The stage in front of your eyes, beautiful girls running through the stage!　Stage "Assault Lily: League of Gardens" GENEPRO REPORT

The stage "Assault Lily: League of Gardens" is being performed at Shinjuku FACE in Tokyo from January 9 to 15, 2020. Here we report on the public performance held prior to the main performance.

Assault Lily" is a content based on the 1/12 action doll series released by Azone International and acus, which includes the stage performance "Assault Lily League of Gardens," the TV anime "Assault Lily BOUQUET" (scheduled to air in July 2020), and the application game "Assault Lily: The World of BOUQUET. The "Assault Lily League of Gardens" stage performance, the "Assault Lily BOUQUET" TV animation (scheduled to air in July 2020), and the "Assault Lily Last Bullet" app game are just a few examples. This performance, "Assault Lily: League of Gardens," is centered on Yurigaoka Jogakuin, a prestigious school that forms the core of the "Assault Lily" story, and features a mix of elite Lily from various schools.

Assault Lily" takes place on Earth in the near future. Humanity is on the verge of destruction due to a mysterious life form called "Huge," and the girls who have the power to fight Huge are called "Lily. Ludovico Jogakuin, Ellensge Jogakuin, Kaminiwa Girls' Art High School, Odaiba Jogakko, Sagami Girls' High School, and Yurigaoka Jogakuin are training institutions for the Lily, and are called "Gardens. Although the work has a large amount of information about its setting, the stage is structured in such a way that the main character, Hitotsuyanagiriri (played by Hikaru Akao), a new Lily, can naturally understand the outline of the world through the process of learning what a Lily is.

Upon entering the venue, the audience was surprised by the "size" and "proximity" of the stair-like main stage, which was about 1 meter high and extended by a staircase to the very front of the audience seats, making full use of its depth and height as part of the stage. Immediately after the opening of the show, the sight of 19 beautifully dressed Lily and her friends in their uniforms and wigs standing side by side with their respective weapons was breathtaking. The costumes and armaments were finely crafted, as one would expect from content based on dolls and figures, and the characters were reproduced to an extremely high degree of detail.

The nine members of the Ichiyanagi troop from the prestigious Yurigaoka Jogakuin School were at the center of the performance, with Hikaru Akao playing Riri Ichiyanagi, Yuko Natsuyoshi playing Yui Shirai, Mikako Izawa playing Kaede J. Nouvel, Rimi Nishimoto playing Fumi Futagawa, and Risa Bohki playing Tsurusa Ando. The rest of the cast is identical to the voice cast of the anime: Risa Boki as Tsurusa Ando, Yooi Iwata as Thi Mai Yoshimura, Sanagi Hoshimori as Karin Guo, Hikaru Tono as Yujia Wang, and Karin Takahashi as Miriam Hildegarde v. Gropius.

The remaining 10 performers are the ace lillies selected from each school. Rimi Nishimoto's character, Ninsui Futagawa, is a big Lily fan, and her quick, otaku-like delivery of the excitement of meeting the aces of each school and their strength and splendor naturally brings the setting to the audience. What I thought was clever was the "rare skill" possessed by each Lily. The skills possessed by each person, such as the skill to see and grasp a wide view of the battlefield or the skill that enables a one-hit kill by consuming all magical power, are closely tied to the character's personality and nature. It is possible to get to know the essence of a character through his or her abilities in battle scenes. In addition, once we have a certain degree of understanding of the character, we can also imagine that that Lily from that school possesses this skill, so her position would be like this. I have the impression that the game skill settings are used well to convey characterization.

The presentation of the battle with the giant life form, a situation that is unique to anime and games, is based on the know-how of 2.5 dimensional stage productions. The key is the use of sound effects, which are very well utilized: slashing, shooting, explosions, and the roars of hostile life forms. As the performers look frantically toward the back of the auditorium, the dynamic of the giant life forms seems to gradually emerge from their gazes.

What gives the experience a sense of realism is the power that only the stage can provide. As mentioned above, the stage is very close to the audience. The performers run freely across the sub-stages and aisles throughout the venue. The impact of the landing of Lily and her friends, who ran and jumped down the stairs as if they were running at full speed, was so powerful that it could only be felt by the audience. The impact of the landing of the Lily's running and jumping down the stairs was felt right up to the feet. The performance lasted about two hours, but the performers ran as fast as they could through much of it. I felt that their full power, desperation, and dedication gave reality to the characters' existence and battles.

The relationships between the characters is another appealing aspect of this work. The "Ichiyanagitai" is named after the main character, Riri Ichiyanagi, who herself is inexperienced in battle at the start of the show and has not yet awakened to her rare skills. However, her kindness and dedication, as well as her admiration for Yumuyui Shirai, connect the hearts of the nine. The production is full of storytelling elements, such as the tradition of seniors and juniors becoming pseudo-sisters to teach and lead each other, and the rivalry that sparks between the Lily students from each school.

In her greeting after the opening performance, Hikaru Akao, who plays the role of Riri Ichiyanagi, said, "My goal is to unite the 19 members as one. I will put my soul into each performance and create a wonderful stage with you all. One wonders how the dense two-hour performance will develop by the time of the final performance, and how the performers will grow and change in relation to the anime and games. In many ways, the stage is a stage that we can look forward to seeing develop in the future.

(Reporting and writing by Kiri Nakazato)