The reason for this fantastic update required me to take a solo journey to the Fukuoka prefecture in southern Japan to a city called Kitakyushu. This city is approximately 963 miles (1549 km) from my city.
The Journey
I walked about 10 minutes from my apartment and took a bus to the train station. From there, I boarded another bus to the Aomori city airport. At the airport, I took a plane down to Osaka for an hour layover and another flight to Fukuoka City. Thankfully the airport has a subway that took me directly to Hakata (another city) for my final train to Kitakyushu. Unfortunately, I didn't get in until around 11pm and by the time I maneuvered the station and figured my life out (still debateable) I wasn't able to take the shinkansen and my train ride ended up taking an hour and a half! Thankfully, on the return trip (which also included 2 trains and 2 planes), I was able to take the shinkansen and it only took 25 minutes to get back to the airport!
The Reason
It wasn't something I particularly talked about outside of with my online friends that shared the passion (and my poor mother, who was forced to listen to a soundtrack in a language she doesn't know on repeat in the car). Namely because very few people in America or my life shared the interest or would have any idea what I was talking about!But something I have loved since about 2011 are Japanese musicals. Not just any musicals though. Musicals based off of my favorite anime/mangas! There are musicals for Black Butler, Prince of Tennis, Bleach, Sailor Moon, InuYasha, Yu Yu Hakusho, and more! My top two though are Kuromyu (Kuroshitsuji/Black Butler Musical) and Tenimyu (Tennisu no Oujisama/Prince of Tennis Musical).
So imagine my absolute excitement when I learned that Tenimyu would be running again during my time in Japan. Imagine my greater excitement when I found out it was my favorite set, complete with my favorite team as a feature! I have watched the cast change and the musical (including talent, lights, production, etc.) evolve over the years, telling and retelling different parts of the story.
Tickets went on sale in November on a Sunday at 10am. By 10:15, many of the locations were already sold out. I was lucky enough to snag one for Fukuoka's showing though!
The Musical
My hotel was about a 25 minute walk from the musical's venue. The weather has been oddly mild in Japan this year, especially that far south, so the walk was actually quite pleasent. I made sure I brought along my team's jersey and plenty of space for the goods I was going to buy! (Which I did, as is evident with the below picture). The jersey was already mine but it fit with the whole aesthetic I was going for.
Now for some background, Prince of Tennis is a manga that centers on tennis teams. I know that probably sounds boring but the characters are loveable and, let's be honest, the things Konomi-sensei (the author/artist) makes possible for these players keeps it entertaining. There are 7 teams total that star recurringly in the manga but 4 of them are the main/most popular. Among those 4 is my favorite team. Rikkai!
The characters on this team are wonderful, their uniforms are my favorite, and I feel like, if I'd been in this universe, my temperament and personality would fit in best with them! They are featured heavily in this musical so once I sat down, I slipped on my jersey as a show of support.
The entire musical felt like a dream, it didn't feel real. I've watched this musical and listened to the soundtrack for so many years that it felt like I couldn't possibley be there.
Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take pictures or videos and I was definitely not going to be that foreigner breaking the rules so I had to settle for the sparse few I took before it started. However, it was an amazing experience. I am not as familiar with this cast as I am with the last few but they all have amazing voices and their energy was great to watch and be a part of. I even got to high touch (high five) one of the cast when they came into the audience at the end!
The musical was about two hours long but didn't feel like it. I have posted some videos below of a couple of my favorite songs from this run's Rikkai cast. They are not stage recordings since they haven't finalized those yet but you can hear how amazing their voices are and see their character shots much easier!
