「おれたちがＥ． Ｍ．Ｕだぜ！」
卒業Ｍ
(Sotsugyou
M)
[Overview]
[Music] [OVA]
[Characters] [Drama CDs] [Manga] [Other]
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E.M.U
[Overview]
[Images] [Media]
[Song Lyrics] [Sotsugyou M]
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Performing Seiyuu:
[Midorikawa Hikaru] [Hayashi
Nobutoshi]
[Okiayu Ryoutarou]
[Ishikawa Hideo] [Sakaguchi Daisuke]
Sotsugyou
M – Oretachi No Carnival
(Animated OVA)
There is, as far as I know,
only the one animated release for the M boys…and that’s not including
the not-really-animated snippets on the MVP release. It comes in the
form of an OVA which – I have to be honest – isn’t totally long enough
to convey everything it wants to convey. Some people have criticised it for this fact. Personally I like it a lot, but I’d like to have seen more. The characters are just
about
developing into individuals by the time the show closes. The five boys are pupils at the
There is only one single reference to
them as “M” during the OVA – which is Nakamoto’s
note to Arai and is shown at the very end. It reads "Mはいつも５人です" (M wa itsumo gonin desu.)
Translated, that means “M is always five
people ” (i.e. the five of us are a team, no matter what).
For the most part this OVA is not
connected with music at all - not even Takagi's guitar playing. A
slight caveat to that is the fact that
all of the themes and background music is performed by the E.M.U boys
under their character names - these songs were released on a separate
CD and include such tracks as Okiayu Ryoutarou's "Melody Go Round". The
OVA itself was released on two separate VHS and, most probably, also on
laser disc. I am not aware if it has since been released on DVD, but
even if it has, there is no English language version or dub. As with
the manga, there only exists an official release in Japanese - as far
as I know no Sotsugyou M stuff has ever been licenced for the English
speaking market. (Although that hasn't stopped it getting here...and
thanks to the diligent work of fansubbers, the OVA does exist in
subtitled form.)
The plot of the OVA is a little bit
strange. Our five boys are
manipulated by the (scary!) council president Kusanagi
into taking the lead roles in the Bunkasai
(Cultural
Festival) performance. Being that it's the school's fiftieth
anniversary, it's imperative that they put on some kind of special show
that will be long remembered. And because of this, Kusanagi (an evil
prince with his palace of minions type bishie) sets into motion a
cunning plan (supported by the leader of the drama club, plus his
willing-but-wary
vice-captain Sugita and others) to convince the five boys of M to be
their
stars.
The boys, lured into the President’s
property by promises of dinner (namely by Yuusuke and Mikimaro's
insatiable appetites) find they have been tricked (no surprises there!)
and are imprisoned in an underground vault whilst Kusanagi
not only creates mass-publicity for the event (to the point of
television attention), but forces them to accept his proposals.(I did
say the boys at this school were a tad odd).
The end result of all this scheming is
simple – the five boys
are forced to learn and perform (in drag) the story of Little Women for
an
expectant audience.
I guess that's what you can call a unique
performance, right?
Having read Little Women as a kid, I
found the whole thing quite funny. The rebellious Arai is cast as the
equally
rebellious Jo. The sensible, studious Nakamoto
is
cast as the gentle, intelligent Beth and Mikimaro
is
cast as Amy, the youngest sister of the family. Of course, the boys are
not
thrilled by the idea of performing this way – but they seem to get into
the spirit of it by the end. Perhaps the funniest part of the whole OVA
is the footage of the boys 'rehearsing', and the various things that
keep going wrong. Between Yuusuke's eating the rotten food, Mikimaro's
crying fit, the wild, madly peeing pedigree cat and Arai's love of a
good fight, not an awful lot of the Little Women spirit really gets
through. Louisa May Alcott would be turning in her grave - but still,
it's all in fun.
