Tickets

I pre-purchased all but one of my tickets before the performances online, I was lucky and was able to buy the last one at the venue. (This really depends on the sold-out status online.) I also noticed a lot of people lining up in both Hiroshima and Fukuoka performances trading tickets with the ticketing office. Some people also had signs asking to exchange tickets privately as well.

During the Fukuoka performances since all the seats were not sold out online, you could purchase the tickets before the showing started. This this was a performance during the weekday I think that might have been the reason that lots of upper seats were empty. The Hiroshima performances were during the weekend so all the tickets had already sold out online.

Buying Goods                                                                            

In Fukuoka, the line wasn’t very long as I arrived pretty early and before the first performance of the day. However in Hiroshima I arrived in the morning and the line was super long something that I wasn’t expecting. It was already a 4 person line and it was coiling from the main level where goods were sold to second floor outside. I wanted to be able to purchase the goods I wanted the first day. They did have a limit on the Hoodie Ribbons. Everyone was only allowed to buy 1. So I had to line up a few times to get the ribbons for the other characters. It was easy to do this right after a performance, as the lines at that time were really short in comparison. Only a few items were listed as sold out by the end of Day 2. I thought they generally had a good stock.

While waiting in line, they had staff hand out leaflets like they do at Comiket. It was helpful especially if you weren’t sure what you wanted or you were able to see the large banners at the front. As you get closer to the ‘entrance’ of the sells booth they will have a display with the actually products so you will be able to have a better idea of what you want.

There was also a separate line for the Gacha items and it was just as long as the regular merch line. I didn’t go for those, so I don’t have much to add about this.

Trading Goods

Around the area, you’ll find the fans of certain characters/actors will have pins/and other goods for trading. So you can trade with them if the items you got from the gacha were not the characters/actors you like. Everyone will usually carry a clear case and they keep it open so you will be able to easily see which character they are looking for. And usually they dress in the colour of the characters so that’s also another way of finding out who you want to trade with.

Performance Time

As it got close to the opening time, people started to line up at the different entrances. This was determined by where your location was on the ticket. There wasn’t definite signage for this, usually others figured out where to line up based on where others were waiting.

I had heard a lot of about staff checking tickets to see if the name matched for other types of concerts not Touken Ranbu in general. That didn’t happen to me though. However I was worried about it as the rules for ticketing in 2019 seemed to have changed compared to past years. The staff at the door will take your ticket and rip the stub. Then you continue ahead where they will check your bag for cameras. They will ask you this as well.

Once you are inside the venue, there was a table for all the promotional material for the actors. It wasn’t promotional material for Touken Ranbu but for their other works. There were free for anyone to take. Further along there were tables with boxes with each of the actors names on it for fan gifts.

Finding the section entrance wasn’t difficult as they labelled all the pillars. They had staff at various doorways who ca direct you to your seat if you are lost. I also noticed a lot of fans in kimonos and the audience age group was wide as well. This year they had a main stage and then an isolated stage in the middle of the venue. They alternated skits between the two. I was a little difficult to see the middle stage if you sat facing to the main stage, so you really had to rely on the screens.

Opening Skit

The opening skit started with Kotegiri Gou practicing for the concert. It’s the video that was released on youtube that featured Tsurumaru prior to the start of the Utawase Performances. He is then later joined by Monoyoshi Sadamune, Kunihiro Horikawa.

The skit is mainly to tell you the rules that need to be followed during the performance, such as no filming and photos, no smoking inside etc. And also to turn on and off your penlight at certain times. And Gou will ask what will happen to you if you don’t follow these and here is where the adlib starts.

The adlib of the skit changes per showing so you will usually hear something new. For one of the Fukuoka showing, the joke was about turning into mentaiko and the other was about having to commit seppoku.

One of the Hiroshima ones was probably the most memorable. Since the performance was right at Christmas, it was themed just for it. When Gou asked what would happen, Kunihiro replied back that you would turn into Santa-san.

Kunihiro: *acts like santa, bend back pretending that he was lugging a large sack on his back* HO HO HO

He then proceed to hand out a ‘Kane-san’ to both Gou and Monoyoshi. He said ‘For you’ (in English) as he handed it out. And Monoyoshi would reply back ‘For me’ also in English.

Now it was time for the real start. The performance opened with all of the swords appearing in Shinto clothing. Each one had their own emblem on the front and there were two main coloured groups. Red and Blue. Tsurumaru appeared with a torch taking center position.

