Bungo Stray Dogs: "Dark Era" Stage Play Reaction!
Added 2022-12-09 18:00:08 +0000 UTC**A Tearful Headphone Warning Throughout**
This month marks the 10th Anniversary of Bungo Stray Dogs' manga and starting next month will be Season 4 of the anime, so why not celebrate a recent YouTube subscriber goal with this stage play!
Many thanks to patron @Dana for supplying the stage play with translations; I really appreciate it! This was so much fun and honestly brought me to tears! I can't wait for January 2023!
NOTE: The subtitles got cut off a little 2-3 times in editing; apologies!
LINK TO REACTION: https://share.vidyard.com/watch/qkdjLd6wZfgJD9HatMvriW?
Thanks for watching with me and for the support!
Comments
Hahahaha, I was NOT expecting to tear up in this stage play, much less have LEGIT tears, but that’s the power of Oda, right?! This was SUCH a great play and I like that they were faithful to the novel as well – it’s been a while since I’ve read it, but I really enjoy that they incorporated both into this! But, uhm, YES, Oda saying goodnight to the children was absolutely incredible and heartbreaking, especially at the tonal shift from the anime~UGH MY HEART! And yes, the actor playing Oda slowly breaking down as the scene goes – SO GOOD. Yeah, I would have loved to have seen that live – I would have been a WRECK. And that SCREAM – I am glad the actor chose to do it live and that he loves playing Oda so much! It’s so sweet – and ahhhh – that last scene with Dazai and the head pat nearly got me again! I love that the actors are close friends – again, MY HEART! The use of props throughout though was really clever as well. As sad as I was for not seeing Akutagawa, I totally get it – there wasn’t much for him to do in this play, which DOES have me excited to hopefully see him in OTHER plays in the future! I definitely agree that Hideya and Kubodera sound and look JUST like their counterparts; that’s so sad about Kubodera, though! :( And that Hideya isn’t playing him now – it makes me feel like I was watching something special with them in this stage play. Hahaha, sorry to get back so late to your comment but I loved reading all of the trivia and this honestly was my favorite stage play to watch so far! I definitely want to get to Beast, but I’m not sure I’ll be able to before Season 4 comes out – but I definitely want to watch it in 2023! :) Especially since it’s not related to the canon timeline! Right now, it’s working on the recap! :) Thanks so much for the comment!
Romaniablack
2022-12-20 06:06:11 +0000 UTCFirst of all, this probably makes me a terrible person lmao but I'm really pleased this got tears out of you, after you mentioned the other day on discord how hard it is to make you cry 😂 I'M SORRY LMAOOOO but it is very satisfying, yessss, suffer with us 😈🥲 This adaptation makes the anime look like a cakewalk, ahaha, and I love how you knew what you were getting yourself into and realized partway through "WAIT I DIDN'T SIGN UP FOR THIS" - big mood. 🥲 "I know the story, I've seen the show, I've read the novel, I'll be fine!" I THOUGHT THE SAME THING BUT NOPE, I was QUITE shaken for the rest of the night after I first watched it, more than I ever expected to be..... there's just something about seeing all this happen in real life with real people that hits different. And even though the anime already existed at the time, this was adapted more from the novel instead, which is why it's much more faithful to the novel rather than the anime (see: the ending cigarette scene, the kids chase scene, though it did keep Oda pulling off Dazai's bandages from the anime), and to me that makes it all the more meaningful. Oda saying goodnight to the kids in the play is absolutely unreal, it utterly broke me and I love that you drew attention to that scene - in the anime it's serious and somber and quiet and that alone is beautiful and haunting as it is, but here, the way the ghosts of the kids all help Oda gear up to essentially go die for them, one by one, and the way they're all SMILING (well, all but Shinji) throughout it all, it's so DISTURBING and WRONG, and that combined with how Oda starts out just as cheerful about it but by the end he's just breaking down, IT RUINED ME, IT WAS SO EFFECTIVE AND SO HAUNTING AND I WILL NEVER RECOVER, I CANNOT EVEN IMAGINE HOW IT WAS TO SEE LIVE 😭😭😭 And then there's the chase scene before it, which, again, like you pointed out, I LOVE how Elise is there with a toy bus, playing with it, because it perfectly represents her and Mori playing with these innocent lives: this is all just a game to them, Mori is the puppet master in all this, and using them here like that was the perfect creative choice to show that, it's absolutely chilling. And Dazai and Ango frantically narrating the chase sequence for Oda, because they love him and care about him and seeing them just as upset as him about it all symbolically even though they aren't actually there killed me as well, it's so good 😭💔 And then of course the scream......... It was supposed to just be a recording of himself screaming that they played, but Taniguchi