Voyage With You was a Kageki photoshoot and interview feature where the Top Combi picks a destination and does a photoshoot inspired by their choice and a famous film set there, as well as having a talk about the location and related Takarazuka shows. Yuzuka and Hoshikaze picked France and did a Beauty and the Beast-themed photoshoot.

Voyage With You
What if we could travel to any time, anywhere…?

Yuzuka Rei and Hoshikaze Madoka – 18th Century France

After the photoshoot…

Yuzuka: I thought that a shoot inspired by the world of Beauty and the Beast would look great, so I selected France in the 1700s. The photoshoot was so fun, right?

Hoshikaze: It was such a wonderful concept…I had so much fun.

Yuzuka: Madoka-chan (Hoshikaze), you looked amazing in your yellow dress, too. It looks great in low light, or in lighting like sun coming through trees, it’s so mysterious.

Hoshikaze: (laughs) Normally I don’t get the chance to wear things in primary colors like this, so it mde me feel great, too. Yuzuka-san, you looked so natural and handsome with the rose in your jacket, it was amazing!

Yuzuka: (laughs)

Hoshikaze: Even though you weren’t in stage makeup, it seemed so natural for you…

Both: (laugh)

Hoshikaze: Even when we were just standing there talking like this, it was like you’d hopped out of a painting. My eyes have been blessed.

If you could actually go…?

Yuzuka: It would be fun to go to France in the 1700s, but…

Hoshikaze: (nods)

Yuzuka: But it’d be so inconvenient, right. You couldn’t use a smartphone there at all. If somebody could go with us who knew a lot about the era and spoke French, that would be one thing, but otherwise…

Hoshikaze: Terrifying (laughs).

Yuzuka: Yeah, we’d better not go just the two of us.

Both: (laugh)

Yuzuka: So in that case, modern France would be great.

Hoshikaze: Right.

Yuzuka: I went once, but I’d like to go again and see Moulin Rouge. And tour all the art museums, too… And I’d also like to spend a day doing absolutely nothing, just wandering along the bank of the Seine or spacing out at cafes.

Hoshikaze: I’d like to go places that appear in shows or are connected to the stories. Like the palace of Versailles…

Yuzuka: Yeah!

Hoshikaze: I’d like to goas a tourist and having a relaxing experience.

Yuzuka: That’s so cute, like a pilgrimage. Also I’d like to go to some villages in the French countryside. They seem so pretty. I’m so interested in things like that, seeing the way people really live, not just the tourist hotspots.

Associated shows

Yuzuka: There are tons of shows connected to 18th century France, but I think I have to say the Takarazuka masterpiece Rose of Versailles.

Hoshikaze: You were in it, Yuzuka-san.

Yuzuka: But the performance I had a chance to be in, the Taiwan tour production, had such a short rehearsal time… I’d like to do Oscar in Berubara one more time, properly…Oscar is just so cool, right. She’s a fictional character, but I respect her so much as a person, and her thoughts and lifestyle are so wonderful. What about you, Madoka-chan?

Hoshikaze: It’s the same for me. I’ve always loved Berubara. Especially in the ‘Side Stories’, of course there are all the different protagonists, and it portrays everything from the romances and human connections to the French revolution itself from so many different points of view. I remember seeing the national tours and things and thinking every time that even though it’s the same story you can see it from so many different angles.

Yuzuka: You can really tell how much care went into writing it.