The original cast, featuring Squadra Verde and Squadra Rossa
Cesare - Il Creatore che ha distrutto (Japanese: チェーザレ 破壊の創造者, Chēzare Hakai no Sōzō-sha, lit. "Cesare- Creator of Destruction") is a musical based on the manga series by Souryo Fuyumi. It premiered in 2023 (after 2020 performances were cancelled due to Covid-19) at Meijiza, a famous theatre in Tokyo, opening the theatre's 150th anniversary season.
Angelo Da Canossa, a young student from Florence, arrives at the prestigious Sapienza university in Pisa. Suddenly surrounded by boys from the greatest families in Italy, the young man is particularly drawn to Cesare Borgia, the brilliant natural son of Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia. The era is particularly tense for Italy. Old alliances are crumbling, the Pope is on his deathbed, and Cesare is about to bring Angelo into this world of sharks...
The musical is composed by Ken Shima, and the original cast starred Akinori Nakagawa as Cesare. A Bluray was released in September of 2023.
An official preview video
has been posted.
Tropes Appearing in the Musical:
- Absurdly Divided School: The students are divided into gakuseidan based on what country they come from. Angelo crosses these borders by becoming friends with Cesare, which piques Cesare's interest.
- Adaptation Dye-Job: Giovanni has brown hair in the musical, while his hair was blond in the manga. In the official photos, Angelo also had brown hair, but in the actual play, it's blond like in the manga.
- Adaptational Attractiveness: Aside from Cesare, Miguel, and Angelo, the manga characters aren't designed to be that pretty, but almost everyone is in the musical. Raffaele and Draghignazzo might be the biggest examples.
- Adaptational Context Change: Giovanni's comment about shuddering when he thinks of Henri's face is word-for-word from the manga, but since the "bullfight" against Henri is less violent and more comedic, it plays differently — he's laughing at how stupid Henri looked, not actually feeling horror over his injuries.
- Adaptation Distillation: Scenes from volumes 1-10 of the manga are rearranged and made into a more streamlined story.
- Adaptational Early Appearance: The Festival scene comes a lot earlier than it did in the manga.
- Adaptational Modesty:
- The dancers in "Primavera" and "Raffaele's Desires" (half of which is about Donatello's David) are all wearing a lot more than the figures in the art they represent. That doesn't stop Raffaele from pointing out David's best feature on one of the dancers, though.
- Angelo and the other Florentines are wearing actual pants, rather than the more historically accurate tights they have in the manga.
- Adapted Out: Most of the story covers events before Silencio showed up in the manga. He doesn't appear in the play, and in one scene with him from the manga, where Giovanni shares his feelings after the death of Draghignazzo, Silencio's lines are given to Angelo instead.
- A Hero Is Born: The prologue features this.
- Big Finale Crowd Song: Act 1 ends with one ("Conflict"), but the actual end of the show averts this, finishing with Cesare alone on stage.
- Bluffing the Murderer: Cesare does this to Draghignazzo by telling Angelo so say he saw his face on the night of the incident.
- Bookends: Act 2 opens with Rodrigo in silhouette standing at the top of the stairs, facing the back of the stage, and ends with Cesare in the same pose.
- Break the Cutie: Raffaele was traumatized by the Pazzi conspiracy, in which a ceremony in his honor was used as a venue for an assassination. He was only 17 and knew nothing about it. He wants to apologize to Lorenzo for his involvement.
- Cast Full of Pretty Boys: In gorgeous costumes.
- Canon Foreigner: In the end of Miguel's song in act 2, a trio consisting of Christopher Columbus, Sandro Botticelli and Leonardo da Vinci sing in an abstract way about the Renaissance as a pursuit of freedom, echoing Miguel's sentiment that it's something you have to create for yourself. While Columbus is a family friend of the Borgias (notably, he's the one who brought Miguel from Valencia to Rome) and Cesare meets Leonardo on a trip to Florence, Botticelli never appears in the manga (though his Primavera is mentioned and discussed). Their ages are also inconsistent with the 1491 setting, and they appear more as allegories than as real people.
- Compressed Adaptation: The mystery is solved almost as soon as it happens, over a matter of days, as opposed to the manga, where entire volumes pass between the incident and the solution.
- Corrupt Church: Case in point, a good number of these 16-year-old schoolboys are bishops. Cesare wants to reform it.
- Decadent Court: From the perspective of their sons in school.
- Deathly Dies Irae: In the song that Cesare and the students sing about Dante.
- Dies Differently in Adaptation: In the manga, Draghignazzo runs away after he gets caught, falls off a roof, and dies alone with Miguel. In the musical, Cesare and Angelo are also present, and hear their dialogue.
- Dies Wide Open: Draghignazzo, with Miguel holding him.
- Distant Duet: "Cesare & Angelo" — they sing about their first impressions of each other.
- Distressed Dude: Angelo gets himself into trouble with his honesty and openness, and Cesare has to rescue him several times in this play before Angelo, in the end, returns the favor.
- Duet of Differences: Between future popes!
- Educational Song: You will learn a lot about history from this play. A few songs feature characters talking about the famous art and literature of the time.
- Fingore: Cesare cuts the traitor's hand rather dramatically with his own dagger, causing him to cry out in pain.