Theme aside, there’s a brief glimpse into the relationship between the characters and the character diversities themselves. Nakamoto and Arai share a room, Mikimaro and Yuusuke share a room – but Takagi seems quite content having one to himself, and in some respects he does come across as a solitary kind of character. I identify him with Hotohori from Fushigi Yuugi a little in the OVA, particularly because of one scene where he decides he’s too beautiful to dress up in drag.
The fact that Takagi happily models women’s
clothing (see top right pic, lol!) also features, and he proves to be
quite a natural on stage. So much so that Nakamoto
is
determined to work harder to match up to him and not let him down.
Takagi is probably the most enigmatic of the characters and the most
difficult one to get an emotional grip on. He seems somewhat in the
shadows of things in terms of their group - and the rivalry that exists
between him and Arai in the manga is only vaguely picked up on
(although it is there to some degree - neither of them want to go to
the President's place, for example, and they comment on how rare it is
for them to agree!). He also comes across as a lot
more narcissistic in the animated OVA than he does in the manga -
although there he has pride in his appearance and image, he's a much
more pragmatic, intelligent character and much less stuck on his own
appearance. (In fact, in the manga, his chief love seems to be
music...although that's not touched on at all in the OVA).
Of course, there’s an interlude
with Nakamoto and his cats (I may be alone
in this, but there's something disturbing about japanese cat mewing
sound effects...on all of Nakamoto's stuff they sound like the hell
cats of doom or something and the OVA is no exception, creepy...). A
brief note must be made here that Nakamoto only seems 100% at ease when
he's around the kitties. At least, his language relaxes completely. He
uses fairly polite Japanese to speak to his comrades, but he's much
more casual with the cats. Draw your own conclusions about that ;)
There's also some footage of Arai and his
motorbike, Mikimaro and his games and Yuusuke playing basketball. The distinct
impression in the OVA that
Nakamoto is the one who holds them all
together…as I said on the other page, the voice of reason. (It seems
sort of ironic for that to be Hayashi-san's role, actually...hehehe:D
Maybe I'm just used to him voicing more insane characters...). It's not
quite that way in the manga, although they do rely on Nakamoto for
logical solutions to problems quite a bit. I guess that's what they're
trying to put across.
There are some quite funny scenes
involving food, too – the fact that Yuusuke
can
apparently 
eat for
Mikimaro's fondness for Arai and the
shounen-ai theme is also somewhat touched on. Aside from Takagi's
moonlighting as a female clothing model, there is the rapport between
Arai and Mikimaro. It's fairly evident that Mikimaro has a crush on
Arai, and there is some tension between him and another student
(Kusanagi's vice captain, I believe) where some prior connection is
hinted at between Arai and this other guy. They're referred to as
former roommates - you draw your own conclusions as to what that means,
but Mikimaro gets rather jealous of the whole thing. Arai is pretty
mean to Mikimaro at times - even calling him a kid despite the fact
Mikimaro is older than he is - but it's a similar kind of rapport to
what the characters seem to have in the manga. No real definite lines
are joined for relationships and there is no connection of this kind
made for Yuusuke, Nakamoto or Takagi (except perhaps with Takagi and
his reflection). Still, if you've got five bishies in drag, you sort of
expect a bit of
shounen-ai for seasoning, don't you!?
I've come to the conclusion that you're
supposed to view the OVA as happening towards the end of their final
year at school when their friendship has been fairly securely
cemented...in that respect it probably makes more contextual sense
(since in the manga, Takagi is a relative newcomer to the school, and
it takes time for bonds to be formed).
One other thing struck me when I was
watching this through recently. Midorikawa-san
sounds so much like Tamahome when he’s
voicing
Arai that it’s untrue…;) It's true that the
two shows are of a vintage, pretty much...but even so, having heard
Midorikawa speak naturally and performing other roles, the likeness is
still uncanny.
The OVA also includes other well known seiyuu
among
the backup cast. Notable from my perspective is that Miki Shinichirou
plays the Head of the Drama Club (whose name is long and begins with a
U, but I
can’t remember it off the top of my head! Usuigetani? Something like
that...)
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