MERCURO ★ Tokyo Grand Guignol(English)

Tokyo Grand Guignol is a Japanese theater company. 

It was founded in 1983 by Kikyo Tagane and Norimizu Ameya, 

both from Jokyo Theater.

The name of the company comes from the Grand Guignol Theater in France.

The scripts are written by Kikyo Tagane (who sometimes collaborates with Ameya), and Norimizu Ameya is in charge of direction, sound and art.

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🌕You can find lost things by looking at them from a different perspective🌖

🌗Where the moon looks big, lost things are gathered🌘

🌑The delusions that nest in the minds of boys will eat away at their hearts if left unchecked🌒

🌓No one's voice can reach the boys who have been eaten away🌔

🌕They will go out of control and become huge, ugly monsters🌖

🌗To erase the boys' paranoia, we need 🩸Mercuro🩸‼️🌘

Here is a brief introduction to "Mercuro" by Tokyo Grand Guignol, which was performed at the Shinjuku Art Theater in 1984. It makes you want to see the metallic red and blue glow of Mercuro once  again. 

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This photo was taken from a very valuable piece of footage posted on YouTube.

A long time ago, a short, condensed version of Tokyo Grand Guignol's Mercuro was featured on Kazuo Tokumitsu's TV show.

I'd like to express my sincere gratitude to the program staff who planned this, and to the person who recorded the footage and uploaded it to  YouTube.

                                Stomping our feet together in the classroom was our ritual.

There are so many worries, unpleasant things, and things I don't understand. 

I only have bad dreams when I sleep. I can't find my place in the world. 

Someone, please turn us into robots.

Tokyo Grand Guignol, part of which was introduced on Mercuro Tokumitsu's show

Photo credit/Dekadansu


Summary of    ☆☆ Mercuro ☆☆  

The setting is "Art Theater Shinjuku."

The lights go out with a sudden bang.

The sound of several footsteps can be heard from the darkness.

The light gradually comes in, and six feet come into view, wearing school uniforms and hats pulled down low on the floor. Behind them, a teacher (Shimada Kyusaku) is writing on the blackboard. The footsteps stop, and one student (Yaguruma Kennosuke) stands up and says:

Teacher! I don't think that statement is appropriate (sits down)."

The teacher erases the writing on the board with a blackboard eraser and starts writing again.

Another student (Nobuaki Ogawa) says, "Teacher!"Teacher: "What is it?"

"Um, this morning I saw a dead cat that had been violated (sits down)."

Teacher: "Well, I guess it was in a traffic accident last night."

Another student (Tatsuhide Takei) says, "Teacher!"Everyone turns around at once. "Um, lately I've been feeling itchy between my legs every night and I can't sleep (sits down)."Teacher: "That must be because of the weather."

Another student: "Teacher, my voice hasn't changed yet." "It'll change soon."」

"Teacher! Um, I saw a cat that had been violated three days ago."Teacher clears his throat. "Teacher! Um...there's a fire in the mountain behind!" "Teacher! Um, please do something!" "Teacher! Um, what should I do?"The students' voices all mix together. Teacher! Um, teacher! I feel like, teacher! Umm... I'm feeling sick, teacher, I'm feeling sick, teachers, all said at the same time, "I'm feeling sick!!"

Music. http://youtu.be/PrdL42hbpsQ

The teacher slowly turns around and says, "Go to the nurse's office."

The chalk in the chalk holder on the blackboard pops and flies into the air.

students all run off to the nurse's office.

A big moon rises beyond the window. The teacher remains alone in the classroom, writing on the blackboard.

Suddenly, there is a loud knock on the door, and the door opens to reveal a boy. A strong wind blows and a woman with a parasol appears in the window for a moment. The boy comes into the classroom and begins to speak cheerfully.

"Good evening, I'm Mikami, the transfer student. The moon in this town is big. I fell in love with it at first sight," the teacher replies. "Is the moon in this town bigger than your town? Where are you from?"

Mikami: "I'm from a town where the moon looks small. I lost something, so I came to this town to look for it. The lost item is my sister. Lost items gather in towns where the moon looks big."

Teacher: "What happened to your sister?"

Mikami takes off his hat and bows. Her expression changes and she starts speaking.

Mikami ("Y")

"It was a dazzling moonlit night three years ago. My sister usually reads books by the window for about two hours and always makes tea, but that night she couldn't read for even three minutes and just stared out the window. The moon that night was full and sparkled like a gold button, and it was huge. I'd never seen such a big moon before I came to this town. Suddenly my sister said, "I'm going for a walk," and never returned."

