宝塚の世界へようこそ！
Whether you are a "veteran" fan of Takarazuka, a new adept or even if you know nothing about this colourful world, I hope you will enjoy reading my thoughts and reviews!
There are so many different aspects to Takarazuka ("Zuka" in short) that one just never knows enough about it, and it is very difficult to decide where to start from when explaining what it is.
Honestly, when I start talking about my passion for Zuka to people, they don't really get what I find so fascinating about it and they sort of freak out.
I guess that to understand the charm of this world you need to watch some of its shows first.
Maybe you also need to have some kind of natural inclination towards androgen characters, kitsch costumes, grand atmospheres and aesthetics that don't belong to your own culture (as far as my knowledge goes, the aesthetics of Takarazuka do not really fit into Japanese aesthetics either, so it could be considered "foreign" even to them).
But first things first: what is Takarazuka?
Takarazuka is a Japanese type of theater that features musicals played only by female actresses.
Having only male actors is something that most people have heard of (think of Kabuki or even of European theater up to the XVII century), but having only female actresses is a lot more rare.
So in Takarazuka you have women playing both female (musumeyaku) and male (otokoyaku) roles.
The actresses attend a special school during two years in which they have dancing, singing and acting classes.
During that period, the stage sex of the actresses is decided according to their physical appearance, skills and (though it is not as important a factor as the others) personal preference.
Once their stage sex is decided, they will stick to it (even when they are not on stage) until they leave their troupe.
It is rather rare to have actresses play both female and male roles, but it is not unprecedented.
There are five Takarazuka troupes:
花組 - Flower troupe
雪組 - Snow troupe
星組 - Star troupe
月組 - Moon troupe
宙組 - Cosmos troupe
Actresses often switch from one troupe to another at some point, they sometimes switch between several of them during their career.
Each troupe has its own top stars: one otokoyaku and one musumeyaku.
The top stars play the lead roles in the shows of their troupe with few exceptions.
The "real" top star is only one, though: the otokoyaku top star. The otokoyaku have a higher status compared to the musumeyaku and they usually have a wider fan-base as well.
The musicals played in Takarazuka are often set abroad, mainly in Europe, and the genre is predominantly romance.
Some of them are based on famous manga (such as "The Rose of Versailles"), others on existing musicals (such as "Elisabeth" or "Romeo and Juliette") and some are original Takarazuka productions (e.g. "Never say goodbye").
The costumes are stunning, sometimes getting to a pitch of kitsch-ness that is almost unbelievable. They love sequins, rhinestones and feathers.
You might wonder now about what is there to Takarazuka that fascinates me so much.
1. The actresses are incredibly skilled. Of course, some are "better" than others and I do have my favourites and my, let's say, "not-so-favourites", but overall the level is amasingly high.
I am not a singing, dancing or acting expert, so I cannot go in detail, but my impression is that they do extremely well in all these fields.
2. The otokoyaku. Their mere existance is one good reason to watch Takarazuka. Some of them are so good at what they do that I can't get myself to think of them as women - given that their purpose is precisely to enact men, isn't that a wonderful thing?
I must say, their "male" performance is strongly stereotyped (and so is the musumeyaku's "female" performance) but still, there is some kind of "magic" to it that is difficult to put into words.
The musumeyaku are not one of the reasons I like Takarazuka, though for some people they are. Don't misunderstand me: I believe them to be excellent at what they do, but somehow I am not as impressed with them as I am with the otokoyaku.
3. I love musicals. I guess that, if I didn't, I probably could not stand Takarazuka. But, given that I am absolutely a huge fan of musicals, I really appreciate the variety of their shows: they go from comedy to drama, from sci-fi to traditional stories. Besides, they perform about 3 shows per troupe every year! One can just never get bored.
4. I loooove romance, and I like it the "old-way". Yes, even when it's cheesy.
Of course, everyone has their own reasons to like Takarazuka and I don't mean to say that your reasons for liking it should be the same as mine.
I simply hope that, if you were not sure whether to plunge into the world of Takarazuka or not, I have motivated you to go for it!
Last but not least, if you want to learn more about Takarazuka, I suggest you to visit the TakaWiki. You'll find loads of interesting information there!
P.S. The picture I have uploaded for this post is of Wao Youka, my absolute favourite otokoyaku, in the show "Phantom" (2004).
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