#tsukigumi

Takarazuka in a Nutshell Takarazuka is a musical theatre company in Japan which only has female performers. It’s kind of like a reverse kabuki that way. It’s located in the city of Takarazuka (hence the name) and is over 100 years old! Which is awesome!

Takarazuka’s actresses are generally known as Takarasiennes (sienne or jenne for short), and are divided into women who play men, and women who play women. This division is made when they first enter the company based on the performers preference as well as their height (there is a minimum height for male-players). Many siennes come from ballet or theatre backgrounds and they audition for the company quite young, and can stay there for a long time.

The siennes who play guys are called otokoyaku (male role players) and ones who play women are known as musumeyaku (daughter role players, yes we know it sounds uncomfortable) and sometimes within the fandom and by other siennes onnayaku (female role players).

The company is divided into 5 troupes - hanagumi (flower troupe), tsukigumi (moon troupe), yukigumi (snow troupe), hoshigumi (star troupe) and soragumi (cosmos troupe) that perform to a schedule you can see on this page on the company’s website. They each have a speciality and character, and generally consist of anywhere between 60-80 members. There is also senka (or senior members), which is a group of some 20 older siennes who no longer perform in a troupe or in every show, but are specialists that are sent along to the other troupes as needed. You can find profiles for all of the current (and many, many past performers) on the fan-made website takawiki.

The Topstar System Each of the five troupes have a Top Star and a Top Musumeyaku, who perform the lead roles in most of the plays their troupe puts on. This couple is the ‘main’ couple of that troupe, and they tend to stay anywhere between 1-5 years depending on a variety of factors, before they retire and are replaced by the people “next in line” – this is a very hierarchical system in which performers climb up the ranks starting from their time in the Takarazuka Music School. Siennes can climb up the ranks by being given important roles, given leads in smaller theatres, or otherwise gaining prominence and popularity through stuff like fan engagement, merch sales, etc. This means also that casting is not generally done by audition and that there is a very limited pool of performers available for each play; you stay in your troupe (unless you're transferred) and you perform with them. Roles are assigned primarily by rank, as well, so you will not soon see a very new performer have a bigger role than someone who has been there for a long time (this is oversimplified, but that what it's an intro for).

Last and current top combis (topstar and topmusumeyaku) & troupe vibes:

Hanagumi Current Topcombi: Towaki Sea and Hoshizora Misaki Previous: Yuzuka Rei and Hoshikaze Madoka

Hanagumi is the oldest troupe of the company (established in 1921), and often considered it’s most traditional because of that. They are specifically known for the coolness of their otokoyaku, and their general aesthetic. Under Yuzuka Rei a lot of focus was placed on dance, and now with Towaki Sea we see a focus on darker stories.

(top: Towaki Sea's 'Castlevania', bottom: Yuzuka Rei's 'Top Hat')

Tsukigumi Current Topcombi: Houzuki An and Amashi Juri Previous: Tsukishiro Kanato and Umino Mitsuki is just about almost as old as Hana (also 1921), and known for their comedic and western musicals, as well as their strong vocals. They were also the first troupe to perform ‘The Rose of Versailles’, which is one of Takarazuka’s flagship shows. Tsukigumi has multiple topmusumeyaku that started out as otokoyaku and switched later in their career (including current topmusume Amashi Juri, and previous topmusume Manaki Reika)

(Top: Houzuki An's 'Golden Liberty', bottom: Tsukishiro Kanato's 'Great Gatsby') Yukigumi Current topcombi: Asami Jun and Yumeshiro Aya Previous: Ayakaze Sakina and Yumeshiro Aya/Asazuki Kiwa*

Yukigumi is the troupe that focusses most on acting, and that is known for their performances of more traditional Japanese shows (nihonmono). In the modern era, they are also most often the troupe that does Manga adaptions (such as Lupin III, City Hunter and recently Berubara). *Ayakaze had two different topmusumeyaku partners, each for 3 shows, and Yumeshiro Aya stayed on with the next topstar after Ayakaze retired.