The teacher asks. "So, how are you so sure that your sister is in this town? If you say Tsuki... I'm sorry, but you might not be able to find her in this town."

Mikami: "Why?" Teacher: "Mikami-kun, the moon is the same size from any angle."

Suddenly, the students come back from the nurse's office, talking noisily. Each one is wearing a mask, an eye patch, bandages, etc. Everyone takes a seat, so Mikami sits down as well.

 

The teacher begins a lesson on health. Today's lesson is about syphilis.

Student: "We learned about syphilis last week."

Teacher: "You remembered it all after just one lesson? Huh?" He then brings the students to the front and has them mark the parts of the body that syphilis affects on a diagram. And so the difficult lesson on syphilis begins. Mikami looks bored, but suddenly he bursts out laughing, takes out a telescope from his bag and looks out the window.

The teacher continues the lesson, "...So not only sexual intercourse, but acts like masturbation are also extremely sinful, so you must absolutely stop doing them."

Student: "Teacher, it says here that masturbation and self-abuse are now completely harmless."

The teacher said, "The Ministry of Education is wrong, too," and started talking about the wrath of Jehovah on masturbation in the Old Testament." Then he started talking at length about the pathogen and symptoms. Then the student said, "There can't be a disease with symptoms like this... No, come to think of it, it did happen once. I had a praying mantis that I kept in elementary school and raised it with care. At first there were two of them, but one day there was only one, and it got sick..." Teacher: "It was because one ate the other." Student: "But those two were really close!" Teacher: "But, you know, the female ate the male to get some nutrition because it was getting close to laying eggs." Student: "No! That has nothing to do with it. I'm sure she got weak because she was left alone. Then she got sick, her stomach swelled, and strange bubbles started coming out of her butt, and there were little parasite-like bubbles inside..." The teacher said that it was an egg, but the student didn't listen. Student: "I thought, Oh no, this is bad, I've caught a bad disease, so I used tweezers and a needle to snip the parasite eggs like this, snip these parasite eggs, snip them, snip them onto my cute praying mantis, snip them if the disease spreads, snip them, this is terrible..." The teacher calls the school nurse and has the student take him away. The bell rings, and the lesson ends.

~Blackout~

The lights come on. After school, five students are flipping through comic books and magazines at their leisure. Two students are looking at a movie magazine together. They are talking about whether Dietrich or Brooke Shields is better. They also call the teacher "Kinbuchi" (Golden Spot), and talk about whether there are any women in Kinbuchi, how they saw a man without a nose, and about the new student Mikami. At that moment, another student asks if they will participate in today's extracurricular activities, to which they answer of course.

Suddenly, the eight o'clock bell sounds, and the students stop talking. A whistle is blown and music with a heavy beat begins to play. The students shake their fists, stomp their feet, and call out, "Chinkajon! Chinkajon!"

With a grating sound, the blackboard flips over. On the other side of the blackboard, a beggar boy (played by Ameya Norimizu) is clinging to the side and eating his lunch. When the blackboard stops, he opens his mouth wide and laughs loudly, but the laughter is from a tape.

Students: "Heil, Chinkajon!!"

Beggar: "Mm, heil. Ah, uh, he scratches his chest and buttocks. Chinkajon lectures the students on beggar society and the status and privileges of homeless people in this extracurricular class every time. He says that today's class is "The meaning of masturbation and its practice." When a student mentions that masturbation in the Old Testament, as Kinbuchi said, is a sin, Chinkajon says, "Be careful, because Kinbuchi only teaches lies. Now open your zipper! Stick your hand in! Charge!!"

Music starts with the command, and the students all start masturbating at once. The beggar boy flies around among the students with a look of joy. As the music ends, he ejaculates all over the students and climaxes. Semen flies all over the place. The beggar boy is covered in it.

Beggar: "On the door of my favorite public toilet, there is a sign in bright red letters that says DO NOT USE. I wrote that myself in the winter four years ago, and ever since then I have been sleeping and waking up there and looking out. Outside the window, two weeds sprouting from the small amount of ground in the garbage dump, slices of onion, and shards of beer bottles sparkle. I urinate while staring at this scene in a daze...The toilet bowl is cool and smooth to the touch...No matter where I go, the red letters, weeds, food waste, and broken bottles of that public toilet are always stuck to the back of my eyelids and never go away...And then I realized, I ...… I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I'm, um, I, I, I'm, um... a toilet."Then he suddenly opens his mouth and laughs.

