#ver: haisute.

[nekocapt]

he's so cool! i guess that's typical for kuroo-san, huh!

[nimbus-cloud]

Yu Yu Hakusho Stage Review!!!

Before I start going over the show I want to stress just how INCREDIBLY lucky I got, because I got to see the show via a same-day lottery ticket, after failing EVERY lottery and general sales, and it was INTENSE!!!  On the Thursday when I lined up twice, there were easily 400 people in the line for both the matinee and soiree shows and even when my number was drawn, it was actually 2nd on the waiting list, not one of the original winners, and I may or may not have been seriously contemplating throwing some people down the escalators to move up on the list.  But three people canceled or didn’t show so I got to get in and I was bouncing off the walls inside, WHATEVER POWER WATCHES OVER ME, I owe it my eternal soul for the opportunity!

They opened the show with HOHOEMI NO BAKUDAN and I almost screamed from the nostalgia honestly.  They basically did an opening sequence with the song, mimicking the anime opening by having them fight one by one against a group of enemies... which is why a lot of those press release photos have Kurama fighting with his rose whip (when we don’t actually see his rose whip until later in the story that’s not in this play [ALSO HOW DOES HE MAKE FIGHTING WITH THE WHIP LOOK SO GODDAMN COOL INSTEAD OF AWKWARD?!?!?]), and why there are shots with Hiei letting out the Black Dragon or Kuwabara dual-wielding spirit swords.  I know some of us were curious how much story they were going to cover or how much they were going to skip, and it’s not because of some massive skip.  The story runs from the very beginning with Yusuke dying, spending time as a ghost, and then to just after retrieving the three artifacts of darkness.  They give us a hint of the four of them about to enter the castle of the Saint Beasts, so that might be where the next play (crosses fingers) will pick up the story.  

The format of the story has Koenma (adult ver.) narrating (sometimes with Genkai) as he’s watching “old” videos of the group and reminding himself how far Yusuke has come.  Based on his conversation with Genkai at the beginning, the “present” in the play is just before the Dark Tournament, and everthing else in the play is Koenma watching those videos (also why there are press photos of him with a remote control).  This is also why they could fit the Kurama and Hiei meeting backstory, because it’s Koenma watching old videos and wanting to look back on them too.  

And also Arayan as Koenma is SO FUCKING FUNNY we were all cracking up a LOT.  He can actually enunciate quite well with that pacifier in his mouth!  And he’s always changing back and forth between his adult version and baby version because he’s either watching/narrating or in the flashbacks himself as a baby.  He also really liked breaking the fourth wall while narrating so for some of the cute Yusuke-Keiko moments, for example, he was like, “What a cute young romance—WHO EVEN HAS A ROMANCE LIKE THAT IN MIDDLE SCHOOL HUH!?”

I haven’t watched Arayan live since 2015 when I saw him as Lao in a Kuroshitsuji Musical, so it was wonderful to see him again and in a role that allows him to do so much more and be such a ham.  

Tsubasa as Yusuke was amazing, fantastic, splendid, show-stopper.  I liked his Renji from when he was in the 2016 Burimyu, and so I thought I had some idea what his yankee characterization would be like (because obviously his Ishikirimaru isn’t a great reference point lol), but it’s even better!  He was so funny and so warm, and when he had the scene making the little kid laugh, I have NO idea how he was able to pull those faces.  He looked basically exactly like anime Yusuke pulling faces and I was wheezing so bad in my seat.  Mostly, I just couldn’t believe that he really unzipped his pants (while turned away from us) to stuff that kid’s ball into his crotch and dance around with it.  

Speaking of the little boy, we gotta give props to Genkai’s actress because she played so many side characters throughout lololol.  She couldn’t be Genkai for very long or often, so she was also Keiko’s shy, glasses-wearing friend in school, she was also Maya-chan (Kurama’s classmate that he and Hiei have to rescue) in the Two Shots scene, she was the little boy Yusuke saves (she tries not to talk as him), and she’s also obviously young Genkai.  Because she plays so many roles, there’s a narration bit where Koenma tells Genkai, “You know, in these videos, I keep seeing a lot of kids that look like you.”  And she tells him he’s imagining things.  

Plot-wise, they did skip one major scene from when Yusuke was a ghost, and that was the scene where his apartment caught fire and he had to “sacrifice” his spirit egg to save Keiko.  

Oh but I loved the bit where he had to possess Kuwabara to go tell Keiko not to cremate his body, because the way they did it was to have Tsubasa and Naoya do everything in unison together.  So all the choreography has Naoya as Kuwabara fighting all the guys that come at him, and Tsubasa just a little ways away doing the exact same thing, only he’s not hitting anybody.  And although it had been Naoya doing all of the talking so that we hear Kuwabara’s voice, at the point when he’s talking to Keiko and the lines start to get sentimental, they turn up Tsubasa’s mic so that they overlap for a little bit, and then they turn down Naoya’s mic so that at the end, we only hear Yusuke’s voice asking Keiko to wait for him.  He was also slowly moving off-stage while Kuwabara(‘s body) was talking to Keiko, so that the end of that scene has just Kuwabara and Keiko on-stage, but we hear Tsubasa-Yusuke's voice.  So I really loved how that was done because it mimicked the anime really well.  

