Tanuki Soup: Opening Day of “HKT48 Sashihara Rino Zachou Kouen” at Meiji-za (Part 2)!

| Idol | Posted by Kai Okudara on Apr.14.2015

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HKT48 opened their first stage production, “HKT48 Sashihara Rino Zachou Kouen”, at the historic Meiji-za theater in Tokyo on April 8th, making them the first idol group to do so in its more than 200-year history. The play titled “Hakata no Okuni no Tanuki Gouten”, focuses on Sashihara as Kinuta, a tanuki (racoon-dog) who befriends Okuni (Sakura Miyawaki), a human who is a member of Hakata Okuni Ichiza, a theater troupe similar to HKT48.

Continuing from part 1 of the report, Kinuta (Rino Sashihara) and Ohagi (Nako Yabuki) in their human forms went down to audition to join Hakata Okuni Ichiza but were unsuccessful. Undeterred, they kept pleading their case to the members and management. After they left, under the suspicion that they had just seen tanuki among them, the members of Hakata Okuni Ichiza devised a plan to catch them and turn them into a soup.

Okuni (Sakura Miyawaki) appeared and joined the members in an attempt to catch the tanuki. Kinuta sacrificed herself to let Ohagi escape and was trapped by festival drumming, which apparently causes tanuki to dance uncontrollably. Okuni convinced the others to let Kinuta go but, she revealed to the members of her troupe that she would be leaving to be with Hideyoshi Toyotomi.

Kinuta met Okuni by the riverside as she was about to leave for Toyotomi’s home. Okuni expressed regrets about choosing a life of comfort and abandoning her dreams and gave Kinuta her fan. The two friends embraced as the boat set sail towards their two separate futures.

Meanwhile, Kinuta’s tanuki family is just about to go out to rescue her after hearing of her capture from Ohagi. Kinuta returns and tries to convince them to help rescuing Okuni from a life of regret with Toyotomi. Oguro (Aika Ota) scolds her for being naive and refuses to have anything to do with humans.