so hard at the back of the stage so this was clearly Nakashima just adlibbing his way through) and ‘Okay one last time! IKITERU! Thank you!’ we all clapped so hard and Yamaoki just turned to us like ‘Sorry for the disturbance’ xD Nakashima kept a straight face the entire time he did the bit. He was gold.

- About half way through there’s Auditions for a new script so two numbers (when they die, they’re labelled as numbers because they’re no longer the character of the life they just died in) come on stage to audition:

☆ One of them (Watanabe) did a Morning Musume dance and got the audience to clap along to the rhythm. James was like ‘do you really think people enjoyed it? Wouldn’t this be better?’ and he mimicked the Hikikomri skit from earlier when he did the old warlord dance type thing and was like ‘in my right hand I have a fan’ and Watanabe looked to the audience for sympathy ‘you enjoyed it right?’, and everyone in the audience clapped, so James stopped what he was doing and said ‘I stand corrected’ xD ☆ The second one (Kawasaki) was an older man pretending to be a Junior High kid who was doing judo against an elementary kid and he lost. James’ reaction was absolutely speechless and just looked at the audience and said ‘I’m very, very sorry for this‘ which cracked everyone up again. It was so random and weird that it was funny and James’ reaction made it all the more hilarious.

- Another funny scene was whenever Miwa came on stage. She did her own theme song opening and this funny dance every single time that got us laughing.

That’s all I’ll say for the comedy scenes for now.

Acting and Character Traits

Yamaoki Yuuki as Kariya: Guys! His pictures do not do him justice! He is SO good looking in real life! And he’s very slender too! I remember him looking chubby-ish in Messiah but he looks so good here! He also did his own stunts of like flipping over which were amazing! I was worried he’d hurt his back but he was fine ^_^ Kariya is such a sweet character too and sacrifices himself for his friends and his wife all the time! I spent this entire play going ‘where the fuck do I recognise this guy from?!’ and when I finally got home and realised it was Messiah, I freaked the fuck out. Seeing him in this has definitely made me softer on his Messiah character now...

Imade Mai as Kiyoko: She's got to be an idol... I’ve freaking seen her before too *googles* ahhh she’s from SKE! She definitely has the AKB look.. no wonder I recognised her... But it appears like she’s done a lot of stage too which is awesome. She’s very pretty, and I was impressed in during the opening where everyone was dancing and, her and Yamaoki were center stage dancing when she lifted her leg up to his arm and they did like a splits curtsey thing. So I was impressed with her flexibility. She did a good job in this and she was very emotional. Her performance was very good and believable. She’s cute... I’m trying NOT to get a girl crush here okay...

Otokawa Arina as Rina: She’s like Kariya’s Life Agent who tries to find him his next script. She is very sexy. She looked very good in her costume. I also loved how her character had this emotional turmoil and mental breakdown going on, and when it finally surfaces and she’s yelling at Naoe ‘I don’t feel! I’ve never lived! I’ve never cried! Do you know how frustrating it is to never experience life?!’, and all of a sudden tears fall from her eyes and she touches her face while saying, ‘what’s this?... tears?’, and she smiles and cries more because she’s finally cried for the first time in her life. But then she commits suicide; which was expected but still sad to watch happen.

Nakashima Takami as Yuuji: He is Kariya’s best friend; the one who Daisuke tried to attack at the wedding. Nakashima is a freaking genius! He is such a good actor! Not only can he stay in his character and give this great performance, but he’s also able to do ridiculous adlibs without cracking himself up and can so easily go into serious mode straight after it. Watching his act was so mesmerising. He’s very, very good. I also really liked his character. He was a strong character and tries so hard to save and protect his friends.

Karasuma Runa as Sayaka: She comes off very strong-willed and over-powering which, at first, is rather annoying, but when you find out the reason she’s strong-willed is because she’s so aware of herself and her beliefs. Not only that, she’s a badass fighter! So it took some character development to really appreciate her character.

