I managed to get a ticket for the livestream of 7th Stage! Thank you so much once again to everyone who initially gave me their codes to get my original ticket back in 2019 and although I can no longer attend in person, I’m still so excited to be able to watch the live stream. 1 million thank yous as well to the wonderful friend in Japan who helped me set up a ticket PIA account.
While I dont use this account as much as I used to as I dont really keep up with Shining Live at the moment, if anyone is interested, I’m hoping to write up some kind of report for the first day of the concert that I’ll likely post here and on twitter (@ToughMuffins). Likely it will include the set list, notable staging and outfits, any fun moments, and my opinions/impressions, so heads up if you’d like to avoid spoilers until the bluray release. It might take me a few days to get out depending on how in depth I want it to be. Ive been into Utapri for about 10 years, so Ive been looking forward to this moment for a little bit under half of my life. Im so excited. Now I just have to keep my fingers crossed that everything actually works on the night of the performance! <3
OMG finallyyy Utapri 7th Stage comebackkkkkk ////// Hope the pandemic will be controlled and Yonaga-san will fully recovered TT Hope everything will be okayy
The new movie “Uta no Prince-sama: Maji LOVE STARISH tours” has also been announced. Maybe it is just for our rainbow boys but still looking forward it >< In the artwork, each member of STARISH are holding their passport. They’re going to travel around the world in this movie ?!!! Another live stage like Maji love Kingdom ?! Hope producers will make movies for QUARTER NIGHT and HEAVENS tooooo O-o
Awww so many good news todayyy. I want to have a chance to watch live 7th stage ><////
Tumblr hates tall images so please click to see in higher quality!
I put way too much time and effort into thinking up a possible set list for 7th stage, and I’m sure it’ll be way off, but I’m curious how close I can get. Some clarifications, other ideas, and explanations below the read more. Be warned, it’s very long.
*This is not an official set Utapri 7th Stage list, just speculation.
Basic Layout:
1. This is all assuming they want something similar-ish to Maji Love Kingdom, plus solos and other recent songs. I didnt want to just copy the Maji Love Kingdom set list and whack some solos in there
2. Another order I considered was similar to the 5th stage layout where they did ‘character 1 solo, character 2 solo, character 3 solo, song they did together.’ I do think this is definitely possible for 7th stage, and if they do do this, it could be, for example, Tokiya solo, Cecil solo, Yamato solo, Colourfully Spark. I mainly didnt use this for my primary example because I figured it might be odd if they arent doing Quartet Night Solos.
3. Not very notable, but I also placed the solos in the order the boys are usually in (Otoya, Masato, Natsuki, Tokiya, Ren, Syo, Cecil) with the matching Heavens order.
4. I did my best to not have too much focus on one group to the point where you dont see another at all until the second half or later. This happened with 6th stage with Heavens not even being introduced until an hour and 45 minutes in. There is a bit of a gap without Quartet Night as Heavens and Starish do their solos, but I feel like this is a bit unnavoidable, and tried to counterbalance it by having the shining masterpiece songs (no heavens) before the solos.
5. Of this speculative set list, I consider Setsugetsuka-Michibiki Hikari to be the first half, and Up Down Up-Welcome to Utapri Kingdom (just realised I wrote welcome to utapri world in the graphic but you get me) to be the second half. This doesnt matter too much, but it could be split this way across discs or have an interlude inbetween. There are less songs in the ‘second half’ but it does end up being around the same length when you consider we usually get about 2 20 minute talks at the end.
Explanations:
1. I didnt include Quartet Night songs for a few reasons. Mainly because they dont have any new ones released lately and there have already been two QN only lives with qnlf being the most recent main live since 6th stage. It’s certainly possible that they might include some repeats of older QN solos, but this set list is already at the same length and amount of songs as 6th stage, so it would add enough extra time to make 7th stage too long.
2. Obviously I didnt include a Nagi solo because Wingu isn’t able to attend 7th stage. I assumed this would not affect other song selections and that they will likely have other members fill in for his parts in group songs.
