#dressed extremely convincingly like a dude | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

zukadiary · 5 years

Text

Ocean’s 11 ~ Cosmos Troupe 2019

Ocean’s was great! I loved it so much! I thought the previous two versions were fine, but never cared for either enough to go back and watch them again. Turns out if you adore every single person in the troupe putting it on, the ensemble cast makes it a home run.

If I remember correctly, there are some noticeable differences between the Hoshigumi and Hanagumi versions. This was a slightly tweaked and polished Hanagumi version. The show does a great job of featuring a lot of people; nearly everyone gets something fun to do (it’s consequently not the best taidan for Akkii or Riku, but if it wasn’t their last I’d really say it’s good for everybody). The scenes change quickly (and flow a lot better than I remember), so even if a given person’s appearances are short they’re typically fairly frequent. I’m not terribly pleased that the prolific use of projections seems to be a continuing theme in Takarazuka, but Ocean’s actually used them WELL, and with all the hacking/security/surveillance going on, and the flashing lights and artificiality of Las Vegas, it actually makes sense.

There are three (3!) major ad lib scenes that are different every day, something I didn’t realize ahead of time having only seen the previous versions on DVD:

Tess walking in on Benedict and his lackeys trying to physically threaten the Evergreen people into handing over the rights to their non-profit and Benedict having to lie about what they were doing

Saul giving everyone a pre-caper “acting lesson” in which Susshii says something ridiculous and the rest of the eleven have to remember it and mimic her in unison

Rusty pretending to be “Dr. Johnson” to cart Saul off after the fake heart attack that serves as a distraction during the actual heist (for those who can read Japanese, one brave twitter user is keeping track of all the Dr. Johnson ad libs)

...and these made me really look forward to seeing the show again and again. I probably could have gone every day and been thoroughly entertained.

Danny Ocean is the most boring vanilla blank canvas of a character and requires the actress playing him to really bring everything herself. Fortunately, Makaze and her devastatingly attractive body could have stood in the corner in those open-necked suits without saying a word for 3 hours and I’d still have given it a 10/10. On top of that though, I thought she played him perfectly. Her sort of low-key coolness that for me has come off a bit stiff at times with some of her other top star stuff was spot on for Danny, who I fully believed was chill, aloof, and sexy enough to both pull off such an impossible robbery without a moment’s anxiety, AND stalk the woman trying to divorce him such that she was not only NOT immediately put off completely but also ultimately able to fall back in love with him. In the dream sequence that opens Act 2, when Makaze changes from serpent to prince and leaves the bouquet of flowers on Tess’s bed for her to accept whenever she’s ready, my heart clenched so bad I accidentally groaned audibly the first time I saw it. She also sang the best I’ve ever heard her sing.

Madoka is a beautiful Tess, and above all else I was THRILLED that they finally let her have such a grown up role and that she slayed it. I had absolutely no doubt that she’d slay it; she’s a fantastic actress who as far as I can tell is only battling her round little face and height difference with Makaze when it comes to getting mature roles. But they styled her flawlessly and her dresses were to die for and she looked so fantastic I hope all concerned parties got the hint that this is fine. I want to see the two of them do something sizzling hot together (although I have to admit, dude chasing after his wife who wants so badly to divorce him IS a fun dynamic that we never really get to see in Takarazuka, unless they’re doing Ocean’s).

I love Kiki more and more every time I see her, and while it’s hard not to be annoyed that she’s not a top star already, I will be so furious if they take her away from Soragumi; I absolutely love what they bring out of her. I think she and Makaze have a great dynamic together, and she was both cool and funny enough to make Rusty very enjoyable to watch. There wasn’t a single Dr. Johnson scene I saw that didn’t have me laughing out loud and wishing I had another ticket. One day I sat in B-seki with a group of students on a class trip, and one of them gasped すごい when she finished her finale-opening solo. Here’s a funny story from Makaze’s ochakai that I read on twitter: there is a duet between Danny and Rusty during which Rusty lights a cigarette, and apparently Koike wanted to modernize Ocean’s by giving him an IQOS instead. Makaze convinced him that was the worst idea ever and wants all Kiki fans to thank her personally.