Sono Kazuki as Takayuki: Friends with Kariya and Yuuji. He made me laugh so hard. He was the typical geek; very, very intelligent but an absolute wimp. He could always think of ways to help people out and had really good theories and such, and he was very kind and cared about his friends, but when it came to fighting, he pretty much quivered in a corner while Yuuji and Sayaka kicked everyone’s asses xD His wimpiness definitely gave me the giggles quite a few times.

Yano Airi as Misato: Kiyoko and Sayaka’s friend. She was like the weird girl who is into ghosts and paranormal but it’s thanks to her that the four of them got in contact with Miwa and thanks to her that they got into the limbo-like world.

Sugahara Yutaka as Atsushi: He’s the Director in the limbo-world and is very much use to control and running things on the ‘set’.

Nakamura Rena as Kozue: She decided the make-up in people’s lives.

Kawasaki Masahiro as Toshiko: He did everyone’s Hair. This was the guy who did the ridiculous Judo skit xD he has a running joke where, just after James gets annoyed that people aren’t sticking to their script and that theirs a rebellion without the company, he goes to storm out but does so by grabbing Toshiko’s white wig and throwing it on the floor, leaving Toshiko absolutely horrified as he stares at the wig, sulks and then eventually picks it up. It happens again in about two more scenes and he’s just like ‘can you not with my hair?!’ xD

Hajikano Natsuki as Takako: AD to the Director. She was super cute! She was a little clumsy, always falling over and letting the scripts fly all over the place. But she was super bouncy and cute.

Tanaka Hiroki as Naoe: He doesn’t turn up for AGES in this stage, so I was super worried he’d only have a small role, but he ended up having quite an important one! We’re first introduced to him as one of the script writers, but he finds it strange that people can’t choose what they want to do and that if people go off the script, that Agents must get involved and kill them off. He soon finds one script that really isn’t going as it should and using this loop hole to start bringing down the Life ‘company’ he works for. Eventually it turns out he’s an undercover agent for (I think) the gods and was given the mission to infiltrate and put a stop to this Scripted System. He was so badass you guys! First he looked very sexy in his tight jeans and waistcoat! And then we Agent S went after him and them to started fighting!! It was so good! Because they both have some sort of muscle-building or fighting or acrobat-like background, they did like cartwheels and really, really well controls spin kicks and that scene stops with them at gun point with each other! It’s such a good scene!! He looked so cool in his spy gear too (which we took the chekis in! See below vvv)

Arisawa Mutsuki as Aya: She was like James’ underling and pretty did whatever he told her to do. She was a small role but when she threatened Naoe, you really felt it.

Shintami Naoto as Agent R: He was like the boss of the Agents who got rid of people who weren’t following he script they were given in life. They intervened a lot. They were the ones who killed Kiyoko. He has a cool stick that he fights with and he has this powerful aura but in actual fact, he’s just following James’ orders and has no real power to be honest.

Kamikoshi Shou as Agent S: This adorable boy!! As soon as he came on stage I was like ‘he’s so cute!! I wanna cuddle him!’ But, I shit not you guys! They just keep getting younger! He’s totally cute and adorable BUT he is ONLY 16!!! I could tell straight away he was young but I was assuming like 18/19, but NO! Freaking 16?! *dead* I’m a bad person... ANYWAY! His character was super interesting too. His fight scene with Naoe was totally awesome and he did cartwheels literally a foot away from me and was a good character! << good as in interesting, not good as in a good person. I love how he originally was fighting it out with Naoe and THEN paired up with Naoe in the end hand helped everyone out! But it hurt my heart when James pretty much beat the shit out of him and shot/stabbed him in the leg and seriously injured him </3

OH! And he’s doing the next ASSH Stage with Hiroki-kun too! Already got my ticket for that one! ^_^

Maeda Yukari as Agent X: She was part of the group of Agents but unfortunately stayed on the bad side and was easily defeated.