3. I was unable to figure out which new set of solos for Heavens and Starish they would use. I didn’t decide the ones used for any particular reason, so I wouldn’t at all be surprised if different solos than I wrote are used.
4. I used Setsugetsuka as the opener song, because I thought it would not only allow for special outfits to be worn by Starish and Quartet Night that could be chanegd after their introductions, but it also saved time (instead of having one starish song and one QN song, theyre combined). It’s not quite an exciting booming start to the live, but it is a very well loved song by the fandom that hasnt been performed yet, and the first few notes are very recognisable. I can also imagine it fading nicely into a Heavens group song I’m not sure about this choice, but I couldnt quite shake the idea, so I kept it. Wouldn’t be surprised if they started with the same three group songs as Maji Love Kingdom though.
5. In general, I tried to consider things like outfit changes, the time of each song, having a first and second half that can be split onto two discs for dvd/bluray release, and most importantly perhaps, not having the same seiyuu perform too many times in a row to avoid them getting too exhausted.
6. I found it very hard to place Encore. Unlike a lot of the other Mamo songs, it isnt exactly a hype, exciting song to start off a live (after the initial group songs) but it also doesnt really work in the middle after the solos, or towards the end. Having the song be called ‘encore’ and being played during the credits of Maji Love Kingdom really give that vibe that it should be an encore song.
7. I don’t think they would want 4 Quartet Night+Starish joint songs without Heavens (as it would cause a bit of an imbalance) so I figure they might do either the Shining CD 2 songs or the upcoming Black/White songs that are released shortly before the live. For now I’ve gone with Wonder Rondo and Dancing Over Night because we dont know the length of the Black/White songs.
“Things that would be cool but probably won’t happen”:
1. I placed Encore towards the start of my set list, but theres something that I would love to see, no matter where its placed. If the song starts with Mamo singing, as expected, until about 30 seconds in when slowly all other seiyuu would walk on stage and join in. This would allow the song to be used as an encore with all seiyuu, or just help build variety and excitement to an otherwise (albeit intense) but slower more emotional song. It also lines up well with the songs build itself as well as the MV that slowly includes more and more people.
2. More special outfits for Setsugetsuka and the Shining Masterpiece songs and more special outfits/performances in general. I think this is the reason why previous performances like Koizakura and other Shining Theatre songs are so memorable.
3. Pretty sure this one is almost 100% not happening, but, I want Sawashiro Miyuki as a guest to sing Maigo no Kokoro, Haru’s solo song from the first season of the anime. It’s so often forgotten, but its a beautiful song. This would also serve as a nice interlude for the boys to have an outfit change or change staging etc.
4. I feel like there should maybe be a third encore song, but I couldnt choose a good one. It feels odd to not have 1000% or 2000%, so a version of them with all three groups is possible. If they are going to have a new version of an older song, I feel like a Mirai Chizu would be a great choice. Not only does it suit an encore (emotionally and lyrically speaking), but they haven’t performed it since 1st stage, and I feel like it could work really well with all groups together. Or it could be some kind of new medley or song entirely.
5. Of course, there are 3 big things we’d all like to see announced at 7th stage. These being: a 5th season of the anime or some kind of sequel, Dolce Vita news, and a large scale update to shining live (eg, adding Heavens.)
Stats of my set list:
1. The total song time of my set list is 2 hours and 20 minutes with an hour and a half of extra time including a shining dancers or other interlude, introduction video, talks, about 5-10 seconds inbetween songs, audience encore call, and goodbyes.
2. The final time of this set list would be about 3 hours and 48 minutes.
3. For the performance on the 18th for example, doors open at 2pm, and 7th stage begins at 4:30. With this set list, it seems like it would end at about 8:15-8:30pm which allows for enough time to exit the dome before 9:00pm.
