Royal Straight Flush: Impressions
So.
I thought this one was SUPER FUN, even if there were a couple scenes that seemed a bit out of place or filler-like. When the hour was over and the parade started, I thought it hadn't felt like so long at all.
This may have been due partly because there were hardly any slow numbers at all. Instead we just jumped from fun show number to fun show number, with a few melodramatic numbers thrown in for good measure.
The other part why I was COMPLETELY into that show: Kitarou was ALL OVER it. *___*
Honestly, I have no idea what the producers were thinking. Either someone was of the opinion that the girl needed a serious promotional shove (though I don't really see why, we all know she's awesome already), or they just decided she was best suited for the part and fuck what the ranking system has to say about that.
Because seriously, I thought if there were people in the audience who weren't familiar with Yukigumi at all, they could get really confused about who the nibante is in that troupe.
But let me explain further.
So, as one can already glean from the title of the revue, it was themed around the U.S. in general and Poker in particular. Apart from several America-in-general numbers (Cowboys... Vietnam war INCLUDING Hippies... Native Americans in costumes that... well, you know Takarazuka and how they have never heard of being PC :P), we had a main theme wherein all the Siennes wore suits and dresses that had card designs on them. Whereas the younger ones were just divided into clubs, diamonds, hearts and spades, the top people were cast as specific cards in the spades category. Koma was the 10, Mattsu the Jack, Mimi the Queen, Chigi the King and Kimu the Ace. The five of them even got a pretty short number in between were they introduced themselves... they looked a lot like a tokusatsu team to me, to be honest. They even made slightly dorky arm movements and such. Cute. XD
Kitarou, however, was the Joker. Which basically meant that she got her very own costume, in black and gold as opposed to the others' white and silver, and she was independent from the others. Throughout the revue, she appeared as a sort of narrator, occasional villain... I think in the Vietnam war number she was supposed to symbolize death? Anyway, she pretty much did her own thing. And got TONS of solos. AND had her own musumeyaku partner, Manaka Ayu, as the Queen of Hearts, in all red. In comparison, Chigi had several leading solos together with the group, too, but she just didn't tend to stand out all that much.
Not that you would ever see ME complaining about too much Kitarou. *_____* I can just imagine that there is the possibility that there are currently a few Chigi fans walking around who may be just a liiiittle bit pissed off. X"D
... Now that I think about it, it even got to the point were the parade order was mixed up to accommodate Kitarou's special status. I think she came down in between Mattsu and Chigi on the staircase? But then later on the ginkyo Mattsu was back on her place next to Mimi.
Other things of notice:
- For those worrying: The taidansha were pretty prominently featured throughout the show, and often appeared as a trio and got lines together.
- I think I saw Morie's lion tamer outfit from ONE being re-used in one of the group numbers. XD
- Another thing that was a Tsuki-gumi cast off: The giant glass cable halo background thingy. They re-used it during the Vietnam war number that sooner or later devolved into a Gospel, too. With, you know. The GIs standing on one side, the Vietnamese standing on the other side, and a group of Hippies standing in the middle. Yeah. >__>"
- The, excuse me, Indian number (which is hilariously subtitled "It dedicates it to our friends"... yay for Engrish in our programs) had them coming down into the aisles at one point! Kimu in particular (who was wearing a huge feather... chief... thing... in red) came running down into the cross-aisle, all the while touching people's hands and bouncing around.
- The final duet dance was done IN THE INDIAN OUTFITS. Which was kind of fail, because Kimu was a bit restricted in her movements because of the huge feather thing, and Mimi's skirt looked very heavy to me for some reason. So the dance choreography too was kind of... restrained. No lifts, as far as I remember, and to a slow song (see beneath).
- There was NO otokoyaku tuxedo dance. Ahem. >_>" Not that I particularly noticed at the time, to be honest. For a moment I thought they would do the otokoyaku dance in the Indian outfits, too, but then they didn't, and I was too preoccupied with people coming down the aisles to think about it any further.
- Several covered songs in this show:
> I need a hero
> It's raining men
> I wanna dance with somebody (in which Kimu thought she was Whitney and did all the playing with her voice stuff, thankfully mostly successfully, if not as impressively)
> Bridge over troubled water (which remained mostly instrumental and was used for the Indian duet dance)
> a march that I was familiar enough with that I nearly started whistling along, though I have no idea what it's called.
Let's just hope they have copyrights for all of these, otherwise I don't want to imagine what they'll do on the DVD.
