Ai to Seishun no Takarazuka (2011)

[ekusudei]

Takarazuka of Love and Youth
Aoyama Theater -- Feb. 19th, 17:00

Leads:
Mineno Shirayuki (Ryuutan) - Ryuuzaki Kaoru: Makoto Tsubasa
Hoshikaze Suzuko (Tomo) - Yamada Tomoko: Hoshina Yuri
Tachibana Ibuki (Tacchi) - Sawara Ibuki: Ayaki Nao
Benihana Honoka (Beni) - Kawamura Matsu: Ayano Kanami
(Yes, I picked the Tsukigumi OG performance. Ahah.)
Kageyama Kou: Okada Kouki
Hayami Yuusuke: Sakamoto Kenji
Osamu: Matsushita Kouhei

Ensemble:
Ueno Hako (Senda Mayumi '82), Misato Maya ('88), Mitsumi Akiho ('95), Kawazu Megumi (Sono Mikage '95), Kanou Chika ('96), Mizuki Mai ('97), Makise Kai ('97), Ryouma Tomo ('98), Natsuzora Momomi ('00), Mine Makoto (Shimizu Kyouka '01), Hinata San ('01), Ayahashi Miyuu ('01), Sen Hafuri ('02), Yamada Yumiko (Yumeka Ayari '02), Shiotsuki Ayaka (Harusaki Koron '05), Sahane Yuna ('06), Takahashi Hiroshi, Tanimoto Mitsuhiro, Abe Yasunori

First of all: How did I not notice Sakamoto Kenji was in the (tiny) male cast list? I nearly had a happy heart-attack when I saw him come out on stage♥

I'm very, very glad I saw this first live on stage. As many times as I had hoped and started to save up for the '08 DVD, somehow it just never happened. That's good. Although I had a vague idea of the premise and I'd seen enough photos to know that someone dies, the rest was all new and could unfold without me having any expectations. I won't say that it's the cleverest or best thing that I've seen on stage (it wasn't), or that it was the most original (also not), but it was highly entertaining and it did play with your heartstrings like a good musical should. I had big tears rolling down my face at one point, and I could hear most of the audience sniffling.

I'll hit the problem first, which mainly was the fact that because they had four main characters' love stories going on it meant that some weren't really alloted enough time to get you attached to the characters. A couple of the songs seemed a bit out of place too. There was one solo that was really discordant (for obvious reasons), but just didn't seem to fit with the other music at all. And, lastly, I'm a stickler for historical accuracy in the weirdest ways, and the Takarazuka stage costumes were really anachronistic. :/


Plot:

Act I

The setting is Japan, 1939. There are five main story-lines focusing on the four female leads and Kageyama-sensei, but everyone is entwined with everyone else.

The show opens with a performance by Snow Troupe, where the finale parade is interrupted when a ragged urchin of a teenager runs through the theater (being chased by a policeman) and pauses only long enough to throw her shoe at the top star Ryuutan (Makoto Tsubasa). After a moment to get over the shock, the troupe pulls together to finish the parade number.

Next we observe a pack of girls getting ready to take the entrance exam. There are some truly clumsy girls in the pack, and also a spacey one (Beni - Ayano Kanami) and a terrifyingly competent one (Tomo - Hoshina Yuri). Half-way through the dance section of the exam the urchin (Tacchi - Ayaki Nao) appears again, quickly falling into formation to avoid the policeman looking for her. She then runs out again, with Kageyama-sensei (Okada Kouki) in hot pursuit this time. He catches up to her along the banks of the Mukogawa River, where a schoolboy with a sketchpad (Osamu - Matsushita Kouhei) sees them coming and ducks for cover among the reeds. Kageyama returns the girl's shoe and tells her she has talent. He tries to talk her into taking the singing test the next morning, but she's sullen and merely tries to whack him with her shoe. After Kageyama has left, the boy pops out of the reeds and tells her she'd do well to enter, and she's tall enough to be an otokoyaku. She protests that she hates Takarazuka and finds otokoyaku disgusting. But she has nowhere left to go, and when Osamu mentions that the members of the Revue get a stipend she seems to change her mind....

