This weekend, I had two things in particular to look forward to: watching the Gantz movie and going to the first Genki musical rehearsal. Both turned out pretty well, I must say.
On Saturday, I planned to meet up at the mall with two of my friends to see Gantz. I went to the mall early in the afternoon to buy our tickets and wander around. It was probably a good thing that I bought our tickets early, because even a few hours before the show, a lot of the good seats had already been taken. (Quick reminder: movie theaters in Japan have assigned seating.)
In addition to randomly looking around, I had plans to look at bras. All of mine are rather ugly and have nasty sweat stains from last summer. They still fit fine and are very useful, but I wanted a few that were actually pretty to look at. Though it was a little intimidating, I managed to make myself go into a lingerie shop. I grabbed a few things in the size I normally wear and tried them on. As it turns out, Japanese sizing differs greatly from American sizing. While I would normally wear a B cup in the U.S., I wear a D cup in Japan. Can't say that hurt my ego any. I ended up spending a good deal of money on three new bras, and I'm quite happy with them. An interesting thing I noticed about Japanese bras is that pretty much all of them tended to be push-up bras, but some of the padding was removable. Which would be handy for washing them, since they would dry faster and the padding wouldn't get lumpy.
Around 5:30, I met up with Hollie to get dinner before the movie. Ashley would be joining us later, but was working on an assignment for a correspondence course and couldn't eat with us. We decided to get dinner at the food court. For dinner, I had... an Idaho Burger! It turned out to be a cheeseburger with a potato patty, bacon, some sort of brown sauce, and a relish-mustard sauce. Although I wasn't big on the relish-mustard sauce, I thought the burger was very tasty. It made me feel somewhat sick after eating it, but I guess that shouldn't really come as a surprise considering the size and what it was made of. I think the fried potato patty was the best part.
About ten minutes before the movie started, we met Ashley up at the theater. I handed out the tickets and we took our seats. Going into it, I had seen the anime and manga, Hollie had read a synopsis on Wikipedia, and Ashley didn't know much of anything about it. It turned out to be fairly challenging to understand. Once again, Hollie and I understood maybe 10% of the dialogue. Still, a lot of the content was easy enough to get because of context and how the relationships between the characters were acted out. You didn't really need to know what they were saying to see that every male character was staring at Kishimoto's body, or that Kei was kind of a cocky bastard. Anyhow, the special effects were pretty awesome and I thought they did a great job translating it to live action. It was very enjoyable to watch. Unfortunately, it's actually a two part movie, and the next part comes out in April. Considering how much this movie deviated from the original material as it progressed, I'm guessing I won't have a clue what's going on in the second movie, but I'm still looking forward to it.
After the movie, Hollie, Ashley and I got ice cream at Baskin Robbins. Most people here refer to it as "31 Flavors" rather than Baskin Robbins, which sometimes confuses me. Hollie and Ashley said they both had enjoyed the movie, so I think we'll all go to see the next one together as well. We sat and chatted for a while before heading for home. Conveniently enough, Hollie lives in the same direction as me, so I had someone to ride home with. I went to bed pretty soon after arriving home.
This morning, I headed to the Kochi Bunkan Center for the first Genki rehearsal. I had never been there before, but one of the organizers had posted a Google Map that made it pretty clear where it was. It turned out that it's only about 20 minutes from where I live, and an easy bike ride at that. Along the way, I ran into a few other people who would be participating, so I got off my bike and walked with them. When we arrived, we were about 20 minutes early and no one had unlocked the gate, so we stood around for a while. Eventually Lisa came and let us in.
The morning started out with some ice breaker type games. For the first one, we each did a self introduction and made up some sort of action to accompany our name. Each person would have to introduce themself, perform the actions of the people who had introduced themselves already, and add on their own action. Oddly enough, I think I'll be able to remember most of the people's names now. We played a few other games and then got down to the business of discussing scheduling and other factors. We had a one hour lunch break, and then read through the script. It was pretty painful for me because I read very slowly in Japanese. In addition to that, I didn't recognize a lot of the words, so I wasn't sure where one word ended and the next began. Still, they didn't have to correct me too many times, so I guess I did okay for a first reading. In all, the meeting went from 10:00 am to about 3:30 pm. By the sound of it, this will be how long most rehearsals will go each weekend.
As for my role, it turns out that I have about 20 lines to memorize. Most of them aren't very long, which is a relief. I also get to take part in a Lady Gaga dance number which should be fairly awesome. I don't know anything about the costume yet, but it sounds as if I'll likely be wearing a wig. In addition to being the Ghost of Tosa Yet to Come, my role involves being the main character's son's love interest, who they've chosen to name Ogaga. I think I really lucked out in that I get to be a very interesting character without having to memorize a billion lines. I think 20 should be challenging enough. Fortunately, they gave us an English script and a Japanese script, so I can figure out what the hell I'm saying.
All in all, this was a very fun weekend. I'll be going to nearly every rehearsal in February, so my Saturdays and Sundays are pretty well booked, but I think it'll be worth it in the end. I'm going to get started on learning my lines as soon as I can because I think I'll need all the practice I can get. One very cool thing I forgot to mention is that in addition to the cast of mostly ALTs and other English-speakers, there are Japanese crew members who will help us learn to say our lines properly. They know Tosaben and I think most of them also know English. I think it's really awesome that they are willing to give up so much time to make the musical work. Most of them have been involved with it for a few years already. I'm hoping to get to know them and maybe make some more friends.
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