No, Really, I Am an American

After almost nine months of being here, I finally went to one of the many tourist attractions that draws people to Osaka: Universal Studios Japan.

For the record, my sole purpose of going to USJ was to see Japanese Wicked; some of you may recall me posting about it about two months ago. Anyway, I finally got my chance.

And it was HILARIOUS. First of all, it was in half Japanese and half English; second, since the rights to the musical haven’t been released, they had to mix and match stories and songs. I, being the brash American that I am, sang along in English — okay, sang may be an exaggeration, more like mouthed the words.

It opened with the Time Dragon and Chistery, just as in the show, go team; the citizens of Oz came out, but then they broke out into “One Short Day”. I was smiling if anything because the “program” made it seem like they were only singing three songs from the show. From there, we meet the Wizard, who apparently provides us with a little backstory. Then, we skip back in time to “Dear Old Shiz”. Glinda and Elphaba meet for the first time, and we go into “What is This Feeling? (Loathing)”; and instead of Madame Morrible saying something to Elphie about magic, it’s Glinda — which brings us into “The Wizard and I”.

Hereafter, we get a brief smattering of “Dancing Through Life”, but it immediately segues into “Popular”. After that, we are back to where we started with the Wizard, Elphaba, and Glinda in the Emerald City. The Wizard sings “Sentimental Man” and he gives Elphie the Grimmerie to read from, just as in the stage production, thus turning Chistery into a flying monkey.

This, naturally, brings us to “Defying Gravity”. Now, here’s where it amused me, we get up to the line “…and you can’t pull me down!”; Elphie speaks the lines inviting Glinda to come with her, and then it goes into half of “For Good”.

We conclude the show with “Defying Gravity part II”, as it is described in the program — which translates to all you other Wicked fans as the part where Elphaba proclaimes: “It’s me!” and flies into the air.

It was pretty interesting and I really am glad I got the chance to see it. I was giddy even, and thereafter, I blew about fifty bucks on Wicked merchandise, including yet another shirt.

As for USJ itself, I gotta admit, I was a bit disappointed. But then again, it was my own damn fault because I was expecting like Six Flags and it wasn’t until I was physically in the park that I remembered there weren’t any roller coasters.

It was still a good experience, and now I know that I don’t really care for USJ. On another note, we ate dinner at Chicago Ribs; it was the closest thing to Chicago Style Pizza I’m gonna get. I know ribs ain’t pizza, but the ribs were “Chicago” style, so close-a-freaking-nough.