Indeed, the next musical number is a pretty hilarious rehash of classic Takarazuka tunes with new lyrics about how hard music school life is, as the three girls learn the ropes. Tomo is perfect and driven (as always), Tacchi is border-line insolent, and Beni is bubbly and oblivious. Their friendship culminates in a huge cat-fight over a clash of personalities and stolen food in the middle of their hatsubutai line dance.

Snow Troupe Top Star Ryuutan reams them out, but is softened by Kageyama and ends up treating them to more sukiyaki than they can take...

Ryuutan is a local woman through-and-through, thick Kansai accent, out-going personality, buckets of self-confidence and all. She loves Takarazuka and loves being top star. Her great love is sukiyaki: After all, no man is as good-looking as she is. Her troupe is her family, and the audience is everything. Her best friend is Kageyama-sensei, who is a kindred spirit. Takarazuka is also everything to him. It's his haven, and he became a director there against his father's wishes. He has nowhere else to go. His easy-going personality and equally thick Kansai accent seem to be everywhere, cooling arguments, smoothing problems, teaching and training.

Shortly thereafter, Ryuutan is looking for a new partner. Kageyama encourages Beni to try out, but she is nervous and stiff, and Ryuutan becomes frustrated. Kageyama tells Ryuutan that choices are limited and time is running out -- this is no time to be picky. Ryuutan snaps back that it's the audience that she is thinking of. Kageyama then asks if anyone else will try-out, but the members are quiet. All save Tomo. Although an otokoyaku, she volunteers without hesitation, and as with everything she does, she does it flawlessly. Ryuutan picks her. Afterward, Kageyama tells Tomo that if she would only wait a few more years she would no doubt have been an otokoyaku top star, but Tomo snaps back that there's no time, and runs off without explaining.

Kageyama then confronts Tacchi, asking why she wouldn't try. Tacchi replies that Takarazuka is simply someplace for her to be, not something she loves. When Kageyama tries to engage her sympathy by telling her his history and explaining that because it's his only place as well and he has decided to love it for that, she snaps at him that she's different and runs off.

Beni and Tacchi end up along the Mukogawa with Osamu. Beni is pretty heartbroken, sure that she's blown her only chance. Osamu and Tacchi try to cheer her up, and soon she has bounced back.

Rehearsals. The show is about soldiers, as most shows that want to pass the censors during the war must be. Ryuutan's character is going off to war, leaving behind the girl he's in love with. Rehearsals go all right, but something seems off. Ryuutan tracks Kageyama down backstage, complaining about the show and that she's not a soldier type. Kageyama at last blows up at her, frustrated by the censorship and all the rewrites he must do to get a complete show. When he calms down, he reassures her that she's great as a soldier, which wasn't exactly what she wanted to hear. Then he suggests they run through the scene together, with him as the soldier and Ryuutan in Tomo's role. And it turns out that Kageyama-sensei is pretty amazing. By the time they finish Ryuutan is confused and in a whirl and runs off.

The performance is a success, but during the scene in question a gentleman stands up to protest the unseemliness of a soldier holding hands with a girl. A soldier (Hayami Yuusuke - Sakamoto Kenji) then stands up to defend the show. After the show, he is taken backstage and thanked. He replies, formally, that he only did it so that they could finish the show, since he heard that the theaters are being closed the next day, both the Grand Theater and the Tokyo Theater. Snow Troupe is stunned, as no one had told them. Then, shockingly, it is Tacchi who comes forward and passionately begs the man to help them keep the theaters open. He regretfully tells her there is nothing to be done, although he adds that in any other age he thinks they would have been friends.... The girls rally together, determined to keep the spirit of Takarazuka alive, and they perform bravely the next day up until the government officials enter and declare the theater closed.

Act II

Determined to keep the company going, Takarazuka begins makeshift performances, traveling about Japan to entertain the troupes with nothing more than the packs on their backs. Act II opens with them performing by candlelight, slowly winning over the men watching them, then driven to tears themselves when the men join in singing comforting songs.

