This book was written by Takagi Shiro, who was at the time Director General of the Takarazuka Revue, and who was known as one of the great creators of the early Takarazuka era, together with Shirai Tetsuzo and Utsumi Shigenori.
This book was meant as an ‘explainer’ kind of guide for new fans at the time (the cover is Oscar and Andre, making the intended audience pretty obvious). It was published through Kosaido Books, not the Takarazuka publishing house.
The first chapter features the founding history of Takarazuka (going back to the settlements of ancient times) as well as the stories behind many of the signature songs such as ‘Takarazuka, Our Takarazuka’ (the company theme song) and ‘When the Violet Flowers Bloom’.
As the Takarazuka Grand Theatre complex was completely rebuilt in the early 1990s, much of the information describing specific buildings, et cetera, in the ‘present day’ is now out of date, but of great historical interest.
Get to Know Takarazuka: Prologue
Birth Cries in the Barrow of Treasures
Takarazuka was very aptly named. Here, one after another, Japan’s most beautiful women, famous actresses, famous singers, are dug out from the surroundings. It truly deserves to be called a barrow (塚) of treasures (宝).
In the old days, there were many barrows around the area that is now Takarazuka, and down the same Hankyu Railway line there is another place called Tsukaguchi (塚口). Further away, you will encounter the place name Gogazuka (御願塚). It was originally ‘Gogazuka’ (五願塚) because there were five barrows1. Basically, the area is famous for how many Kofun-era barrows are located here.
While I have no idea why it became known as the Treasure Barrow, in the mountains of Takarazuka there is a place called Takarazuka Shouten (聖天). There is an old barrow there and the site is sacred to Shouten. Shouten is another name for Bishamonten2, the only goddess among the Seven Lucky Gods. Bishamonten is also known for her Biwa, and is a goddess of music and the arts, so it is almost too perfect a connection with Takarazuka.
Takarazuka also has many onsen springs, and while it was never as famous as Arima, it made a name for itself as a small onsen resort.
The birth of the girls’ revue in Takarazuka began in the year Meiji 43 (1910), when the Minoo–Arima Electric Tramway purchased reclaimed land on the banks of the Muko River in Takarazuka, in order to attract customers to use the line between Osaka-Umeda and Takarazuka. On this desolate tract of land, they constructed a marble bath complex (innovative for the time), a zoo, and the ‘New Takarazuka Onsen Paradise’ a leisure facility centered around Japan’s first indoor swimming pool, all in order to pull in customers from the Osaka line.
However, Japan’s first indoor swimming pool turned out to be too ahead of its time and the project collapsed. The new plan to make use of the closed-down pool led to the birth of the Takarazuka Girls’ Chorus.
At the time, there was a popular boys’ band in the Sanjo area of Osaka. The boys all wore matching uniforms, and apparently one of them was a young Hattori Ryoichi3. Be that as it may, in order to mimic this boys’ band, the idea was to put together a girls’ choir, so girls were recruited for what was dubbed the Takarazuka Girls’ Chorus. In July of Taisho 2 (1913), sixteen girls, including Takamine Taeko and Kumoi Namiko, were hired into the 1st Class.
Rumors spread: Was it too good to be true?
While at first they were being trained as just a girls’ choir, just having them sing seemed trite. The idea of having them put on operettas came together, and in December of Taisho 2 the Takarazuka Girls’ Chorus was renamed the Takarazuka Girls’ Opera. The indoor pool was refitted as a theatre, and the first performance was scheduled for April of Taisho 3 (1914).
A Mainichi Newspaper of the time ran the following advertisement:
‘As part of the Wedding Expo in Takarazuka, Japan’s first Girls’ Opera will be performing (with free admission) the dazzling and amusing operettas ‘Donburako (Momotaro)’ and ‘Ukare-Daruma’, the dance performance ‘Dance of the Butterfly’ and musical and choral selections.’
During breaks between the operettas, the students would perform on their instruments.
Takamine Taeko, of the 1st Class, is currently a voice teacher for the trainee students4. When I asked her about what it was like back then, she said that in the entrance exam all she did was sing ‘Do-Re-Mi-Fa-So-La-Ti-Do’ in front of the examining teachers. It’s almost unbelievable compared to how difficult it is to get in currently.
