This book, which is something of an ‘oral history’ of Takarazuka’s Rose of Versailles adaptations, was published by Ascom in late 2005, and features chronological accounts from otokoyaku who had performed in the franchise from its first origins through the 2001 productions. Since the book is derived from transcriptions of interviews taking place often many decades after the fact, there may be discrepancies between accounts.
Please note that the term appearing through the text as ‘theatre-comic’ is translated from the Japanese term gekiga [劇画]. Although this term is described as applying to mainly male-oriented comics in most English-language sources, this not accurate. The definition of this word changed to also include sweeping, romantic female-oriented works with Rose of Versailles being arguably the most famous of theatre-comics. Takarazuka even published its own magazine of theatre-comics in the 1970s.
Chapters have been split in two to make them more readable without too much scrolling to reach the explanatory footnotes. Some paragraph breaks have also been added for ease of reading in English. I have also included some images printed in the book as well as sourcing many other archival images to illustrate the text.
Installments will be posted every two weeks, with some breaks if the next chapter is not complete.
Incident-filled regional performances
Back then, Berubara was touring every tiny corner of the country, and it was on such a horribly demanding schedule. The opening performance was in Sendai, and I’ll never forget that for the rest of my life. I’m sure it was in some big theatre in the middle of Sendai, but the real reason I won’t forget that day is because I collapsed.
On opening day, they handed out the schedule for the rest of the regional tour, but it was so long I felt like I was unrolling a scroll. The moment I saw it all the blood drained from my head and I passed out. It was too long, with too many shows, and when I thought of how tough it was going to be I felt faint… Someone brought me brandy to drink…as a restorative, of course (laughs), and then I came back to my senses.
The thing about the regional performances was all the funny ‘incidents’ that would happen. Once we performed Berubara in a gymnasium: I think this was in Muroran, in Hokkaido. And the ceiling of this gym was made out of transparent glass, so you could see the sky and the sunlight would shine through. And we were doing day and night shows there.
First was the daytime show. After Andre and I finished singing “Love, Love, Love~” the scene ended, the lights went out and next was the battle scene. So the two of us would rush from center stage to stage left and stage right [respectively] in order to change into our uniforms. Normally, since this was a ‘blackout’ you would expect it to be dark, but…the sunlight kept pouring through the glass ceiling, leaving everything bright! So we were in broad daylight and the whole audience could watch us sing “Love, love, love~” and then run off to change!
On our side we were just trying our best, but that must have been weird, right~. I’m sure the audience watching thought it was funny.
And then there was the night show. The “noonday sunlight” was gone now, but this time there was another incredible event. It was during the scene where Oscar falls after saying “Vive la France!” and then there’s some tinkling music and she’s called up to heaven. Andre’s voice calls “Oscar, Oscar, Oscar~!”, it’s such a nice scene. And then, I’m supposed to raise my head suddenly when he calls “Oscar!” the third time, turn around once, and start singing “Love~”, but…
I heard “Oscar” the third time, but a split second before I was going to raise my head, what happened? The public address system came on! “Mano Yuriko-san, Mano Yuriko-san, your mother is waiting for you outside,” a man’s voice echoed over the speakers!
“Mano Yuriko-san!” “Oscar!” “Mano Yuriko-san!” “Oscar!” …and then I raised my head, that’s how it ended up. (laughs) Gosh, he kept saying “Your mother is waiting for you” for ages. ‘Cut it oooout,’ I thought, but there wasn’t anything I could do. Our beautiful scene was interrupted by this unforseen incident. Mano Yuriko-san, I haven’t forgotten your name for 30 years (laughs).
We were performing in that gym for three days, and the troubles just kept coming; the next day it was the emergency alarm. In the middle of the performance, an extremely piercing emergency bell went off. “Huh? What’s going on!?” we thought. We were acting, but of course we stopped. What if there was a fire?
I was so startled that I don’t even remember what scene we were in the middle of, but after that, a male voice announced “The bell just now was a false alarm!” The audience had been in an uproar as well, and the announcement went on “The bell just now was a false alarm, so everyone, please…”
It’s unthinkable now, but that’s the sort of thing that happened back then when we were in gyms. Back then, we used to perform in gyms and other places like that a lot, and at those times there wasn’t a dressing room-type space, so we’d be allowed to use school staff rooms or corridors and put together our own dressing rooms. We’d have light from incandescent bulbs, and back then, all our things would be in a single wicker trunk, so we’d set our wicker trunks on the floor and sit on our well-worn cushions and all do our makeup. We felt like wandering performers (laughs). So I would transform into Oscar in a place like that, but the moment I stepped out I was in the world of dreams…it’s marvelous, thinking about it that way.
I was the complete opposite of Oscar
It was just incredible how much of an audience we had. It was like they were descending on us in hordes, everyone had “Berubara Fever”! No matter where we went in the whole country everyone’s feverishness was incredible.
There were times I couldn’t even go out the dressing room door due to the aggressive fans. We were going by bus to the next location, so I had to leave the dressing room to get on the bus, but there was such a huge throng of people crowded around the bus that I couldn’t get near it. Because of this, Haruna-san and I ended up having to wrap our heads in scarves, borrow rubber boots, and carry brooms and dustpans to disguise ourselves as cleaning ladies, or borrow hammers from the set staff; once we even dressed up as ninjas to get on that bus (laughs).
