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"Parisette" 1930

The Takarazuka Revue (宝塚歌劇団 Takarazuka Kagekidan) is a Japanese all-female musical theater troupe.

The first performance "Donburako",1914

The Takarazuka Revue began in Takarazuka, Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan in 1913 founded by Ichizo Kobayashi, the president of Hankyu Railways, who enterprisingly boosted train ticket sales by staging Western-style musical shows using only unmarried women. The name of the troupe comes from the Hankyu Takarazuka Line in suburban Osaka. The Revue had its first performance in 1914, and by 1924 the company had become popular enough to obain its own theatre, the Dai Gekijō. Currently Takarazuka performs for 2.5 million people per year. The majority of the fans are women. The modern Takarazuka Theater in Tokyo is an elegant showplace.

Part of the novelty of Takarazuka is that all the parts are played by women, based on the original model of Kabuki, before women were banned from the theatre in Japan. The women who play male parts are referred to as otokoyaku (literally "male role") and those who play female parts are called musumeyaku (literally "daughter role"). The costume, set designs and lighting are extravagantly lavish, and the performances are melodramatically emotional. Side pathways extend the already wide proscenium, accommodating elaborate processions and choreography.

Regardless of the historic era of the musical presented, period costume accuracy is regularly relaxed for extravagant finales which include a Rockette-style kick line and scores of glittering performers parading down an enormous stage-wide staircase. Lead performers portraying both male and female roles appear in the finale wearing huge circular feathered back-pieces reminiscent of Paris or Las Vegas costuming.

Before becoming a member of the troupe, a young woman must train for two years in the Takarazuka Music School, one of the most competitive of its kind in the world. Each year, thousands from all over Japan audition and between 40 and 50 are accepted. They are trained in music, dance, and acting, and are guaranteed seven-year contracts. The school is famous for its strict discipline and for the custom of having first-year students clean the premises each morning.

The first year, all women are trained together, but at the end of the first year, women are divided by the faculty and the current troupe members into otokoyaku and musumeyaku. Those playing otokoyaku take on a more masculine role in the classroom, cut their hair short, and speak in the masculine form from then on.

The company has five main troupes: Hana, Tsuki, Yuki, Hoshi, and Sora (Flower, Moon, Snow, Star, and Cosmos), and Senka (Superior Members), a collection for senior actresses who are no longer part of the regular troupes yet still wish to maintain their association with the revue and perform from time to time. Flower and Moon are the original troupes, founded in 1921. Snow Troupe began in 1924. Star Troupe was founded in 1931, disbanded in 1939, and reestablished in 1948. The newest troupe, Cosmos, was founded in 1998.

During the founding era of the company (1914) and in the post-WWII war era (1946), the company employed male performers who were trained separately from the female members of the troupes. Ultimately, however, the female members opposed their male counterparts, and the male departments were dissolved very soon after each incursion. The last males were terminated in 1954. A recent Japanese musical named Takarazuka Boys was based on this aspect of the company's history.

The poster of The Rose of Versailles 2006 performed by Star and Snow Troupe, but also featuring guest stars from Flower and Moon troupes.

The five troupes of the Takarazuka Revue have certain differences of style and material which make each troupe unique.

The Flower Troupe is considered the "treasure chest" of otokoyaku. In 2003, 3 out of 5 of the top otokoyaku stars (Sumire Haruno of Flower, Hikaru Asami of Snow and Jun Shibuki of Moon) were from Flower Troupe. Their performances tend to have larger budgets, with lavish stage and costume designs, and are often derived from operatic material.

While it tends to be a home for young performers (with Yūki Amami, who hadn't reached her seventh year, reaching the status of top star in the 1990s), the members of Moon Troupe are also strong singers. The term "Musical Research Department" is occasionally used in articles about the troupe, portraying the troupe's focus on music. Their material tends towards drama and modern musicals. During the era of Makoto Tsubasa as top star, they had at least two musicals adopted from classic western novels and overall tend to be more Western and dramatically styled on stage.

Snow Troupe is considered the upholder of traditional dance and opera for the whole company, being the vanguard of traditional Japanese drama in a company that tends towards Western material. However, they were the first troupe to perform Elisabeth in Japan. Recently the troupe has been moving towards the opera and drama style that Moon and Flower perform in.