specifically asked if he could do the scream live at every performance, because he's just that damn talented and that damn passionate about Oda and BSD, he loves Oda so much 😭🥺❤️ There are so many interviews with him, and it's also evident in his tweets, just how much he loves it all and loved playing Oda (also seen with how he patted Dazai's head and said what he said to him in the final scene (an original scene for the play added by Asagiri btw), even though it wasn't in the script, just because he cares that much about Oda and Dazai's relationship 😭❤️), also he and Asagiri are really close friends and they're both just really wholesome together 🥺 I'm so sorry the curtain call wasn't subtitled, but I have asked our translator for a summary of it eventually; for now, I can quote this little tidbit they tweeted about it for us: "The emotions were so overwhelming that even in the curtain call, they were still having teary eyes. Normally everyone would say something but for this stage, all the cast let Taniguchi-san to do all the speaking. And he talked about how he poured his everything into this stage and that in the end he just became attached to everyone, not only Dazai and Ango but all the other characters too, even Gide. And he said that even though Dark Era is really dark and tough and painful for Oda, the scene he saw in the audience seats and the time he spent with everyone in the cast, and the last moment with Dazai really shone brightly, and was irreplaceable for him. And that’s why Taniguchi said that for him it was an “era of light”." 😭❤️ I felt really bad when you were so excited to see Akutagawa, because he's not in this 😭💔 that's the only thing keeping it from being a 10/10 play for me. He was already cast in the season 1-focused play (Dark Era was the second stage play), so he already had an established actor, but apparently there were scheduling conflicts so they didn't bring him back for Dark Era 💔 which sucks because I love Aku's scenes in Dark Era, and Shouhei Hashimoto is INCREDIBLE as him in the other plays, and especially in Beast (I looked him up and apparently he played Zeno in the first Yona stage play, which I think is the one you saw? Gide's actor is not in that play though, like you thought), so I would have loved to see him in this 😭 I know he wasn't absolutely necessary, but he has a way bigger role than Ranpo, who is in this, and he's the reason Oda goes out and encounters Gide the first time......... so I wish they had been willing to recast him temporarily for this, just this once. Hideya Tawada is absolutely incredible as Dazai, with both his silly goofy antics and terrifying moods, he IS Dazai to me (he looks just like him from the anime!!!), but he was replaced starting with the Dead Apple stage play (which is the 5th one) by another actor, Rui Tabuchi, because Hideya became busy with other things and couldn't play Dazai anymore 💔 so Rui plays Dazai in Dead Apple, the Chuuya-focused plays (Fifteen and Stormbringer), and most recently Beast. I adore both Rui and Hideya, they are both amazing Dazais and they both bring their own unique things to the role, but I love Hideya just a bit more and I will always miss him. 🥺 Mori's actor here, Akira Kubodera, was also replaced later on, because he committed suicide in 2020 💔 and I miss him as well. He sounds so much like Mori in the anime to me, just like how Hideya sounds like Mamoru Miyano. I RAMBLED A LOT SHARING TRIVIA A;LSDFJGKFDSL I'M SO SORRY, BUT I'M SO GLAD YOU ENJOYED THIS 🥺❤️ I've yet to see the other stage plays aside from Stormbringer (because it got official subtitles), and Stormbringer is fantastic as well, but Dark Era will always be the peak for me - I mean, Oda, Dazai, the trio, everything about it, how special and meaningful it all is... what more could you want, right. 🥲 I'm not sure how much you know about Beast, but it is an AU (written by Asagiri) completely separate from any of the other canon material, so if you wanted to watch it before season 4 like you mentioned considering, you wouldn't be spoiling yourself on anything. It's a fantastic movie and they brought back all of the stage play cast to perform in it, (Taniguchi really shines with a movie budget ❤️ they all do) which is apparently not the norm for anime/manga-based live action movies. But if you wanted to wait to see it till you read its novel or manga, I get that too.~ But I have it whenever you want it, and HOPEFULLY the other plays will be subbed in the future as well; crossing my fingers. 😭🙏 In the meantime I CAN'T WAIT FOR THE MANGA RECAP/READTHROUGH BEFORE SEASON 4; I eagerly await it...! 👀😄❤️
Dana
2022-12-10 23:11:22 +0000 UTCThank you so much! I honestly want to tackle Beast and Stormbringer after Season 4 is over! Or that's the plan, anyway! :)
Romaniablack
2022-12-10 05:26:45 +0000 UTCThis is a very pleasant surprise ^^ Now I’m curious, if translations are offered, would you go check out the other Bungou Stage Plays? And maybe even the Behind the scenes? Even just on your own time and not necessarily a reaction ^^
alessia_collie
2022-12-09 18:05:13 +0000 UTC