MVP: Zun as Benedict. I suspect her interpretation might be polarizing once the world at large gets to see Ocean’s, but I loooooved it. Once upon a time there was a Japanese meme going around about what kind of date various prominent otokoyaku would bring you on, and Zun was pegged as a young, sweet, filthy rich kid who would reserve the entirety of Disneyland and then take you there. Her Benedict was like the evil version of that. I appreciated so much that she went a different direction than Beni and Daimon and played him as just a rich sleazy horrible asshole without the over-the-top comical bits—and she was STILL very funny, just as the straight man to everyone else’s ridiculous antics. She was so dark, so angry, and had such a scary glint in her eyes for such a cute little muffin; so impressively gross it was weird to see her smiling genuinely in the finale. And she’s a DAMN GOOD STAGE KISSER, astonishingly so for someone who’s yet to have a romantic lead outside of shinko and Bow Hall. I very much enjoyed her team as well—mostly Mitsuki Haruka as Taylor, Aishiro Moa as Beth, and Hoshizuki Rio as Charles, keeping things funny and chaotic. Kihou Kanata/Manase Mira were even hilarious as the bodyguards (Wakato Ritsu was a fine Bruiser, but IMO it’s pretty hard to beat Taso... and I felt a gaping hole where Fuuma Kakeru should have been).

Seiko could have carried this show by herself. For whatever reason—and I rewatched the Hanagumi version recently—I didn’t think Queen Diana, outside of being sassy, was as good of a role as it was (does the DVD fail to show a lot of her antics? Maybe. Was I doing a lousy job paying attention? Possibly). But no, Seiko was all over it, convincingly the biggest force in Vegas (and this cast). I am going to miss her so so so much. Akkii and Riku ended up with the more senior but less meaty roles of Frank and Basher respectively. While Frank is on the quieter side during most of the scenes with all the 11 except for his opening solo and arrest, I personally, for probably biased reasons, really enjoyed watching Akkii and Sora in the background, where Frank is very frequently trying to coerce Linus into getting over himself and just doing the thing already. I don’t know if this has been especially tough on Riku, but her eye bags have eye bags :( As much as I’m going to miss her, I hope she gets through this and takes a nice long rest. The Soragumi landscape is going to be so weird and different without these three. They come down for the parade together with Seiko in the middle and I got choked up every single time.

I’m thrilled that Sora got Linus mostly from a rank standpoint; they announced Ocean’s before Aichan’s transfer to Senka and I was positive she was going to be Livingston. The role itself kind of unfortunately emphasized how tiny and behind she is in this troupe, but at the same time she was SO grumpy and SO cute. I feel bad taking pleasure in her angst but boy was she cute. She talked about how interesting it was to play someone who was struggling to overcome his own roadblocks, both as the only upperclassman to ever play this role, and also having just turned ken-10, where otokoyaku are supposed to “come of age” so to speak. And the frustration and uncertainty she put into the role was extremely palpable. As I’m used to her being a disembodied arm or a blurry image over someone’s shoulder on most DVDs, I couldn’t be happier that she finally has a whole solid handful of her very own scenes that I might actually be able to see not only in the theater. She’s closer to the middle when the otokoyaku dance too, AND she moved up a parade spot. I most definitely teared up when she came down the stairs featured between Rara and Mineri.

