AKHILLEUS MURDERS TROILOS ON TEMPLE STEPS

while a statue of apollo watches, and the god plans revenge

Sophocles: Selected Fragmentary Plays, A.H Sommerstein, D. Fitzpatrick, T. Talboy [Sophocles: Troilus]

🎼 April 11, 2021

🎼 fff -Fortississimo- / Silk Road ~A Bandit and a Jewel~ / Tokyo Senshuraku

/me/ try not to swoon 💕

This is my meguai 3rd fan comics before the news came out

So completely headcanon mousou

and my english translation awful sorry

ROUGH SUMMARY⬇️

Luce’s girlfriend, Angelique, suddenly notices that she herself resembles Luce’s older sister Silvia too much. So she starts to doubting about Luce’s love, and tries to get out of the shadow of Silvia.  

Meanwhile, Luce is planning a perfect marriage proposal. Luce, who is very dissatisfied with the fact that Angelique is only seeing himself cute, plans to doing a play by imitating characteristics of his brother-in-law, Dorante, to let Angelique know how great ‘otoko’ he is. And he tries to make her fall in love with him once again.

This is my meguai 3rd fan comics before the news came out

So completely headcanon mousou

and my english translation awful sorry

ROUGH SUMMARY⬇️

Luce’s girlfriend, Angelique, suddenly notices that she herself resembles Luce’s older sister Silvia too much. So she starts to doubting about Luce’s love, and tries to get out of the shadow of Silvia.  

Meanwhile, Luce is planning a perfect marriage proposal. Luce, who is very dissatisfied with the fact that Angelique is only seeing himself cute, plans to doing a play by imitating characteristics of his brother-in-law, Dorante, to let Angelique know how great ‘otoko’ he is. And he tries to make her fall in love with him once again.

I've never read an academic text on Takarazuka actually, so I'll throw this out there for everyone else's recommendations!

A lovely bunch of vintage Takarazuka postcards I was lucky enough to get several months ago. Most are from a 1918 performance, including actresses from the first several classes of Takarazuka actresses. One from a 1927 Snow Troupe show, and one from “Turandot”, performed by a couple of troupes in 1934 with the same main cast. Check the image captions for more info.

“The Tale of Enoshima” (1918): Shinohara Asaji, Kumoi Namiko, and Ogura Miyuki

“Tanabata Dance” (1918): Ooe Fumiko as the Weaver and Takasago Matsuko as Suusei

“Cleopatra” (1918): Shinohara Asaji as Cleopatra, Ogura Miyuki as Charmian, and Takigawa Sueko as Iris

“The Battle Between Monkey and Crab” (1918): Okino Ishiko as Chestnut, Takahama Kikuko as Egg, Ogawa Natsuko as Elephant, Arima Ineko as Monkey, and Takigawa Sueko as Mortar

“Cherry Blossoms on the Way West” (1927 - Snow Troupe): Mikaki Etsuko as a Lady in Waiting

We haven’t been getting tickets these days 💀

Ok real talk though, a lot has changed since Japan was last open to tourists, including deprecating the foreign language ticket sites (RIP, hope they’ll be back since Kishida wants us to spend 5 trillion yen there or whatever), and seriously cracking down on secondhand ticket sales.

Here are the methods I know for sure work right now:

You CAN get a Takarazuka ID that gives you access to the normal Pia ticketing system. I did it with a Skype number which costs about $23 USD a year. VOIP numbers typically don’t accept SMS for verification codes, but in Takarazuka’s case, they allow you to choose between a text and an automated call, the latter of which does work! The recording is in Japanese, so you need to know enough to be able to copy the numbers down. Once you’re in, it seems to be kind of a crapshoot whether your foreign credit card will work or not. They DO accept foreign cards, but some seem not to play nicely for whatever reason. Between my two credit and two debit cards I’ve always gotten one to work. Then once you have all that settled, your reward is you get to join the general sale bloodbath with the rest of the plebeians.

Have a friend in a fan club. Risky because you don’t always know before your departure if you’ll get the ticket, but there have been so many excess lately it’s probably safer than it used to be, at least for now.

Okepi.net is the sanctioned resale service because prices are limited to face value or less. However, it’s less of a resale service and more of a message board where fans can connect with each other to sell and trade tickets, and each fan can set their own requirements (which sometimes include things like "you'll only be considered if you also buy X number of tickets to this other rando non-tkz show no one cares about"). I really only recommend navigating it if your Japanese is really good. Also it’s easiest to use if you’re physically there. I typically use it for any extra unplanned tickets I want after I arrive, because you either need to meet the person to get the ticket, or have a local address to receive it.

I’ve never personally done this because I’ve always been able to navigate the methods above, but the other thing you can consider is going through a travel agency that specializes in Japan.

Oh wow, welcome!! And sorry for taking a thousand years to answer this. Baddy is awesome, and unfortunately you picked possibly the only show with pretty unmatched vibes (it was Ueda Kumiko's first and only revue, and she's since left the company).

I can do my best to break Baddy down into pieces and recommend based on that!

Revues with a plot:

Nova Bossa Nova (done many times, most recently by Yuzuki Reon's Hoshigumi)

Nishiki-e of the Wind (Yuki '08) - to be honest I haven't watched this in like ten years but I remember it having a plot and being pretty silly

Things that are just fun and a lil crazy:

You might enjoy the majority of Kurenai Yuzuru's top run (Hoshigumi 2017-19), particularly...

Om Shanti Om

Another World / Killer Rouge

God of Stars

You could also venture into like pretty much any 90s-era revue for solid sparkle and crack, particularly Hoshigumi. There is also

Takarazuka's Dream Kingdom (Yuki '04) which is one of my personal favorite insane but also very high quality revues

Action (Hoshi '95) which is not a revue but is a collection of really stupid skits

Other Ueda Kumiko shows:

They are not revues and nothing like Baddy (most are actually quite tragic)... but they might have some bit of je ne sais quoi that will appeal to you. Check out the full list here.

Other TamaChapi shows:

If you were a fan of the Tamaki Ryou - Manaki Reika - Miya Rurika top trio, check out the Tamaki top shows from King Arthur ('16) thru Elisabeth (19).

Thanks for the ask!

“I get by with a little help from my friends” - with Mercury in your 11th, that’s the goal. You may be thinking about longer term goals, and about who can help you reach them.

Mars in the 3rd is really busy, lots of errands - you may want to devote some energy to looking critically at your daily commute, how you get the information you need, etc.

It’s easy to understand the wheel of the year if we look at it from the perspective of a gardener or a farmer. Right now, in the Northern Hemisphere, nobody is planting anything! Too damned cold! This is the time of year when you get the seed catalogs in the mail, and you start planning. IMO this is why so many “new year’s resolutions” fail - people expect to reach their goal in a couple of weeks at the most.

(Anybody who wants to chip in with their Southern hemisphere perspective, please do - I don’t want to make any assumptions about something I’ve never experienced.)

Where do you want to be on January 1, 2024 - ie next year? And keep thinking of that goal in terms of a year-long project of getting you there. Be very canny and scheming and Capricorn about it.

Around Imbolc (or on these Northern premises the Aquarius Cross-Quarter Day) you start gathering the resources you’re going to need. And then at the Aries equinox, then we initiate the action.