Makimachi's Rainbow

Coming soon to a theater near you!  The latest musical release from Samurai Pictures! 

[Two figures silhouetted against a setting sun make slow but steady progress along the Meiji-Toukai Way.  The leader is a spry old man, seemingly as nimble as he is aged.  Following at a short distance and singing for all she is worth, is a young woman with her hair bound behind her in a long braid.  She turns at the crest of the hill to look back the way they've come, bringing her face into focus.]

Misao (singing): How are things at the Aoi-ya?  Are the oniwaban happy there?  Does that ninja with the shuriken keep training right... or does he slip away, every day, without the okashira there?

Makimachi's Rainbow!  Starring Fujitani Miki as Kaoru the Silent!

[Scene shift to a slightly run-down dojo, where a large group of people have gathered in some sort of protest.  A beautiful young woman shakes her bokutou vehemently at a bandage-bedecked swordsman, and a much younger boy steps up beside her to translate.]

Yahiko:  Kaoru says to get out of our dojo!  Aoshi will be here with the money!

[The young woman nods emphatically as the watching crowd picks up the chant.]

Crowd: Aoshi's coming!  Aoshi's coming!  Aoshi's coming!

Suzukaze Mayo as Kenshin!

[A much puzzled red-haired young man wearing an ill-fitting gi and hakama paces around a clearing.]

She must have been standing near the katana when she made her wish... shikashi, surely someone must have seen her...!

[He turns suddenly to where Kaoru stands watching him with hearts in her eyes.]

Kaoru-dono!  You were there... where was Misao-dono when she made her wish?

[The mute Kaoru stares blankly back at him, and he clenches his hands in frustration.]

Kenshin: Sessha forgot that you can't talk... here!  I'll use Hiten to ask the question, and you can use your bokutou to answer.

[He procedes to give an elaborate and dazzling display of swordsmanship as she watches with hands on hips, her eyes gradually losing their lovesick expression as her brows lower in annoyance.]

Kenshin (stopping in front of her with a flourish): Now!  You show me the answer, Kaoru-dono!

[Without hesitation, she takes her bokutou and bashes him over the head with it.]

Kenshin: Ororoooo... Kaoru-dono, you're a beautiful woman, and sessha loves you a lot... shikashi, I wish to Kami-sama that you could talk!

Kaoru: Kenshin no baka!

Kenshin: Ka--Kaoru-dono!  You can talk!  Where's the katana?

Kaoru (smacking him again): Kenshin no baka!

Makimachi's Rainbow!  You'll laugh at the comedy!

[The red-haired young man is on his knees in the dojo, following a saturnine policeman around the room in a strange half-crawl, half-grovel.]

Kenshin: Gloooooom and dooooom!  Dooooooom and gloooom!

Saitou: Ahou ga... I can't believe you're a hitokiri.  Quit over-reacting to everything.

Kenshin: Sessha's only been rurouni for a week!  I only just discovered women today!  Sessha doesn't know how to act!

Saitou: Right now you're acting like an idiot.

Kenshin: You know what your problem is?  You're too unfriendly!

You'll love the romance!

[Misao and Aoshi frolic together somewhere in the woods, Aoshi singing about how she's bewitched him.]

Makimachi's Rainbow!  Directed by Nobuhiro Watsuki, with music and lyrics by Sekihara Tae.  This is one musical you won't want to miss!

If this one doesn't need some explaining, nothing does.  (sheepish smile)

Finian's Rainbow is a musical about an Irish man who steals a crock of gold from the Leprechauns, and then takes it to America to bury it close to Fort Knox.  He has a theory, you see, that gold... well... grows.  (Don't ask me, I didn't write it, I just happen to like it.) The opening song is How Are Things in Glocca Morra, and it plays during the credits while Finian and his daughter are traveling -- which explains Misao's little refrain at the beginning of this "trailer".  They settle in a little town called Rainbow Valley, where the story really starts.  Other characters of interest are Susan the Silent and her brother Woody -- a young man who runs the local profit share, and who falls in love with Finian's daughter.

Half of the plot -- if musicals can be said to have plots -- deals with an evil senator and his attempts to drive the locals off their land.  The other half deals with Og -- a Leprechaun -- who is trying to retrieve the stolen crock.  Without it, he and the rest of the Fair Folk are becoming mortal... and he's finding his new hormones particularly trying.  Things are complicated when Finian's daughter -- unaware that the crock of gold exists, and that it's buried on her father's land -- makes a wish in a fit of pique.  Since she's standing over the crock, the wish comes true... with life-altering consequences for the senator.  To make things right, Finian has to reverse the wish... but the crock has unexpectedly disappeared!  He confronts Og -- who is romancing Susan the Silent -- but the leprechaun has no idea where the crock is either.  He discovers where it is by chance, when he wishes for Susan to be able to talk.  The third and last wish is then used to reverse the wish Finian's daughter made.

How in the world did I take this mess and Kenshin-ize it?

Okina is Finian.  He stole the Battousai's katana and took it to Tokyo.  He thinks he can plant it and start his own immensely successful school.

Misao is his daughter.  She falls in love with Aoshi, who -- of course -- is filling the role of Woody.

Kenshin is Og.  Without his katana, he's changed from the hitokiri to the peace-loving rurouni.  However, he thinks he needs the katana back to help the Ishinshishi.  Eventually Kaoru will kiss him, and -- to paraphrase Og -- "Kyoto was never like that!"

Kaoru is Susan the Silent... mainly because she's Kenshin's love interest, but also because of one of the sillier plot points in the original.  Since Susan can't speak, she "dances" to convey her thoughts and feelings.  Transfering that to Kaoru, I immediately saw her whapping Kenshin upside the head to let him know exactly how put-out she was.

<sigh> I don't know if anyone else will find it funny... but at least now maybe it makes slightly more sense...?  If you think this would be good as a full-length parody, please send me an email and let me know  Given enough interest, it might be worth the investment in the video tape.

Sekihara Tae
tae@sekihara.dreamhost.com
January 20, 2000


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