So has anyone watched it yet?
Yu~ki was
smiling ever so slightly half the time... and much more than slightly at the very, very end
Worth the price of admission just for that.
My brief thoughts on it:
The Moi dix Mois set was fine, but I don't really like all the metal antics they get up to these days. Do we really need someone yelling "YeEeEeAaAaHhHh!!!!!!!!" to hype the crowd up? Nah. Mana's performance seemed a bit wooden, which I suspected was because he was teetering atop those absurdly tall platform shoes XD But he managed to run and dance just fine in the Malice Mizer set, so not sure what was up.
Seth's renditions of "mayonaka..." and "Gardenia" were pretty good - he did a very respectable job replacing the irreplaceable and captured some of the original spirit.
I really don't enjoy ZIZ much at all. Kozi is still a brilliant, magnetic performer but the drunken housewives he calls a band just annoy me. Half the songs were cacophonous noise, sadly including "menou pierrot" which I really enjoyed on CD. The best moments were when they eased up into some 80s-style music and just let Kozi sing and perform.
Getting to hear Kozi's rendition of his own "seraph" was a joy, of course.
The Malice Mizer set was of course the main attraction. The 3 guest vocalists all turned in quality performances... with the one exception of Kamijo's "Bel Air" which fell rather flat. And I cringed when he did this ridiculous one-arm flex to go with "kono ude de"
As far as the staging goes, if you've watched the previous live DVDs you'll recognize a lot of the dance moves and so on. Seems like they were intentionally recreating some of the iconic moments. The "ILLUMINATI" staging seemed rather chaste since for the most part none of the guest vocalists dared to so much as lay a finger on the eminent grandmasters XD
I'm really glad, by the way, that the Sovereign Of Stygian Darkness And Infernal Mastermind decided to upgrade to Blu-ray. In hi-res you really get to see everyone's facial expressions - when they're really into it, when they're watching for a cue, and when they're smiling
Really gives you a bit of a window into their personalities.
BTW, did anyone notice in the book that they spell "guitar" correctly everywhere else, but Moi dix Mois members, only, play "guiter"?
I swear this has to be a running joke with them at this point XD
Oh, and just as a reminder to everyone, let's have no links to THIEVERY here.