Description: Enjoy a delicious dinner with live entertainment, featuring light-hearted conversation and outstanding performances by Keiichi Okabe and his team! It’s sure to be a perfect way to wrap up 2024.
Appearances will include Yosuke Saito, Yoko Taro, Keiichi Okabe, and Takahisa Taura, with musical performances by Emi Evans and J’Nique Nicole and others!
There will be a matinee and evening performance, with the evening tickets slightly more expensive. Tickets include about an hour for a delicious meal, then an hour talk event, followed by an hour and a half musical performance.
The matinee begins at 1:00pm and ends at 4:30pm, while the evening performances is from 6:00pm to 9:30pm.
VIP tickets come with a special meet-and-greet photo op with the performers. They will also receive a special pass for the venue to wear around their necks as well as a signed mini-poster.
Everyone who attends will receive the following at their tables:
Some time ago, we learned that there would be a 4th installment of the Bakuken series of stage plays, but I honestly don’t remember where or how we learned about that. You might find something worthwhile in the Search…
But, suffice it to say, the livestream announcing a bunch of information on the next segment in the Bakuken series of stage plays aired last night. I will be disseminating the information as we’re given it, so please stay tuned!
About Suzuki Magoichi: He was the leader of the Saika Ikki, mercenary groups in feudal Japan. This historical reference is super interesting to me because I used to live in Nagakute, Aichi, which is where a huge battle was said to take place (Nagakute Kosenjo). I’ll be interested to see what Yoko comes up with this.
About Amakusa Shiro: (Amakusa Shirō, often romanized as Shirou), was a Japanese Christian of the Edo period and leader of the Shimabara Rebellion, an uprising of Japanese Roman Catholics against the Shogunate. His imina is Tokisada and he is also known as Masuda Shirō. [Wikipedia]
Since Michael traded his soul to save Yatsume, he has become a sort of wandering spirit known as Lucifer. We already know that Nobunaga tried to take Lucifer’s power and managed to subdue him in a way… so I imagine this sort of possession similar to Tyrann jumping from body to body in order to survive. Therefore, this announcement of Kyosuke Suga playing the role of Akiyama Yoshifuru seems quite plausible to me. We’ve already seen examples in which characters are introduced as their base personality (such as Tokugawa Ieyasu, who was actually possessed by both Nobunaga & Lucifer), so that may likely be the case with Akiyama as well.
Yoko has said that Bakuken 4 takes place during that Taisho Period (1912-1926), but since he hasn’t written a line of the script yet, this might change. He mentioned that it might be actually something in the future that resembles the Taisho Period. Hmm…
The introduction of Sakiho Motonishi is curious, as she’s the only new addition to the cast. She previously played the role of Mozu from another production from ILCA x Square Enix: Towatsugai.
Throughout the entire Bakuken series, many of the same actors reprise their previous roles, but they often take on a new flavor, so there’s really no need to worry about catching up with the previous installments. Everything is pretty fresh and new with each play.
Ono Zenki has the ability to switch between multiple personalities, except they’re not just mere personalities but likely REAL people… He might actually be possessed by multiple souls at once and he’s simply able to keep them all at his beck and call. We see this through his 3rd Personality, a female character that eventually sacrifices her “existence” (?) in order to help him. So, from this, we get more of a feeling that souls are able to float around here and there, and depending on the host, they’re able to either suppress or take command over those souls… or be drowned in their power. It feels a lot similar to Gestalt possession from NieR.
This honestly gives me the feeling that Yoko’s been after all along… that there’s a reason why important points in history went the way they did… and that there was some sort of outside influence that triggered them to go a certain way. This sort of thought is ABSOLUTELY within the realm of the overarching Yokoverse, but unless such a thing is revealed directly by him, we can only speculate!
NieR:Automata Ver.1.1a Anime Season 2 Ending Theme, “Hai to Inori”
Performed by: GEMS COMPANY
Lyrics by: Yoko Taro
Composed by Keiichi Okabe (MONACA)
YoRHa Stage Play Theme Song, “Normandy” and “Guadalcanal”
Lyrics by: YoRHa Headquarters
Composed by: Keiichi Okabe
The First Limited Edition includes a large shikishi-sized postercard of the GEMS COMPANY version key visual. Inside the CD insert, there is a really nice illustration of the partially destroyed moon with an interesting tower rising up to meet it.
Updated: Wednesday, September 4, 2024 – 4:30pm (JST)
Preparations for this year’s Tokyo Game Show is well underway! The three NieR dudes won’t stop their huge stock of NieR Orchestral Arrangement Special Edition boxs are signed!
This will be a light-hearted livestream as they are effectively locked inside the SQEX building and forced to sign their autographs over and over again! While they’re busy signing, they’ll be discussing some highlights of their work, some behind-the-scenes stories, and other fun talk. It will be interesting to see if they’re able to finish signing everything by the end of the livestream…
Just last night was another fun “Game Sakaba” segment with many folks from the NieR development team and more in which we were able to watch the guys play around with the new system from SEGA in which it lets you play actual UFO catcher games through a simple touch on your smartphone!