                     Chinkajon, the Beggar Boy(Norimizu Ameya)⬇︎　　　　　　　　　　                                      

Just then, Mikami comes in and the beggar boy hides behind the desk. Mikami searches inside the teacher's desk drawer, but gives up and walks across the stage. The sound of wind, music, and crowds of people passing by on both sides of the stage in the winter city. Mikami spots his sister among them and calls out. "Sister! Wait! It's Yukio!! Sister!"

The person stops dead. Two shocks for Mikami and his sister. The crowd of people leaves before anyone notices. His sister doesn't turn around. Mikami: "Sister... I've been looking for you for two years. Have you forgotten? It's Yukio. The cat died. I heard Yuko got married. Where have you been since then? You're going somewhere again, aren't you? Let's go home, sister! Why are you silent!!" His sister whistles the theme song from Jean Gabin's "Headlight" through the gaps in her teeth. Then she looks at the position of the second button on Mikami's school uniform that is still attached. " Mikami panics and crawls on the ground nearby, searching for Button . "That's strange... She was there just a moment ago, it must be around here now..." When Mikami looks up, his sister is gone. There's another swarm of people. Mikami cries out in distress, but is pushed around and her cry is drowned out by the loud voices of the people. Mikami falls, but gets up and continues to brush the dirt off her clothes.

　　~Blackout~     

As the day lightens, the teacher is happily teaching Turkish. 

Mikami is once again gazing out the window through the telescope. 

Teacher: "Hey, hey! What are you looking at?"

Mikami: "It's the city view. The forest, the city, and the people look upside down."

Teacher: "Oh, what kind of lens are you using?"

Mikami: "It's just window glass. I installed it because the pieces were so beautiful when I broke the window before."

Teacher: "But with just glass, the scenery can't look upside down, right?"

Mikami: "Yes, I'm lying. But this glass is the finest."

Teacher: "So what are you really looking at with that finest glass?"

Mikami: "Far away. Very close, far away. To be exact, the farthest place on Earth. To me, it's the very end of the earth. That's... my back. Faraway things look close, and close things look far away. I use these hands to look for lost things. If I put on clear glasses or look upside down between my legs, I can find things that I couldn't find before. So that's how I'm looking for my sister. Teacher... Teacher!! (smirking) ...boring." 

With that one word, the other students started shaking their pencil cases and yelling "Boring! Boring! Boring! Boring! Boring! Boring!"

Teacher: "Shut up! Shut up!"

The scene changes to the second act, "The Nurse's Office."

In the darkness, the distressed voice of a student (Tatsuhide Takei) can be heard.

"Haa... haa... uu... stop... I'm... your... younger brother... haa haa... I won't do it again... uu... I'm... not a woman... haa... haa... ah!... Stop... You shouldn't do that... You... stop... pervert... stop!"

Then the lights come on, and the teacher in a white coat and his assistant Suehiro Maruo watch over the student. The teacher sets up a pipe screen with a cloth spread over it in front of the bed.

The teacher puts on a mask and rubber gloves and begins the student's operation. When Maruo hands him the scalpel, the teacher jumps into the screen while dancing wildly and cuts up the student. Blood splatters on the screen. The teacher jumps out of the screen and jumps back into the screen, and blood spurts on the screen. Then an alien appears from inside the student.

"This is an alien called a sexual delusion! Stop it!" The student becomes an alien. When the teacher stops the anesthesia, the student returns to normal and passes out from the pain. "You won't dream while you're unconscious." To finish the treatment, the teacher drips Mercuro onto the student's stomach.

Teacher: "It's a strange red color. Oh, if you touch it, it's dangerous. If it gets on your finger, can’t wipe it off for three days." The teacher and Marcuro blow on the affected area to dry it. Teacher: "Want to know the secret behind why the affected area turns a metallic color that's neither red nor green when it dries? Read this." Maruo reads, "Mercurochrome. It is mainly used as a 2% aqueous solution. It is mild and has antibacterial properties. Molecular formula: C20 Carbon H8 Hydrogen O6 Oxygen Na2 Sodium Hg...! That can't be true... Teacher."

　　                                          Nursing room: Maruo and the teacher

Teacher: "Maruo, there's something here. You're surprised, aren't you? It's mercury mercury." The teacher explained the origin of Mercuro. "I like the sound of Mercuro. Mercuro. From the nasal sound to the popping sound to the smooth sound. All the consonant pronunciations are there. It's perfect."