Not only were they being trained in singing and dancing, they were even being paid—it seemed too good to be true, and made the students suspicious enough that rumors started to spread that maybe the actual plan was to sell the girls in Shanghai. Apparently Takamine Taeko’s father, who worked as a policeman at the time, went as a representative for the whole group to demand the truth from Kobayashi Ichizo.
For us now it’s hard to believe it’s true, but being true is what makes it so entertaining. Isn’t it funny to imagine the look that must have been on Kobayashi Ichizo’s face?
What kind of organization is the Takarazuka Revue?
The current address of the Takarazuka Revue is 1-1-57 Sakae-machi, Takarazuka City.5
The headquarters building has 4 floors. The 1st floor is the Takarazuka Management Department, housing the offices for the Grand Theatre, Takarazuka Family Land, and other facilities.
Just inside the entrance of the 1st floor is the Accounts Division, where on the 25th of every month the students receive their salary. The applications for the Entrance Exam are also accepted here.
Recently, a new separate company called the Takarazuka Planning Enterprise was set up on one side of the 1st floor. Regional performances outside the Grand Theatre, TV, radio, recordings, and appearances in non-Takarazuka productions are all handled through the Takarazuka Planning Enterprise.
Across from the Takarazuka Planning Enterprise office is the Props Workshop. Every prop used on stage, such as flower-covered straw hats or swords, is created here. Next to the Props Workshop is the Sets Workshop, a huge space where stage backdrops are painted, and everything needed to create any scene is designed and built, from palaces to forests to fountains.
On the 2nd floor is the Takarazuka Revue Office. Inside is the Student Affairs Oversight office, the producers, and the General Director’s office.
In the Takarazuka Revue, everyone—the students, the writers, the composers, the musicians, the stage and costume designers, et cetera—are employees of the Revue, and all the management is handled by Hankyu Railway employees.
This means that the Takarazuka Grand Theatre belongs to the Hankyu Railway, and the sets and costumes are all constructed by Hankyu Railway staff. The Grand Theatre, belonging to the Hankyu Railway, is then borrowed for the shows created by Takarazuka Revue writers and composers for the students of the Revue to perform in.
It seems like an odd way to organize something, but it’s been this way ever since it was founded, so nobody thinks of it as strange and there’s nothing inconvenient about it. What makes it different from other theatre companies is one of its strengths, making it handled similarly to the Hankyu Braves baseball team6 within the Hankyu parent company.
The Tokyo Takarazuka Theatre belongs to Toho, and the arrangement is that Toho hires out the Takarazuka Revue to put on performances there. Management wise, this means that potential profits and losses are both halved.
There are many other ‘Takarazuka Theatres’ all over Japan, such as the Nagoya Takarazuka Theatre, the Kyoto Takarazuka Theatre, et cetera, but these are mainly operated as cinemas, and all of them are owned by Toho, so they have no connection with the Takarazuka Revue.
A peek inside the 4 rehearsal rooms…
There are 4 rehearsal rooms in the Takarazuka Revue headquarters. Rehearsal Room 1, on the 4th floor, is the oldest, and built on exactly the same scale as the Grand Theatre. From the windows you can see Mt. Mukoyama and the flow of the Muko River, so it’s a wonderfully pleasant place to rehearse.
Rehearsal Room 2 is on the 3rd floor, right below it. It’s generally called the Ballet Studio, and it’s lined with mirrors for ballet lessons. This room is also used for TV.
Rehearsal Room 3 is also on the 3rd floor, and is approximately the same size as Room 1. It was put together for Tokyo and regional shows. It’s also used for ceremonial occasions like the New Years’ observances and the Entrance Ceremony.
Rehearsal Room 4 is on the 2nd floor. It’s used for acting practice, voice classes, and things like Fukamidori-sensei’s chanson classes or Mizushima-sensei’s jazz classes are held here7.
Besides these, there is the Japanese Dance Classroom on the 3rd floor, for Japanese Dance. It’s floored with tatami matting, and many teachers such as Amatsu Otome, Hanayanagi, and Fujima have all held Japanese dance lessons here8.
