Tanjou! Ankoku no Princess Black Lady Fankan
One good thing about the Fourth Stage is that all the fankans were released in full on video. The first of these fankans was the fankan for Tanjou! Ankoku no Princess Black Lady, the 2001 Summer Musical, which took place from June 1-3, 2001, about a month and a half before the actual musical opened. This was the first fankan for the fourth (and so far final) Sailor Moon, Kuroki Marina, her first Tuxedo Kamen, Urai Kenji, Sugimoto Ayano (Jupiter), Kakiuchi Ayami (Saturn), and Miyazaki Noel (Chibi-Moon). The event is hosted by Tominaga Kenji (who plays Wiseman in this myu; he had previously played Dark Cain in the Death Vulcan myu), and the video is commentated on by Marina, Kawabe Chieko (Mercury) and Yoshida Megumi (Mars).
Tominaga-san comes on stage first, highlighted only in a followspot (a spotlight that follows someone on stage) and ushered in by an instrumental of "Ankoku no Sonnet" (his only song in Death Vulcan). He makes some small talk and then introduces the event. Then the curtain opens on new Tuxedo Kamen Kenji-kun performing "And Believe in All," Tuxedo Kamen's song from the Kaguya myus, with the senshi minus Moon and Chibimoon as his backup dancers. This then cuts to Kenji being introduced by Takagi Nao (Uranus). He introduces himself. Then we get other cast introductions – including the new Jupiter and Saturn. (I will say Sugimoto-san's voice is a bit too high for Jupiter). There is quite a lot of small talk and teasing here, as almost all the cast carried over from the Dracul Arc and so they know each other well. Asami Yuuka (Neptune) calls Kenji-kun suave, which gets her an odd look from Nao. Kakiuchi-san says during her introduction that she heard Saturn was the most popular character, which angers Murata Ayumi (Venus), but Hosaka Yuuko (Pluto) shushes her before she can rant about it. Chieko-chan also gets corrected a lot during her introduction. Nao is very funny with her introduction too, as usual.
After all this, Megumi-san introduces the new Moon, and Marina rises out of the trap door as "LINK" begins to play. Then the whole group sings "LINK," with Marina at the forefront, similar to Miyuki's introduction. It's so hard to believe that Marina is only 12 here! She actually handles her solo pretty well. After the song, Nao introduces Marina, and Marina gives her self-introduction. She seems very energetic during it, semi-shouting the ends of some sentences.
After Marina's introduction, Nao and Yuuka (who seem to sort of be co-hosts for this event) announce the Passing of the Tiara. Marina steps out as the rest of the cast stands back. The previous Moon, Kanbe Miyuki, then walks on stage. She takes the tiara from an unseen stagehand and hands it to Marina. She takes it, bows, then faces the crowd with it as they clap. Then the stagehand appears with a holding pillow and Marina places the tiara on it. The stagehand walks off, and Miyuki introduces herself. Then she chats with Marina, sort of messing with her. She is surprised to learn Marina is only 12 (Miyuki was 15 when she debuted) and comments on how young that is. She says also that Marina's "LINK" was very good, though not as good as hers of course. Then she moves on to quizzing Marina about what to do if accidents happen during a performance. The first question is what would Marina do if she forgot the lyrics. Marina says she would smile. Miyuki says that's very Usagi-like, but the wrong answer. She says you should just go "la la la." Then she asks what Marina would do if she forgot her dance steps, which Miyuki admits she herself did. Marina says she would just dance to the rhythm. Miyuki says that's good but also the wrong answer; her solution is to do a certain arm movement, which she demonstrates. Suddenly, Nao bursts out, "I knew you did that! And the 'la la la' thing too" and then doubles over laughing. Then, as an example, Miyuki calls for Kenji-kun, as (according to her) he was doing those exact two things she mentioned during his song earlier. Nao plays along with this quite well, with both of them imitating Kenji-kun's way of singing. Then Miyuki introduces a Combination Corner between Marina and Kenji-kun. The rest of the cast then leaves and the two stars sing "You're My Jewelry," a classic Duet Corner piece and a typical duet for fankans featuring a new Moon and Tuxedo Kamen. They actually do really well; Marina's English is pretty much flawless (with almost no accent), and Kenji-kun is actually in tune (particularly in the second part; I think he was nervous at first but he gets less so by then), which given the bad voices of some of the other Tuxedo Kamens is saying something.