I loved being able to see Kuwabara’s promise-between-men played out on-stage.  His squad was cut down to just two guys instead of three, since you really only need Okubo for that bit, and they needed to divide the ensemble cast between Kuwabara’s boys and the other punks who want to beat on Kuwabara all the time.  Naoya as Kuwabara was everything I wanted and more.  His voice, his expressions, his everything was just SO. GOOD.  And it was so funny to think how long I’ve been a fan of Naoya (since 1st cast Tenimyu days basically) and how I’ve never actually seen him live in a show until this.  So that was a real treat and a real blast of nostalgia on multiple levels.  I’m so happy he was the one to bring Kuwabara to life on-stage, he was wonderful, and I’m so grateful I got to see him.  

Yuka-tan's Botan was SO SO SO CUTE?!?!?!?  Oh my gosh she felt so perfect to me in every way, and I loved her dynamic with Yusuke and Koenma, there was so much cute banter.  I liked when Yusuke was laughing in Koenma’s face and Botan kept spanking him because, in case we forgot, he’s like actually 14 years old at this point in the story.  Sometimes she was the one watching the old clips together with Koenma so she also switches between being in the story to being part of the narration.  

If you wanted a critical review, this is not the place to look because I pretty much only found it wonderful and amazing and nostalgic and amazing but I do have one minor criticism and that is that Yusuke’s post-resurrection outfit for helping Kuwabara rescue Eikichi was not his fashion icon look from the anime.  He just had a regular color jacket instead.  Ugh, way to make him look “cool” stage staff. Lol  

The Two Shots scenes were interspersed between Yusuke’s ghost antics and I really do think my heart stopped when I first hear Hiroki speak.  I haven’t been a fan of Hiroki for as long as I’ve been a fan of Naoya, but he’s another one that I’ve seen so often in so many shows, but this was my first time seeing him live and he just has such a presence that it’s no wonder we call him HiroKing.  It was also fun to see Shouhei again since I haven’t seen him live since his last show as Noya for Haisute, and he’s as amazing as I remember.  Pretty sure he’s having a lot of fun playing early evil Hiei honestly.  Since both Hiroki and Shouhei have a lot of experience in other shows with sword-fighting (*cough TKRB/Hakuouki*), those bits looked really fucking cool.  

But YYH is heavy on hand-to-hand combat, not sword-fighting, and I have to say that they did a nice job with that too!  There were places where I felt like they got nice and creative with it, and it’s fun to see Naoya give Kuwabara a little extra flair with his.  The ensemble cast were integral to all of those fight scenes, and they had to do a lot of falling and flying around, and they also need a loud round of applause.  

Gouki’s actor ripped off his shirt TWICE!!! Not once, but two times!!!  And I mean RIPPED, like not stage rip, like he RIPPED that shirt.  So I’m assuming they just ordered a box of cheap t-shirts for him to rip through for the rest of the tour.  Mind you, I was not complaining about the shirtlessness.   It was also interesting because after Gouki’s defeat, they put him in spirit world as one of Koenma’s ogre servants as a replacement for George in the second act, so he and Koenma have some fun moments since he’s quite reformed once dead.  

As I mentioned, they do give us a sneak peek of the four of them meeting up just outside the Four Saint Beasts castle, with Kuwabara picking a fight with Hiei and all.  However, we did skip over Genkai’s tournament, which comes just before that so it’s possible we might not get that little arc on-stage even in the next show.  Maybe to avoid rushing Liz into Genkai’s old lady makeup, maybe because nobody cares about Rando anyway.  

The closing bows were also done to Hohoemi no Bakudan (I was maybe a teeny tiny bit hoping for Homework ga Owaranai), and during the closing remarks, Tsubasa very excitedly told us that during the afternoon show, Yusuke’s anime seiyuu, Sasaki Nozomu came to see them!  He was wiggling side to side and said, “I got a picture with him yaaay~” and then he asked us to come see them again in the Spirit World, to which Naoya started making confused faces.   Naoya: Sp-spirit world? Tsubasa: No?   Naoya: The story’s mostly in the human world, isn’t it? Tsubasa: Ahhh.... yeah! Naoya: You’re exhausted, aren’t you?

And that’s my review/summary!  Feel free to ask me questions about it or to just scream at me how much you love YYH~

[kairi-zen]

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[nekocapt]

we made a promise, didn't we?

[nekocapt]

KENMA: it'll be tiring, though. KUROO: oi, kenma! i'm serious!

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