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previously:
day 1 (shoen)
day 2 (itadaki no keshiki)

guests: shouri, naoki, shou, acchan

it’s been really interesting to see how each screening has a different flavor depending on the show and the guests. for example, the first two shows were very much influenced by the interaction between the audience and the screened content, while the first act of this event was not so much a screening of “karasuno, fukkatsu!” as it was a live-action show of “kondou shouri, fukkatsu!” like. oh my god. I THOUGHT KENTA WAS BAD ABOUT REENACTING CHOREO at least he stayed seated half the time, shouri was straight up diving and rolling across the stage for every single one of nekoma’s matches plus some of his white coat scenes as well. because if you put him in front of an audience this is just what happens.

BUT I DIGRESS. let us begin at the beginning.

first let me apologize for the fact that the first act will be light on shou and acchan because i was way up front, meaning i could only watch one half of the stage at a time, and it was real hard to watch anything other than The Kondou Shouri Hour. but more about them in the second act and aftertalk!!! …also, i’m not gonna lie, i did not absorb a lot of the first five minutes or so because i was like, entranced by naoki’s face. good lord that man has cheekbones. ANYWAY.

shouri: tbh this is the first time i’ve had a script to MC an event… honestly, who needs it. (tosses the clipboard over his shoulder)

he also mentioned he was at the screening the night before to figure out how this whole cheering thing worked, WHICH WOULD EXPLAIN THE PART WHERE RYOUTAROU AND JUSTIN WERE CLEARLY LAUGHING AT SOMEONE IN THE WINGS fldajfkldjf i thought at the time it was juudai and sonde, or maybe that kenta was there again (…i mean, he was, lol), but i bet it was shouri.

so then it was time for cheering practice. nice kill, nice receive, jump serve…
shouri: oh and then when someone gets a point, cheer for them. you know like, I-I ZO, KU-RO-O, O-TO-KO-MA-E
(roughly “NICE, KUROO, YOU’RE THE MAN”)
naoki: LOL WASN’T THAT YOUR CHEER IN HIGH SCHOOL
shouri: yes :D
shouri: ii zo, shouri, otokomae!!
naoki: oh my god
shouri: …let’s do it now :D
naoki: WE REALLY DON’T HAVE TO
shouri: (already backing up for a run up)
naoki: ok. cheer for kuroo, ok.
shouri: no, for shouri :D
naoki: …………….
shouri: (runs up and does a massive jump spike)
audience: I-I ZO, SHO-U-RI, O-TO-KO-MA-E!!
sound tech: (WHISTLE BLOWS)

to explain the whistle thing – so each night when the cast got too far off track or were going too long, a ref’s whistle would sound. the previous two nights, it happened once or twice. how many times did shouri get whistled off? A LOT.

of course we practiced the datekou cheers as well!
shouri: datekou, please show them how to do it
acchan: but i mean, in the actual show, nekoma-san did this part, right
shouri: right!! we did!! in the white coats
acchan: so we’d like to leave it to you now ok thank you :)
shouri: …wait

(in the end they both did it.)

they then cued up the next screen… which was the entire datekou vs karasuno rap. XD
shou: look. the rap is long and complicated, it’s tiring, i’m sure it would be tough to do the whole thing. but even if you can’t. everyone just please be sure to do sakunami’s line. “funk it block.”
naoki: and yamaguchi’s. shoubu no wakareMEEEE.

then shouri started explaining the special cheers/moves he thought up that he wanted us to do flfjaf;djkfdf. when nekoma sway back back and forth to their theme he wanted us to wave our thundersticks in time. “I THOUGHT THIS UP A MONTH AGO,” he said proudly. “I WAS REALLY EXCITED FOR THIS EVENT!!!”

shouri: and here’s another one i thought up a month ago
shouri: in the manga there’s a cheer that goes ike ike nekoma, right. so this is what i want us to do –
shouri: ike ike nekoma, nyan nyanya nyanyanyan! (waves cat paws)
sound tech: (WHISTLE)

as before we ended by chanting ose ose nekoma / go go datekou except this time after about two seconds shouri and shou were like, yelling out at the top of their lungs running around the stage while naoki maded increasingly desperate whistling motions toward the sound booth.
shouri: let’s do it again!
naoki: ISN’T THIS ENOUGH
shouri: IM THE MC I MAKE THE RULES
naoki: kansai people are terrifying.
shouri: (super thick kansaiben) I’LL DO ANYTHING FOR A LAUGH

(and that, incidentally, is the difference between what shouri and kenta were doing w/r/t choreo – you get the impression that this is probably how kenta watches these shows at home whereas put shouri in front of an audience, even if that audience is two people, and he can’t help but perform. his and takato’s consistently over the top ad libs suddenly make so much sense…)

all this, and the actual screening hadn’t even started. deep breaths.

