



You may do whatever you want with these files.
None of the videos have English subtitles.
The collection may be updated with additional files in the future, no promises.
Below I have written up various sections introducing the selection, giving recommendations, and also talk about how awful Takarazuka is as a company because historically it is something that is actively shut down in Takarazuka fan spaces and I think people should be aware and mindful of how awful Takarazuka is as a company.
Explanation of Selection
Even that aside, Takarazuka's history of filming performances goes back almost half a century, even including files I have chosen not to upload I by no means have a complete collection.
Besides performances that I simply don't have recordings of on hand, here are various criteria for inclusion or exclusion of recordings in the collection:
- No shows containing blackface or brownface are included. Unfortunately, mild skin-darkening makeup in general is almost unavoidable, actresses playing for example "dangerous" or "lower class" characters will throw some color on their face willy nilly even if they're playing a Japanese character. So please be mindful that suspect and potentially uncomfortable makeup may still occur. I haven't watched every single performance proper, and I've had to manually skim a lot of recordings to filter for this, so please let me know if I have missed any cases and accidentally included a blackface show in the collection. But obvious things such as:
- Grand Hotel,
- Ocean's 11,
- Om Shanti Om,
- Gone with the Wind,
- Miscellaneous cringe American history shows like For the People,
- 2000s stagings of "classic" Takarazuka shows like Sorrowful Cordoba that take place in Spain and in older stagings did not feature bad makeup but modern Takarazuka has decided that Spanish people are brown,
- And Don Juan and "Latin revues" for that same reason,
are of course excluded entirely. - Shows that heavily feature offensive imagery or objectionable subjects framed in a romantic lens. Just a blanket disclaimer that I have removed some egregiously gross things I'm aware of that nobody would be interested in watching anyway, like that one Ishida Masaya directed play about a doctor falling in love with his child patient and how beautiful and romantic it is.
- I have limited storage space, so some arbitrary cuts are made:
- Generally, only one recording per performance is included. Disc recordings are prioritized for plays and musical, last day recordings are prioritized for revues, NHK recordings are prioritized for older shows.
- I exclude a lot of "small theater" performances. Just because casual fans are probably most interested in grand theater, full troupe top star performances. Things like Bow Hall junior actress dance recitals are fun but maybe not the most interesting for people who aren't that invested in the theater or actresses. Of course, once you go back to years where small theater performances were more common overall, more will be included.
- Concerts and Dinner Shows are not included. This collection is mainly interested in sharing theater.
- Cosmos shows are excluded unless particularly notable or potentially interesting for a casual viewer. Cosmos troupe has very recently been involved in an extremely awful event which may lead many people to not want to watch their shows anyway, see more under the abuse section if you want to know. If any performance is still included in the selection that heavily features Cosmos stars from the 2020s I've noted them with additional CWs.
Recommendations of Things to Watch
If you have absolutely 0 knowledge of Takarazuka and the performances they've put on, I've compiled various suggestions and recommendations of things to watch, some personal favorites, some simply "this is based on a property a western viewer might be familiar with."
Rose of Versailles
There have been far fewer productions of any of these scripts in the last 10-20 years. The few productions that have been made were not nearly as popular as before. During the course of lockdown due to the pandemic there were a number of blog posts made by the mangaka Riyoko Ikeda criticizing all aspects of conservatism. While these posts did not directly reference the Takarazuka company it is plausible to assume Ikeda may have waned interest in working with the company.
Some of the more well known scripts of The Rose of Versailles include:
- The Rose of Versailles: Oscar and Andre – This is the most “canonical” version of the show. It follows most of the story of the manga however very condensed, reading the manga prior to viewing is recommended. 1974 Moon, 1975 Flower, and 2001 Star are the most popularly discussed and well-regarded productions.
- The Rose of Versailles: Fersen and Marie Antoinette – This is the second most popularly produced version of the show and focuses on the love story between Fersen and Marie. Oscar and Andre are still featured however their story is much less present in the show. The most popular Fersen and Marie productions are 1989 Star and 1990 Flower.
- The Rose of Versailles: Oscar – This is a popular show among fans of the manga as it has arguably the better adaptation of Oscar as a character. It is more similar to Oscar and Andre however it is mostly focused on Oscar as a character and explores her other relationship dynamics. The most well-regarded versions of this show are 1991 Moon and 2006 Snow.
- Side Stories – These are a number of side story productions focused on characters like Andre and Giroudelle. They exist and can be fun to watch, that’s the summary you get.
Elisabeth
Phantom
Cast-wise, all Takarazuka adaptions have their pros and cons. 2018 Snow has the best Phantom and Christine as singers, 2011 Flower has the worst Phantom and Christine as singers. Everything else is a mix and match in every version, every single actress who's played Carlotta is a treat, 2004 Cosmos lets Phantom have a knife, 2011 and 2018 are irresponsibly big-budget and fun to look at with your eyes. Choose whichever one you feel like watching.
