This talk series between classmates was published in the early 2000s. The talk between Oozora and Sena was published shortly before Sena’s official transfer to Moon Troupe.
The translation was sourced from Sena Jun’s memorial book, but seems basically complete.
Classmate Violets in Full Bloom – Oozora Yuuhi and Sena Jun (Jan 2004 GRAPH)
Sena: When we got into the Takarazuka Music School as Lower Students, I was the first one to catch a cold. Since I was the first person to get ill, everyone else in the class was so kind to me; do you remember how you all gave me a card you’d written saying ‘Get Well Soon’?
Oozora: Did we!? Thinking back we were overprotective, weren’t we (laughs).
Sena: Right. And then starting with the second person [to get ill] nobody did anything (laughs). The only message I still remember from that card was yours, Youko (Oozora).
Oozora: What did I write? I don’t remember at all.
Sena: “I want to eat dorm meals together soon”, you wrote (laughs).
Oozora: (laughs)
Sena: When we were Lower Students we’d always go to the cafeteria together to eat our dorm meals, right.
Oozora: We did.
Sena: ‘Here I am with a cold, doesn’t she have any words of sympathy’ I thought (laughs).
Oozora: I probably was bothered since I didn’t have anyone to eat with (laughs).
Sena: That was a sympathetic message in your own way, right? You wanted to say that you wanted to be able to spend precious time together again soon, right?
Oozora: (laughs)
Oozora: I was always together with you when we were Upper Students, Asako (Sena).
Sena: Our daily pattern was set from the start. In the morning we’d sleep in until the very last moment (laughs).
Oozora: Whoever got up first would go to the other one’s room to wake her up (laughs).
Sena: Usually Youko got up first and hit me until I got up.
Ooora: I’d wake you up by slapping your face, so you’d get upset, wouldn’t you? (laughs)
Sena: We were both really bad at waking up, so we’d have to work hard to get the other one awake. “Go away!” I’d say (laughs)
Oozora: Both the one waking up and the one doing the waking would be in a bad mood, so we were always sullen in the mornings (laughs).
Sena: But we were diligent in class, right. We worked especially hard in Japanese Dance, since we really wanted to get into the small group that would be dancing the ‘Hogiuta’ number at the very start of the Culture Festival.
Oozora: Right. And that paid off, we both made it in.
Sena: After classes ended, except on days when we had lessons with Choreographer Hayama [Kiyomi], we’d go straight back to the dorm. And as soon as we got back in the evening we’d eat the supper we bought on the way home (laughs).
Oozora: But we also tried going on a diet together. We weren’t taking any outside lessons, so we’d go back to the dorm and make diet food for ourselves. Though now I feel ‘in that case why didn’t you just dance and lose weight that way’ (laughs).
Sena: (laughs) But it didn’t have any effect at all, right? We ate too much of it (laughs).
Oozora: It’s because we wouldn’t dance after school! (laughs)
Sena: (laughs) And then, after eating we’d go back to our own rooms and doze off from around 6 until it was almost the last moment to get into the baths (laughs).
Oozora: We’d wake up around 9 and then rush to the baths.
Sena: Sometimes one of us would get angry at getting left behind (laughs).
Oozora: (laughs)
Sena: And then at night I’d get out the TV I had hidden in my dresser and we’d watch it together.
Oozora: Not doing anything, just spacing out.
Sena: But every day was really fun. After all, having Youko there made it comfortable.
Oozora: Our energies really match each other, right.
Sena: When everyone else was getting excited, we couldn’t get excited at all, we share that point (laughs). We could only get excited when it was the two of us (laughs). The girls in the class one below would say about me in the Music School ‘You were always together with Youko-san but the two of you never talked about anything’ (laughs).
Oozora: A junior actress who talked to Asako told me that she felt the same thing from you as from me. The aura we put out is similar, she said.
Sena: What kind of aura, I wonder. Maybe a kind of dark feeling (laughs). Though I’m often seen as a bright and happy-go-lucky person, with Youko I didn’t have to be careful of appearances so I might have come off a bit gloomy. And Youko, you always do things at your own pace.
Oozora: Right. You’ve always noticed what’s going on around you much more than me, Asako.
Sena: You might be right (laughs).
Oozora: I’m the type who won’t even notice if people are angry with me (laughs).
Sena: That’s right. I have that side too, though. If I was really sensitive, even really minor things about what you said and your attitude would have really gotten to me, I think (laughs).
Oozora: Since even when I have something I have to communicate clearly to whoever I’m talking to, I’ll end up stopping after just a few vague words.
Sena: You can’t put it into words, right.
Oozora: So I can seem scary on a first meeting. But Asako, you understand that about me.
Sena: Listen, it’s since I’m the same way (laughs). Since we’re alike in that way, even after entering the company, no matter how long we go without talking we’re fine with each other.
Oozora: Even if we’re meeting after a long time, we can start talking in the same tone as always.
Sena: It’s like ‘Hey, how are things~’ (laughs).
Oozora: (laughs)
Oozora: I watch each and every one of Asako’s performances. When I see one of your performances, I feel like I can see you gradually changing as a person.
Sena: Definitely (laughs).