tonight the audience started calling out “furudate haruichi!” “worry-san!” “nakayashiki-kun!” when their names appeared on screen just like they were some of the players, it was cute. XD also even though kiyoko wasn’t yet physically present, every time she “appeared” off stage the audience swooned “KIYOKO-SAAAAN”.

so for the opening, of course they came out and did their own parts (props to acchan and shou for how well synced they were with the screen, their timing was super impressive) but then they all took turns doing not just a little bit of the rest but EVERYONE else’s. iirc shouri was oikawa, naoki was iwa-chan, shouri was daichi, naoki was suga, shou was asahi, acchan was tanaka and ennoshita (the timing broke down a little bit here XD), naoki was takechan, shouri was ukai, naoki was kageyama, and shouri was hinata.

it was funny because like, when they first start doing other characters naoki was like, laughing at himself, still a little self-conscious but by the time he ran out to do kageyama’s jump he was super into it and getting huge amounts of air lol. that was sort of the pattern of the night, naoki was clearly enjoying himself and excited in a normal person way but then kept getting dragged into increasingly weird shit by shouri and by the end would be like FINE LET’S GO LET’S DO IT.

as previously mentioned this resulted in them reenacting the vast majority of nekoma’s choreo in full, in the center of the stage. flips and rolls and dives and all. shouri also kept forgetting this was not, like, a concert or something and would literally be bouncing up and down waving his thundersticks when he wasn’t actively dancing. but then he got all embarrassed during kuroo’s “that sparkling stage…!” speech and walked off stage… but BARELY, he was hovering so close in the wings that i could still see him ahaha. the closest he could physically force himself to actually leaving the spotlight. XD in contrast, naoki was so embarrassed during his first couple lines/closeup that he tied his nekoma towel around his face, walked off stage, and didn’t come back for a full minute. hee.

shouri also made naoki leave the stage with him so that they could walk back on for nekoma’s pre-match entrance, this time with shouri wearing his jacket specifically so he could reenact the dramatic toss and catch, which he then intentionally dropped a la the DVD blooper roll, as naoki took hinata’s role of pointing at it in shock.

naoki was also apparently the “voice” of kiyoko behind the “tobe!” flag, shouri was very excited to make sure we knew that. OH for the first scene between kuroo and kenma, SHOU came out as kenma with shouri trailing after him measuring the height difference between the two of them and making exaggerated confused faces. and after nekoma waved goodbye and left the stage after the practice match was over, naoki also waved goodbye and walked off but shouri was so caught up in watching that he didn’t notice naoki was gone for at least a minute and then did a huge doubletake at the empty chair. XD

last but not least, for the kurotsukki fans out there, i know you’re reading this, during the practice montage at the end of act 1 shouri acted out tsukki’s bit standing there tossing a volleyball with one hand like :|, and his attempt at a bored tsukki expression was hilarious, shouri’s face just doesn’t do that naturally. XD

so while the first act was like a show on stage we were watching, the second act was, of all the screenings so far, the most like an actual proper call-and-response cheering event. first was the tokonami match, of course, and honestly the biggest compliment to how well and effectively this match was staged is that there was zero snark – instead, i heard several people sniffling – and the applause after ikejiri walked off stage went on for a long, long time.

but then the datekou match had so much for the audience to do! there was a LOT of cheering and chanting to take part in, and of course acchan and shou acted out big scenes like aone and futakuchi’s “lock ON”, the big blocks, “TEPPEKI DA” etc. by the end acchan was just on his feet making frustrated faces when he got blocked out ahaha. but this is the part that felt closest to actually being part of the student cheering squad at a volleyball game… if part of the cheers were a rap.

(at some point shouri and naoki came back on stage as well, and to be fair to them, for a split second when they came out again i was like OH NO LET THE DATEKOU KIDS HAVE THEIR CHANCE TO SHINE but while shouri did get very into reenacting their choreo he stayed off to the side and didn’t distract from the main characters. thanks kondou-kun. XD

daichi: like [iwaizumi] said, datekou are really strong
acchan: ^__^ (nod)
suga: three months ago their iron wall totally destroyed us
acchan: ^____^ (nodnod)
suga: to be honest, we still haven’t wiped out the fear from that time
acchan: ^________^ (nodnodnod)

my favorite part about datekou, though, was at the end, when we got our first real emotional casualties of summer week. so first, aone’s handshake with hinata also got a really, really long ovation, and shou started to look super emotional. then the datekou third years’ retirement scene happened. because i know kimura atsushi, i was locked on (heh) to him from the moment it began, and was therefore able to watch in real time as his mouth slowly turned down and his face crumpled and his eyes glinted with tears. then when moniwa started talking about how next year’s iron wall would be even stronger, he suddenly stood up and just nodded emphatically at every line but couldn’t even smile. acchan i love u.