(Top: Asami Jun's 'Robin the Hero', bottom: Ayakaze Sakina's 'Bonnie and Clyde') Hoshigumi Future: Akatsuki Chisei and Uta Chizuru Current Topstar: Rei Makoto Previous Topmusumeyaku: Maisora Hitomi** Hoshigumi is known for their strong drama and stars with a lot of personality, as well as their focus on aesthetic and costuming. They do a lot of dramatic big-budget musicals and are currently very much the French Musical troupe.  **Hoshigumi is currently in the middle of Rei Makoto's retirement (she just finished her final run in the Takarazuka Grand Theatre and will still perform in Tokyo), but her topmusumeyaku Maisora Hitomi left before her. The next topcombi has been announced, but they have not yet performed a show togeter, and because there is currently no Topmusumeyaku, Akatsuki Chisei is playing a female role in Rei Makoto's final show.

(Top: Rei Makoto and Akatsuki Chisei in 'Ashura', bottom: Rei Makoto and Maisora Hitomi) Soragumi Current topcombi: Sakuragi Minato and Haruno Sakura Previous: Serika Toa and Haruno Sakura***

Soragumi, the youngest troupe by far, is also the most experimental. They have the tallest siennes and also often the most non-traditional shows. Their musumeyaku are often considered slightly less traditionally feminine.

*** Haruno Sakura is staying on as topmusumeyaku. They have only just switched topcombi, so Sakuragi Minato's first show has not yet started.

(top and bottom: pictures from Serika Toa's 'Razzle Dazzle/Takarazuka Love Songs')

The Sumire Code Something which you will run into fairly quickly when you get into the Takarazuka Fandom is the Sumire Code, which is an unwritten set of rules or guidelines for both siennes and fans regarding how to interact with one another. I have a longer explainer of this here.

The basic gist of it really is about respect, specifically for the performers, and also regarding their safety. There are a lot of differing opinions on certain aspects the Sumire code that I won’t get into now, but in general the foreign Takarazuka fandom does try to keep it in mind with regards to their online behaviour. One of what I personally think is one of the most positive aspects of the Sumire code (regardless of any of my other opinions) is the fact that it is intended to protect the privacy of the siennes, and that we as fans are not supposed to bother them or dive into their real lives. Those are their own, and we have no rights to them.  

One important aspect of the Sumire Code that is relevant to online fandom, is that the Hankyu Company is extremely diligent in controlling and protecting their copyright. The blurays are very expensive to buy and if material is posted in public places online, fans can get into a lot of trouble if stuff gets shared around. This can include takedowns on video platforms and other ways in which fans are locked out of being able to engage with the company. This doesn’t only go for video material, but also for the various types of print items the company produces. This results in all of us being careful with what we share, where we share it, and with whom. I know that to some, that can feel a little gatekeepy, but it’s important to understand that it’s really not that we want to keep new fans out, on the contrary, a lot of people here on tumblr and other platforms are doing their best to reach out, it’s just that the way this works limits the easily publically available material for new fans. 

That’s all Real Fun Info, but I Want to Watch Some Shows! Right, so you’re really here to watch some shows, fair enough! Where do you go? I know this in particular can be quite confusing, and sometimes a little difficult.

DVD/BLURAY First of all, you can buy a lot of the discs (dvds or blurays) of musicals that you like, which is imo kind of amazing since we’ve all been collectivel begging broadway/west end to do that for YEARS, so that’s cool. Of course, you don’t just wanna drop a ton of money - but in order to get an idea of whether or not you might like them, you can go to the Takarazuka YouTube channel (see link below) and watch their trailers, info videos, and clips. However, of course you might not have the money to spend on an expensive Bluray or DVD, not everyone has that kind of disposable income, so what else can you do? If you want more detailed info on where to purchase blurays or dvds, there is another explainer for that on @eralkfang's page right here.

SKYSTAGE Takarazuka also has its own TV channel called ‘SkyStage’. Here, they broadcast shows from their vast library of content, and produce a number of behind the scenes features which can be very fun, but unless you live in Japan this is pretty hard to access. Luckily there is, nowadays, a pretty good solution for this! If you ARE however in Japan, I can sincerely reccomend it.