Adaptions a casual viewer might be familiar with
- 1789, Dovie Attia french revolution musical
- 1999's Bow Shakespeare shows, they put on a variety of Shakespeare productions in 1999 as a project, you can search up 1999 or Bow Shakespeare in the Mega to find em.
- Anastasia, the Broadway musical, hilariously edited to focus even more on Dimitri than the Broadway version already does.
- Black Jack, not very Black Jack-y honestly, any version, just the director going off and writing mostly original thrillers that Black Jack happens to be involved in, not much medicine done.
- Boys Over Flowers, a shoujo manga adaption
- Here Comes Miss Modern / Haikara-san, shoujo manga adaption, I haven't watched 2020 but I enjoyed 2017 a lot, recommend it.
- Legend of the Galactic Heroes, adaption covering the first season of the original anime.
- Lupin III, fun original self-referential story featuring the Lupin III cast
- ME AND MY GIRL, always a classic. I don't have a lot of versions of it on hand because copyright makes it air rarely but I'm partial to 2016 with Asumi Rio Bill and Kano Maria Sally.
- Mozart, l'opéra rock, Dove Attia Mozart musical
- Oedipus Rex
- Phoenix Wright
- Romeo & Juliette, the 1999 version is an independent adaption while every other version is the french Gérard Presgurvic Romeo et Juliette.
- Sherlock Holmes
- Singin in the Rain
- Poe no Ichizoku, shoujo manga adaption
- The Scarlet Pimpernel
- Thunderbolt Fantasy, I haven't watched the original or this adaption so I don't know if it's a straight adaption or an original side story
Other Plays and Musicals
- Akechi Kogorou's Incident Report -The Black Lizard-, adaption of a Japanese detective novel. Super fun cat and mouse story with a great female villain, tosses in an adaption change RIGHT at the end that ruins the whole thing but just ignore that and it's great.
- Bakumatsu Taiyouden / Sun in the Last Days of the Shogunate, based on the 1957 Kawashima movie of the same name, an amazing Bakumatsu comedy drama.
- CASANOVA (2019 Flower), super kitschy and fun Casanova story with great aesthetics.
- die Fledermaus, based on a German opera. Comedy with a great cast and fun aesthetics.
- Gu Bijin / Yu the Beautiful, gorgeous historical Chinese drama about Xiang Ji and his consort Yu, amazing staging.
- Hoshiai Hitoyo, a great Edo-period Japanese drama tragedy.
- Hoshikage no Hito, classic Okita Souji Shinsengumi drama.
Revues
If you want some specific recommendations. Here are some random picks:
- BADDY, kind of an obligatory recommendation by virtue of being the first revue directed by a woman, in 2018, and it took another 5 years for the second revue directed by a woman ever. Has a light story about how traditions should be shaken up.
- Killer Rouge
- Greatest Hits!
- Hana Mugen
- Jubilation!
- Miroirs
- Mr. Swing!
- Shirasagi no Shiro, problematic modern Cosmos personal fave but just a gorgeous pop-y Japanese revue
- Tuxedo Jazz
Racism and Bigotry in Takarazuka
In general, the theater is also extremely regressive and conservative. It's a common reflex to describe Takarazuka as "lesbian" theater due to all actors on stage being afab, but the company, directors, staff and actresses themselves are largely heavily conservative. On stage, it's not unusual at all to see homophobic and transphobic writing and gags coming from the the majority old, male directing staff. Misogyny also permeates through the theater's whole history, starting with its roots as a school intended to train women in "modesty, fairness and grace" so that they can become good wives, all the way into the present where the theater's entire selling point is the male-designated otokoyaku. Musumeyaku are shoved into the background, given far less promotion and opportunities for career advancement than otokoyaku, if a female character is "too important" an otokoyaku will be cast in the role, and textually, entire scripts are heavily rewritten to center male characters more than female characters.
There are of course non-het and non-cis actresses who have worked within the company, and incorporated aspects of their identity into their performances, Todoroki Yu being a well-known example, but please don't mistake the theater as a progressive space due to the lack of visible cis men on stage.
Abuse and Death in Takarazuka
I will not go into this specific incident more than that, you can easily find news articles in English on this subject, as it's the most high profile case of this nature in the company's history and is seeing decent coverage as it should.
The troupe in question was the Cosmos Troupe. Long known within gossip circles to be the most egregious environment for this bullying and overwork culture within the theater, however this culture permeates every troupe and the whole company and has done so for the entire history of the theater. It is well known that once accepted into the theater's training school, actresses spend every waking hour serving the theater and are paid pennies for their time. Working actresses rarely get even a day's vacation between show runs, and abuse and infighting between actresses to assert superiority and to get ahead in the mainly money and sales-driven internal hierarchy is commonplace.
Additional reading (Even in Japanese, you'll have to turn to gossip sites for the majority of sources on these subjects, but in English the amount of sources existing at all is pitiful, apologies for the poor quality of the links)
96th Class Lawsuit incident [1] [2]
Higashi Koyuki's experiences with abuse within the company [1]
