Sweet pool stage play: General info & Review

I’m sure many people saw the announcement a few weeks ago, but I wanted to summarize all the information they published!

The sweet pool stage play will be performed at the Galaxy Theater in Tennozu (Tokyo) in March 2022.  The director is Norihito Nakayashiki who was also part of the DRAMAtical Murder stage play production team. This time he’s teaming up with Nitro+CHiRAL once again.

Cast
Sakiyama Youji: Sakurai Keito
Shironuma Tetsuo: Sunagawa Shuya
Mita Makoto: Sugie Taishi
Okinaga Zenya: Uno Yuya
Kitani Kouhei: Fukuchi Takamitsu
Serizawa Erika: Nagata Sachi
Okinaga Kunihito: Wakasugi Koji
Kamiya Takehiko: Murata Mitsu

Director's comment: Heavy, deep, painful and ephemeral. The fascinating world of "sweet pool" will finally make its theater appearance. It is a great honor to be in charge of the production. As a fan, I am just as excited! Together with the wonderful cast we would like to disturb the audience’s sense of reason and instinct. Therefore, please prepare yourself.

Sakurai Keito: Nice to meet you! My name is Sakurai Keito and this time I will be the playing the role of Sakiyama Youji. I am truly happy to be able to work with the director, the wonderful cast and all the other staff members. I can't help but look forward to how this story will be recreated on the stage. The story we will deliver to you is not just love, but something deeper and heavier.

Sunagawa Shuya: The first time I heard about this project I immediately became very interested in the world of the original game. I met Sakurai Keito for the first time during a photoshoot, but he seems to be very kind and I am looking forward to working on this stage together! I will do my best to make this a project that will be loved by both fans of the original game and people who are new to it.

Review
I watched all 3 routes last weekend and wanted to share some of my thoughts! I absolutely loved this stage play, what an amazing experience. Similar to the DRAMAtical Murder stageplay, it is clear how much effort the production team put into this. The stageplay follows the plot of the game and they were absolutely not afraid to include any of the intimate scenes either. I really appreciated how they did not skip any scenes because many of them are important to understand the plot.

They even included extra scenes from the Everblue drama CD (Makoto and Zenya's routes), which made their endings a little bit longer than they were in the visual novel. This was honestly such a smart decision because you really learn a lot about these characters and their intentions. You learn about Zenya's backstory and how he tries his best to live up to his father's expectations, only to be called a failure. The scenes with Kitani and Zenya were really sweet, which makes the true ending of the game even more painful because we know Zenya will not survive. Makoto's story was also very touching because he cares deeply about Youji. He has no idea why he suddenly develops these obsessive thoughts about Youji and deeply regrets his actions.

The final route I watched was Tetsuo's route which follows the game's true ending, Miracles May. This is the ending in which Youji wants him and Tetsuo to survive. Tetsuo forgets about Youji and it is rumored that Youji transferred schools. A few years later Tetsuo, who is now in college, takes a different route home and suddenly starts remembering Youji. This scene was absolutely beautiful in this stageplay and I personally think it was even better than the game.

I was curious which ending they would pick for the stage play, but I suspected it would be this one. The final scenes looked absolutely stunning and the stage was beautiful. The actors did such a good job portraying this scene.

I think the cast was absolutely amazing too. In some interviews Youji's actor, Sakurai Keito, mentioned that he played the entire game to learn more about Youji's character. He also explained how Youji is similar to him, therefore it was easy to get really interested in the character. You could really tell that all the actors researched their characters well. Because Tetsuo doesn't talk as much as the other characters I imagined this would be a pretty difficult role, but his actor Sunagaya Shuya really made a perfect Tetsuo. I really love the height difference between the actors too, really impressed with the team who casted them!

The streaming platform (DMM) unfortunately doesn't allow individuals to post screenshots on social media, so I used some of the images the official accounts posted on Instagram and Twitter.

Right now, the distribution of the streams ended, but I'm sure the streams will be available again later, similar to the DRAMAtical Murder streams. Be aware that you do need a VPN to access the purchase screen and to watch the video, but something simple like a VPN browser extension gets the job done.

I do not have any recordings, so please support the creators by buying the streams when they're available again!

Update: The archive is available again for a limited time, until 05/21/2022! You can purchase it here.

Photo credit: @digitarou (Twitter/Instagram), Illustration: @yamada_uiro (Twitter)