TKZ ON DEMAND You can use Takarazuka On Demand, an online service through which you can rent shows quite cheaply and easily. You do need a credit card and probably a VPN, which I know can sound a little scary, but it doesn’t have to be. The process is relatively simple, and if this is something you want to set up there’s tons of people around that are happy to help you (but don’t ask me, I am technologically challenged and a friend had to do it for me).  Takarazuka On Demand also has a good deal of SkyStage stuff, which means you can find behind the scenes material here too!

FAN STREAMS Finally, if you don’t want to do any of these things, there are a number of us here on Tumblr who are happy to answer your questions, or if you want to see something that you don’t have access to - stream our shows for you. This is generally done in private locked stream rooms, for our own safety, as the company is specifically very strict on content sharing and we would rather not get in trouble. However, if you dm someone politely they will almost certainly be happy to help and to try and arrange a stream in your timezone if at all possible. I know dming strangers can be scary, but I promise we don’t bite. 

However, when you do talk to us, please do so respectfully, and please respect the space you are in. As much as we would love to shower you in glitter, we are not slot machines that can give you content, and we are careful because the company has nuked accounts in the past.

Peoples files and their translations have also been stolen in the past, and when things get spread across the internet nilly willy that can have seirous reprecussions for us.

TL;DR Welcome! Here’s a whole bunch of Takarazuka resources that I bundled so you can find them in one place, please have fun. Please do know that everyone is welcome here! We want people to come hang out, join us, watch things. That’s why we like to stream, we just ask that you treat us with kindness.

Takarazuka is a really fun hobby to have, even if it seems a little complicated. You’ll get the hang of it, and there’s lots of options to watch things in various ways! 

All that to say: Welcome, and enjoy the glitter

Resources https://www.takawiki.com/tiki-index.php Takawiki is an absolutely fantastic resource where you can find information on shows, performers, terms, and a variety of translations!

https://www.takawiki.com/tiki-index.php?page=Glossary+of+Terms Takawiki’s glossary of terms where you can look up a lot of really helpful info to help you wade through all the random Japanese people toss into their posts here.

https://www.takawiki.com/tiki-index.php?page=Sumire+Code The summary post for the Sumire code.

https://www.youtube.com/user/TRCofficialchannel Takarazuka’s official youtube channel, send them some love!

https://kageki.hankyu.co.jp/ Takarazuka’s official website! Here they post news, you can buy tickets if you’re in Japan, ad find out a variety of other pieces of information. They have an English version of the webpage, but the information is a little more limited on there.

https://kageki.hankyu.co.jp/schedule/index.html The yearly performance schedule.

https://www.tca-pictures.net/ This is the Takarazuka merch store online, you can buy merch for shows, programs, magazines, photos and other stuff here.

https://www.tca-pictures.net/skystage/ This is the website of Skystage, you can look around here a bit to kind of see how it works.

Overall, the plot is solid and captures the highlights of the early chapters of the novel effectively and with great visual impact. Characters are static for the most part as this is a story-driven show where the audience is expected to already be familiar with the source material and enjoy the epic highlights at face value. To summarize, the story takes place during the Spring-Autumn Period of Han China when central power has collapsed, and remnants of the royal family are scattered. Old vassals have turned warlord and carving up the once great empire. The royal family is now a joke, and he who has the child emperor can claim legitimacy and use him as a puppet. In short, Three Kingdoms is Chinese monarchist propaganda so the characters and factions who are trying to restore the Han are portrayed as the undisputed good guys, everyone else sucks and you are not meant to like them. That has never stopped any Japanese IP from making team Cao Cao or any controversial figure in Chinese history look cool.

Enter Lu Bu, an unmatched warrior of great strength, making him a highly effective general on the dueling scene. Legend is his idea of a fair fight is himself against three opponents, at once. His martial prowess was what brought him great fame in his lifetime and cemented his place in history and popular imagination. He was not, however, as effective in the tactical scene. Lu Bu is remembered for his many faults – arrogance, violence, messing with other people’s wives, and unreliability. The man practically betrayed everyone he knew, rendering him a less-than-ideal retainer despite being a beast in combat. Often perceived as a simpleton and brute of a man, he plowed through life as a self-serving asshole with zero foresight. He spat in the face of Confucian societal expectations and moral values as his favorite approach to contracts when entering into a lord’s service was getting adopted as a foster son and swearing double filial piety as a vassal to master and son to father. Except loyalty evidently meant nothing to him since he would drop one father for another if it suited him, sometimes offering up the head of the previous father to another potential father. If anything, Lu Bu was a controversial man.

