#cdjapan

Let’s start with the casting. First of all, Ryoga Ishikawa as Haruka Sakura might be the most “oh, yeah, obviously they cast that guy” casting I’ve seen since Ryohei Takenaka was cast as Isagi in Blue Lock. From his body language to his fight scenes to the perfect look of sheer horror on his face during so many of the scenes (positive and negative), he’s such a perfect Sakura, and I would’ve never expected less from him. Hiroki Sana was also a fantastic Umemiya. He captured Umemiya’s ‘big brother’ energy super well, especially when interacting with Sugishita and Sakaki, his stage chemistry with Tomiyama felt dangerous even through the screen, and his skill as a vocalist is just unbearably good (I’ll talk about his solo later). Not to mention that he’s phenomenal visual casting. Hikaru Imamaki was a frankly terrifying Choji Tomiyama, with the constantly deranged look in his eye combined with his overly cutesy body language leaving me feeling completely unsettled, just like how Tomiyama’s dead black eyes and adorable grin did in the manga. Other standouts included Kazan Yokoyama as Akihiko Nirei, Masamichi Satonaka as Jo Togame, and Karin Takahashi as Kotoha Tachibana. 

The only real ‘issue’ I had with the casting was Taiga Nakamoto as Kyotaro Sugishita, who, to be honest, felt a little too pretty for the role at times, LOL. That man is beautiful. His acting was good, though, especially his adorable stage chemistry with Umemiya. Yuto Ando as Hayato Suo, similarly, is clearly a very good actor (I also really enjoyed his performance as Lono in the AkuNeko musical), but his singing is just not polished enough for some of the high notes they gave him in his duet with Kanuma. A real shame, considering they both did such a good job with the duet otherwise. 

I need to give a very special shoutout to Ryota Kawano as Yukinari Arima, though. Arima is, of course, not a main character in this series. It’s important that you know this. He exists purely to show up and be an asshole, get his ass kicked by Sugishita, and be in a delightful Dumbass Duo with Kanuma (fun fact: the word for ‘idiot’ in Japanese (馬鹿) is made up of the characters for ‘horse’ (馬) and ‘deer’ (鹿)!). Arima himself clearly didn’t get that memo, though, and Kawano captures this energy amazingly. He’s always doing something to draw attention to himself, like waving every time he leaves the stage, or messing around with Kanuma in the middle of two other characters talking. He’s also an incredibly good dancer, and doesn’t bother toning down his stage presence at any point. He’s so charismatic in the role, it’s genuinely ridiculous. 

Next, the stage chemistry between nearly every character was incredibly impressive. It wasn’t all positive stage chemistry, either. While Sakura & Nirei & Suo’s friendship, Sugishita’s adoration of Umemiya, and Arima & Kanuma’s Dumbass Duo vibes were all very convincing, they weren’t who stood out the most to me. No, it was Umemiya & Tomiyama’s dynamic that completely stole the show. It was absurdly tense every time they were on stage together, it felt like Umemiya was always trying to tame a wild animal or something. Their big fight scene was unbelievable, so climactic and satisfying and brutal (though the anime still has the best portrayal of the way Tomiyama chomps on Umemiya’s neck). One of the best fights I’ve ever seen in a 2.5D musical, to be honest. I’d love to see both actors do more action scenes like this.

The songs are probably the best part, though. While it’s difficult to pick an absolute favourite, I’ll just list of some the standouts in bullet-point form, in no particular order of importance: 

The Bofurin Introduction SongTM (The way that Hiragi is basically the coolest guy in the entire world for these brief few minutes, with the Bofurin members flanking him and being his personal posse, dancing in his stupid leather pants… is this how Sako and Kaji and Banjo see him all the time? Is this why they’re all obsessed with him? Also, the way that Sugishita is the only first year who’s part of the dance break hits extra hard when you know his backstory ♥️)

Umemiya’s silly plant solo (So funny and charming. I love the sheer silliness of this number, like Umemiya watering Hiragi’s hair like one of his plants, the human jump-rope move, and Sakura looking completely horrified the entire time as he realizes that this goofball who’s singing a song about loving his plants is the strongest member of Bofurin that he swore to take down. Sana’s incredible vocal range is on full display here as well, at one point jumping instantly from the deepest part of his chest voice to a super cutesy head voice. Completely crazy.)

Suo & Kanuma’s duet (While sadly, like mentioned before, Ando’s vocals aren’t actually all that suited for this song, the performance is still very good. He’s really quite intimidating here, doing the whole number with a breezy smile on his face and a piercing look in his eye. Yuta Chatani, Kanuma’s actor, is also extremely impressive, flipping from screaming to singing multiple times, and literally flipping multiple times as well, looking appropriately terrified of Suo’s wrath.)