KishouHongi spoilers

I don't remember everything and the delay stream will be available the 30th but the biggest spoilers are:

Nobuyasu didn't die in Mihotose. Ishikirimaru managed to heal him but he pretended to be dead and took on the name of Gohei and lived as a farmer. Remember in Mihotose, at the end, Nobuyasu appears and says his name is now Gohei? They actually planned this twist all along, I'm impressed.

The Tokugawa clan are aware the Touken Danshi exist. When Nobuyasu appears as Gohei, he first meets Sengo and Tonbo and he tells them he knows they are Touken Danshi.
Sengo was very happy to see him again, he was very cute.

Kishou Hongi isn't a sequel. It happens during Mihotose. It happens after Ishi, Kara-chan go back to the citadel because their job is done. I'm not sure about Monoyoshi but he isn't present. Only Sengo and Tonbokiri remain. (I always felt the ending of Miho felt rushed and maybe it's because they had Kishou Hongi in mind the whole time.)

Tsuru is the leader.

There is a HRA Touken Danshi that tries to corrupt Yuuki Hideyasu (Ieyasu's 2nd son, who wasn't chosen to succeed his father and also Otegine's previous owner) and it's actually a Gou sword. Kotegiri calls him "senpai" the first time he sees him and keeps calling him senpai during the whole musical. At the end, Kotegiri and the others purify him and retrieve this Gou sword but the Saniwa doesn't summon his spirit so we don't know if he is a Gou already implemented in the game or a completely new Gou sword.
From its appearance, it looked like an uchigatana or a tachi. Kinda hard to tell. They talk about this sword and, I forgot if it's Otegine or Akashi (or both) who tell Kotegiri he can ask his "senpai" help for his idol lessons. (at the beginning of the play, Kotegiri asks Otegine if he can helps him for his idol lessons but he refuses all the time.) I really hope they are hinting at a sequel with more Gou swords in myu. During the ending speech, they also said that, the newcomer Touken Danshi's story has just begun. I have hope.

The Touken Danshi who have the most focus on are Sengo, Otegine and Kotegiri. Akashi is lazy but gets the job done and sometimes acts like a brother figure to Kotegiri. Tsuru is the leader but he didn't really feel like one. He gave orders during fights but, he didn't feel like Ishikirimaru or Kiyomitsu as a leader. His actor portrayed Tsuru very well though. It's the script's fault, I think, not the actor's. It's his first main role but, his acting was great and his singing was beautiful. Sadly, Tsuru didn't joke around or played tricks on the others. He was smug and very confident, nonetheless.
There's a scene that might make Tsurufags happy though: his clothes are bloodstained and he says: "Don't I look like a crane?" He looked pretty cool too.

Tonbokiri's role in the story isn't much different from his role in Mihotose.

Jiji appears at the end. He isn't there on person but in a footage. I completely forgot what he said though, I was too surprised to pay attention to what he said, sorry. It's probably following what happened in Tsuwamono when he didn't follow the Saniwa's orders and just did what he felt was right.


About the human characters:
Tokugawa Ieyasu chooses Tokugawa Hidetada (his 3rd son, wears yellow clothes) to succeed him and become the next Shogun but he believes his younger brother, Yuuki Hideyasu (wears red clothes) would be better.
Hideyasu has a hidden twin younger brother, Nagami Sadachika (he wears a blue kimono). In feudal Japan, twins were considered a bad omen (because they might fight for the title of shogun and stuff) so the younger one wasn't recognized as Ieyasu's son and was adopted by another family.
Then, I forgot why but, a HRA (a Gou sword) corrupts Hideyasu. Probably because he wanted to be become the next Shogun so the HRA corrupted him. Can't wait for the delay to rewatch it and understand the plot better.
They also bring the topic of being erased from history again with the younger twin brother.


Some stuff I remember with the Touken Danshi:
When Kotegiri first appears, he sings as if he was an idol. All the back-up dancers are with him and there was a huge neon light sign with written "Kotegiri Gou Go" (IIRC) on it. That was so funny and out of place. This scene occurred right after a serious scene between Sengo and Tonbokiri.

