We're All Made Of Stardust

You're no good, you're no good You could kill me and you should I'm an idiot for thinking This was anything but blood

On the wall, on the couch On the corner of my mouth You must like being the victim You've done nothing to get out

Of this pattern of pain Washed away by the rain You'll forgive me if I promise And do nothing but the same

This is life until death Could be my last dying breath But this is love, love, shut up, this is love

(Forget everything you used to know I think you better tell your friends to go Stick around cause I'm about to show you The beginning is the end)

Yeah, I know wrong, I know right But I just love to pick a fight And I can sleep with one eye open If there's any sleep at night

I got my knife, got my gun Let's see how fast you can run You might think that you can hurt me But the damage has been done

It's pathetic, I know A jealous fool who won't let go If I was sorry for my actions Would I ever stoop so low

Got no reason to live And I've got nothing left to give you But my love, love, fuck it, this is love

(Forget everything you used to know I think you better tell your friends to go Stick around cause I'm about to show you The beginning is the end)

Oh, I was hit as a kid I was good but then I quit Everyone that tried to fix me Knows that I can't change a bit

I've got no shame, got no pride Only skeletons to hide And if you try to talk to someone Well then someone has to die

Once you chase me down the hole Yeah, once you think you're in control You'll believe that we are partners And you're feeling comfortable

Oh, then the darkness rolls in And you'll forget who I have been Oh, but you'll love, love, love it, this is love

(Forget everything you used to know I think you better tell your friends to go Stick around cause I'm about to show you The beginning is the end)

(This ain't the love that your grandparents had This kind of love will only make you mad, honey It hurts at first but it ain't that bad You gotta wonder what it meant)

For the stage, they built a half-pipe with ramps and stairs to the side and metal railings along the stage arch/apron.

It's really cool that they have pro-skaters performing and showing off their skills in between the costume changes. (Female skater from the second play, I love you so much <3<3<3) [This feeling doesn't change at all, female skater my beloved <3<3<3]

Also, female actors!!! In Sk8!!! Four of them!!! [They all play Cherry/Joe's fans, and they dance too for the one of Adam's Love Hug scenes + entering the zone scene.]

Before I started, I thought they would cast someone as Langa's mom, but the first play just used her voice from the anime. And then they DID cast an actress in the second play (but then she's mostly facing away from the stage so there's no good look of her). And then she didn't appear during the curtain call. I'm disappointed :( [I feel like they used one of the female actors as mentioned above but I couldn't tell who it was. She also played Reki's mom for less than ten seconds.]

On the other hand, Oka gets a good amount of screentime, which I appreciate.

Overall, the casting is pretty good, all of them look spot on and sound exactly like they're from the anime (I mean the Japanese dub).

There was a change of Reki's actor in between the two stage plays, they both look quite different and you can tell the differences in their performances but they both embody the character pretty well.

Apparently, Cherry's actor also changed in between the two plays and I really can't tell the difference at all! [After a few rewatches I can tell them apart by now, but the differences are still very subtle.]

They literally had a totally different actor playing Shadow the florist (I get it in the practical sense because it's hard to remove all that makeup and wig and stuff) but that's so funny to me. [They used one of the skaters to play Shadow the florist. The skaters also act as background actors throughout both shows.]

Joe's actor is the only one in the main cast who actually knows how to skate, so during the scene where they demonstrated the love hug, Cherry's actor is like, "I will be showing you how the love hug works. *pause* Or maybe the gorilla will?" And Joe is like, "Huh? *silence, then resignation* What the hell? *begrudging follows Cherry's orders* So annoying." [I love this kind of deviations from the anime, you gotta watch this scene for yourself, it's hilarious.]

Speaking of which, this means that Langa's actor could sell the initial incompetence at skateboarding really, really well.

Jumpscare at the beginning of the second play where Langa could do two ollies at the half-pipe before realising that it's probably a stuntman/pro-skater dressing up as Langa and not the actor himself.

You can really tell the budget differences between the first and second play (I think it's because of covid). Like the first one they utilised all these moving props with railings and stuntmen to move the actors around while they were beefing or doing the ollie. But by the second play, they only used it on a total count of one time and the actors had to act and move around on their own, so they run and jump and climb up the stage as if they were on a skateboard, like when Joe does his Power Break or the moment Langa reached to touch the star. [Tbh, I actually prefer the second play slightly in this regard, since the stage actors have more freedom to move and act around how they want. There's also less complicated lighting or fancy background because of the budget reason above, which I feel leans better into the emotions of the scene at play. I guess it's just a matter of one's preference and your suspension of disbelief.]

The plays are pretty faithful to the anime, though they cut off the beach episode because of time constraint and to streamline the plot. They still kept the scene where Reki talked to Joe about skateboarding and not wanting to feel left behind, which is so precious to me.

Reki at one point mentions out loud about how normal that Cherry and Joe are fighting and almost gets strangled by Joe's biceps in response. (It becomes a running joke at this point.) [Poor Reki also getting shoved down by Cherry when he interrupted his public event. Bad Matchablossom *huff angrily*]

Adam talks about how he falls in love with all of his opponents and Miya is like, "What the fuck are you talking about?" while looking at Adam in horror. [Miya is a gem here, he's a short cutie pie, at least in comparison to the other taller actors.]

When I first watched the anime, I found the love hotel scene to be scary and shocking, but in the stage play the way Tadashi sneaks up behind Reki before speaking is so funny, I burst out in laughter. [You can also hear the audience laughing when Tadashi pulled out envelopes of money to bribe Reki.]

They really leaned in on Renga, like really, really leaned in. So many physical touches and gay staring and yearning, I can't... (Also cue Joe being captain of the Renga ship.) [The scenes where Reki is teaching Langa skating, gold, and feels so endearing. And their making-up scene, double gold, and the payoff is chef's kiss.]

Joe's actor literally carried the whole show, that's probably why I'm talking a lot about him here. [I saw somewhere that the actor have been wanting to play Joe on stage ever since the anime came out and auditioned himself for the role, so that's some dedication there.]

Matchablossom still has their moments in the show (I actually feel they are more viable here than in the anime itself because other than their arguing their rivalry tension was toned down a little (I believe it's simply because they were played by adults) so their domestic vibes are a lot more obvious and they simplify a lot of the flashbacks so there's actually no real implication that Cherry may have feelings for Adam when they were younger). [Can't you tell I'm a Matchablossom shipper? What I meant to say is that they feel a tad bit more like an established couple here than in the anime. The whole scene of Adam smacking Cherry and Joe running to Cherry's rescue was done very well, and they've included the scene where Cherry escaped the hospital and fell asleep in Joe's restaurant... I will stop talking now or I'll spoil more stuff here and let you guys find out. :D ]

Speaking of flashbacks, they keep on hammering in the fact that Tadashi taught Adam skating and Tadashi blames himself for it so damn hard.

Thank god for once Adam didn't interrupt Langa's after-race party during the ending. Still has that scene where Adam tells Tadashi that he will be his dog for life and Tadashi fucking smiles and accepts happily.

This actually reminds me there was a whole moment during the opening musical of the second stage play where Tadashi kicks down some stuntmen with martial arts in order to clear the way for Adam to walk on.

But lucky for us, the true ending is Langa and Reki skating against each other like they promised.