As most Gackt fans know, Gackt participated in a stage play called Moon Saga in 2012. Recently I watched a Nico broadcast for a Moon Saga press conference. They decided to do a chapter 2 to Moon Saga and Gackt will be participating in it again. The first chapter is called "Yoshitsune Hiden" and Nico broadcasted it. I timeshifted it in time to watch it. I skipped a lot in the beginning because it was mostly intermission and the press conference. I was interested in whatever came next and that's when they showed the DVD recording of Moon Saga. I'm pretty sure I skipped a bit of the story in the beginning by accident.
Moon Saga takes place during the Genpei War when the Genji clan and the Heike clan were fighting for control over Japan. It is loosely based on historical figures of Minamoto no Yoshitsune, Minamoto no Yoshinaka and Tomoe Gozen. The story overall is very loosely based on historical events as it brings in elements of mononoke. It has a lot of heightened drama and a lot of added humor that was deliberate. Yoshitsune is imagined as a fairly weak personality kind of on the cowardly side because he is kind hearted. In Moon Saga he also possesses this odd power of having an oni reside inside him. For those of you familiar with The Tale of Heike, you would know the ending to the story. Gackt plays the role of Minamoto no Yoshitsune.
There's a war going on obviously and the entire company of the Minamoto clan (allies including Saburo, the Sato brothers, and Benkei) are going out fighting evil which I'm going to assume is the Taira clan. They fight a lot of supernatural forces like these wolf-like people and these weird people with claws. If I am guessing right, Yoshitsune has an internal struggle with himself because Yoshinaka keeps telling Yoshitsune to call on the power of the oni to fight. Yoshitsune doesn't want to, knowing that his awakening is dangerous. It is also noted that Yoshitsune is friends with a mononoke named Kage. They share an odd relationship and they keep some sort of promise between each other. Tomoe also had a promise with Kage though I'm not too sure what it was. The story ends in tragedy because Tomoe dies in battle to protect Yoshinaka, her husband, and Yoshitsune awakens as an oni and kills Yoshinaka without meaning to. Yoshinaka was driven crazy by the grief of Tomoe's death and was the one who provoked Yoshitsune's awakening by attacking him. As for the reasons why, I'm not sure because I'm doing a lot of guesswork since no English subtitles were given. The play ends with the Minamoto group and Kage together drinking and laughing as they watch the full moon possibly referring the past before they went to war. Yoshitsune states that he regards Yoshinaka the best of friends to which Yoshinaka replies that they are not. Instead he says that they are family. The entire group egg Yoshitsune to recite the vow they will all take; to be loyal to each other, be born on the same day and die on the same day. They then with their powers create a snow fall and the play ends with Gackt's Setsugekka as the ending theme.
What I didn't like was the dramatic acting used. I knows plays are way different from movies and TV because it is a live experience and what I'm watching is only a recording of the original. There is a certain level of drama that is acceptable for stage plays, but Moon Saga was really over the top in some scenes. For example, Benkei may rely too much on volume of voice and the Sato brothers' weird timing of outbursts to produce stage humor. I don't think that Moon Saga was meant to have that much humor in the story which makes it difficult to associate a particular genre. Is Moon Saga an adventure or a drama? Gackt's acting was .. better. It was better than I expected because I usually see it as extremely stiff and limited to a few roles. I think maybe in Akumu-chan he gained some more experience. Despite being constantly promoted as protagonist and using him for nearly all of Moon Saga's posters, I think he has less lines than Yoshinaka.
For the role of Yoshitsune, Gackt purposely spoke in a higher pitch than usual to indicate casualness and innocence of his character. He dropped it much lower (to the signature Gackt killer mode voice) to show his awakened form. I found it hard to watch sometimes that his facial expression could not match his voice. I personally felt that acting on the facial level was not as good as the other actors. If I were just listening to the play rather than watching, I would think Gackt did a fairly good job. But the magic of the play is to also enjoy the spectacle. The stage and lighting effects was extremely good. The use of a display screen instead of a painted backdrop was extremely helpful in creating a background. Kage's fight with another supernatural being was done entirely with the screen and a projection. The sound mixing was great and the actors' movements coordinated with the sound spot on. The music written for the play was beautiful to listen to. Part of Gackt Job participated in the music production so cheers! Makeup and costume was nicely done and the designers took liberty to exaggerate certain things to give characters more personality. Everyone trained hard for the fighting sequences. Fans of Gackt already know he has a dojo built in his mansion so fighting sequences are nothing too foreign.
I'm guessing Moon Saga's next installment is a continuation of The Tale of Heike and maybe they will introduce Nasu no Yoichi. Even though I criticized the production and of Gackt's performance, I still respect the efforts put into the play.
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