Ashizawa Jin is an illustrator/columnist who seems to have worked for GRAPH since the 1960s (yes, you read that right). His interview column gets a new title every year but usually the format is fairly similar. The 2019 column, which featured musumeyaku only, was called The Lovely Flowers Bloom. This interview with Ousaki Ayaka was published in the March issue.
The Lovely Flowers Bloom #2 – Ousaki Ayaka
Ashizawa: CASANOVA will be your retirement performance, so do you feel any particular motivation since it’s your last?
Ousaki: The theme of the show Director Ikuta created is ‘freedom’, and I also feel strongly that I want to perform with freedom. Could I do this, could I do that too; I’m thinking about a lot of things. Up until now, I feel like I was too walled in by feeling ‘I have to be like this’, but now my emotions are really positive. Rather than feeling that this is the end, I want to keep advancing and progressing until the end.
Ashizawa: Everyone retiring, no matter who, always shines so much more during their final performance, right.
Ousaki: I’ve always thought that too, and seen it in so many people! I think there must be a shine from that “new path” that only people who have decided to retire can see.
Ashizawa: Ousaki-san, did you have a connection with Takarazuka since you were little?
Ousaki: We kept moving here and there for my father’s work, but when I was in high school, I took a Hankyuu train on my commute to and from school, so I was surrounded by Takarazuka advertisements from the station posters and hanging fliers in the train cars. The first Takarazuka show I saw was in my last year of elementary school. It was Star Troupe’s West Side Story, starring Minoru Kou, and it was a huge shock to me. I couldn’t even see the otokoyaku as anything but real men (laughs), they were that ridiculously cool! That night I went to sleep clutching the program (laughs). After that I started borrowing Takarazuka videotapes to watch, and as my seniors at my ballet studio told me all kinds of Takarazuka info, I came to like it more and more.
Ashizawa: So it seems that only when you officially joined the Takarazuka Music School were you first challenged with acting and singing. That must have been very tough.
Ousaku: At first I couldn’t do a thing, but in Shion Yuu’s1 acting class, we performed selections from the Takarazuka repertoire, so that was a lot of fun. Since I had seen so many productions over and over on video, there were some shows I’d absorbed into my head from the offstage choruses to the heroine’s facial expressions and movements, so getting to enter into those worlds made me really happy.
Ashizawa: It seems like you were able to really bask in your dreams of Takarazuka (laughs).
Ousaki: That’s right. But when I first entered the company, I didn’t have any opportunities to play actual roles for a while, and I really wanted to be able to make an impression on lots of people, any way I could. I’ve always been the type who loves attention, so even if I was just acting as someone in a crowd, I’d want to do something the people around me weren’t doing. So I think I was a bit too self-absorbed.
Ashizawa: At the end of your ken-4 year you played the junior heroine in Prelude of Love, Cathy Lauren (main cast: Ranno Hana), and at ken-6 you were in the spotlight when you played Tess Ocean (main cast: Ranno) in Ocean’s 11.
Ousaki: The first time I got a heroine role I was so surprised I started shaking while looking at the announcement board. Since I was suddenly given a huge role, I was desperately working every day as I was pursued by all the things I had to do. But now, when I look back at the video, I think I could have worked harder…that’s the level I managed.
Ashizawa: After that, you also were Nozomi Fuuto’s partner in Victorian Jazz, playing Sara.
Ousaki: Being in that show taught me everything about how to sing. When I was able to sing with Nozomi-san, my lack of ability was painful… After that my attitude towards singing changed. There were so many difficult numbers that it’s frightening to listen to even now (laughs).
Ashizawa: Back then, what did you enjoy the most out of singing, acting, and dancing?
Ousaki: No matter when, I loved acting. Even when I was struggling with some issue, I would watch the video of my favorite show, Masked Romanesque, and return to my roots as a fan, and then I’d be able to face my acting again. That show is ‘Takarazuka’ to me.
Ashizawa: After graduating from junior performances, you’ve been challenged with all sorts of roles for a while, so by this time you’ve certainly built a strong foundation as a performer. At ken-10, you were in a role switch with Senna Ayase, playing Duchess Maria in ME AND MY GIRL.