I thought this one was SUPER FUN, even if there were a couple scenes that seemed a bit out of place or filler-like. When the hour was over and the parade started, I thought it hadn't felt like so long at all.
This may have been due partly because there were hardly any slow numbers at all. Instead we just jumped from fun show number to fun show number, with a few melodramatic numbers thrown in for good measure.
The other part why I was COMPLETELY into that show: Kitarou was ALL OVER it. *___*
Honestly, I have no idea what the producers were thinking. Either someone was of the opinion that the girl needed a serious promotional shove (though I don't really see why, we all know she's awesome already), or they just decided she was best suited for the part and fuck what the ranking system has to say about that.
Because seriously, I thought if there were people in the audience who weren't familiar with Yukigumi at all, they could get really confused about who the nibante is in that troupe.
But let me explain further.
So, as one can already glean from the title of the revue, it was themed around the U.S. in general and Poker in particular. Apart from several America-in-general numbers (Cowboys... Vietnam war INCLUDING Hippies... Native Americans in costumes that... well, you know Takarazuka and how they have never heard of being PC :P), we had a main theme wherein all the Siennes wore suits and dresses that had card designs on them. Whereas the younger ones were just divided into clubs, diamonds, hearts and spades, the top people were cast as specific cards in the spades category. Koma was the 10, Mattsu the Jack, Mimi the Queen, Chigi the King and Kimu the Ace. The five of them even got a pretty short number in between were they introduced themselves... they looked a lot like a tokusatsu team to me, to be honest. They even made slightly dorky arm movements and such. Cute. XD
Kitarou, however, was the Joker. Which basically meant that she got her very own costume, in black and gold as opposed to the others' white and silver, and she was independent from the others. Throughout the revue, she appeared as a sort of narrator, occasional villain... I think in the Vietnam war number she was supposed to symbolize death? Anyway, she pretty much did her own thing. And got TONS of solos. AND had her own musumeyaku partner, Manaka Ayu, as the Queen of Hearts, in all red. In comparison, Chigi had several leading solos together with the group, too, but she just didn't tend to stand out all that much.
Not that you would ever see ME complaining about too much Kitarou. *_____* I can just imagine that there is the possibility that there are currently a few Chigi fans walking around who may be just a liiiittle bit pissed off. X"D
... Now that I think about it, it even got to the point were the parade order was mixed up to accommodate Kitarou's special status. I think she came down in between Mattsu and Chigi on the staircase? But then later on the ginkyo Mattsu was back on her place next to Mimi.
Other things of notice:
- For those worrying: The taidansha were pretty prominently featured throughout the show, and often appeared as a trio and got lines together.
- I think I saw Morie's lion tamer outfit from ONE being re-used in one of the group numbers. XD
- Another thing that was a Tsuki-gumi cast off: The giant glass cable halo background thingy. They re-used it during the Vietnam war number that sooner or later devolved into a Gospel, too. With, you know. The GIs standing on one side, the Vietnamese standing on the other side, and a group of Hippies standing in the middle. Yeah. >__>"
- The, excuse me, Indian number (which is hilariously subtitled "It dedicates it to our friends"... yay for Engrish in our programs) had them coming down into the aisles at one point! Kimu in particular (who was wearing a huge feather... chief... thing... in red) came running down into the cross-aisle, all the while touching people's hands and bouncing around.
- The final duet dance was done IN THE INDIAN OUTFITS. Which was kind of fail, because Kimu was a bit restricted in her movements because of the huge feather thing, and Mimi's skirt looked very heavy to me for some reason. So the dance choreography too was kind of... restrained. No lifts, as far as I remember, and to a slow song (see beneath).
- There was NO otokoyaku tuxedo dance. Ahem. >_>" Not that I particularly noticed at the time, to be honest. For a moment I thought they would do the otokoyaku dance in the Indian outfits, too, but then they didn't, and I was too preoccupied with people coming down the aisles to think about it any further.
- Several covered songs in this show:
> I need a hero
> It's raining men
> I wanna dance with somebody (in which Kimu thought she was Whitney and did all the playing with her voice stuff, thankfully mostly successfully, if not as impressively)
> Bridge over troubled water (which remained mostly instrumental and was used for the Indian duet dance)
> a march that I was familiar enough with that I nearly started whistling along, though I have no idea what it's called.
Let's just hope they have copyrights for all of these, otherwise I don't want to imagine what they'll do on the DVD.