Two board down incidents, the legendary stage in ’13, meeting and parting… Etcetera about “Miyazawa Rie and Revenge”.

Rie Miyazawa’s Revenge

The first time I heard the English word “revenge” (Revenge) was back in September 1994, when “K-1 REVENGE,” the title of an event of the popular standing martial arts “K-1,” was held. At that time, the author learned that this foreign word meant “revenge” or “payback.

The word “revenge” became widely used five years later when Daisuke Matsuzaka, a rookie of the Seibu Lions, uttered the word. The 18-year-old monster, who had pitched against Chiba Lotte ace Johnny Kuroki and narrowly lost 2-0, declared, “I’ll definitely get revenge. He got his revenge.

This was the catalyst for the popular use of the word “revenge,” which has become a common phrase, not only in sports and martial arts, but also in everyday life.” Daisuke Matsuzaka, the “creator of Revenge,” was awarded the “Ryu-Yougo Taisho” award that year.

In recent years, the word has been further adapted to mean “to settle a score with one’s past self” or “to make a fresh start. This is an example of how a word that had been interpreted negatively has been dragged down to the real world and is now seen in a positive light. At the same time, the camellia incident that took place 11 years ago on the stage also came back to my mind.

Written and directed by Koki Mitani, “Onore Napoleon” was staged at the Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre in Ikebukuro’s West Exit from April 9, 2001 to May 12, 2001. It is a secret room drama that could be called “the truth of Napoleon’s death in the Mitani style. The leading character Napoleon is played by Hideki Noda, his mistress Alvine by Yuki Amami, Count de Montron by Koshi Yamamoto, Governor Hudson by Masaaki Uchino, Dr. Tomohiko Imai by Dr. Anton Marchi, his doctor, and Asari Yosuke by his retainer Marchand. As a great admirer of Mitani’s works, I was somehow able to reserve a ticket. It is still fresh in my memory that it was a luxurious two and a half hours of tension and humor.

No one could have imagined that something unusual would happen on May 6, with only five days left in the month-long performance that was like a luxury fleet. After the show, the heroine, Yuki Amami, who had complained of feeling tired, went to her family hospital and was diagnosed with “a mild myocardial infarction requiring bed rest for a week,” and she was forced to withdraw from the show.

However, to the surprise of both Mitani Koki, who wrote and directed the play, and the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Space, a replacement was decided to take its place. To everyone’s surprise, it was Rie Miyazawa who accepted the role. Nevertheless, the two-and-a-half hour long play with a huge amount of dialogue was a challenge. The rehearsal schedule was also limited. The actor had to get them all into his body in a short period of time.

It seemed like a reckless challenge, but my fears were unfounded when she appeared at the soiree on May 10, completing the two-and-a-half-hour performance without making a single mistake, and perfectly executing the 130 lines of dialogue, and she made it through to the final curtain on May 12 without a hitch.

Nikkan Sports (May 11, 2001) wrote, “I can only think that the gods of the stage have descended upon Rie,” and the author was then in charge of “5 o’clock,” a Tokyo MX program for which I was a writer. (Tokyo MX) Monday commentator Matsuko Deluxe, for whom I was working as a writer at the time, sighed in admiration, and I remember it vividly.

So why did Rie Miyazawa accept the challenge and go through with it? Did she have a chance? Was there some deep reason why she had to do it? Let us trace her history and explore her true intentions once again.