I will not be covering the main portion of this livestream regarding the UFO catchers, but you can watch the full broadcast from the link below:
Music: Song of the Ancients / Atonement (Ver.1.1a)
Size: 500ml
▶︎ New “Smart Toy” brand anitech by HIBINO
Much along the same lines as the PSYCHO-PASS smart toy that was released in 2016 which connects to your smartphone and transforms, several NieR:Automata themed items are currently under development. Here’s a look at the PSYCHO-PASS toy:
Firstly, here’s the mock-up of 2B’s sword, Virtuous Contract:
And secondly, here’s the mock-up of Pod042:
Please note that there seems to be three pods shown in the image on the left, but these are the individual stages in which the smart toy will effectively morph into. They’re currently debating what size to make the smart toy, as if they go with a 1:1 ratio, it might be too large for most people (as there’s little storage space for most in Japan). They demonstrated generally how large a 1:1 ratio would look like in the image on the right.
▶︎ Happy Birthday, Yosupi!
Yosuke “Yosupi” Saito’s birthday was on August 25, so the gang gave him a little birthday celebration including a song/rap by Yoko, Namio, and Ui. The only thing was… the girls couldn’t quite hear the BGM track to be able to sing their lines very well and it was kinda a mess in a hilarious way. They later tried it again and it was a bit better, but it was a little painfully obvious that they didn’t perform a technical rehearsal before the livestream… lol
Music written by Keiichi Okabe (DJ Okabe)
Lyrics written by Yoko Taro
Performed by Mio Hanana (Diva Namio) & Ui Hinagata (Diva Ui)
▲ The lyrics were color coded for the performers.
Red: Yoko
Blue: DJ Namio
Pink: DJ Ui
Green: DJ Namio / DJ Ui
What was really funny about this is that Saito even ratted them out, saying that they needed to practice and rehearse more, which to anyone involved in productions like this, is an ABSOLUTE given. There’s no excuse for them not to hear the BGM and therefore mess up, but even the second time through, they still kinda messed up, so… yeah, they needed a couple more takes in rehearsal. haha
Here’s a look at Yosupi’s cake that they gave him. The first photo is pretty funny with Yoko’s head on the side. For the actual cake, you can see that they printed a photo of Yosupi in his 9S cosplay that he wore for the World Cosplay Summit in Nagoya earlier this month.
They even made a large poster of the same image of Yosupi as 9S (which he dubbed 54D) and unveiled it during the program. For some reason, the camera focused on his knees, maybe at Yoko’s request.
They also made some small acrylic stands of Yosupi and Yoko in their cosplays from WCS2024.
▶︎ NieR:Automata Ver.1.1a – Season 2
▶︎ The Limited Edition DVD/BD Boxset Bonuses:
Digital jacket with original artwork by character designer and chief animation director Jun Nakai
New short story by Jun Eshima, 笑顔ノ君ヘ “Egao no Kimi e” (To you who smiles)
Drama CD “fa[T]al error“
Collection of production materials, “Elements of NieR:Automata Ver.1.1a 002”
”Pod’s Records 002” Illustration Book
Replica Disc
Special Illustration Card(s)
Virtuous Contract
▶Over 130cm of an overwhelming presence with realistic texture ▶Reproduces battle scenes with vibration, light, and sound effects based upon movement ▶Secondary product: Pod042 remote control ▶Includes voice recordings of the main character, 2B ▶Comes with unique serial number engraved ▶Scheduled for release in Autumn 2025
Pod042
▶Automatic transformation mechanism ▶Reproduces laser beams with sound effects and light ▶Can be remote controlled with the Virtuous Contract or smartphone ▶A special voice recording plays when stroked ▶Includes an alarm and alert function with Pod042’s voice ▶Comes with unique serial number engraved ▶Comes with dedicated stand ▶Scheduled for release in 2027
▶︎ The Next BAKUKEN Stage Play in 2025!
They let slip that there’s another Bakuken stage play set for 2025, and we’ll hear more about the details later in December, maybe around Christmas along the same lines as the previous Saito Santa livestreams, which officially ended in 2022. This will mark the 4th official play, 3rd in terms of story, which should continue the story from the last one in which we saw the appearance of Kyosuke Suga as Michael. Although I’m very excited to see him back, if that’s the case, it will be hard to see him as a BAD GUY in need of saving by Yatsume…!! The implications for the whole Bakuken stories in terms of the overall Yokoverse is CRAZY!
Absolutely insane take: Could Yatsume actually be the basis for Accord…? We know she’s immortal and will always come back to life due to “reasons”… It would be interesting if this is how Yoko envisioned fusing everything together. This next play might be the last for Bakuken… before Yoko gets another idea for something brand new.
More news will follow when it’s been announced! Please stay tuned!