Moeko was SO CUTE as Livingston, and the scene where Rusty busts into Livingston’s place pretending to be an FBI agent was one of my favorites, along with the one where Danny comes to get the Malloy brothers and they mess with his face on the security camera. I’m so enamored with both Kotti and Yuuki Shion (Yuuki Shion dangerously so, YIKES; she’s like the awkward baby Sora I fell in love with reincarnated, plus she can do Komu-esque things with her legs and jump so astonishingly high). I will forever be obsessed with Susshii and how much joy and passion she pours into playing even the most crotchety old men. I don’t know what it IS about Rinkira that screams old man to the producers (other than that maybe they just need someone to do it), but I even liked her as Reuben, and Akine Hikaru as Yen a surprising amount. I always thought of Yen as a scary role that you don’t want your girl to get stuck with, and for someone prominent I guess it would be a bummer, but I don’t think I’ve ever noticed Akine Hikaru do much of anything before, so I was mostly just wide eyed at how acrobatic and good with a yo-yo she is.

The finale is REAL good; Makaze is hot and a little sweaty and her hair is styled to make her look even sweatier. The top-star-in-a-harem-of-musumeyaku number is done in one of my favorite aesthetics, where the musumeyaku let their hair down (literally) no matter how intricately they were styled up to that point, and you can see the creases from their former pins and braids and it’s a little messy and loose and sexy which are all things I wish they’d let musumeyaku be more often, and Makaze is in the middle just like doing illegal things with her mouth and all that jazz. The otokoyaku dance is good too, and the duet dance is cute as shit (there’s a part where Makaze like boops Madoka’s nose and then Madoka pushes her like ~stop that~ and ugh).

And speaking of ugh, the end of Act 1 where all 11 of them turn around and saunter toward the back of their stage after formulating their flawless plan put my stomach in knots, both for the sheer swagger and the overflowing love I feel for this lineup of this troupe. I know I’ve been saying this for like two years and it STILL hasn’t happened on the scale I’ve been expecting, but I can feel the transfers coming and I’m scared.

#takarazuka #reviews #ocean's 11 soragumi 19 #am i 東宝組 now 19

41 notes · View notes

chiseki · 5 years

Text

Figured I’d make this an intro post, since I’m pretty much using this alternate url as an “out” url compared to my usual vagueness.

I’m Joshua. Yes, that matches the sidebar, so it’s not really surprising here.

And that would surprise an entire two people following my main blog that know me irl because the rest were previously informed. Maybe three people, I forget if the last one is on tumblr or not.

Which is, by the way, ““““““““fun”““““““““

Yup, having like three local friend circles that had relations to each other outside of myself, and only one of them being in the know is fun.

You can basically stop reading at this point, because from here on out is just gonna be a massive time rewind to.....jeez, fuck if I know when, my childhood? I promise there will be time skips, we don’t need that mess played at normal tempo. (Also some funny stories after the giant gap in the text, if you want to scroll for that).

Most of this story is actually located in college, but the only real indicator (aside from having a general dislike of dresses) was way back when I was in all of second grade--apparently I was so damn insulted I burned all these facts into my memory--and an older kid was brought into the classroom, gave us this cool sales pitch about do we want to learn to shoot a bow, go camping, build campfires, etc

and then was like “OH YEAH THIS IS THE BOY SCOUTS IT’S BOYS ONLY”

I was so hyped lol.

Wound up being in a mediocre girl scout troop later, and my brother obviously got directed into boy scouts. At which point I got to find out that their camping trips were mostly getting rained on and finding black windows and getting taught woodworking by a dude missing a chunk of finger.

So more suffering than child me would have expected, but they still got to build fires and go REAL camping and shoot bows and rifles and shit.

Meanwhile, in girl scouts, we went to this one set of cabins every year. We never stayed in the damn cabins, because someone would find A Bug in there, or a spider, and then someone ELSE would have the same issue, and no one wanted to be in a cabin alone let alone be the only one in the cabins at all, and we always wound up sleeping in the air conditioned lodge that was visible from the damn cabins.

Except the one year where we went to a different camp, stayed in the legendary caboose, and there was a bat sleeping on the outside of the window so no one wanted to sleep there except me.

My scout group was weak.

I miss the cookies, though.

Anyway, due to not being forced into gender-targeted toys and getting to play with whatever the fuck I wanted, I also have jack shit for anything resembling an early warning sign aside from the above.

