Musicals are tokusatsu too: a thread
 

I should lay out from the off-set how I believe that these musicals and stage-plays, their original sources often games and cartoons, are just as much tokusatsu as anything in the Toei or Toho or Tsuburaya canons. Granted the very definition of tokusatsu implies special effects in film and television, but considering the genres of these shows and the overlapping material of such performances as the Sailor Moon musicals or YoRHa/YoRHa Boys, for the purposes of from now until forever, I'm going to include musicals and plays as part of my definition whenever I talk about tokusatsu, and update this thread with commentary of such whilst watching them.

Sakura Wars was a big deal for Sega when it arrived on the Saturn in 1996. It spawned three sequels on both the Saturn and the Dreamcast, a successive Playstation 2 game, and a reboot in 2019, as well as countless spin off games, spiritual successors in the shape of Valkyria Chronicles, cartoons, and, of course, musicals. My first exposure to playing these games was on the Dreamcast, and then the later cartoons, which I used as a guide for sort of trying to intuit what was happening in the game as I understood no Japanese at the time. When I first heard hearsay of the musicals it was from those typical people who always feel the need to act as if they're too cool for anything, usually they were comments like, "Hey, did you know, in Japan, they make musicals out of video games? Isn't that weird?" But it wasn't weird, at least not to me, I thought it was [I]amazing[I]. Don't get me wrong, I'm not really a musicals girl, at least I wasn't as a child, but I was awkward, and I was in love with cartoons and games, and the idea of a game being brought to life on a stage with real actors and real music made me giddy with excitement. Lovingly translated by Taisho Fansubs in the summer of last year, the fifth Sakura Wars musical, Kaijin Besso from 2001, was certainly worth the wait.

Eschewing the more combat orientated moments in the game, and wisely focusing on the characters of the Hanagumi Revue during a long summer, the play is divided into two sections, the former discussing familial relationships and found family, delicately addressing the impact of loss and what it means to carry on in the absence of loved ones whilst still honouring their memories, whilst the latter is an in-universe adaptation of author Izumi Kyoka's 1913 shorty story, Kaijin Besso, a dreamlike story that tells of a young girl's sacrifice, transformation, and romance with a god of the sea in his palace beneath the waves. It is both comical and moving, beautiful and complex, and seeing this performance from 2001, the voice actors from the game reprising their roles here as they had done for each of the previous four plays, I was struck by the tenderness and care with which the material was adapted. Seeing glimpses of the actors after the performance, it is clear that they loved what they were doing, and seeing that audience from 20 years ago in their excitement, it is likewise clear that they were as dedicated to these stories as the cast were. I wonder where the people in attendance of this performance are now, I wonder if they played 2019's reboot of the franchise; I wonder what their opinions were.

If I have one criticism of the play, it is that it does so much, and by the time the adaptation of Izumi's work takes place, it feels that the performance should really have been its own separate thing. I say this as someone watching the play at night on television, a cat on her lap, but if I had been in the theatre at the time, I can imagine that I would never have wanted it to end.

Watching Sakura Wars all this time later is such a wonderful and exciting feeling, and it almost makes me a little sad because it is also a reminder of how poorly these stories have been treated by Sega, and how niche they remain even with the Western release of the 2019 reboot. More than anything, I just want to hold onto these tender little stories, these stories that aren't always about blowing things up in the most spectacular fashion or grim and dark betrayal and angst, but sometimes can be about the relationship between a father and a daughter, the friends we make in life, and the call to sometimes pilot giant steam-powered iron plated robots in combat. These little character focused stories, like so much of Sakura Wars is, these stories that do not eschew the excitement and drama of the action we see in more traditional tokusatsu, but also present a gentler, calmer side, I really think there is a place for these things, and I really want to share them with you.

So would you count the Death Note musical as a Toku? Because I legit love that one.

I would absolutely. Despite not knowing anything about Death Note, I would defend the right of these musicals to be considered toku until my dying breath, lol.

I haven't watched them myself, but I did get some good exposure to the YoRHa stage shows when I did my deep dive into Nier lore a couple years ago. The Boys one didn't interest me much, but as a big A2 fan I really liked learning about the play that fleshed out her backstory.

Should I mention I’ve seen clips of a Decade stage show that was a musical?

I've seen that one, it's beautiful! :p I guess I'm broadly including the Rider plays/musicals in all this, because sometimes I will watch those for Heisei shows that I haven't even seen an episode of the source material, so I'm definitely using them to prop up my argument.

I prefer YoRHa to Boys, but only as the former has Tanaka Reina, once of Morning Musume, in it. The whole thing is subbed on youtube, if I recall, I absolutely encourage you to watch it fully. I say this as someone who has never played a Nier game but has read the books and is in love with the varied stage productions, lol.

I see I’m not to only one on this forum who has a chaotic-evil mindset when it comes to what counts as tokusatsu! ;)

I really like theatrical plays and musicals, I would probably count them too. After all, the stage acting roots of tokusatsu are still very strong.

I love you just for the way you phrased this, haha.

Also: agreed, there's a lot of carry-over, just as there is with anime, so I really want to highlight this and the work that dedicated fansub groups like Taisho and Sea of Serenity do bringing these plays to a wider audience.

I assume we're talking like, Sailor Moon musicals type thing rather than for example High School Musical or something everyone knows about like that?

I actually have thought before that things like the Sarah Jane Adventures or Wizards vs Aliens could also be in the area of tokusatsu although obviously not the henshin hero subgenre but at least closer to older Doctor Who of which the format is slightly more to my taste than the new ones which are more just casual viewing for me!

Much as I liked High School Musical, I did mention Sailor Moon specifically in my opening as an example of the kind of production I was talking about. :p

For clarity's sake though, I am talking about musicals and stage-plays that have a common theme to the more familiar special effects driven TV shows/movies often discussed.