Oozora: I’m the same here, but it makes me think about how you weren’t skilled from the very start, and how you’ve overcome so many obstacles.
Sena: Rather than ‘I have to change!’ I thought ‘I want to change’. When I was doing the rockette, I couldn’t smile on stage, and it got so bad I got yelled at, “Why can’t you smile?”
Oozora: I was the same! When I’d smile during an ordinary conversation I’d often be told “Why can’t you make that face on stage?”
Sena: Right. So then I thought ‘I can’t go on like this’, right. Even though I’m standing on the stage of my beloved Takarazuka, I can’t even smile, I must be the only Takarasienne like that, I thought.
Oozora: It’s okay. You weren’t the only one, after all.
Sena: That’s right, isn’t it. But actually, I think it might have been seeing one of Youko’s performances and thinking ‘she ought to smile more’ that motivated me to change myself.
Oozora: (laughs)
Sena: So that’s how it looks from the audience, I thought.
Oozora: Even though I really felt like I was smiling.
Sena: After that I started thinking, it doesn’t matter if it’s a fake smile at first, I just need to smile. But when I started putting in the effort to heighten my mood I started to enjoy being on stage more, and before I noticed I was able to naturally smile.
Oozora: I get it. You were able to smile from the heart, without having to force yourself to smile any more, right. I have the same personality type as Asako, it’s hard to fake a smile.
Sena: Since we can’t lie very well. Maybe that’s why watching Youko perform is like looking at myself reflected in a mirror.
Oozora: The other day, Asako, you said that you enjoy pursuing yourself, right? I really understand that feeling, so that might be why we can sympathize so much seeing each other’s performances.
Sena: Don’t you want to be a different version of yourself sometimes? I want the audience to think of me in a lot of different ways. So I thought for that to happen, I can’t be the version of myself who can’t smile. I can’t be a version of myself that doesn’t like me, right. There were times when I watched Youko in a performance and thought ‘she must be blaming herself for not being good enough’.
Oozora: There was a time when I hated myself for not doing well onstage. I could see so many barriers in front of me so I was struggling, but then one day I realized I should just focus on taking on those barriers one by one. Since if I didn’t break down the barriers in front of me nobody was going to do it for me. And then as I go at those obstacles often things will work out somehow.
Sena: In this last show you had, Senor Don Juan, your character of Steve was a really mature and generous kind of man, and it felt like a kind of character you hadn’t played before, right. I felt like you were struggling a bit with that kind of role, but even so, or actually, because of that, I felt so much charisma.
Oozora: I guess there’s some appeal in the challenge of something you’ve never performed before. I’m not really skilled, so there’s nothing I’m ever good at at the start. But I don’t like how I think about that in rehearsals, so recently I’ve started to try and think that being awkward is fine. I think that the emergence of this version of myself is a new discovery for me.
Sena: Really? I also appear skilled from appearances, but I’m super awkward, so I really get that.
Oozora: But I really think that seeing an awkward person fighting can have such appeal, so I want to keep on struggling. Asako, you’re already struggling to achieve your goals as a performer, so being able to talk together like this and see each other’s shows will help us learn a lot.
Sena: I want Youko to play a really bright and cheerful young man. A normal young man with no hidden dark side.
Oozora: That might be the hardest role in the world for me (laughs).
Sena: Though you used to not be able to smile on stage, and struggled so much, I love the smile you have now, Youko. So I really want you to play a role where you smile. I want Youko to be someone where the fans can think they want to see you do that kind of role too. This is how I answered the question asking what color I’d say Youko was, but I think your color is white.
Oozora: I said Asako was white too.
Sena: Since we’re so pure, us two (laughs).
Oozora: (laughs). I want Asako to always be someone suited to white.
Sena: That’s Takarazuka, isn’t it.
Oozora: I’m so excited for what we’ll see from Asako next. Since you’re someone who’s worked so hard to change yourself, I feel like you must still have something hidden away.
Sena: Next time I’m appearing with a Moon Troupe performance1, and since I’ve never been in the same troupe with Youko before, I’m really looking forward to watch Youko creating her character in the rehearsals from close up.
Oozora: That’s right. I’m also looking forward to being in the same performance as Asako for the first time since our debut performance.
Questions for Oozora Yuuhi:
What color would you compare Sena to?
White. Since she’s white inside (laughs).
What animal would you compare Sena to?
In the past her eyes kind of looked like a Shiba Inu’s, but now I’d say Golden Retriever. Maybe she’s become a bit more gorgeous (laughs).
What is Sena’s appeal?
It’s the way that even though she plays such solid types of men onstage, offstage she’s so warm and cozy and lets me relax.
Questions for Sena Jun:
What color would you compare Oozora to?
White. Since she holds true to her own ‘self’ and wont be manipulated by her surroundings.
What animal would you compare Oozora to?
She feels like a chipmunk. Since she’s so cute (laughs).
What is Oozora’s appeal?
The way she smiles like a just-born baby without a care in the world, and the way she’s able to examine herself.
1 – Glow of Sunset in Asuka and Takarazuka Spendor II; while Sena was performing with Moon Troupe she did not become an actual member of the troupe until slightly later.