It was a little over a year and a half ago when we were first teased about Tokyo Disneyland’s new stage show – Mickey’s Magical Music World – as part of New Fantasyland’s massive expansion of the park. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the show never premiered on April 15, 2020. Instead, it was almost a year later, on April 1, 2021, when we could finally enjoy the latest addition to the near-perfect show repertoire at Tokyo Disney Resort . And as the name suggests, the show is pretty magical.
Warning: spoilers for Mickey’s magical world of music are ahead.
It’s a spoiler of Mickey’s magical music world. Please be careful.
Mickey’s Magical Music World is staged in the brand new (and beautiful) Fantasyland Forest Theater and takes guests through different worlds of popular Disney movies to find the missing song from a magical music box. As videos and photos are strictly prohibited during the show, the best we can offer for visual presentation is the concept art and a summary.
plot
The show begins with Mickey, Minnie, Donald and Goofy stumbling across a giant music box in the woods. When they turn the key on the box, which is an absolutely monstrous set piece, some Disney characters appear, including Snow White, Woody and Pinocchio, accompanied by their musical motifs. But after a while they discover that a song is missing and split up to look for it.
The music box turns around (the center of the stage is on a rotating platform, think Hamilton) and when Lumière appears, it splits and takes us into the world of beauty and the beast (suitable for the e-ticket attraction next door), where Lumiere and his friends serenade Mickey and Minnie for a round of “Be Our Guest”. Belle, Alice and Mary Poppins appear later.
Then we find ourselves in the jungle with King Louie and Baloo, who pamper the audience with a round of “I want to be like you” before we move on to Timon, who then takes us to “Hakuna Matata” while four acrobat dancers swing and dangle back and forth on poles in front of a neon-colored pride skirt.
Next, Jiminy Cricket appears as three mini-reels on the rotating platform with the tune “If you want a star”. An extremely talented dancer holds an umbrella that uses projection effects to simulate a shimmering star that guests may wish. This begins our personal favorite scene on the show when one of the mirror-smooth boxes bursts open and Cinderella sings, who sings “A dream is a wish your heart makes”. When her first verse of the song ends, another box pops open, revealing Rapunzel singing “I see the light”. Eventually the last box bursts open and we see Jasmine play “A Whole New World”. As beautiful pearls fall over the performers, the stage begins to spin again while the three princesses begin a beautiful harmony of their three songs.
Almost too early, the projected curtain falls and Mickey and the gang return to the stage. They are disappointed that their search has not yet found the missing song. They begin to search through the other songs in the music box, leading to short cameos of Winnie the Pooh and Elsa with their legendary theme songs, before Judy Hopps comes out and leads the audience to “Try Everything” in a short round of clapping.
The final song they investigate causes projected water to flood the stage and tentacles destroying the frame of the music box, revealing the evil Ursula, complete with massive and formidable tentacles commanded by stage technicians while they are both the Disney friends as well as a ship on stage attacks melody from “Poor Unfortunate Souls”.
This ends pretty quickly, and the ship on stage transforms into the Jolly Roger, commanded by none other than Captain Hook and his crew, and “Yo Ho! Yo Ho! A pirate’s life for me. “As the crew tries to round up the Lost Boys, one of whom hangs on the side of the ship’s lantern, more acrobatics can be heard. Tick-Tock the Crocodile approaches the ship. Hook and his crew flee, when Mickey and his friends show up and reveal that it was really Peter Pan and a good old alarm clock all along. Though Peter can’t tell them where to find the new song, he gives the gang a new idea – go ahead her own song for the music box!
The ship rolls away, leaving the gang alone on stage. A semi-transparent curtain falls down and lets projection effects appear in front of Mickey, Minnie, Donald and Goofy. They each try to create a melody that fails spectacularly on the first try. But they don’t give up and instead bring the forces together to create a beautiful song.
When empowered, Donald, Goofy and Mickey disappear through an opening in the curtain that is covered by part of the music box and immediately reappear in gold, black and white outfits when the curtain opens. And Minnie? If you’ve ever seen Frozen on Broadway, you’ll remember Elsa’s great transition during Let It Go, and the same technique is used here to transform Minnie’s costume right in front of the audience. All of the non-villain characters featured on the show then return in matching outfits along with Daisy, Chip and Dale to sing the grand finale song “It’s Your Song”.
review
It’s important to note how accurate this art is for almost everything that appears on the show. You really haven’t held back. We believe Mickey’s Magical Music World is an evolution of the traditional Disney IP Showcase stage shows that we all know and love. Especially in the spirit of the extremely popular One Man’s Dream II: The Magical Lives, which came to an end in 2019. The music and acrobatics on the show are all excellent, the projection imaging is evenly balanced with the physical sets (a complaint we have Out of Shadowland and Song of Mirage at Tokyo DisneySea (both relied almost entirely on projection), and us absolutely loved the Princesses scene and the finale will be on your mind for the rest of the day as we’ve seen it both times.
The only real criticism we have is that there is virtually no tension on the show, with Ursula’s short 90-second appearance apparently being the most suspense. It feels pretty linear and predictable, while the 2019 Song of Mirage on the hangar stage at Tokyo DisneySea is especially great because the audience keeps wondering what will happen next. Perhaps it’s unfair to expect surprises from a classic Disney IP showcase-style show, but we feel like there was a point where there could have been even more excitement.
All in all, Mickey’s magical music world is worth your time? Yes, 100%. We would still call it our second favorite stage show at Tokyo Disney Resort between Song of Mirage and Big Band Beat, and look forward to seeing it again and again for years to come!
Mickey’s Magical Music World plays 4-5 times a day at the Fantasyland Forest Theater in Tokyo Disneyland. From now on, all places require a prize via the “Entry Request” lottery system. Guests can only attend for one performance per day. Are you looking forward to seeing Mickey’s magical world of music one day? Have you already seen it? Please let us know in the comments!
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