Sengo's sub-plot is about revenge. He wants to kill the KBC who murdered Nobuyasu. He is very emotional about Nobuyasu.

I forgot most of what happens for Otegine but, Kotegiri often gets the spotlight. There's also a scene when Akashi and Kotegiri fight and during this scene, Akashi talks about justice. Basically he says that the HRA fights with their justice while the Touken Danshi fight with their own sense of justice and the winners are right and the losers are wrong. They later talk about saving lives or something. That saving one life is better than none at all, IIRC. I don't remember it well.


Now the live:
They tried something new for the first song. They all wore costumes that covered their entire body and danced to a song that would usually be heard during the honpen. They asked the audience to not use penlight for the first song and I can see why. Felt more like something from Souki. It was artistic and ethereal.

Then, for the second song, it's a Tonbo solo, he wears his live outfit. His actor's singing is excellent as usual. Then, the third song is with the six Touken Danshi. The song was average. Maybe it'll grow on me with time.

For the MC, Akashi is lazy and the others swords ask the audience to encourage Akashi. Then the five others also sit down lazily on the stairs on stage. It was pretty funny. Then, (IIRC) it's Akashi who asks the audience to encourage the others.

After the MC, it's Tsuru's solo song. It was beautiful.

Then, it's Sengo's solo song. It was in the same musical genre as Jackal.

There's a song with Akashi, Otegine and Kotegiri. It was okay. Otegine's actor's smile was too beautiful I hardly looked at the other two. I'm not even an Otegine fan.

Then it was time for the song they sing in the audience and they removed their kimono sleeve so suddenly in the middle of the song, I didn't expect it at all. The audience got arm fanservice very close this time.

Then, they got the drums out and the human characters arrived on stage.

They striped again revealing the 3rd costume and the song was Toukonka. The same one in Mihotose 2019 with the golden flags. The outfits were skintight, as usual. Tsuru and Kotegiri's actors are very slender. Very, very slender.
Then, we had a song with the human historical characters.
And then the usual final song, Touken Ranbu.


A note about the actor for Hideyasu:
They cast actual twins for Hideyasu and Sadachika but one of them (the one who plays Hideyasu) got hospitalized last month (they didn't tell us why) so he was replaced by the actor who plays Fujiwara no Yasuhira in Tsuwamono. It kinda ruined the plot about the twin brothers in my opinion. I wish I could have seen the twins on stage, that would have made the story more believable. Atsukashi curse isn't over.
But who knows, maybe he'll recover in time for Utaawase so we'll be able to see actual twins for these two characters.


And for last, I'm throwing in some personal thoughts and opinions. You can ignore it:
We have two yari in this musical and they were smart for the choreography in the honpen, when they sing "Touken Ranbu". Otegine and Tonbokiri were in the middle using their spears. It was very cool.
One thing I didn't like much is that, the whole team don't interact much. They mostly interact in small groups: Sengo with Tonbo and Otegine with Kotegiri. They don't really feel like a team, unlike in Mihotose. The plot was pretty dense and, the four new Touken Danshi kinda jumped into Mihotose's story. The best written new characters are Kotegiri and Otegine.
Otegine's actor was very generous with fanservice but Kotegiri's actor felt awkward when he threw kisses at the audience and waved and all. Maybe he isn't comfortable with that (and I can see why.)

Other than that, Otegine's actor is perfect. He is very tall compared to the others (he is 188cm I think) so he really looks like a giant on stage. Otegine isn't my favorite but, I couldn't get my eyes off him during the live part. He was too amazing. He has too much charisma.
I'm a bit disappointed for Kotegiri though. His actor's singing is the weakest but he makes up with his dancing. And he is very cute as Gou.
The guy they cast for Tsuru is perfect. He has a cute round face and it contrasts with Tsuru's personality. Personality wise he's like tousute Tsuru.
The guy they got for Akashi's good too. I don't think Akashi fans survived.

Overall, for the live, I didn't like the group songs much but Tsuru's song is amazing, I want to listen to it again and I felt that the dances were less energetic this time around.  They're maybe trying to not push the actors too hard and that's a good thing. I love energetic dances but, if the actors get sick and tired then, it's not worth it.