March 16–20 菜虫化蝶 Leaf Insects become Butterflies

I don't know why, but I recently discovered the world of 2.5D entertainment, and I am slightly obsessed.

Allow me to elaborate.

2.5D refers to the live action theatrical productions (mostly musicals) of stories from manga an/or anime. Therefore, going from 2-dimensional presentation to 3-dimensional human representation. Ergo, 2.5D.
Ok, so I know exactly why I'm obsessed with 2.5D right now, and it's because I may have watched the exact play needed to catch my interest in just the right way.

From this point on, I'm going to be doing a review of the Kuroshitsuji (Black Butler) Musical from 2014. For those of you who could care less, have a photo of cute cat paw prints in cement.

So I was channel surfing on a weeknight, and happened to catch a TV broadcast of the Kuroshitsuji musical from 2014. I knew minimally about the main characters, but enough to recognize, at the very least, the 2 protagonists.

What caught my interest was the set.
It wasn't very elaborate, and probably had a smaller budget (or not? hard to say...it's simple, but the giant pieces are beautiful and must have cost a lot to make...), but the set was essentially just giant white chess pieces. In fact, I cared so little about the story, I barely had the volume high enough to hear the singing. One of my roommates had to ask me to turn it up when she joined me later on in the night.

Back to the set.
So, in what was pretty much a black box, you have giant white chess pieces serving as most, if not the only, set pieces. It's a stark image, and the contrast was beautiful.

There was a scene where the characters we supposed to express riding in a horse-drawn carriage. They hooked up "reins" onto one of the Knight pieces, and had projected a moving horse onto the giant white chess piece. Oh I appreciated that alright. Frankly, that's a really smart way to portray a moving horse, and it made perfect use of the set piece. That scene kept me watching this otherwise really long (3 hrs!) broadcast.

Well, the story is also set in 19th century England, so it was still interesting to look at the costuming, even with its manga flair.

Near the climax of the story, there was another perfect shot.
Now, one of the 2 protagonists is a demon, and it's an important overall plot point, but in a perfect marriage of set and lighting, for about half a second in the recording (changing camera angles in recordings of live performances will forever be my bane), the shadows created by the way the lights hit the chess pieces made it look like the actor had wings of light. It was a blink-and-you'll-miss-it-because-stupid-camera-angle-change moment, but it was gorgeous and I caught it immediately. And swore aloud.

The main female character also caught my eye. I had a feeling she wasn't Japanese, as firstly, her facial expressions were far greater than any I had ever witnessed on a Japanese actress, and secondly, she knew how to work a skirt. As in, she knew how to pick up a mermaid cut skirt to walk/run/dance in it. It's something small, but oh-so-telling.
Lo and behold, I was correct. She also had an incredibly powerful Alto range. Turns out, she was a former Otokoyaku in the Takarazuka Revue, and she's of mixed heritage. She made that show.
I honestly suspect her to be one of the driving forces behind the 2015 revival of the same story, since it hasn't happened with the following Kuroshitsuji musicals. She was perfectly cast.

Gorgeous set, superb cast. I ended up spending way too much time looking up the info regarding this production after I saw it on TV. It's amazing what you can find on the internet, and I will forever be indebted to the fans out there who make this all accessible. I have every intention of purchasing the official DVD, as soon as it becomes financially feasible with my accounts. Also, that would mean I can find out who the set and lighting designers were.

I have scoured YouTube for clips, and one of them highlights another point of brilliance of this production. Ah, I guess I should point out that the name of this Kuroshitsuji musical is "Lycoris that Blazes the Earth". Between the 2014 production of Lycoris and 2015 revival, the teenaged protagonist hit puberty and his poor voice dropped considerably. In one of the main songs, to solve this problem, they had him sing, ostensibly, his own harmony. Someone put the two versions together, and he harmonizes with himself.
I love it.
Except for the fact that for some reason, Japanese singers tend to force their chest voice, and it makes them sound flat a lot more than I like. I was taught to sing with resonance in the head, but after studying Japanese theatre, I get the feeling that the Japanese vocal training emphasizes chest voice and "pushing" a voice out, rather than letting it ring.

The one thing that I haven't been able to get my head around is the odd interruptions of two comic characters throughout the show. It reminds me of Kyogen in between Noh. I wonder if that's something that happens with other adaptations.

In case it wasn't apparent, I loved Lycoris. It made me re-read the entire stupid manga series so I could figure out what I had watched, and I have now memorized one of the two main theme songs from the musical. It's a waltz and the lyrics are timeless and I love it. The 2015 production definitely had a bigger budget, and the demon protagonist had a stronger presence, but the 2o14 set was ingenious. Now I want to see if other 2.5D productions are done as well.

If I remember correctly, I once tried to watch the Bleach musical on YouTube, and it didn't catch me. I remember seeing portions of a Naruto musical, where they had a really inventive way of portraying the characters as running up trees, but I also did not care enough to watch all of it.

Now I'm on the lookout for more 2.5D things I can attend live performances of while I'm here, because OF COURSE I FOUND OUT ABOUT THE 2017-18 KUROSHITSUJI MUSICAL A WEEK AFTER IT WAS OVER.

Don't get me started.