Sparkling TIME is a long-running Kageki talk feature which includes a photoshoot (designed by the participants) and talk between performers. Tenju’s and Sumiki’s was published in the October 2017 issue.
Some outtakes from the back of the magazine are also included.
Sparkling Time: Tenju Mitsuki and Sumiki Sayato
Sumiki: When Chii-chan (Tenju) contacted me to ask ‘what should we do for the photoshoot concept?’ I was like ‘hardcore looks wouldn’t suit us at all.’
Tenju: Right, right, we started by decided not to try anything like that.
Sumiki: Then we heard that people in the public were calling us ‘Royals’…
Tenju: So, we decided we might as well go along with that nickname (laughs). This is my first time being photographed together with Akkii (Sumiki).
Sumiki: Right. I was so nervous about doing a photoshoot with such a beauty.
Tenju: Oh, cut it out, you pretty boy! You lady-killer!
Both: (burst out laughing)
Tenju: No matter when I see Akkii, you’re always so nonchalant.
Sumiki: That’s right, I guess. I’ve never been one to be irritable…
Tenju: You don’t! Even when we were performing together in the Takarazuka Special, I was so agitated, but…
Sumiki: You didn’t look like you were agitated at all, Chii-chan. I really was, though! Since there were people from different troupes there too, I was really nervous.
Tenju: Huh~, I couldn’t tell at all.
Sumiki: (laughs). When we were in the Takarazuka Special the year before last, we did a classmate trio together with Yuri-chan (Shimon), right.
Tenju: Yeah, yeah.
Sumiki: I hadn’t ever sung with my classmates like that, so when we were starting to learn the songs, I was really nervous and stressed. Yuri-chan is prone to worrying too, so…
Tenju: When I got to the rehearsal room I was like, ‘Who should start?’ We weren’t really sure what we should be doing so we got really shy and fidgety. But, compared to doing that with people from other classes, the atmosphere was more…
Sumiki: It was calmer.
Tenju: Definitely. I think classmates get to resemble each other somehow… say! Let’s use this talk to make sure people think of us as (using English pronunciation) ELEGANT and ROYAL.
Both: (laugh)
Sumiki: In the Takarazuka Music School, you entered with the highest exam scores so you were first class representative, and I was fourth class representative.
Tenju: That’s right.
Sumiki: You’re actually a very quiet person, Chii-chan, but since you were working to keep us all in line, you had to be the leader, even though it must have been very stressful.
Tenju: I was so desperate; I wonder if it helped me mature some (laughs).
Sumiki: But even though you’re such a beautiful person, when you got into a panic the Akita dialect would start coming out, which was really cute (laughs). Now that we’ve been working here longer and I can see the ditzy side of Chii-chan, it makes me feel better somehow. It’s like, ‘I thought she was ridiculously perfect and able to do anything, but she’s really just a person’.
Tenju: Sorry, this is the real me (laughs).
Sumiki: You were really tough in the Takarazuka Music School, weren’t you!
Tenju: I don’t really remember it, but when I’m talking to my classmates the word ‘scary’ always comes up.
Sumiki: I was pretty stressed, but I didn’t think you were really scary. I thought that it’s because there was someone like that there for us, that we were able to make the progress we did.
Tenju: It’s so nice to hear you say that kind of thing. Actually, maybe it’s because you were a commuting student.
Sumiki: Ah~
Tenju: The dorm students were all together all the time, and we had to live together with the seniors, so I had to be really firm. It wasn’t that I was an angry person, but to put it in a good way, I had the feeling of needing to be strict in order to protect my classmates… Well, I was a bit scary, I guess. But of course I loved my classmates.
Sumiki: I wasn’t any help at all, so I feel like I ought to apologize.
Tenju: Oh, no! No way! I got a lot of help from Akkii. In the Takarazuka Music School, Akkii was…
Sumiki: I was really all over the place.
Tenju: (laughs). It seemed to me that you were really refined, and inside you were even cooler than you were now; I had the impression that you were like a handsome young politician.
Sumiki: I put on a lot of different aspects (laughs).
Tenju: Really? But I’ve always thought of you as having a very strong core. Although you don’t always present your own views, in the occasional situations when you do, you would do it in a way that made everyone agree with you. So at times when I would lose sight of what was going on around me and want to blow up, you would calmly present your opinion that you had come to after considering both sides of the issue. That would really save me.
Sumiki: Gosh, this is a bit embarrassing.
Both: (laughs)
Tenju: Classmates are really special people, somehow. It’s really fun to go and see my classmates perform, and after the show ends I’ll feel “I’m glad I saw that…I should work hard tomorrow too…”, and that makes me happy too.
Sumiki: It’s really nice to have people to have that impact on you, where you think “I don’t want to lose to them, I need to work hard too”.
Tenju: Yeah.
Sumiki: Every time I see Chii-chan, I can really feel that you’re a Star Troupe otokoyaku. You’re so cool and sexy. But not just that: when I recently saw Blazing Wind, the scene where General Kuroda Kanbei was bedridden got me right in the heart… You conveyed his emotional state so well, and it really made me realize once again how good you are.
Tenju: You say such nice things!
Sumiki: I’ve always thought you were really cool, but recently you’ve seemed, I don’t know, more relaxed, with a grown-up kind of languid sexiness leaking out.
Tenju: I can’t rest on my laurels if my classmate’s the one praising me (laughs). I think it was about 2 years after we graduated from junior performances, but there was one performance where it seemed like Akkii really ran up against your barriers to break them down and change yourself, and it had a big impact on me. I thought “I wonder what really changed inside Akkii…” This is the first time I’m mentioning it, though…
Sumiki: Stop, that’s so sappy!
Tenju: That time, seeing Akkii being so manly and sparkling so vividly was really impactful and moving to me. Also, when I saw Chateau de la Reine, it felt that you weren’t just relying on your beauty as an otokoyaku, but using all your experience to portray manliness and passion at a very deep level.
Sumiki: Wah~
Tenju: Akkii, you tend to get cast as pretty nice people, right? Therefore, I’d love to see you play a really terrible bad guy. Something like a really wicked but elegant older man, with whiskers and a pompadour hairstyle.
Sumiki: Really. I’ve been saying from time to time that I’d like to play a villain, but it seems I just don’t have the image for it (laughs).
Tenju: If you’re not talking you look pretty intimidating. Just keep your mouth shut from now on (laughs).
Sumiki: (laughs) I don’t remember Chii-chan playing many villainous roles either, so I’d like to see that. Also, I think a listless gigolo character would suit you. Someone like Louis from Drenched in the Amber Hued Rain.
Tenju: I see… A while back, I played a gigolo in Amber, and that was really fun. Sort of stirring, somehow…
Sumiki: (laughs) Another good thing would be comedy. Although I have the impression of Chii-chan being really happy-go-lucky, onstage you often play more softspoken characters, so I think if you were in a light comedy it would really show off new aspects of Chii-chan.
Outtakes:
Akkii wants to play a villain…
Sumiki: Oh! So I should just be cool all the time.
Tenju: Yeah. Walk around the halls like that.
Sumiki: Ah…I’m always really relaxed when I’m walking around, that’s probably the problem (laughs)
Tenju: I’m one to talk, since I do the exact same thing (laughs)
Both: (burst out laughing)