Hello! Me and my friend Michiru have been summarizing and translating the stage plays that came out in recent years, and I'm going to share the links here. The plays are based on the newest, ongoing series of Mirage prequels set in the Shōwa era, ie. the lives Kagetora, Naoe and the others lived right before the lives of the main storyline.
While these are not full translations, and especially mine might be flawed since I am just learning the beginnings of the language, you should be able to get a pretty good picture of what is generally going on in the story. We have also added screencaps so you can enjoy looking at the great actors, too.
Here are the links:
1st stage play, based on 1st novel: Yonakidori Blues
http://michiru2042.tumblr.com/post/128310313517/mirage-of-blaze-yonakido... (part 5 has links to the previous posts)
2nd stage play, based on 3rd novel: Ruritsubame Blues
http://imperfekti.tumblr.com/post/144999813054/mirage-of-blaze-stage-pla... (in 10 parts)
2nd stage play's extra scene, based on the 6th book but chronologically set before the two stories mentioned above: Love Me Tender
http://imperfekti.tumblr.com/post/148696459804/mirage-of-blaze-ruritsuba...
Personally I loved the plays and felt they deepened the story and characters a lot. For example, we get to learn more about Minako, see Kagetora before he sealed his memory, as well as enjoy Kagetora and Naoe's dynamic in different social positions as their age gap is basically reversed as compared to the main story line. Also, seeing Kagetora and Naoe portrayed by real, live people also brings a whole new level of excitement to the whole thing, so I would like to encourage everyone to try to see the plays.
The DVD's can be purchased from here: http://www.shop-ep.net/trifle_stage/ While the company itself doesn't ship overseas, it should be possible to get them by using a shopping service.
The third play will be coming out this autumn, so let's look forward to that as well!
Attached: a screencap featuring Tomita Sho as Kagetora and Aramaki Yoshihiko as Naoe, and of the full Yasha-shuu.
Image(s):
This is totally belated, but I've only just now somehow gotten around to following up on these plays and actually getting the DVDs. Your summaries are invaluable. Overall, I'm really missing Mirage fandom, the real sense of community that used to have all the meta and stuff, and I'm hoping to be more active in what's left of it. Time permitting, which is always the issue. Thank you for keeping the enthusiasm alive. Did the third play come out this past fall?
Yes, the third play came out and the DVD became available late this spring! I'm planning to start summarizing and screencapping that as well during this summer, so there will be new material to be enthusiastic about. And thank you for this comment - it's always more fun to spend time on something like this when there's a community to share the results with.
Yay for the new play, and yay to you for working on summarizing it this summer. I'm really looking foward to it. Thank you! Yes, it is much more satisfying to have a community to fan with. Asphodel and I have been talking about how to galvanize the Mirage community a bit and use these forums as a home base. I'll certainly be using these forums more (or at all--I'm really rather embarrassed it took me so long to get myself over here). I'm also going to do some outreach and see if I can point people here.
Sounds good! Let's hope more people find their way here.
I've finally added your translation/summary links to both communities profiles:
http://mirage-trans.dreamwidth.org/profile
http://mirage-trans.livejournal.com/profile
I thought I'd already done so, but apparently not--or else I'm really blind. Apologies for the very long delay. (The links are under "Summary.")