After this, the Inners return and then introduce the new Chibimoon, 8-year-old Miyazaki Noel. She sings "Mata Mata Chibiusa Desu" with the others as backup dancers. Marina actually almost slugs Noel-chan during the song. After this, Noel-chan introduces herself. (When Marina hears Noel-san's age, she freaks – remember, she's only 4 years older than Noel-chan – and yells "Maketa!" ["I lost!"] after which Chieko-chan hushes her and asks Noel-chan to continue with her introduction). Ayumi then says Noel-chan isn't the only young kid in the cast; the cast then moves out to introduce Aron and Manna's actresses, Adaniya Nagisa and Suzuki Kasumi, both 10 years old at this point (Suzuki-chan would have her birthday between the fankan and the musicals). They come in and sing Aron and Manna's song, "Nijiiro no Monochrome" ("Rainbow-Colored Monochrome"). Then Marina & Kenji come back on and the two girls introduce themselves. Kenji asks them something about their characters, but Yuuka says Kenji can't ask them that sort of question (cause it would spoil the musical plot, I think). The Outers then come back on and talk a bit.
The video then cuts to a "Tsukini kawatte oshiokiyo" pose contest. Several kids come on to try, and Noel-chan demonstrates the pose. The kids do pretty well. Then Marina announces that they're going to sing "Moonlight Densetsu," but Yuuko pipes up saying that first their sponsor Bandai has an announcement about something fun. This cuts to a promotional bit from Bandai, advertising a new "hairband mike" toy that consists of a very large pink headset mike attached to a hairband with a Sailor Moon wig on it. This large headset mike even comes with an equally large belt speaker. It looks like a cute toy on the model kid but when it's demonstrated on Marina it looks rather dorky. Anyway, the group sings "Moonlight Densetsu" (doing their anime poses at the very beginning), with Marina wearing the dorky toy mike. Then we cut to them singing "La Soldier," with Marina still sporting the toy mike. Fortunately, she takes it off after that.
After this, we get a 4-way medley of the Inners' theme songs, with Sugimoto-san singing "Zigzag Slash" alone, doing a good job for a song written for a lower voice range than hers. Then Ayumi sings "Traditional the Grace! Ai no Arashi," only to have Chieko-chan join in during the second part. Then Chieko-chan sings "Drive Me the Mercury" (brilliantly as always) and Ayumi joins her to return the favor. Finally, Megumi sings "Honoo no Messenger," in which she is (surprisingly) joined in the second half by Yuuko (which actually works because their voices are pretty close).
Then Tominaga-san shows up again to introduce himself and do some host stuff, along with Takuma Seiko, who Yuuka and Nao recognize from her role as a Death Mannetje in Last Dracul Jokyoku and greet warmly; Yuuka even hugs her. Takuma-san introduces herself, saying this time she's playing Cooan, one of the Ayakashi Sisters. Then Nao asks Tominaga-san what role he's playing. He says he was told he was playing the "doki-doki Hyuru-Hyuru Rugbyman." Chieko-chan and the other Inners then tease him, with Chieko-chan asking him if that means he's playing himself. (He actually plays Wiseman though, as aforesaid). Then, we learn that Tominaga-san and Takuma-san are there to host the Question Corner, but before that Bandai inserts a "Musical Information Corner," during we are shown a character board of the Black Moon Clan and re-introduced to Kawasaki Mao, the first Chibi-Moon and Chibi-Chibi, who is now all grown up and back in the myus, this time as Black Lady. Mao says she was touched to be cast in the myus again and that she will work hard.
The Question Corner follows. The featured question is "What is Sailor Moon's favorite color?", a question that ends up being given to everyone. Sugimoto-san says she likes Mars's colors. Ayumi says she likes orange (Venus's color) but likes pink more. Megumi says she likes red and pink. Chieko-chan says she likes blue (Mercury's color) and also pink like in Chibimoon's fuku. Kenji-kun says he likes banana yellow. Marina says she likes primary and bright colors, such as pink, orange, and yellow. Noel-chan (naturally) likes pink. Nao says she likes blue but has recently also started liking orange (which may have to do with Ninja Yell, an Ono Hikari-directed musical she was also in around this time, where she plays Ninja Orange). Yuuka likes yellow because it's a warm color. Ayami likes bright colors. Yuuko says she likes black, silver, and rouge, because even though these colors are often used for villains, they are Pluto's colors too.