The first skit was about a nostalgic sound that Ishikimaru heard. He was trying to recall where/what sound it was. First Kogitsunemaru entered and joined him. Then Tsurumaru entered asking to play a round. I guess it was Tsurumaru and Ookurihara that was farm duty as Ookurihara entered and made his complaint. Next Yasusada entered from behind. It was also quite cute that Yasusada did a called out to other swords when he entered the sage where Kogitsunemaru, Tsurumaru and Ishikirimaru played go. Whenever he did a hotscotch entrance he would pronounce the name and surprise Kogitsunemaru while attaching their motto line. For one instance he used Hizamarul and shouted A-ni-ja.

お百度祷歌 from this skit became one of my favorite songs and was quite memorable.

The next skit was Tonbokiri’s dream. It started with everyone, (Nagasone Kotetsu, Aoi, Kunihiro, Yasusada and even Tomoe) asking for conpeito. In the end eveyone was denied of the treat. I loved how Tomoe would enter and speak with a mouthful of dango.

That’s when his dream started where everything thing becomes a conpeito. During the last song, as he was holding on to the last note, Yasusada would gesture to the crowd to encourage use to keep applauding/cheering.

I personally thought camera work that aired on the large screen for this skit wasn’t very good. At the Fukuoka performances as they did a lot of extreme close up on the face, especially for this skit. Spi did make certain facial expressions but it could have been framed better. But it was better by the time I went to the Hiroshima performances.

After that were the 3 songs until the next skit featuring Aoi. This one was performed at the center stage.

Next was Akashi’s skit back on the center stage. His story on the incident with the Plum Blossom Tree. The idea was that when something bad happens people tend to lie. And thus using the incident of him breaking off the branch of the tree he was able to place the blame on someone else. Imanotsugi was his first victim and Kogitsunemaru was the second. This broke my heart right here when Kogistunemaru believed it was his fault!

Next up was the Tokugawa family. The Time Renegade would bring a sea beam and leave it at the middle stage. Nobuyasu who figured out the motive of the assassination attempt, tries to save his father with the help of Hideyasu. As each sea bream was pick up by Ieyasu, they would go and take it back. The first time was by slowing time down, second was where Hideyasu held up the sea bream covering his face and started talking, pretended to be the father of the one that Ieyasu was holding and was able to successfully get it back. In one of the performances Ieyasu dropped the sea bream before heading it back. The last one, they retrieved by shooting darts to make the two faint. They exaggerated the liveliness of the fish quite a bit when ever they picked up the sea bream. It was almost like almost rodeo-like.

Next skit two skits were on the center stage. Kanesada appeared in a yukata and was soon followed by Kotetsu and Aoi. The had a little talk on how they kept their hair. They sang 夕涼み 時つ風 and it was quite the surprise to see who was playing the guitar. It was Kunihiro! He appeared in his red tracksuit at left main stage playing the guitar.

‘Two Kistunes’ skit featured Akashi, Kunihiro, Nagasone Kotetsu and Otegine being fooled by a fox that took Kogitsunemaru’s form. And vice versa. The song in this one, was more upbeat and fun. The switch between the two Kogitsunemarus was well done I thought.

During the skit with pulling of the sweet potato, it was cute how Tomoe discovered this giant leaf and he attempts to pull it up, by just lifting up his sleeve. He maintained his graceful figure and pulled up the hem of his sleeve just a couple of cm, and took a step forward assuming that it was enough. Eventually Mutsunokami came in along with Yasusada to help. And they eventually roped in Ookurihara. However not without him saying that he was able to do it himself first!

During 百万回のありがとう Mutsunokami was at the upper left rafters, so I was able to see him up close during the Fukuoka Performances. There was a girl behind me who was decked out in his colours and ribbons so he waved very excitedly towards our section. Unfortunately Kogistunemaru was stayed in the middle ground level so I was only able to see him up close during the Hiroshima performances.

During the final ceremony performance, the new sword manifested. And it turned out to be Kuwana Gou! I had no idea at first who was playing the mysterious character that appeared.

Ending

At the end, after all the characters are announced, and everyone appeared back on stage, there was a short announcement asking us to not post or mention anything on twitter about the new appearance of Kuwana Gou. It was quite how everyone in the audience answered with ‘Hai’. And some of them on stage stared to make the ‘x’ symbol.

Then everyone did their comments/thanks.

The most memorable one for me was during the Hiroshima performance Imanotsurugis’ in which he pulled out a white piece of paper and said that he had message from Iwatoshi. The message from Iwatoshi asked that Master give a lot of presents to Imanotsrugi since it was Christmas. However that plan was quickly foiled as Kogitsunemaru pulled the paper away from Imanotsurugi and exposed it as a blank piece of paper.

I was disappointed that neither the Fukuoka or the Hiroshima performances had the silver and gold streamers dropped so I wasn’t able to get one to commemorate the performances this year. T_T

But overall I really enjoyed the skits this year and the song list was great too. I love hearing Spi sing live, so I think he parts were well highlighted this year.