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nightless_castle
Summary: An underwater kingdom is in joyous celebration for a human bride (Kizuki Rei) has been betrothed to their Sea Prince (Kiryuu Asaya). The bride however despairs, for she is to be drowned in the sea by her parents and married off to an immortal being. What will happen to the maiden who will become one with the sea? A tale about mortals and the other-worldly.
DOWNLOAD HERE (subtitle file only)Buy the DVD/blu-ray of this show and support OSK Revue here (amazon).
Thanks to Daz and Fig for proofing! This musical is a remake of the 2001 Sakura Wars musical. More about this show and its history below.
This musical is based on the play of the same name (海神別荘, 'kaijin bessou') written by Japanese novelist and playwright Izumi Kyouka in 1913. Though the play was never staged during his lifetime, it was performed for the first time in 1955 in the form of Shinpa (an artform that mixes modern theater styles with kabuki).
I’ve seen a total of three adaptations of The Sea God's Villa, all of which are vastly different in art forms and types of performers:
the 2001 musical by the Imperial Combat Revue, from the mixed media franchise Sakura Wars,
the 2009 kabuki play by Cinema Kabuki (the most faithful to the original play),
and of course the 2019 musical by OSK revue.
Interestingly enough, all of these existing performances were performed with actors of the same gender (though Sakura Wars' production did have some men as supporting characters, the main cast were all women). If you aren't familiar with the story of The Sea God's Villa and have seen none of these then I recommend you watch OSK's version before anything else. While my favorite out of the three is Cinema Kabuki's play, it's probably not a fair comparison as the other two are modern musical adaptations and Cinema Kabuki is, well… traditional kabuki. In this post however I'll mostly be talking about OSK's musical adaptation in relation to Sakura Wars'.
Background & OSK Revue's connection to Sakura Wars OSK’s The Sea God's Villa is technically a remake of the 2001 Sakura Wars musical. Hiroi Oji, creator of Sakura Wars and playwright for the original musical, also worked on the OSK production. If you don’t know anything about Sakura Wars (or if you dislike Sakura Wars), don’t worry, this musical has nothing to do with Sakura Wars as a franchise, it essentially only borrows its soundtrack.
To provide some context, Sakura Wars is a mixed media franchise originally a video game series created in 1996. Its story is set in a romanticized Taisho Roman era of Japan and the premise is that an all-female revue troupe is actually a military troop that fights off evil demons using mechas and protects the city in disguise. It is essentially a visual novel dating sim game with a little bit of other gameplay and a large musical aspect. The series has since branched out to various media such as anime, musicals, etc., and is one of the earliest examples of a mixed media franchise that gave rise to “2.5D stage”, live action adaptations of fictional/2D media.
Most people believe that Sakura Wars was inspired by Takarazuka, and that is true, but more specifically Sakura Wars modeled after OSK, as explicitly stated by Hiroi Oji whose mother was a big fan of the theater (and obviously the sakura flower being the official symbol of OSK and all). Though of course OSK was in turn modeled after Takarazuka so crediting either one would technically be correct, but OSK and Sakura Wars are considered to be somewhat officially affiliated with each other (like one would consider Rose of Versailles is to Takarazuka). Sakura Wars' Imperial Combat Revue (the franchise's voice actors) and OSK revue collaborated and performed together in the after revue for this musical, “Storm of Applause”.
The Sea God’s Villa is one of many in-universe musicals in Sakura Wars performed by the characters, first released as an album in 2001. A live action musical for The Sea God’s Villa would be staged and performed by the voice actors of Sakura Wars later that year. In 2019, Hiroi Ouji revisited the musical for a restage by OSK Revue (for what he calls “the real deal”). To his credit, he really did improve upon everything from the original 2001 musical. I think OSK’s version is better in almost every way. Almost. I'll get into that later.
Review & comparison between versions Izumi Kyouka’s play is a fairly simple but profound story. It’s very beautifully written and I think they did a well enough job translating it into a musical.
Kiryuu Asaya has a very regal air about her so she suited her character as the Sea Prince quite naturally. I like the way she portrayed the prince as dignified yet gentle from love. Though I admit sometimes I wasn’t all that convinced by his emotions, and thought he could be more… imposing, perhaps.
Kizuki Rei as the bride was great. The way she portrayed the sorrowful bride to me was very ghost-like, which was befitting of her character who symbolically "died", soon to be reborn again in the sea. Her acting during the final scene was especially riveting to watch.