Actually, scratch that, I was not really a fan of dresses. I mean, this was fair in general, since they were usually scratchy, didn’t fit my arms/shoulders right, were designs I had no say in, and everyone would get on my case if the dress might get even a LITTLE dirty. Had some skirts I liked in middle school, but even that was a mess of having to wear tights because my genes have never resulted in anything resembling a thigh gap.

And I was like, constantly trying to play with the guys in grade school. And they’d periodically get that “NYEHHHHHHH GUYS ONLYYYYYY” shit going on. That was never not infuriating tbh.

Flash forward to high school, still basically left to my own devices. Only indicator here was that I was just tickled fucking pink whenever I heard that I either passed at cons or was at least tossed in the “maybe.......?” zone.

Flash forward to college. I honestly don’t remember what set me off on thinking about it, but started eyeballing my gender with a microscope. Unfortunately I couldn’t apply a litmus test like sexuality, so there was a lot of “uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhfuck” going on.

Actually, I think part of it was that on the forum I hung out on, a lot of the old regulars had assumed I was a dude until a childhood friend had dropped a pronoun several times in succession & asserted its correctness, which then led to a discussion along the lines of “whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat”.

But yeah, started testing the waters.

Also tried going to a LGBT+ club like, once. With the gal I was either dating at the time or was about to be dating, my memory is shit tbh. “HEY SO HOW ABOUT WE ALL JUST COME OUT TO EACH OTHER, A BUNCH OF STRANGERS <33333333″ still freaks me out, honestly. I get why it’s generally done, but like, no thanks. But I was horrendously obvious in ducking about the gender question and she totally called me out on it later in private lol. Also got me my first binder, but I digress.

Anyway, basically spilled on “I’m.....probably..............? a dude...........? jsyk??????” to my immediate friends, which was met with a lot of “.....YEAH ACTUALLY THAT MAKES SENSE” and a “hang on I need a dictionary........ok I get it”

I think I was the least smooth part of anything resembling a coming-out just due to like, me not wanting to have to tell people to do things for me? It’s something I find extremely awkward, like I know it’s that horribly stereotypical dating thing of “what’s wrong, bby, what do I have to do” “I DON’T WANT TO HAVE TO TELL YOU WHAT TO DO” but.

And that’s an entire digression about how my relationship with my mother often included me saying a lot of shit I had to say convincingly, but didn’t mean at all, and probably led to me having fuckall faith in what people say, most especially when under a forced prompt. I could do an essay on that, but not here.

Which, admittedly, I’m gonna rewind here because I think it’s funny in hindsight, but it means the dictionary reaction went like “SO...........I’M.............TRANS?” “What?” [thinking this is pushback on the idea] [PANIC MODE] “UH” “Like, literally, what does that word mean, I've never heard it in my life.” “OH. WELL. Heh. Uh. That internal reaction I had was embarrassing then, oops.”

Anyway.

Then the collective action was, “well, have you picked a name what do you MEAN you haven’t picked a name, we can’t just run about calling you by your deadname after all that”

And I tossed some names out, that I’m not going to list, because they were just fucking awful. So I got interventioned and the method became throwing names at me until they stuck.

Adam? Nah I knew an Adam and I can’t unassociate with that

Noah? Violin teacher’s third kid was named Noah. Same issue with Gabriel and Caleb.

Benjamin? I fucking grew up with a Benjamin he would kill me.

you get the idea.

And those were like, actual reasonable rejections. At least half the time I was just like “I DON’T LIKE HOW IT SOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUNDS.” Take, for example, Josh. I 1) knew one in high school and he was a piece of work and 2) I just, inexplicably, don’t like how the word sounds.

Which is part irony and part masochism that JoshUA stuck.

I mean, that name had pre-existing connotations for me. I had played..........a game.........in high school. And given that my options were pretty shafted to Stereotypical White Boy Names if I didn’t want to stick out like a sore thumb, some positive(?) pre-existing connotations were going to be needed.