Then, with a bright smile, the teacher started dripping Mercuro onto the student's stomach again. "If you have an organ that shines like metal like this, you will be loved even after you die. Oh, it's bad if you get it on your hands. Can’t drop it for three days."

。。。

東京グランギニョル、マーキュロ 徳光さんの番組で一部紹介

~Blackout~

The bell rings. It seems that today is a physical examination, and the students are lined up with their charts. They are whispering to each other from time to time.

"Hey, isn't Toba (Takei Tatsuhide) acting strange lately?" "He sure is strange." "How can I put it, he's changed, he's become stiff."

The suspension hits Toba. He stands there, expressionless and stiff. "He's kind of metallic and jerky, it's weird. He makes a clicking noise when he goes up the stairs." "That must be because he's stepping on a Pushpin or something."

The teacher and Maruo come in and start the regular checkup of the students. 

They check the students' heights and tongues, check their weights, etc. The teacher suddenly notices Maruo's pen callus. 

Teacher: "There's been some bad rumors about you lately, that you've been drawing manga in this nurse's office... well, okay. But I hope it's not erotic manga." 

Maruo: "Erotic... I've never drawn erotic manga before!!" Maruo jumps out. 

Teacher: "I think I may have hurt him a little..." While the teacher is looking at the chart, Maruo comes to the corner of the stage and opens his lab coat, revealing a Shojo Tsubaki T-shirt, a ribbon for the Newcomer Award, and four of his own books tucked between his belt, before bowing and leaving.

The teacher listens to each student's concerns. One student is worried about his mother going into his room to investigate while he is at school, one is worried that his voice hasn't changed yet, and one is convinced that there is a fire in the mountain behind his house. 

The teacher says, "Shall I replace your blood with Mercuro? Look at Toba." The students all look at Toba. 

Teacher: "How is it? How are you feeling? Are you having strange dreams again?" Toba: "No, I hardly have any anymore."

　　　　　　　　Takei Tatsuhide (left) and his students

Teacher: "Everyone! Here's what I have to say about this delusional Toba. 20% of his blood has been replaced with Mercuro. His brain has been purified to this extent, and he maintains an extremely clean mental state. This is the only way to free himself from the irritating delusions he has every night. My veins are... 100% Mercuro flowing through them."

Student: "Teacher! Please change my blood too!" "Me too!"

Mikami: "I'm the only one who hasn't had my regular checkup yet." The rest of the students return to the classroom.

Teacher: "You're the one who needs Mercuro the most. You say you're looking for your sister, but you're just looking through a telescope, and on top of that, you said something funny the other day about seeing me in the telescope. Does that mean you want me to help you look for your sister? I've looked into it since then too. I've looked into it a lot, but I haven't found anyone who's been staying in this town for a long time in the last two or three years."

Mikami: "I see. But there's a chance that the man who took my sister away is in this town. Have you been at this school for a long time, teacher?"

Teacher: "No, about three years."Toba: "Then it was right around the time my sister disappeared. Just kidding, teacher. And the lie that you have Mercuro in your blood, it won't work on me."

~Blackout~

Night. The model in the nurse's office turns over, and a beggar boy appears, laughing with his mouth wide open as usual. He drinks the alcohol, soaks a knob in iodine tincture, and pops several round cotton balls into his mouth. He then strips off all his clothes and wipes his body with gauze soaked in ethanol. It is time for his bath. He spins around with the human body model, lays him on the bed and kisses him.

At that moment, Mikami comes in and the beggar boy hurriedly hides. Shining a flashlight, Mikami searches all the drawers and searches frantically through the pockets of the boy's white coat.

　　The beggar boy, Chinkajong (Ameya Norimizu)

At that moment, a beggar boy comes out and says, "What have you been doing? I always come here to clean myself. And besides, your teacher will be on duty in 20 minutes. I'll give you something nice." He takes out bat claws, cat teeth, and silver fly wings and tries to sell them to Mikami, but Mikami says he doesn't want them. The beggar says, "Well, how about these?" and places adult photos one by one between the boy's toes. But Mikami refuses. However, his eyes are caught by one photo, and he buys it from the beggar for 1,000 yen. Mikami holds the photo over the flame of an alcohol lamp and stares intently at it.

~Blackout~

The teacher stands in front of his desk, polishes several scalpels, and inserts them into the surgical tools tucked inside his frock coat. Then Mikami swings the door open and comes in. It's exactly the same as when Mikami first appeared. Only Mikami and her parasol appear for a moment.

Teacher: (As announced over the school's internal radio) It's long past time to go home. The side gates are closing. Students, please go home immediately.

