Ever since I heard that Yoko Taro was going to write a stage play that would be a prequel to his manga series, I knew that I had to go! I had only gone a couple times to the YoRHa play (only twice for each of the two runs; 4 times total). I know many people would and have questioned me–one was even my own mother–why I would want to see the same play more than once, and to that I have no answer. I can’t answer that for you. I can’t make you understand what it feels like to like something so much that you’d want to over-indulge in it. Given the shitty year that 2016 was, especially losing my father, I thought that he would have wanted me to go as often as I liked. And that’s what I did.
I pre-ordered tickets for 6/9 of the shows pretty early on and I was okay with that. But when I heard that they would have bonus items for repeaters… I was compelled to add the last three shows.
Then shortly after I picked up the tickets from the conbini, I realized I had made a huge mistake. The first two days of the show were scheduled for December 21 and 22. I apparently was still scheduled for work those two days. I probably could have made the evening show on the 21st anyway, but it would have been impossible for me to make the early afternoon show on the 22nd… so I asked my school to reschedule those two days for earlier in the month. *phew*
The first day, I took a couple pictures around the area.
▲ The play was held at the same location as the YoRHa Ver.1.1 play: Shinjuku Mura LIVE.
▲ Shinjuku Mura LIVE
▲ The nice Christmas lights across the street from Shinjuku LIVE.
▲ Nice flowers for Yoko Taro & Moriyama Daisuke. <3
■ The Story
The setting for the play takes place three years before the start of the manga series, when the Japanese government was recruiting young people to use as guinea pigs to develop super human abilities. In the play we meet a group of ten 9th graders who were chosen to participate in a training session to see who would be selected for the Special Abilities Private High School.
There are so many great scenes of the kids playing and having fun, playing tricks on each other, but all the while there are several adults trying to manipulate events that cause complete and utter chaos… and only a few survive…