Last night was the special cleaning of the soon to be released blu-ray of the NieR:Orchestra Concert! Yoko Taro, Okabe Keiichi, and Saito Yosuke were at the show talked a little bit before the show (Saito didn’t speak, however).
Unfortunately, I came to the venue almost 15 min late, so I missed most of their talk (ugh!!)
I believe Yoko-san walked onto the stage at the base of the movie screen while wearing his Emil mask, but when I came in, he had already taken it off and it was lying in halves at his feet.
The theater that was used to screen the blu-ray was enormous. Seating-wise, the theater held roughly 700 people and the screen was pretty huge.
Yoko-san sat directly one row in front of me with Okabe-san sitting to his right with one seat between them, followed by Saito-san with one more seat between them. As they sat down, some staff members handed them all a tray with popcorn and a drink. Nice service!
As the Blu-ray began, we got to see a short behind the scenes clip of Saito-san with Yoko’s Emil mask. I forget what all they talked about, but Saito-san mentioned how Okabe-san came about 90 minutes late to the rehearsal just before the main performance. It reminded me how I was also almost late to the afternoon concert… omg
The recording of the concert on the blu-ray was put together extremely well. The spoken MC portions were very clear and easy to hear–this also includes the recitation performances that were spaced throughout the concert.
I’m not necessarily a fan of the Orchestral Arrangement that was made not by MONACA but rather many other composer/arrangers in the industry. The music, of course, was very good, I just felt it was a shame that we couldn’t get a proper orchestra concert that paid closer homage to the soundtrack first (ie. not an arrangement).
I was also pretty critical with the chorus… They performed exceptionally well, but I felt like they didn’t stay true to the original composition of the soundtrack for some songs. I’m mostly critical of the opening performance of “Snow in Summer”. The quality or tone that I feel is imperative there is a younger, childlike voice. The chorus, however, treated it as an opera piece that utilized clearly adult voices. I just felt this difference created an unnecessary gap between the music and the aesthetic of the story.
That being said, though, I entirely found myself crying during both Emi and J’Nique Nicole’s performances, just as I had done during the concert in person. And let me express how amazing it was to see them performing in the big screen!! It’s hard not to get emotional!
At the end of the concert, during the end credits for the blu-ray, Yoko, Okabe, and Saito ran out of the theater so they wouldn’t be accosted by fans. But because of that, when the credits finished rolling and the lights in the theater came back on, no one knew what to do, whether or not there would be another talk segment. There was no announcement on the PA stating that this was indeed the end of the screening event, so everyone quietly sat, waiting in their seats. Eventually, people started getting up and walking out. It was kind of a strange way to conclude the event, but whatever. *shrug*
The second screening in Hibiya, which was apparently sold out, should have just started as I’m writing this, so I hope everyone who was able to go has a great time!
With that, I’m off to concert practice for Tsuki Oke!
★ All photos in this post besides the one of the signed/printed postcard with movie ticket were courtesy of akui on Twitter. Since I came late, I wasn’t able to take any photos myself. Thank you, akui-san!!