Shortly thereafter, Snow Troupe goes to Manchuria to perform for the army there. Conditions are harsh and primitive, and cold. But their spirits are raised by an enthusiastic young officer who brings them sweets and is in awe of meeting Ryuutan, Tomo, and the others face-to-face. Still, after he leaves, tensions are strained by Tomo's strange nihilistic attitude. Kageyama-sensei seems as quiet and grim as the rest, as he fights his own battle within himself over his worth to his country.

Late that night, Tomo is still awake. She goes outside to see the wolves she hears howling, and meets again the young soldier from before. He is crying, out in the snow. Tomorrow, he will die. Tomo's fey mood matches the young man's, and they cling to each other, her fiercely comforting him. They are spotted by someone looking out of the cabin, and a hubub occurs. Tomo is fiercely reamed out by the female teacher for her behavior. Kageyama finally steps in, asking for her reasons. Tomo replies that it was nothing more than what it looked like, two people on the edge of death comforting each other. Although she hadn't meant to tell anyone, she admits now that she had a brain tumor -- one she knew about even before she took the exam. But for her, the applause she receives on stage is everything. She doesn't want to give it up, she wants to die on stage. Or, at least work until she becomes too much of a burden. She begs to keep her job. Ryuutan is furious. "You're my PARTNER! It's my job to take care of you." The troupe rallies around their top stars.

They return to Japan by boat once more, and once more Tacchi is pretty violently seasick. On deck she meets Hayami once more. The two talk, and she learns that he was actually raised in New York, around Broadway, and even took dance lessons. He is torn by the war and wants peace to return. Somehow, his brash enthusiasm breaks through Tacchi's shell, and she admits her own sad history of her mother's death and father's disappearance (maybe it was the other way around?), which had been pretty infamous at the time it occurred. They are certainly kindred spirits, and Tacchi falls in love with the young man and leaves giggling. Kageyama-sensei had been listening from the shadows and comes out to taunt the young soldier, though he gets as good as he gives.

Beni has been deeply affected by her experience in Manchuria and by seeing all of the young soldiers who will probably die. Her cheerfulness is subdued, and when Osamu tries to cheer her up, she snaps at him for talking about things he hasn't seen and couldn't possibly understand. She can't imagine a happy future, and wants to be with her family once more. She wants to leave Takarazuka.

Ryuutan is still rather giddy over her secret love for Kageyama-sensei, but appears to have come to terms with it. She visits his house with an offering of udon (hard to get in those days of rationing), but finds him morose and drinking heavily although it's early in the day. In her own way, she shouts at him to cheer him up. When he leaves to get some tea for the udon, she cheerfully begins straightening the room and discovers his diary. Without much compunction, she starts reading it and discovers that Kageyama-sensei has written a lot about Tacchi and his inexplicable feeling of kinship to her. Ryuutan is shocked, and when Kageyama returns she snaps at him, once more behind her prickly otokoyaku mask. Just then word comes that Tomo is failing fast.

Ryuutan races over, to find that Tomo had been doing fine, but suddenly collapsed and seems to be unable to tell reality from phantoms in her brain. Though prostrate, Tomo is frantically searching for her gloves, certain she's going to be late for her stage entrance. Ryuutan gathers her up and reassures her that she has her gloves. She begins to narrate the two of them standing together on the stage elevator, waiting for it to raise them up to the waiting applause. After some time, with a smile on her face, Tomo passes away.

Things take a turn for the worse. The Takarasienne who remain in Takarazuka are working in the factories making uniforms for the soldiers and other war equipment. Hayami comes to visit Tacchi, to say farewell. He is leaving on a mission which he doesn't expect to return from. Despite Tacchi's protests that he doesn't even believe in this war, why should he die for it? He replies grimly that he is Japanese, and a soldier for his country. He then tells her that he is fighting for her, and for her future. So long as she goes on living, the peace will come.

On the banks of the river, Osamu is pelted with propaganda dropped by the allies. He shouts up against them and everything that the war has destroyed.

Later, the workers in the factory pause to hear the official announcements on the radio. Here they learn that everyone in Hayami's company has been killed. In a daze, Tacchi leaves the factory. Air raid sirens begin to go off, and everyone runs for shelter. Someone shouts that Tacchi is outside, but Ryuutan hurries them along. Ryuutan pauses, torn. No Tacchi means no rival for Kageyama-sensei. But she only argues with herself for a moment before running outside. She finds Tacchi kneeling in the dirt, waiting for the attack, and throws herself over her just before the bomb hits.