Then Tominaga-san and Takuma-san are alone on stage, where they discuss fellow cast members Ado Endou and Kawasaki Miki. Thinking Ado and Miki aren't there, the two start dissing Ado and Miki, only to have Ado and Miki appear behind them, rather annoyed at being dissed. Ado and Miki introduce themselves; this time around Ado-san is Karaberas and Miki-san is Esmeraude. Ado-san asks Tominaga-san how his first time hosting an event went. Then the villain group sings a combo of "Ankoku no Sonnet" and "Akuma no Ragnarok." Tominaga-san really channels his inner Dark Cain here (and Death Vulcan for that matter), and Ado and Miki revisit their Nightmare days. Takuma Seiko sings Magi St. Germain's part in "Ankoku no Sonnet," pretty well too. After the original footage, special first day footage is shown of the same song combo, this time with Ono Hikari as a guest. She introduces herself and her role – Prince Dimande – after the song and jokes around a bit with the others.
Then Ayami does a really good job singing Saturn's theme "To a Brand-New World." This is followed by a "Stage Daily Special Duet Corner" where "Choubi! Uranus to Neptune" is the featured duet. Footage is shown from all three days. First we see Chieko and Megumi from Day 1, then Ayano and Ayumi from the Day 2 matinee, then Yuuko and Ayami from the Day 2 evening event, then Marina and Miki from the Day 3 matinee, then Kenji and Ado from the day 3 evening event (probably the weirdest pairing in this group; Kenji doesn't do an awesome job singing Uranus's part but he tries), and then finally all the Outers. Chieko-chan makes a very good Uranus even though her voice isn't as deep as Kimura Sanae (the original Uranus who sang this song). Yuuko is a good Uranus too. Ayumi is the best Neptune by far. When Nao and Yuuka join Yuuko and Ayami for the last performance, they even do the original end-of-song Uranus and Neptune intros.
Nao and Yuuka then introduce the full cast song, which for this fankan is "Ai Yori Houseki Kaguya Shima," also from the Kaguya myus. (The villains even dress up like sailors). The song is sung; interestingly only two of the current cast members have sung it in a musical before – Nao and Yuuka, the only members of the current cast who were in the Kaguya myus (besides Ado and Miki, but they didn't sing that song in Kaguya). During it, Kenji says candidly that his birthstone is peridot and that he'll gladly take it as a present (and he's not just talking as Mamoru here; he really was born in August and thus his birthstone really is the peridot). After this, Nao thanks the audience on the cast's behalf and asks for their support. The ending song is "21st Century ~ Koi no Senshi ja Irarenai," a song all the senshi cast but Marina, Megumi, Sugimoto-san, and Ayami have sung before. Once again, Marina does really well with her solo. The senshi pose during the instrumental interlude between verses one and two. After this, we get a goodbye bit from the video hosts (Marina, Chieko, and Megumi) as photo meeting footage plays to an instrumental of "Moment Fatal."
And so Marina's stage begins. Sadly, she will lose almost all her initial Inners in 2002; Sugimoto-san graduated after Black Lady K, Chieco and Ayumi after Ai no Sanctuary. Only Megumi will remain, but only until after the first Mugen myu. But 2002's Ankoku no Princess Black Lady (Kaiteiban) and Mugen Gakuen will bring in Wakayama Manami (who debuted as Berthier in Black Lady K and did not play Mercury till Mugen Gakuen) and Watanabe Mai, who will become Marina's Mercury and Jupiter for the rest of the myus. Mars will be played by two other actresses (Kawasaki Aiko and Honma Risa), and Venus by three actresses (Watanabe Mizuki, Shibuya Momoko, and Erica). Still, things look promising for the stage ahead, and Marina only gets older and better from now on.
All pictures from SeraMyu Antics.