He was also the strongest element of the musical. That would be expected seeing the title of the show is his namesake. The entire musical captured all these complicated facets of his character. Houzuki An presents a troubled man of violent temper and arrogance with great passion. Together with Haon Mika dance-galloping across the battlefield as Lu Bu’s fiery steed, the Red Hare, they bring to life the warmongering general with unquenchable ambitions. Between Houzuki’s performance and the costume department’s amazing armor design, Lu Bu stands on the stage as a legendary and memorable figure. This is the Flying General the world knows. We also get to see him grow into a more reflective and gentler person in private due to his beloved Diaochan’s influence though he struggles with peacetime concepts and some more complex ideas are beyond him. But he is given some depth rarely seen in the character. However, Lu Bu is only one half of a pair.

Takarazuka’s bread and butter has always revolved around romance. Therefore, it is baffling that they managed to fumble a famous romance already written for them. Now I understand changes are necessary when adapting stories across various media. But of all the things Takarazuka could mess with in their adaptation of a renowned epic romance, my main complaint is…

Lu Bu married who now?

Historically, we know Lu Bu was a married man to one known wife, but no one cares about her. The novel decided to triple his love life and recenter it on his fabled romance with Diaochan, one of the Four Great Beauties of China. Now Three Kingdoms is a sausage fest, so there is not much we can glean about Diaochan the character. She is more of a plot device that informs us about characters surrounding her and supplies commentary. Her foster father pimping her out demonstrates societal decay, regardless if you interpret him as a scheming social climber or misguided patriot driven by desperation to save his nation. Aforementioned father betrothing her to two men at once to instigate backstabbing drama shows us usurper Dong Zhuo is a morally bankrupt disgusting pervert of a tyrant, and Lu Bu is a morally bankrupt brute who can’t keep his anger and dick in check. As for Diaochan, when she is not a femme fatale assassin she is a representee of the brutalities of war – even beauty is not spared in the face of destruction. Chaos reigns supreme and chivalry is dead. Or is it?

What makes Lu Bu interesting in the novel is his individualistic personality. His disregard for societal conventions and morays does cause him to chafe with his contemporaries and is to his detriment on the political scene. But to his credit, maybe because he lived so against the norm, he was quite chivalrous in regard to Diaochan. Regardless who she really was and her ill circumstances, Lu Bu accepted all of her. In some retellings, Diaochan confesses she is an assassin sent to seduce Lu Bu right in the bedroom with Dong Zhuo’s corpse still warm between them. Lu Bu doesn’t mind and still agrees to marry if she wishes it. If Diaochan is a victim married against her will and attempts suicide in the name of honor and to remain faithful to her true love, white knight Lu Bu happily makes her a honest and living woman. Regardless, this marriage costs Lu Bu his own reputation as everyone remembers clearly the betrayal and assassination of his own foster father and technical claiming of someone else’s woman. It is hard to say how clearly Lu Bu was thinking at the time or if he fully understood the consequences of his actions, but ultimately he willingly shouldered the stain to his name. Furthermore, where lesser men would not be able to take their woman back after sexual assault, being deemed damaged goods, Lu Bu overlooks that and accepts Diaochan for all that she is. Were it not for the greater intrigues of the world and Lu Bu’s ambitions, they could have lived a content, simple life together.

I don’t think the original authors of various renditions of this romance thought that far about their relationship outside of an extraordinary hero should be paired with an extraordinary beauty. But from the text, we can glean novel Lu Bu is a generous and open-minded lover in some respects. Though this little love story is straightforward, both lovers are given depth and there are a lot of challenging concepts about chivalry and defining integrity for men and women that can be explored in this epic romance. But none of this was to Takarazuka’s liking. It appeared they wanted some spice for their musical but the main story was too controversial.  Perhaps the original heroine was not “pure” enough for company values and too passive for modern women to relate to. Not to mention patricide is a bad look for an already contentious protagonist.