Tsujimoto Shohei as Daisuke: I really, really like his blue eye contacts in this and I thought his fight scenes and every time he and Yuuji were about to fight it out, their scenes together where so good! OH! But there was one scene; while Kariya and Kiyoko are on the run in the limbo-world, they finally get a moment together and reminisce about how they first met and the fireworks they went to and everything and just as they’re about to kiss, Daisuke walks into the room and just stops in his steps. He’s silent for a good 30 seconds before ‘what are you doing here?’, and then they try to resume the kiss, ‘hang on! It’s dangerous here! Don’t do that!’ They attempt again, ‘you could get hurt! Don’t stay here!’ and they’re like ‘we’ll be okay, you just carry on finding who you need’, so he’s like ‘oh...okay...’ goes to walk away when, ‘hang on I’m after you two!’ and then him attempting to chase and kill them restarts up. It’s such a good scene >.<

Fujita Sena as Miwako: She is like one of the gods of the world and was the one that managed to get Yuuji and co to the world where Kariya and Kiyoko were. I already mentioned about her ridiculous entrance dance and song she did every time. It was very amusing.

Watanabe Makoto as Hikikomorikun: This guy was hilarious! Not only did he do the hilarious Hikikomori skit and the Morning Musume skit, he did some random small roles too and did great! I really enjoyed whatever he did in this stage! I’ll keep a small eye on him.

Uchibori Katsutoshi as James Ushima: He’s the CEO of this Life Script Company. He was SO good you guys! I loved him from the moment he walked on stage! He’s one of the two guys (Yamaoki being the other one) I recognised him straight away and lets all admit it, he’s not a bad looking fella! And with that pretty glittery underline makeup and his badass evilness he had going on? I enjoyed his role and performance A LOT! He also got some action scenes and was totally badass there too! I am so impressed with his performance <3 but seeing him beat Naoe and Agent S towards the end hurt my heart =[

Extras

The make-up in this was so good! I wanna pull out my own glitter makeup and join/match them! Apparently the other group had like eyeliner-drawn on vines (or something similar) on their faces rather than the glitter and the diamond like squares. Am I making sense? I totally wanna try out this make-up they had going on though and each one of them had something slightly different to the design!

I really liked the opening dance too and how they do like a robotic dance with signifies how they have no control over what they do and their lives.

AFTER THE SHOW

So we got to take chekis with the actors after the show so naturally I lined up in the (thankfully small) live for Hiroki-kun <3 see the beauty about Indie or smaller productions is that you get to talk to them after the show and for a decent amount of time too ^_^ Anyway I’m getting ahead...

So I got my cheki with Hiroki-kun but I got to talk to him before and after the shot. So first we talked about how he had read my letter BEFORE the show(!) and I was super shocked because I know, at least those in 2.5D, they get their letters AFTER a performance (or even at the end of a run). So, my reaction was pretty much “...what?!” and a little embarrassed. He said ‘it’ll be nice if you can get your 3 year visa right?’ and I’m like ummmm...yes...’ xD

So then we decided to do the chekis. He asked me what pose I wanted to do, and I’d completely forgotten to think of one! SO I said ‘Omakase/You decide’ and this happened:

OMG!!!! MakiChan is gunna kill me...

Hiroki-kun shook my hand quite a lot because he was like ‘you’re hands are so cold! Are you okay? They’re really cold! You sure you’re okay?!’ so he tried to make them warm. He looked super concerned >.< Yes, I was fine. Just my blood circulation sucks so if I don’t move for a few hours (like when I watch stages) I cool down very quickly and my body becomes cold but I don’t necessarily feel cold.

Then he said ‘you were in the front row too right?’ and I was like ‘I’m dead. I’m dead. He paid so much attention to me and my letter. I’m done *dead*’ inside. He is so sweet <3

I also told him ‘you’re character is so cool in this!’ and he was like ‘yes!’ with like a champion pose. I replied ‘the entire time I was like ’so cool! so cool!’”, and he’s like ‘thanks so much!!’ xD

He’s so sweet you guys!

And THAT’S why you get in with the smaller productions and lesser known actors! xD

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GOODS

I had an S-Seat which means I got a Special/Tokuten too which is the signed photo above.

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And I’m done!

Holy shit you guys! I’ve fucking caught up! It only took me like a month and a half but damn! Peace out!

#tanaka hiroki #yamaoki yuuki #imade mai #nakashima takami #kamikoshi shou #tsujimoto shohei #watanabe makoto #uchibori katsutoshi #review #stage #stage play

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