This musical was also the inaugural performance for OSK’s Minamiza theater, which is currently OSK’s biggest theater. The staging of this show is just beautiful. The sets are very atmospheric and pleasant to look at and they really give you that underwater feel. I really love the overall colors of this production. The way they utilized lighting in this show along with their trademark LED floor was also very well done.
The costumes were particularly lovely as well, the sea people had a lot of fun and whimsical yet elegant costumes. I do wish the human bride wore a more elaborate bridal kimono though…
In the story, the Prince orders everyone in the kingdom to wear traditional Japanese clothes to honor the human bride. The attire of the Prince himself seems to draw from Western fantasy while the rest of the kingdom’s attire resemble an amalgamation of traditional East Asian attire, which makes sense to me as the underwater kingdom doesn't really have a clear idea of what exactly humans wear.
It’s always a treat to see Yan Rin (OSK’s current top star as of writing this post) and Nijikake Roman, who are both Chinese, in Chinese inspired traditional garments. And I just love Nijikake Roman’s manta-ray shaped headgear and Yan Rin’s bright blue lipstick.
There’s also a lot more dancing in OSK’s version, as the director Masaki Rinori not only directed this show but choreographed it as well. I especially thought that the fight scenes choreography were really cool. Yan Rin shined during those (she has a lot of experience with fighting scenes… god knows they keep casting her as some sort of warrior or samurai).
Another thing I like about OSK's version is the Knights of the Black Tides. They were really cool. In the Sakura Wars musical, the war between the Prince and the red sharks was made into a comedic bit and it kind of irked me that they threw in such absurd comedy in an otherwise deeply moving and beautiful work. The sudden tonal change just gave me whiplash. But Sakura Wars' musical is a play within a play (and has a target audience of mainly otaku men who were just there to have fun and see their favorite characters/people who are already fans of the franchise), so I guess it's not supposed to be taken too seriously in the first place. While OSK’s production also has its lighthearted and comedic moments, OSK takes the source material very seriously. OSK’s version made the red sharks into proper antagonists who were also really cool as I’m sure Hiroi Ouji (or anyone else for that matter) wouldn’t dare make the women of OSK Revue play degrading roles. I guess Sakura Wars had the right idea to make the supporting male actors do it lol (sorry men).
However, one big thing that I do think was executed better in the original Sakura Wars musical is the music. More specifically the final scene which features the song "Everything Returns to The Sea" (全ては海へ, 'subete wa umi e'), which many would agree is the very heart of this musical. The original version of the song sung by the Sakura Wars’ voice actors will always be my favorite version. I really recommend everyone listen to it, it is an emotional journey and a half. So moving and beautiful.
I think it's a shame that Hiroi Oji's unique, somewhat experimental music was sanitized for the OSK production. They got rid of any "strange" sounding instruments and rearranged the songs to sound more appropriate for a mainstream audience, the best example of this being the opening song ‘Umi no Utage’. Though OSK’s version sounds perfectly fine, it just sounds far less interesting and really pales in comparison, I think.
One last thing I have a complaint about, and this has nothing to do with the musical or the performance, is that for some reason the blu-ray’s audio quality is… noticeably bad! And I have no idea why! OSK has never had issues with their audio. I’m so tempted to just edit the sounds of people coughing in the audience out myself cause it drives me insane and takes me out of the show at times. But oh well, it was tolerable.
Final Thoughts Overall, while I appreciate both, I do prefer OSK’s remake than the original Sakura Wars musical. The script flows much better and of course, these are actors with actual experience in theater. Though I thought the voice actors of Sakura Wars did a great job, you could tell at times that they weren’t trained for the stage. The original musical had some good moments and overall I prefer the musical performances from that version, but as a whole it’s not very consistent in quality (and if you have a very low tolerance for anime shenanigans then I wouldn't really recommend it to you). Do check out the final scene though, it's absolutely beautiful.
I think OSK’s Sea God Villa is a very solid and beautiful work and also a good first show for people who want to get into modern day OSK. So please, if you’re interested in this musical, do buy the DVD (4000 yen) or blu-ray (6000 yen) and support the theater! OSK is not nearly as big or rich as Takarazuka, so every little bit of financial support does help them out a ton.
Sources http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/sakura-taisen-introduction/
https://okepi.net/kangeki/1567
https://natalie.mu/stage/pp/minamiza_osk
http://sarunoanata.cocolog-nifty.com/blog/2019/07/post-55fc3f.html