But the fix Takarazuka employed did not help much at all. In fact, it made have made the characters look worse. Instead of Diaochan, Lu Bu’s great love of his life has been swapped out for some chick named Xuelian. This is not a simple name change. She was outright switched with another character all together. While Diaochan is largely believed to be a fictional character, there are limits to hhow much you can change her without her losing her identity.

Xuelian is the daughter of Lu Bu’s first lord Ding Yuan. You know, the guy he betrayed and murdered for Dong Zhuo. On the surface, this doesn’t seem like a major change given Lu Bu’s track record. But Ding Yuan never pimped out his daughter. There was no need to. He was just warlording his merry way in his corner of China and made the wise political maneuver of betrothing his daughter to his star general to put a leash on the man. Since we are no longer following the original plot, the original conflicts are sterilized so Takarazuka needed to fabricate more lest the marriage to Xuelian devolve into a mundane political alliance where the main couple just needs to get to know each other better. To spice things up, Lu Bu is convinced by team Dong Zhuo to murder the entire Ding clan right before tricking Xuelian into marriage. This new scandal does drive home Lu Bu’s more negative traits, but he unfortunately never redeems himself to Xielian, making both of them look incredibly unforgivable for Takarazuka protagonists.

Lu Bu is irredeemably a dastardly traitor, murderer, and liar – as far from a gentleman as one can be. Also, their whole marriage and love is built on lies and familicide. He is allegedly moved by Xuelian’s virtuous and noble nature, yet he dies a selfish despot with anger issues. I take no issue with static characters, as mentioned earlier that was the approach with this musical. Problem is they framed the story to give Lu Bu room to grow. There is a pivotal scene where Xuelian rescues an orphan, interrupting her own wedding. The concept of mercy and grace to the downtrodden is seeded in Lu Bu, made clear by the blocking of the scene. Yet we do not get the payoff in Act II. All his actions after this is just in service of what he wants, it never pivots towards consideration for the common folk or soldiers under his care in reflection of the alleged love of his life. So now Lu Bu has been reduced from a man who attempts to make honorable choices under impossible circumstances to a brute who just never learns.

They also did “Diaochan’s” character dirty as well. Xuelian marrying under false pretenses is a great disservice to her character. She is rendered a less than stellar heroine for forgiving the man who murdered her family for no reason (being Chinatsu hot only gets you so far, Lu Bu…) despite her preaching righteousness. While there is no problem having problematic female characters or toxic themes, it seems to run contrary to Takarazuka’s initial intent in this production. They don’t even know which “Diaochan” they want her to be. Sometimes portrayed as just another victim of a cruel world, other times a femme fatale who is an active player in her father’s schemes; I suspect they tried to merge both. Now we have a woman who is simultaneously too pure for this world but also a sultry assassin-seductress who is half-assed at her job because Takarazuka heroines cannot be too competent in this department. The character’s inconsistency can be quite jarring to watch despite Amashi Juri’s best efforts. A woman who is anti-war decides violence will solve the conflict at hand. A proper lady raised in a respectable household with love somehow thinks she can be so scandalous as dance in public and seduce a dirty old man. The discrepancy between the character’s gentle personality and ruthless decisions is simply too wide a leap of logic.

Another problem is Diaochan still exists in this timeline as Wang Yun’s daughter, who is still being set up to marry Dong Zhuo. Neither woman can even claim the reputation of empire-ending beauty to her name as Xuelian easily impersonates the other woman anyways. Diaochan is just a meek little girl swept up in her father’s politics. But as she is no longer the female lead, she does not matter. Xuelian offering to take her place in marriage is meant to give her some agency and strength of character but much like her acts of kindness and charity in front of Lu Bu, the impact of her actions is inconsequential. She, a married woman, deciding to take someone else’s place in their marriage to personally assassinate a tyrant is a naïve plan and her husband has to bail her out halfway anyways. She makes decisions, but they aren’t meaningful. She is a great beauty with a twin. Strangely, the real Diaochan somewhat diminishes the fake Diaochan’s spotlight, causing confused mutterings in the audience during intermission.