Star Troupe tends to be the home of the stars of Takarazuka. They, along with Flower Troupe, have very strong otokoyaku players.

Cosmos, the newest troupe of the company, does not have the burden of tradition, and therefore tends to be more experimental. When it was formed it pulled talents from all the different troupes of the time. The troupe's style is influenced by performers Asato Shizuki, the founding otokoyaku top star; Yōka Wao and Mari Hanafusa, the "Golden Combi" who headed the troupe for six out of its first eight years of existence. Cosmos were the first troupe to perform Phantom, and to have a Broadway composer (Frank Wildhorn) write their musical score. Also, one notable physical characteristic of this troupe is most of the otokoyaku are above 170 cm (the most notable is Hiro Yuumi, the tallest in the whole company is in this troupe since joining the company in 1997)

Takarazuka works are usually adapted from Western classic musicals, operas, plays, novels or even films:

The poster of 2003 production of Singin' in the Rain by Star Troupe.

The poster of Phantom performed by Cosmos Troups in 2004 (Featuring Youka Wao and Mari Hanafusa.

• Novels:
  • Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence
  • Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina and War and Peace
  • Erich Maria Remarque's Arch of Triumph
  • John Steinbeck's East of Eden
  • Ernest Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls
  • Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind
  • James Hilton's Random Harvest
  • Charles Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities
  • Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights
  • F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby
  • Anthony Hope's The Prisoner of Zenda
  • Alexander S. Pushkin's The Captain's Daughter (in the name of Dark Brown Eyes)
  • Henry Fielding's Tom Jones

• Films:
  • Farewell My Concubine/The Phantom Lover (Both are films starring the late Leslie Cheung)
  • JFK
  • Somewhere in Time

• Musicals:
  • Manon
  • Can-Can
  • Copacabana
  • Elisabeth
  • Ernest in Love (an adaptation of The Importance of Being Ernest)
  • Flower Drum Song
  • Grand Hotel
  • Guys and Dolls
  • How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying
  • Me and My Girl
  • Oklahoma!
  • Phantom
  • Singin' in the Rain
  • The Sound of Music
  • West Side Story
  • Kiss Me Kate
  • On a Clear Day You Can See Forever
  • The Scarlet Pimpernel (will be performed by Star Troupe in 2008)

• Operas:
  • Aida (Under the name Song of the Kingdom)
  • Carmen

• Plays:
  • Turandot (Under the name Legend of the Phoenix: Calaf & Turandot)

They also adapt popular Japanese manga for their shows, such as Riyoko Ikeda's The Rose of Versailles, about a young woman named Oscar de Jarjayes who dresses as a man and is a bodyguard for Marie Antoinette, and Osamu Tezuka's Black Jack and Phoenix. Historical stories based on Japanese and Chinese history are popular, like their rendition of the Beijing opera Farewell My Concubine detailing a romance between General Xiang Yu and his lover Madam Yu, as are biographical adaptations like Last Party: S. Fitzgerald's last day, about F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Dean, about James Dean. Finally, they occasionally create their own stories, seen in Boxman: I can crack any kind of safe by Cosmos Troupe and Silver Wolf performed by Moon and Snow Troupes.

Also, in 2006, they first worked with Frank Wildhorn, a US musical writer/composer, to create a musical Never Say Goodbye for Cosmo Troupe.

The poster of Moon Troupe's production of "Ernest in Love" in 2005, featuring Jun Sena and Kanami Ayano as their top star debut.

The current top stars of each group are:

^  The youngest member to ever serve on the board of directors
^  Former top musumeyaku for Star Troupe, and the only musumeyaku in the current generation who has served as top of two different troupes.
^  Notice of resignation has been announced on June 6, 2007

^  The current troupe leader (kumichou), former vice-troupe leader and troupe leader of Cosmos Troupe
^  The younger sister of Nao Ayaki, the former top star (otokoyaku) of Moon Troupe
^  The next top star for Flower Troupe
^  The current troupe leader (succeeding Aya Izumo)
^  The tallest actress in the entire company
^  Former otokoyaku, switched to musumeyaku in 2004

The terms upperclassmen (上級生) and lowerclassmen (下級生) (the Japanese terms are gender-neutral) are used to distinguish senior and junior members of Takarazuka. Lowerclassmen are the actresses who have been performers in Takarazuka for less than seven years. They are employees of the company, and usually work as background dancers and in shinjin kouen (performances exclusively for underclassmen). After the seventh year they become upperclassmen, and negotiate contracts with the company instead of being employed by it.

