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Research help? - Bob Schroeck - 09-19-2019
Okay, I'm writing a passage for the new and my research fu has failed me.
In episode 6 of the first season of Sailor Moon, Usagi ends up facing down the youma-of-the-week in an amphitheater or arena of some sort where concerts are held. She gets there after a drive with victim-of-the-week Yusuke Amade. Now given how often locations like these turned out to be real places or thinly-disguised versions thereof, I'm trying to find a period-accurate amphitheater or arena that I can reference by name. (I'm currently using the Roppongi Hills Arena, which is a short distance north from Doug's apartment and NW from the market street, but it's an anachronism; construction started on it in 2000.)
Can anyone help?
Thanks.
RE: Research help? - classicdrogn - 09-19-2019
Dunno how well they'll suit, but this page provides a few possibilities:
https://alexshenmue.wordpress.com/live-shows-in-japan/best-music-venues-of-japan/
Makuhari Messe in CHiba sounds like the best option as these are all major venues, but 1989 may be too late or it may the wrong distance, since I don't know the districts of Tokyo offhand.
RE: Research help? - Bob Schroeck - 09-19-2019
1989 is fine for construction -- first season SM postdates it by at least 3 years. But Makuhari Messe is an entirely indoor venue, and the episode shows that wherever Usagi had her showdown with the youma, it was open to the sky.
Thanks for the resource, though!
RE: Research help? - robkelk - 09-19-2019
Alas, WikiMoon does not help... unless, maybe, it's saying that (like "Jam Records") it was made up for the episode.
RE: Research help? - Bob Schroeck - 09-19-2019
Yeah, that was what I was afraid of. Oh, well, unless something better pops up before I finish the chapter, Roppongi Hills Arena it is. It's not like it's the first anachronism in the story.
Thanks everyone.
RE: Research help? - itsune9tl - 09-21-2019
Maybe it was a temp Arena made specifically for the Show? Possibly built in a "Parking Lot". Not that Japan Necessarily has those in abundance.
RE: Research help? - classicdrogn - 09-21-2019
A stage and seating set up in a park would be more likely than a parking lot, unless it was on the top floor of a garage-style one. Or some other building, I suppose... but yeah, ground space is pretty tight in the TOkyo area.
RE: Research help? - itsune9tl - 09-24-2019
But it would explain the "Open Air" arena setting for the fight.
It would also mean that the Show was intended to "Tour" the districts. This Could help hide an "Energy Collection" Scheme. Especially if multiple Sets and crews were involved.
Ideally there would be three Mobile sets, one setting up, one in play, and one breaking down. Only one of which needs to be the "Active" Collection mission. which our silly Bunny happens to "Stumble" upon.
Even better some city Parks are designed for this kind of traveling show, with power hook ups, and anchor points for a variety of standardized Stage, and seating arrangements.
It's not even New Technology. Look for a park about the size of a public baseball field.
RE: Research help? - classicdrogn - 09-24-2019
Then too, public parks are a favourite place for fighting baddies in Sailor Moon...
RE: Research help? - Bob Schroeck - 09-24-2019
...You're slowly convincing me to revise the passage which I've already written...
RE: Research help? - classicdrogn - 09-24-2019
Well, don't mess with it just because we say so. If it makes things work better, that's another thing.
RE: Research help? - Bob Schroeck - 09-24-2019
It's not a critical detail. I just don't like having to use anachronisms if I can find something suitable from the period.
RE: Research help? - classicdrogn - 09-24-2019
Huh, you know it just occurred to me that there's a whole lot of normal folks involved in an event like this, as opposed to the classic one youma in disguise running a fortune telling stand or hole in the wall shop or whatever. What happens to their jobs when the star of the show is suddenly moondust, or released from mind control and needs a month or two to recover from the shock? Having one of the girls with musical aspirations (and actual talent) tapped to fill in could be a nifty thing to do, though it might end up interfering with the plot too much. Still worth pondering for SM fic in general, though...
RE: Research help? - Bob Schroeck - 09-24-2019
Amusingly, the "big show with performers providing the energy to drain" scenario is exactly what the next episode is about -- only they use a portable stage and later a concert hall...
RE: Research help? - classicdrogn - 09-24-2019
(blinkblink)
So... helping? Yay! ^_^
RE: Research help? - Labster - 09-24-2019
Well, the outside of the building in Ep 6 says 音楽ハール, onraku haaru literally "music hall" but probably best translated "Concert Hall". Generic naming, so an temporary setup would be fine. Maybe once they take it down, it would be a good place to set up a circus tent.
But this is also an Ikuhara episode, and that guy also put a Gaudi cathedral in Tokyo Bay, so maybe geography isn't his strong point.
Are these episodes early enough that the Dark Agency still exists? Maybe once the concert is over Dark Agency just pulls a Thomas Cook and everyone needs to find new jobs. Such is life after the bubble economy.
RE: Research help? - classicdrogn - 09-24-2019
Well, my point is that's the sort of thing a hero should try to help with. Like, Usagi hears a couple of the normals involved saying they're ruined and the expenses of the set up with no ticket sales to show for it will bankrupt them, so she pulls out her Disguise Pen and says "Make me a businesslike event manager!" and steps in to calm the support staff and stop the panic about the show falling apart - roadies, ushers, ticket window people, concession stand clerks, security staff, etc. - with her Usaginess (and probably some panicky calls to Doug-Sensei when she gets a free moment and realizes she doesn't know what to have these people DO now that they're all looking to her for direction,) her other freinds get urgent calls asking if they have stuff they can sing for a couple hours' worth, etc.
Or something like that. It's the kind of thing a kids' sohw just kind of ignores, but I can't see Usagi just letting it slide if she realized the problem.
RE: Research help? - robkelk - 09-24-2019
Assuming Bob's going with canon (there's an email in my inbox which I haven't had a chance to read yet, but I know how Bob writes the relatively early scenes in his stories), all that's ruined in this particular episode is a wireless microphone and a speaker stack. Nothing that can't be replaced on a moment's notice with a trip to Akihabara, and no layoffs.
RE: Research help? - classicdrogn - 09-24-2019
Well that's good, but I was referring to the "star of the show was a youma or mind controlled and needs a mental health break" scenario, rather than any specific episode. I'm not all that fmailiar with any version of SM in detail.
RE: Research help? - itsune9tl - 09-24-2019
Could you see Usagi getting a Temp job hanging flyers for the gig.
"All that work spreading those Ads all over the area, and then you show up and we end up destroying the set, and you are the one that's angry? You haven't even Paid me yet!"
RE: Research help? - Bob Schroeck - 09-25-2019
Before speculation goes too far, I'm adhering fairly closely to the first season at least as far as the end of this chapter. Which means no obvious plots by the Dark Whatever elsewhere. I've also established in an earlier chapter that, at least in the timeline I set up for this fic, Sailor V shut down the Dark Agency a couple months or so before Usagi first encountered Luna.