- "Gaining Confidence" Song: Giovanni's graduation, under Cesare's devil's-advocate encouragement.
- Generation Xerox: Cesare claims to hate his father, but their mannerisms and body language are so similar. The second act opens with Rodrigo in a pose curiously similar to Cesare's at the very end.
- Gorgeous Period Dress: Bringing the beauty of the Renaissance to life.
- Grade-School C.E.O.: Truth in Television, as Cesare and Giovanni did both hold bishoprics before they were 10.
- He Knows Too Much: Why Draghignazzo kills Roberto — he's shocked to find a traitor in their midst he says, but he's really trying to cover up his own involvement.
- Heavenly Concentric Circles: Dante's vision of heaven is based on a passage of Paradiso Canto. There are white thrones arranged in (skewed) concentric rings with the overall shape of a rose.
- Historical Beauty Upgrade: Quite a few characters get this treatment, which is particularly notable since the manga did not do this. Giovanni might be the most obvious example.
- Historical Hero Upgrade: Justified, since everything most people know about the Borgias is Historical Villain Upgrade.
- Irrelevant Act Opener: Act 2 begins with Rodrigo singing about how wonderful and cool Spain is.
- "I Want" Song: "Cesare" - He wants to reform the church. "Dante's Vision" also counts as Cesare's "I Want" song — it's sung by Dante, but it's really in Cesare's mind.
- Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique: Cesare starts to do this when they catch the culprit, but the traitor drinks poison from his ring before it can go much further.
- Lecture as Exposition: How Cesare's influence from Dante is introduced.
- Location Song: "Beautiful Toscana"
- Loved by All: "Gakuseidan" ends with Cesare getting this kind of treatment from the people in the square (and, implicitly, the rest of the university), showing that he's already enough of a chessmaster to know that buying everyone wine is a good way to bring this about. It's also a good way to make it really, really hard for Henri, The Bully of the French squad, to pick a fight with Spain or Florence.
- Mood Whiplash: When Giuliano della Rovere sings a somber verse about the state of Italy, and how the peninsula is a rotting fruit on the verge of collapse... followed by Rodrigo entering, taking his song and turning it around, singing an upbeat verse about how Spain is flourishing despite Italy's troubles.
- Mr. Exposition: Roberto provides this, to Angelo because he's new.
- Not Quite Dead: Roberto, after Draghignazzo stabs him. he gets up and tries to stab Cesare.
- Offstage Villainy: Cesare's first words in the play are "My father is a monster", however, we don't get to see Rodrigo do anything particularly monstrous in the play, besides his Evil Laugh in the prologue as he imagines his son growing up to expand his own power.
- Pacified Adaptation: There are a few scenes in the manga that end with someone trying to kill Cesare, that don't have that aspect in the musical.
- Poison Ring: Draghignazzo takes this way out before Cesare can further torture him.
- Politically Correct History: Whatever is known about the historical Cesare Borgia's attitudes, he likely didn't go around giving speeches about tolerance, and correcting people's stories about the Crusades to say that the Europeans were the ones who were cruel, the way that he does here.
- Rich in Dollars, Poor in Sense: Giovanni, most of the time, but Cesare shows shades of this in the festival scene. He borrows Angelo's clothes to blend in with the commoners, but then does things like correcting the crowd's history, and flashing coins more valuable than anything most people there would have seen in their lives.
- Say My Name: Giovanni after Henri knocks over the statue of the Virgin Mary, breaking it into pieces.Giovanni: "MARIA! HENRI! CE...Sa... re..." *faints*
- Scholarship Student: Angelo, supported by Lorenzo de'Medici.
- Setting Introduction Song: "Gakuseidan" — Roberto introduces the school to Angelo.
- Shout-Out: The play has a whole song about Sandro Botticelli's Primavera . Projections of the painting appear in the background, and dancers come on stage with costumes styled to the painting. The song is also about the atmosphere of beauty, discovery, and openness that the characters fear will end when Lorenzo de'Medici dies, and he's very ill.
- Song of Prayer: "Prayer" — the older cardinals, and Cesare, sing this (in Latin) after the dramatic events unfold. Della Rovere continues with "Scene Inside My Memory".
- Summon Backup Dancers: "Raffaele's Desires" and "Primavera" get these. In the latter, they portray figures from Sandro Botticelli's painting of that name.
- Tears of Awe: Giovanni de'Medici evokes this in his questioning for graduation from university, when he is asked to defend his family's actions. He says that the art that they have commissioned, the culture of openness and discovery that they have fostered in Florence, and their sponsorship of artists like Sandro Botticelli and Leonardo da Vinci whose works have this effect on people — "To see beauty, to know beauty, and to be moved to tears by it" — outweighs the sinfulness of their other actions.
- Tenor Boy: One might not expect Cesare Borgia to sing such lovely high notes, but here, at least, he does.
- These Hands Have Killed: Draghignazzo after he stabs Roberto. The latter also said that it was his first time killing someone.
- Welcoming Song: "Gakuseidan", where Roberto explains the school groups to Angelo.
- You Don't Look Like You: Manga Cesare is tall and generically handsome. Akinori Nakagawa is shorter and a lot more expressive than Cesare is in the manga. Somehow, despite being 40, his Cesare is a lot more believable as 16.