Mikami: The side gate lock is broken. I'm sorry to bother you at this time, but I have something to tell you.

Teacher: Why can't you guys stay quiet? The medicine cabinet and bed are here, silently, just like always. Ah, it's cold and feels good.

Mikami: It must have felt good to be cold to my sister too.

Teacher: Your sister? I'm sure I did everything I could for your sister. You know, your sister.

"Mikami: "A month after my sister disappeared, I flipped through her photo album and found that every single photo had been torn away. Her address book had also been torn up, and when I rubbed a 4B pencil over the blank space that remained, letters appeared. Nine addresses and names. Eight had already been confirmed. The remaining one is currently under investigation! Teacher, it's you." 

Teacher: "(smirking) You've watched too many detective movies. Well, if you had known, you would have known and would have dealt with it accordingly... but I haven't seen my sister once in three years."

                            Teacher Kinbuchi (Shimada Kyusaku)

Mikami: (Showing the teacher a photo) Are you still going to deny it? This is a photo of you with your arm around my sister, smiling happily!! 

Mikami and the teacher exchange insults at length. 

The teacher notices something. "Your second button is undone. How sloppy." 

Mikami suddenly becomes nervous. 

Teacher: "Does the button have something to do with my sister?" 

Mikami: "My sister took that button, and I really need it back. (Staring blankly into the distance.)" 

Teacher: "The button? ... You, perhaps. Perhaps you killed my sister." 

Mikami freezes as a stone. He plucks off the student buttons one by one, gathers them in his right hand, and stares at them. He raises his right hand to face height and drops one. 

Then a bottle of medicine falls from the medicine cabinet behind him and breaks. 

Another button falls, a bottle breaks, another drop, another bottle breaks. 

When the last one falls, all the bottles on the medicine shelf and the shelf suddenly collapse at once. Behind it, a rotting wooden horse sways silently. His sister is tied up with plastic pipes, rubber tubes, and electric wires, and countless pieces of glass are stuck in her. A great deal of blood flows from the wound. Church bells ring in the distance.

Mikami (stunned) "One moonlit night, a single button fell on the shore. I didn't think I'd pick it up and put it to good use, but... (Nakahara Chuuya)" 

Suddenly, Mikami goes crazy and grabs the teacher. As the teacher and Mikami fight, the switchboard shorts out under Mikami's back. Intense music plays. Mikami picks up the glass shards and takes a scalpel out of the teacher's frock coat. As they struggle, the teacher's scalpel stabs Mikami in the stomach. The music stops, a slimy rain falls, and Mikami thrashes about. As Mikami starts to stand up, the teacher stabs him again. Mikami throws random objects at the teacher, muttering "Stop it! Please! It hurts!". The teacher stabs him wildly as if afraid of Mikami, muttering things like "You maggot!" Eventually, Mikami rips the front of his shirt open in pain, revealing his ribs. He collapses and dies. The teacher blows the blood into the curtain and says, "That's dirty blood."

Six students rush in. The students dump Mikami in a plastic bucket in the corner of the room. A plastic tube is visible between the students' clothes, and Mercuro is flowing inside.

"February 2X, 1985, Ataru Yukiya, 62% Mercuroid!"

"Same, Haruomi Nakajima, 74% Mercuroid!"

"Same, Kennosuke Yaguruma, 67% Mercuroid!"

"Same, Shinro Asada, 85% Mercuroid!"

"Same, Tatsuhide Takei, 98% Mercuroid!"

The students sit down and face the teacher. "And what should we do?"

Teacher: "Breathe in... and exhale. (Students take a deep breath) And wait."

Student: "For how long?"

Teacher: "Until the purity of Mercuro in the body increases and is completely purified."

Student: "Where?"

Teacher: "Here."

Music (third choice) The students breathe slowly and repeatedly, placing their hands on their hearts, wrists, and temples to check the changes in their bodies. The teacher stares straight ahead without moving. Behind him, a huge moon slowly sinks.

   -END-

　　                              嶋田久作氏から生まれる飴屋法水氏のエイリアン

                                      Comic writer Suehiro Maruo 


Ameya Norimizu, the alien actor, director and head of Tokyo Grand Guignol                                          

                            Flyer and cover art by Suehiro Maruo

           Thank you very much. We look forward to seeing you again.

                          Keiko Olds Twitter @misopichopo

The original painting by Suehiro Maruo is currently on display at the Louvre Museum. Even Suehiro Maruo was surprised.