another sweet thing was that during that scene, the final “we played… we played volleyball!” scene with the losers, shou just took a long, slow look around the audience with this really gentle expression and later in the aftertalk he said he could see people crying and that he was really touched and grateful.

so, speaking of the aftertalk!

shouri and naoki also talked about aiia closing and how it felt kind of destined that it was where they had both their haikyuu debut and now their last haikyuu event.
naoki: appearing as members of the cheering squad.
shouri: as the ensemble cast.
naoki: shouri, you were definitely the loudest person here.
shouri: because i’m the MC!

they dragged-slash-complimented shou for his scary aone face. “yeah, i’m kind of scared by myself when i see the recording tbh because it’s not like i could SEE myself when i was made up on stage.”
acchan: but off stage he’s really nice!!
naoki: yeah, you always gave off this kind of sweet idiotic air in the dressing room.
shou: …actually… something like that happened today…

and then he explained how during the scene when aone is blocked out by hinata and lands with a thump back on stage, he reenacted it today… and when he landed in a crouch, his pants tore. XDD CUE EVERYONE DUCKING BEHIND HIM AND LIFTING UP THE SHIRT TIED AROUND HIS WAIST TO CHECK OUT THE TEAR AND FALL AROUND LAUGHING like literally naoki was lying on the stage paralyzed with laughter. shouri kindly demonstrated to us exactly where and how large the tear was, thanks shouri. “lucky i wore a shirt around my waist today!” shou said.

acchan also explained how he and shou did different variations on the “lock ON” on asahi, so of course shouri made them demonstrate – and they did one in which futakuchi tries to push aone’s arm down, it pops back up, and futakuchi then walks his fingers cutesily up aone’s arm as he says “yamenasai!”

then naoki told us about how during the scene when hinata spikes with his eyes open, one day takeru came up to him and said super seriously, “what’s the deal with hinata closing his eyes? don’t you normally spike with your eyes open?” naoki explained there was a line about how he hits with his eyes closed earlier, to which takeru replied, “i didn’t hear anything about that, idk what you’re talking about” and that was when naoki realized he was speaking as yaku. “i get staying in character but he WENT OUT OF HIS WAY TO ASK ME ABOUT IT.”

speaking of, shouri also said that the show was just around the time the volume with the nekoma third years’ backstory came out so that if you watch the full stage recording you’ll see kuroo and yaku squabbling and kai trying to break them up in the background and such.

then, another takeru story, for one particular scene when the nekoma cast was holding up the iron wall it was always incredibly hot, because they’d already worked themselves into a sweat during their actual match as nekoma, then they’d have to put on these long white coats, so it was unbearable… and then on top of that, takeru would come over and like. squish up next to him. and it would be even MORE hot. so naoki would be like, “pssst get away from me” and takeru would just sit crouch there dead still staring straight ahead. “i got SO MAD AT HIM.”

so that’s why today takeru was tweeting “…what did shouri and naoki say about me.” XD

finally, their final messages! that’s when shou said the bit i mentioned earlier about how moving it was to see the fans’ reaction, and added “I’M DEFINITELY COMING BACK i mean i don’t know if that’s actually possible BUT I DEFINITELY WELL.” acchan fell all over his own words and then was like I CAN’T PUT HOW GRATEFUL I AM INTO WORDS i love haikyuu bye. naoki said how how grateful he is that his first and last experiences at aiia were both, specifically, “karasuno, fukkatsu.” and shouri just talked about how WOW HAIKYUU’S AMAZING WORRY KINOSHITA IS AMAZING. (naoki: just pretend he’s an alien or something, ok guys?) and then, also, that he owes his career to the show basically and is super grateful and proud to have been involved.

OH, AND LAST BUT NOT LEAST – the sound tech got the last laugh on shouri. they thanked us for coming and bowed… and then the credits music didn’t start like it did for everyone else, they had to start singing it themselves – “da da DAH da da da DAH da da da DAH da da da dah” while shouri yelled at the sound booth “HEY, DON’T PUNISH ME” until the tech took pity on them and cued up the music. then shouri purposely “tripped” and fell going off stage, naoki held back shou and acchan from going back to help him, and they got whistled off one last time. XD

…the end. jesus that was a lot, how the hell are we going to get through shinka no natsu as led by shouri, we’re all gonna die.

tonight: shousha to haisha………………. pray 4 me. see you tomorrow!!