Incidentally, I had a v. sweet trans girl offer me her deadname, which was a cool name, but just, like, didn’t fit me in particular so. She also picked her name by RNG tournament, with the top 10 baby names for her year being the competitors. Which was neat and worked well for her, but I know I would have just re-run the fucking tourney if I didn’t like the winner lol.

But anyway, continuing on to a less flowery story. I’ll add some blank lines so it’s skippable. No need to set off every other person with gender issues here.

Decided to come out to my family. Apparently time fuzzed down my memories of being devoured by mosquitos outside while my parents were trying to decipher that their kid was holding hands with a girl in the back of the van and that girl had been planned to sleep over that night, and despite the fact that booth teens wouldn’t be jumping to sex that fast nor had the equipment to make a kid between them....it was Reason For Concern like a straight couple sharing a bed.

I mean, my mom was convinced that anything touching the nether regions was SEX and PREMARITAL SEX was EVIL. But I digress.....again.

So. I tell them. And the reaction ranged from “well ok I mean you’ve always been weird” (thanks, bro) to “uh I guess my last name’s odds of getting inherited just doubled........?” to “HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO ME”

Yeah. That last one was word for word. Some stuff was thrown, lots of crying (”I CAN’T EVEN DO MY MAKEUP AND IT’S YOUR FAULT”)--both of which were not my doing, though I got shocked(?) into my own set of tears iirc.

I think I set a speed record for climbing back into the closet. Like, a week later, everyone was pretending it never happened. I sorta emotionally cut ties with my mom at that point--kept it civil, but Did Not Want to discuss my life or friends at all with her or in any way that would get back to her.

So obviously, no one in my family knows I go by Joshua. If they asked, I would tell them, but lo and behold, zero questions, they never brought it up again, etc. And I’ve been very careful about not letting that knowledge spread, not putting it on the internet in a way that connects back to my legal name, being primed at any point to pretend “Joshua” is a mutual friend and to not respond to that name if someone accidentally calls me by it.

Incidentally, during Yet Another Family Counseling that was at least performed at an individual level this time, my mom apparently told the counselor that she thought she handled that well. Last I checked, making the situation about yourself and doing the whole “woe is me, the mother, with a child like this” shpeal was not “well”.

And I mean the WHOLE shpeal. If you’ve ever had the misfortune to see the posts by parents of trans kids that wax soliloquy about losing their child and mourning their “death” (especially the ones that aren’t all “but I got a new kid!”) like, the ones especially cut from the same cloth that would be like “my child is autistic but ~I~ am the inspiration for waking up in the morning” like no, your kid is the inspiration for dealing with you.

And if anyone is wondering, this is basically the Midwest Stereotype for....LGBT, interracial dating, etc rejection imo. Seemingly ok with it, but NO WAIT HANG ON, NOT MY CHILD. Like, I legit had trans kids explained to me (albeit without terms for it) at a relatively young age by my mother and yet. “X exists but not in our good christian neighborhood” attitude. Ugh.

So where was I? Hmm, yes, funny Joshua stories. Ok I have like ONE story. One of my friends that was in the know finally got me to play Trails in the Sky. Now, this sucker has a chunk of text lead-in with a ~mysterious~ boy that young Estelle’s father has brought home, and the whole discussion skips his name, ending on “my name is....”. Then it time-skips to present day, finally casually dropping this dude’s name, which, obviously, is Joshua.

My friend did not tell me this.

No warning, nada. Only Estelle had really come up in conversation.

And then we collectively dragged another friend into the abyss with us, except he wasn’t in the know. We also had him streaming his playing sessions when our schedules coincided, which led to--because of a shitty accuracy stat--him yelling (as we did) “JOSHUA!” frequently in combat.

I debated on just responding “Yes?” randomly one day in the most casual closet-exit possible. Then procrastinated by deciding to just be out with it at the end of the first game since he’d also played twewy.

Some of you have probably started to eye my avatars with judgement in your hearts. That’s fair.

