I’m still fairly new to the 2.5d world and would like to ask about the possibilities of Haisute (or any other franchise in general) to resume the shows that had been cancelled due to the SoE / pandemic.
I’m still kind of salty about how we didn’t get TSC resumed, so I’m thinking: is it because The Tokyo Battle / Itadaki no Keshiki planning were already in the works and they had to go with the original schedule? Also, has it got something to do with stage actors’ schedules and overlapping commitments? I don’t know how things in the 2.5d world go so I am curious.
I feel really sad that Itadaki 2 (and the whole Haisute franchise) has to end this way after everything that was already in store.
The problem with all this isn’t restricted to how the 2.5D industry works, it also has a lot to do with the Japanese government’s response to covid (which has been poor). This industry did not receive a lot of financial support from the government, and so everyone was working for every day that there wasn’t an official State of Emergency declaration. This meant that some shows got to stay on schedule and perform, and some would just get canceled, and still be unable to reschedule for weeks or months down the line, because there are other shows scheduled for that time. And maybe those might get canceled because of another Emergency declaration, maybe not. The particular shows affected were a very uneven spread. Not only that, the States of Emergency were always restricted to the more populous prefectures. While Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto and Hyogo were in “lockdown” for those past three weeks, all other prefectures were not. So if a show were to tour in some other prefecture in this time frame, they could proceed as normal. If Engeki Haikyuu were to be spending the past three weeks in Miyagi, for example, they would’ve been able to perform and not cancel anything.
Believe it or not, Engeki Haikyuu having two tours mostly canceled comes down to just really bad luck with timing. Throughout the pandemic, Japan has only ordered partial lockdowns three times, and two of those times happened to overlap with weeks when Engeki Haikyuu would be performing.
All of this is to explain how difficult it is to try and reschedule a show right now. And please remember, I do not work directly with this production so nothing I say is official. But for a lot of shows that work on a regular schedule and perform consistently at set times of the year, they’ve got their actors and scripts and schedules set almost a year in advance. This production has consistently done a tour twice a year, spring and fall. As Strongest Challengers was gearing up for their spring tour, they already knew that the Battle of the Trash Heap would follow in the autumn, and they probably already asked actors to leave room in their schedules for it.
Trying to move an entire production 6 months would most certainly not have worked for everyone. To pick just one example: Hypothetically, if they had decided to postpone Trash Heap to retour Strongest Challengers for autumn of 2020, that would move Trash Heap to spring of 2021, and they would’ve most certainly lost one or two of the Inarizaki cast. Then with Trash Heap moved, they would’ve lost Kondou Shouri as Kuroo (since he’s current touring with another MAJOR production), Nagata Takato as Kenma (he’s currently working on a TV production), Takeshi Naoki (Kai) would’ve been lost to Ensemble Stars, and the list goes on.
Throughout the past year, governments around the world have been rapidly deciding and changing policies depending on how well or badly their country is doing with covid. The Japanese government is clearly hellbent on having the Olympics no matter what, but case numbers were spiking in early spring, the UK variant was detected, and for the sake of the Olympics, another Emergency was declared. But by the numbers, cases now aren’t worse than they were in January, during which a shorter, less-strict Emergency was put in place. Japan has only just begun vaccinating their general population in April, and their vaccine hesitancy is high.
It’s absolutely unfair and unfortunate and disappointing and heartbreaking, and most of that for this production was just bad luck. But I do implore people to remember that this is just a tiny snapshot of an enormous struggle. It’s such a complicated picture, and everyone in the cast and crew are heartbroken. A lot of people are upset. I just ask that your frustrations and disappointments be directed elsewhere because so many factors are out of their control even without the pandemic. Many people want a rerun of Itadaki 2 and Strongest Challengers, and maybe they can make that work, maybe they can’t. Please be understanding, please be kind... nobody is more devastated than the cast and crew.