4. There are 33 songs in this set list (one talk is incorrectly labeled as an extra song in the graphic) which is the same as 6th stage.
For anyone who’s gotten this far, thank you. This is literally essay length and I wrote it in 50 minutes. It was a lot of fun thinking up this set list, so I’m excited to see if im at all accurate, or 100% wrong. Either way I’m so excited to see the actual set list.
Do you think that 7t stage will get cancelled? Because a lot of Japanese events are getting cancelled because of the virus...
Anon 2 said: Do you think that the 7th stage could be postponed due to the Coronavirus?
Utapri and Coronavirus
Answering these two questions together for obvious reasons. Waited a bit to answer until we had a bit more info, and we definitely got some in the past few days, both positive and negative. Thanks for waiting for my response.
Overall, at the stage things are at at the moment, I’d say we’re pretty safe and that it won’t be cancelled, but this depends on a few factors, and assumes it wont get too much worse before mid april. This is quite a long post, but I wanted to include as much information as I know and disnt want to hide it behind a read more since I do want to make sure people know whats been going on.
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As far as Utapri events go, heres what we have so far (that I know of):
They initially announced the Blacl/White exhibition was going to remain open, but that theyd instead offer refunds to those concerned.
The next day, they announced that it will be closed from February 29th to March 8th. They currently hope to resume on March 9th but are following how things develop. Tickets for the cancelled dates can be refunded.
They initially said that the collaboration Black/White menu will still be available during the exhibitions canceled dates.
This was later changed (as far as I can tell) due to Tokyo Dome closures from March 1st to 8th.
Currently (March 3rd) no cancellations have been made for events after the enforced/highly recommended government cancellation period or any events in later march-April.
Heavens Garden seems to be going ahead at the moment. (March 20-April 19)
As seems the same for the Sweets Paradise collab which was announced following concern about the virus. (March 16-May 10) Sweets Paradise itself has not seemed to cancel any dates for current events, but they have shortened some open hours or been affected by closures of malls etc that the stores may be in.
7th Stage also seems safe at the moment. No news on the website or twitter, although it does seem some Japanese fans are hoping it will be postponed.
It also doesnt look like any Shining Store Business Trip versions have been cancelled as the March stores (Miyazaki, Shibuya, Takasaki) are still on the website and have still had their product lineups announced as usual.
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These closures are a result of the Japanese government enforcing that any major events/meetups/businesses/schools etc are not active while they assess the development of the coronavirus and likely give people time to recover from quarantines (I don’t know a reliable source for this info, so it could be slightly incorrect. Feel free to google on your own.)
If you want to keep up to date on certain events, I recommend you follow their official twitter pages and websites, all of which you can find through the utapri website.
Judging from some of the patterns here, its currently seeming as if Broccoli is not wanting to cancel or postpone anything. eg, the refusal to close events followed a day after by contradictions hints to me that they did not at all want to cancel events and lose money, but were forced to (or strongly coerced into) cancelling due ot government recommendation.
Personally, I am not worried about the coronavirus where I am (obviously im not implying it’s not a serious matter in some parts of the world but the state in Australia is currently stable-ish). Rather than being afraid of the virus, im more concerned about the fearmongering, racism, cancellations of major events, travel bans etc that are resulting from it. In case you werent aware, this strain of the coronavirus is essentially a flu.
If you arent afraid of getting a normal flu and are in a relatively safe country you shouldnt be too afraid of it either. If you want more info about why you maybe shouldnt be as scared as you are about it, I highly reccomend you listen to the Coronavirus episode of the Sawbones podcast.
I can by no means give any certainties, as as mentioned earlier, this assumed the situation will stay the same as it is currently, or improve before mid April.
Edit - Now that we’re a few years into the pandemic, I cannot tell if my words above were naiive, or simply optimistic. At the time, covid was relatively contained and has since obviously become a much larger issue. Although I can no longer attend in person, I am glad they cancelled the event to ensure the safety of attendees. Get vaccinated and stay safe. <3