And once, there was such an uproar after the bus left and they realized we’d gotten away that the crowd attacked our PR manager, a young man called Kobayashi-kun, and left him with fractures…
Faced with this fanaticism, I felt more terror than happiness. At this point, we had started staying in business hotels. Below the hotel windows there would be lots of girls shouting “Mademoiselle Oscar!” and once one even tried to get into my room. I heard someone knocking on the door and assumed it was another Takarazuka performer, so I called “Ye~s!” and opened it, but a girl I didn’t recognize at all was standing there. I panicked and tried to close the door but she put her foot in the way and there was a huge uproar. I really felt like I was in danger.
My true feelings, personally, were that “I want this performance to be over as soon as possible.” To be honest…acting wasn’t really my favorite thing (laughs). And if you’re doing the same play for month after month, naturally you’d get tired of it . Berubara especially lasted from spring until autumn, and “I wish I would play this role forever” was never one of my dreams (laughs).
Of course, because of that long performance, people in distant areas who had never seen Takarazuka before were able to see it, but I just thought “I want to go back. I want to go home.”… (bitter laugh) I paid for this later, though.
I really had way too little ambition. For example, after the curtain call, the curtain comes down, right? And for just a little bit the audience can see through the gap under the curtain. But even so, during that ‘just a little bit’, whoosh, I’d be gone. I kept getting told “Please wait until the curtain comes all the way down.” (laughs)
That was how quickly I could get away from it, and I was the type to make a sharp distinction between on and off stage, so I never brought any of those onstage feelings with me when I exited: when it was over it was over! When I left the dressing room I brushed everything off, so it was very clear in that way. I think there are a lot of people who plunge deeply into the roles they play, but in my case, even during turbulent performances I was having lots of fun in my private life.
Well, anyway, romance doesn’t fill the stomach, you know? Me and seven or eight of my girl friends would go to Kyoto or Kobe and eat shabu-shabu, then ramen, then kudzu starch noodles for dessert, stopping by three or four restaurants in a row for our huge banquet before going home. Back then I’d eat so much, though if I did the same today I’d turn into a pig!
Once we were all split up into different cars to get to Kobe. I was driving my Mini Cooper in front, and we were just going down Mt. Rokko, driving down a sloping road with nothing but golf courses. And then suddenly someone popped out waving a red flag. It was a speed trap! And we were way over the limit…
So all of us flashy looking Berubara performers got out of our cars and everyone said “We’re so sorry~!”, but of course, it looked like we were about to get speeding tickets, so without thinking, I went and said… “We’re in Berubara right now…so if we get you tickets will you let us off?” (laughs) Of course they didn’t let us off. My bribery tactic was a tragic failure! (laughs)
As you can see, once I stepped off stage I was Tomioka Miki. But the fans thought of me, myself, as Oscar. And at the time there was a huge gap between those thoughts and what I was. So I kept thinking, what is it that makes the fans so fanatical?
You see, in Takarazuka up until then, when the curtains opened we would call it “the nursing conference”. That was because the seats would be white, since nobody was in them. But after Berubara, Takarazuka’s popularity made such a comeback that you could hardly get tickets. It was really all thanks to Berubara’s cultural impact.
One reason why so many people who had never watched Takarazuka before came to see us was because of how incredible Ikeda Riyoko-san’s original work was. You could say that Takarazuka hitched a ride on that. I’m the same age as Ikeda-san, but I wish I had her talent, and even now I really respect her. I feel so strongly that it’s a great thing for me to have been able to appear in Berubara.
People often say “Oscar is the perfect role for Anna-san,” but really, Oscar and I are internally complete opposites!
She (Oscar) burned with a desire for justice and fought to protect her country, so if anything, she’s someone like Joan of Arc. She possessed such an incredible sense of justice that she even threw away her own womanhood. But then I have a rather reserved personality, and I don’t have that sense of justice at all (laughs).
Yet I was given this role even so, and I’m so glad. Oscar is something I’ll remember all my life, and one of my treasures.
Berubara Q&A – Anna Jun
Q – If I say ‘Takarazuka’, what do you think of?
A – Otokoyaku.
Q – If I say ‘Berubara’?
A – Anna Jun!
Q – What message would you currently want to give Oscar?
A – Your life was swept up in the whirlpool of the French Revolution. I think that was a really wonderful thing. If you had lived in the modern day, I think it would have made you so angry you would have gone mad with rage and died. So I’m glad you lived back then.
Q – What message would you currently want to give Andre?
A – It’s nice to think of just one person constantly, but wouldn’t having some more experiences with other girls have been nice too? (laughs)
Q – What message would you currently want to give Fersen?
A – I think being unable to save Marie Antoinette was a huge regret for you, so that’s a real shame. Your life would have changed so much if only you had been able to save her, it’s such a pity!
Q – If you could request one thing from Takarazuka, what would it be?
A – There’s no days off, are there. You should give the performers a bit more time off.
Q – If you were reborn, would you join Takarazuka again?
A – Looking back on things after enough years have passed since my experiences that I can look at them objectively, I’ve thought a lot “I wish I’d done this or that back then,” so I’d like to try it all over again. As an otokoyaku, of course.
Extra questions
Q – What otokoyaku characters have you fallen for as a woman?
A – Xiang Yu from Gu the Beautiful. And then, Oda Nobunaga. I love them both. I had a lot of princely roles, so I liked rough, manly men. Though I don’t suit them.
Q – What role(s) would you like to perform again?
Ooama-no-Miko from Love Blooms Out on the Murasakino. I loved the show itself, too.
Q – What are your memories of the Silver Bridge?
If there was someone I knew in the audience, my habit was to signal “let’s go out to eat later!” from the Silver Bridge. I was really bold about it too. It’s definitely something I wouldn’t have been forgiven for, but it seems I was never caught at it (laughs).