Anyway, we had forgotten about another character that practically had his name, so at least I had someone to share my weird feelings with.

And then, he started the second game, and I didn’t hold back on responding “yes?” every time “Joshua” was used as an interjection.

Also because of that one post about biblical names, I will respond to any use of “Jesus”.

#chiseki talks about chiseki

1 note · View note

lauraxxtennant · 7 years

Text

city of tiny lights

I went to the BFI screening of City of Tiny Lights tonight, which featured a post-film Q&A with the director, Pete Travis, Riz Ahmed, and Billie Piper. Brief thoughts and minor spoilers below.

The film was great, I loved it! It was a good, modern, very London spin on the PI who drinks whiskey and has a tragic past trope lol. This noir-esque shindig isn’t usually my thing, but this was such a compelling story. Riz - and the actor who played his younger self in flashbacks, Reiss Kershi-Hussain - brought real warmth to a character that could, in lesser, more predictable films, be characterised as like, your typical angsty unlikeable anti-hero. Instead, Tommy Akhtar (Riz’s character) is genuinely lovely. Big-hearted, vulnerable, smart and yeah, haunted by something that happened in his past, but it hasn’t turned him into a dick. That’s rare in a dude protagonist, lol.

Billie isn’t in the film a great deal, but as Pete said in the Q&A, her character is pivotal in terms of Tommy’s past and present. She doesn’t have much to do other than stare soulfully into Riz’s eyes and mumble about their shared past tragedy, but obviously she does these things super well because it’s Billie Piper and she mines a role for all the emotional depth she can, regardless of screen-time. The chemistry between her and Riz is a+, and adds a lovely romantic element to the film. Hannah Rae (Daisy in Broadchurch) plays her character Shelley’s younger self (and also her daughter in the present!) and she’s brilliant too. Also, shout-out to Cush Jumbo! Love her. The whole cast was great tbh.

Billie was gorgeous, both in the film and in person tonight. At the Q&A she wore a long, fancy red dress, and kept fiddling with her earring. Both she and Riz charmed everyone, and Riz was so funny. The film itself is really funny in places, too, actually, and he’s got great delivery/comic timing.

Questions ranged from general industry-related things like preparing for roles, how their music backgrounds influence their acting, how Brexit will affect the arts, etc, to more specific things related to the film itself, such as whether they interacted much with the actors playing their younger selves (they didn’t really), how difficult was the film to finance (quite; it took 8 years), how important it was to tell this story of Londoners (extremely.) The director was pretty hilarious tbh, very matter of fact and funny with it, and he made a few funny digs at how most films set in London are ‘about posh people falling in love in Notting Hill’ or ‘old, posh, dead people.’

My highlight of the Q&A was Billie admitting that before shooting the film she asked why they couldn’t play their younger (teenage!!!!!) selves in it too lmao 😂😂 Riz was like ‘you asked that and put that into his (Pete’s) head???’ (apparently Pete initially thought they wouldn’t find anyone who could convincingly play their younger selves, so toyed with the idea of having Billie/Riz just do it: but they luckily found the perfect actual teenagers to do it.) She groaned and looked embarrassed and basically admitted that was ambitious of her, to think they could feasibly do that. I can’t remember the exact word she mumbled under her breath but it was something akin to outrageous or ludicrous hahaha.

I won’t spoil anything further about the plot of the film itself, but it’s your standard private detective gets embroiled in something, is warned off it, and pursues the truth anyway lol. It’s a good story, but the relationships between Tommy and his friends/dad/Shelley/makeshift family are what make the film so great, imo, and the flashbacks are very well done. And I felt really moved by the end scene.

Anyway, in summary I enjoyed this evening a lot. 4 stars. It's docked a star for under-using Billie Piper :D

#city of tiny lights #laura's london adventures #also i saw billie get into her car as i came out #and then as i was walking to the station the car she was in was gently ambling along next to me as it pulled out into the traffic #(but alas - tinted windows. prob a good thing. wouldn't want to stare. :d)

33 notes · View notes