Takarazuka roster members who went on to work in stage, movies and television include:

Some ardent fans demonstrate their loyalty to one or another performer by wearing scarves of a particular color or even jackets colorfully embroidered with the star's name. Following performances at the Takarazuka Theater in Tokyo, as many as several hundred fans congregate in their various club groups, each club represented by several members or dozens, standing in orderly ranks on either side of the street in front of the theatre. Theatre officials set up barricades and oversee the assembly. Occasionally one group will sit and all the others follow suit (much like the "Audience wave" seen in athletic arenas) with subsequent intervals of standing and sitting. The fans wait patiently, with little conversation, for their favorites to exit the theatre. (Their decorum contrasts markedly to the noisy, competitive and often pushy autograph-seekers who wait outside stage doors in the west.) An almost eerie ritualistic calm prevails. As the stars emerge one by one, some alone but most accompanied, orderly quiet continues to prevail. The glamorous performers, now mostly in slacks or jeans with big beaked "newsboy" caps over their hair (and some with sunglasses even in the night), move along to their own particular fan clubs. Rather than requesting autographs, the fans proffer cards, which are gathered efficiently by each star, who then waves and move on. Once the last stars have emerged, the clubs disband.

Takarazuka has had a profound influence on the history of anime and manga especially shōjo^{[citation needed]}. Osamu Tezuka, known to some as the "God of Manga", grew up in the town of Takarazuka. His mother was close friends with many of the Takarazuka actresses, and as a child he knew them and watched many of their performances. Based on their stories of noble princes played by female actresses,^{[citation needed]} Tezuka created Princess Knight^[1] the first manga aimed at a female audience, which tells the story of Princess Sapphire, a girl born with both a male and female heart who struggles between the desire to fight as a noble prince and to be a tender, gentle princess. The great success of Princess Knight and other Tezuka stories began the tradition of manga written for a female audience, especially the very influential Rose of Versailles and Revolutionary Girl Utena series, both of which borrow directly from Princess Knight by including specific Tezuka images, character designs and names. Rose of Versailles is one of Takarazuka's most known musicals. Women in masculine roles continue to be a central theme in shoujo manga and anime as well as some shounen, and Tezuka himself explored the theme in many of his later works including Dororo, Phoenix and Black Jack.

While the influence of Osamu Tezuka and Takarazuka on anime and manga is general, there are still many series which show more specific influences. The Takarazuka Revue inspired the plot of the original Sakura Wars video game, along with additional inspiration from Takarazuka's one-time competitor the Shochiku Kagekidan (Shochiku Revue).^[2] The Zuka Club in Ouran High School Host Club is based on the Takarazuka Revue. Haruka Tenoh and Michiru Kaioh of Sailor Moon were loosely based on the actors of the Takarazuka Revue.^[3]

• Breeches role
• Cross-dressing

• Robertson, Jennifer Ellen (1998). Takarazuka: Sexual Politics and Popular Culture in Modern Japan. Berkeley and Los Angeles, Calif.: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-21150-2 (hardcover); ISBN 0-520-21151-0 (paperback). 
• The Politics of Androgyny in Japan: Sexuality and Subversion in the Theater and Beyond Jennifer Robertson American Ethnologist, Vol. 19, No. 3 (Aug., 1992), pp. 419-442

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Takarazuka Revue

• The official Takarazuka Revue website—A brief history and information on their shows
• The Takarazuka Wikipedia—An English-language resource for fans of the Revue, featuring the history of Takarazuka, and databases of Takarasiennes and performances.
• Japanese tradition meets Western musicals — Article on the Takarazuka Revue from the Travel section of The Christian Science Monitor] (April 20, 2005).
• Takarazuka - Modern Japan—A travel article on Takarazuka
• TezukaInEnglish.com Takarazuka Page — about the influence of Takarazuka on the founder of Japanese manga Osamu Tezuka
• Revue Sphere—A very nice fan site
• Welcome to Romance Theatre, by K. Avila, Jade Magazine, March 2004.
• Takarazuka Revue photos, by K. Avila, 2004, 2006. Photos of TR theaters in Takarazuka City and in Tokyo (no performance photos).