Some time later, Ryuutan is preparing to leave. Her face is bandaged where she was terribly wounded in the explosion, but Tacchi is fine. With a brave face, she reminds Tacchi of her obligations as top star and tells everyone to keep their hopes up. The troupe is stunned and silent. Suddenly, Beni arrives, returned from her hometown. "Oh, Ryuutan-san! They told me you were horribly wounded, but you're fine! Thank goodness!" In her own special way, Beni manages to cheer Ryuutan up.

After Ryuutan is out of sight of everyone, however, she collapses, sobbing. A few moments later, Kageyama-sensei comes rushing up and gathers her into a fierce hug. He asks her to marry him, and after a loud and furious argument, she agrees.

Another bombing.

Snow Troupe begins combing through the rubble, looking for Ryuutan, convinced she has been killed. When they discover that she's alive (and married to Kageyama!) everyone rejoices. They do an impromptu dance, with Tacchi and Beni at their heart, while Ryuutan and Kageyama watch over them. Takarazuka forever.

What I Thought:

The T4 concert bits from Ai to Seishun make a lot more sense now.... *grin*

As I said before, it has some weaknesses. I think, for me, this was especially apparent in the Tacchi/Hayami story-line, because although their scene on the boat was amazing and infectiously wonderful, it wasn't enough to really make you devastated when you hear he has died. On the other hand, the scene where Tomo dies is amazing. I cried and cried and cried.

I've said this before, but I really love Makoto Tsubasa the actress. She blew me away in Wa ga Uta Boogie Woogie, and this was a similar kind of time-period and role. Ryuutan seemed to have been written just for her, and I can't imagine how she wasn't in the 2008 version. This tough feminine mix is appealing, and when her vulnerabilities shine through they break your heart. Her scenes with Okada were perfect, and so were her scenes with Hoshina. The perfect top star, forever♥

Hoshina Yuri pretty much blew me away as well. So fierce and so driven and so desperate. This was fabulous acting.

Ayaki Nao really is an eternal urchin, isn't she? Her stubborn Tacchi and Ayano Kanami's bubbly Beni were great as well. In fact, all of the acting really impressed me. Okada's Kageyama said so much with his actions and expressions. I loved him. The boy playing Osamu was really sweet and dorky (and I found the whole "My name is Osamu and I want to be a mangaka" really crazy. I don't imagine they think they're fooling anyone....) The male cast were all great singers too♥

And having the female ensemble all-OG is really a fabulous idea. I found the music school number doubly-hilarious wondering what they thought of it themselves. (And also, Misato Maya the intimidating sempai was hilarious.)

Hinata San's expressions during the shoe-throwing, the try-outs, the music school number, the sukiyaki number.... :D ~♥ Here was Mame having a very good time. *grin*

And, there was a finale with a sexy dance! Yay sexy OG dance!

In conclusion, buy the DVD! See the show! It's so worth it. :)

Comments

[konata-01.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the plot summary! ^_^ All those clips I've seen finally make sense now, LOL. Especially the tap dancing scene with Wataru and...gosh, I can't remember the OG that played Tomo's name...-__-;;

But thanks again ^_^

[caithion.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure. If it was the '08 show you could have been watching Hoshina Yuri or Otori Rei playing Tomo. :)

[rouen81.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the summary and no they weren't fooling anyone with the Osamu character :)

Poor Tomo if I watch this dvd I bet I'm going to cry

[charis]

... I think you had me at Hoshina Yuri. ♥ This sounds like a fabulous show that plays wonderfully to the actresses' strengths -- thanks so much for sharing the summary!

[ryuutaro-kaoru.livejournal.com]

Thanks so much for the summary!!
I have the 2008 DVD and love it! Rika is no less wonderful Ryuutan, in fact she is drop dead gorgeous in that role.
Since my Japanese is not that good yet, many thing became clearer after your revue. Thank you for that!

I really hope they will release the DVD with Mami version as well. I want to see her Ryuutan so much.