[dreamcastegirl]

The fact that LILIUM escaped me for so long, the fact that the whole TRUMP series escaped me for so long is somewhat criminal.

Taking place in the year 2500, LILIUM is a 2014 stage play written by Suemitsu Kenichi as part of his ongoing series of stories about a number of ancient and eternal vampires, primarily Krauss, and later Sophie, often referred to as TRUMP, an abbreviation of "True of Vampire." Broadly, the series is a snap-shot of events unfolding on a lengthy timeline of thousands of years, in which Sophie and Krauss and several other immortals, mourn the curse of their longevity, yet also try to initiate others into their eternal sorrow. By the time LILIUM begins, the idea of a vampire that can live forever is treated almost as a myth by both humans and vamps—the series' preferred term—alike, and this particular story takes place within a sanitarium far from the human world, where a number of fledging vamps have been gathered so that the symptoms of their pubescent chrysalis phase can be monitored and alleviated in the hope that they will not grow into creatures who seek to antagonise humans and rain down chaos upon them, like many of their vampiric forebears.

When first I heard mention of LILIUM, I knew nothing of the broader series or of Suemitsu's body of work, all I really cared about was the fact that it was a musical performed by members of Hello! Project, primarily girls from Morning Musume '14 and S/mileage, and that it was about vampires. You may have noticed that I have a soft spot for vampires. The night-walkers of LILIUM, however, are a far cry from the Nosferatu and Fangire, from familiar brat princes and dark counts. Focusing primarily on the relationship between Lily (Sayashi Riho) and Snow (Wada Ayaka), the vamps of this work are trapped in a world that does not understand them, a world in which they cannot find their place within. As with Kamen Rider Kiva, LILIUM treats its vampires as a species adjacent to humanity, human enough to be empathetic, and yet monstrous enough to excite dissonance during points of the story. The world in which the girls of the sanitarium, Clan, exist is vivid and richly depicted, and as their story unfolds and we begin to learn more and more of their relationships with one another, and why both Lily and Snow can remember events that seemingly never happened, the more and more the play hammers home—no pun intended—its homages to gothic literature and the later Romanticism that followed the advent of that famed storytelling contest at the Villa Diodati between Byron, Polidori, and Percy and Mary Shelley.

Much like the work from which it draws influence, LILIUM is haunting and rich, full of melancholy and tragedy, its vampires so close to being children, so close to being monsters. As the audience learns more of the characters, it becomes haunting to see their sorrows and tragedies examined so starkly; from the misfortune of the half-human dhampir, Marigold (Tamura Meimi), to the absence of Sylvatica (Oda Sakura), and the weakness of False (Kudo Haruka), each character we are introduced to could be the lead of their own story, and the real sadness is that whilst TRUMP spans many plays and books, this particular moment in its timeline is evidenced solely by this play and a successive prequel in 2015, Nirinzaki.

Perhaps my opinion here is biased though, as really LILIUM is one of the few works in the series translated into English by merit of the dedication of Hello! Project fans, and thus it is the only corner of this world I have really come into contact with, not being confident in my Japanese to really consider the possibility of searching out and watching recordings of the other productions without translation.

I know that I am often the first to complain when vampires exhibit too much humanity, and yet I found that the characters here spoke so readily to concerns that we all have, that it was infinitely easier to connect with them, to relate to them than, say, our aforementioned brat prince.

In tone, LILIUM is complex and rewarding, close to the Nier: Automata play, YorHa—starring Morning Musume alumnus, Tanaka Reina—and the way in which it handles the relationships of its characters is genuinely moving. I'm not sure if me enthusing about it will be enough to stir your interest, but if it does, I promise that if you set aside your doubts, the story will not disappoint.