Ousaki: Everyone in the other roles was also switching, so the more I performed the less I understood what was doing on, so I felt like I was a bit off. Thinking back on it now, I might have had too rigid an idea of what I had to do. It was my first time playing such a dignified character who commands the space she’s in, so there was a ton of pressure from that… That show also needed comedy, and I had back-and-forth with Bill (Asumi), and it was all very hard.
Ashizawa: In these last 2 or 3 years, your style and sense as an actor has become more clear, hasn’t it.
Ousaki: I think what might be called the biggest turning point to me, and in a way what made me decide to retire, was Virmaya in Golden Desert. Before then I had been taught so much by Director Masatsuka in Stardom, and when I encountered this show by Director Ueda after that, my way of concentrating on a role was coming from a new place, does that make sense? Because of the way I was waiting before going onstage, and the way I was concentrating, when I was onstage it struck me in a whole different way that it had before. I loved my role in that show, and I feel like that show is a treasure I discovered during my life in Takarazuka…
Ashizawa: You found something you were searching for there, didn’t you?
Ousaki: Yes, as I was acting my heart was naturally moved. Up until then, in general somewhere in my mind I was thinking ‘I have to do it like this’, but I didn’t feel that at all. I feel like I finally grasped that feeling of hearing my acting partner speak and having emotions well up in my own heart. But I still couldn’t grasp it clearly every day, and it took so much concentration to get to that point. When I grasped that, I felt once again how fun it is to act.
Ashizawa: And after that was the national tour performance of Masked Romanesque and EXCITER!! 2017. You must have been delighted every day.
Ousaki: I was so moved just to be in the rehearsal space hearing the songs from Masked Romanesque being played, and hear [everyone’s] thoughts about Director Shibata’s play. I played Madame Tourvel, but when I would watch the video I had only looked at Madame Mertuilles, so thinking about things from Tourvel’s point of view was a new discovery for me, and I learned a lot.
Ashizawa: Did you feel as if your dream had finally come true?
Ousaki: Definitely. I want to tell little me about it (laughs). It was my third time being in EXCITER!!, but the first time I was one of the must junior performers, so it made me so happy to be able to perform myself in the sections where I had dreamily watched my seniors back then.
Ashizawa: And then last year, in your performances as Jane in The Poe Clan, and Fuku in MESSIAH, you showed a presence that only people who have achieved a robust career can.
Ousaki: No, no, those were both so hard for me. I was given the opportunity to act together with my great Senka seniors who have been around so long—Asuka Yuu-san in The Poe Clan, and Itsuki Chihiro-san in MESSIAH—and I was struck anew by their huge presence and natural being on stage.
Ashizawa: And you were also in Todoroki Yuu’s dinner show, Yuu, Un jour chantant, correct.
Ousaki: It was my first time appearing together with Todoroki-san since For the People, and I savored the happiness of being able to sing the famous song from Arc de Triomphe, ‘Rain on the Arc de Triomphe’. In that one moment it felt like we were really acting, and I even impudently thought ‘well, what if we just kept going?’. It was a performance where I was separated from the rest of my troupe, so I felt a lot of responsibility.
Ashizawa: You were selected by the rest of Flower Troupe as ‘someone we’d want for an older sister’2, so you must be someone they rely on a lot.
Ousaki: Not at all, I’m the one relying on everyone in Flower Troupe all the time (laughs).
When I saw Ousaki as Fuku in MESSIAH, she was displaying her great ability, and while I was thinking about how much I was looking forward to her achieving even greater heights as a valuable onnayaku and supporting Flower Troupe, suddenly there came the news of her retirement. Though she may have reached her own completion, it was still regrettable to hear. The Tokyo performance will take place in the season of cherry blossoms. I hope she will have the sunny ending to her career that the name of Ousaki Ayaka3 deserves.
1 – Former Star Troupe Top Star, who transitioned to instructing in TMS.
2 – In the series of souvenir books THE TAKARAZUKA, troupes vote on members in many categories.
3 – The ‘ou’ in ‘Ousaki’ is the character for cherry blossoms.