Shopping Guide
On Jan. 20, 2013, more than 2,000 female fans gathered in Maihama, a suburb of Tokyo, for an event for the anime Hakuoki. Their cheering voices filled the venue as voice actors from the anime, including Shinichiro Miki, Shotaro Morikubo, Kosuke Toriumi, Koji Yusa, and Kenjiro Tsuda, appeared on stage.
As the opening song was sung, the audience was buried in a sea of pink glowsticks. When the actors appeared on stage for the theatrical play, screams and shouts lept out from the audience as if it was an idol concert. Even though crimes are committed under the name of Shinsengumi, the play depicted the intricacies of the relationships of those within the group. Ordinary theatrical plays tend to become a bit monotonous, but this play had a lot of variety, and clips from the anime where intermixed into the play.
The second half of the event was a web radio performance. Moving into the discussion portion, Tsuda mispronounced the name of the title. To the sheer delight of the fans in the audience, Miki, Morikubo, and others comforted Tsuda with a hug. The web radio performance featured a well-known section in which the actors talked through and resolved their troubles, which triggered a huge reaction from the audience. The back and forth banter between the voice actors was priceless for Hakuoki fans.
At the end of the event, it was announced that the movie based on Hakuoki will be released this summer. There is no mistake that Hakuoki as an anime worth keeping your eyes on this year.