There is also the Voice Classroom, which is used for private or small group lessons.
I feel there most likely isn’t another theatre company in Japan with such impressive rehearsal facilities. Still, even though there are so many rehearsal spaces, sometimes even this isn’t enough. This is because, as Takarazuka puts on musical theatre productions, often the rehearsals are split up into dance practice, acting practice, and voice practice. And when this overlaps with Tokyo production rehearsals, regional rehearsals, and rehearsals for the weekly THE TAKARAZUKA television program9, the available space is exhausted very quickly. This leads to things like acting practice taking place in the Japanese Dance Classroom, or line dance practice being held on the roof of the building.
Classroom 1, the oldest rehearsal space which has been in use since before the war, is perhaps the one with the most intense memories for those who have left Takarazuka, so apparently OBs10 dropping by become very emotional over the simplest graffiti on the walls, or the old chairs.
The cherry blossom tunnel and Takarazuka-Ondo
Takarazuka is famous for its cherry blossoms. Takarazuka and the area around the current theatre were built on land built up with stone on what was originally the riverbed of the Muko River, and the former banks of the river extend past the Hankyu Line Takarazuka terminal. Cherry trees grow on both banks, and during cherry blossom seasons the banks form a tunnel of cherry blossoms. The sight is so beautiful that they are sung about in the theme song of a revue by Mizuta Shigeru, Takarazuka-Ondo11.
Ah, Takarazuka is a lovely place
Love-love-love, lovely place
It’s famous for springtime flower viewing
The cherry blossom tunnel, yes!
Japan’s love-love-lovely Takarazuka
Takarazuka-Ondo, which Sakai Sumio helped write, is still being performed to this day, and even in Takarazuka City itself, the locals dance to this song with lanterns at Bon-Odori festivals, using the moves from the original performance.
OH, TAKARAZUKA!!
‘OH TAKARAZUKA’, the song by Shirai Tetsuzo that has become practically the theme song of Takarazuka13, is adapted from the chanson ‘C.O.N.S.T.A.N.T.I.N.O.P.L.E.’14. Shirai Tetsuzo used it as the theme song for his first production after studying abroad, ‘Parisette’, which opened in August of Showa 5.
‘Parisette’ signalled a shift in eras, not only for Takarazuka, but for the entire revue industry in Japan. Revues were first born in Japan with ‘Mon Paris’, but it’s said that they became complete with ‘Parisette’.
The lyrics for the first verse of OH TAKARAZUKA are:
In the little onsen town of Takarazuka
We were born, but back then
Nobody had heard of our Girl’s Opera
And then, today
We and our blue hakama15
Are known to one and all
The second verse isn’t performed much, but the lyrics are:
The glossy red bridge, the long hallway
The three hunters and the falling thunderbolt
All those unforgettable memories of the old days
They might be gone but even now
If you listen to the songs of Takarazuka
Those same nostalgic memories rise again
For people looking at them now, the lyrics are full of incomprehensible words. But for people like me, who have been observing Takarazuka since the old days, all of the words in this verse are full of meaning.
‘The glossy red bridge, the long hallway’ refers to the long hallway between the amusement park and the theatre, and I had so much fun running along it and looking through the windows down at the botanical garden or the zoo. In the middle of it was a huge, arching red bridge, and since it was very easy to slip on the bridge, crossing it while clutching the railing was very fun for a child. It was a famous emblem of Takarazuka and the fans were very fond of it as well. Of course, this was the era before the existence of the Grand Theatre.
‘The Three Hunters’ was a masterwork of Hisamatsu Issei, first produced in Taisho 4 (1915) and revived many times since.
‘The Falling Thunderbolt’ was a song composed by Harada Jun for ‘Tanabata Festival’, a production written by Umemoto Rikuhei16. Back then we didn’t really have ‘pop songs’ in the same way we do now. ‘The Falling Thunderbolt’ became a huge hit in Osaka, Kobe and the rest of the Kansai area. This Takarazuka song had a huge effect on people who later became Takarazuka fans, like Koga Masao17, Hattori Ryoichi and many others, and became one of the driving forces behind the development of the ‘kayokyoku’ genre.
The symbol of a Takarasienne: the blue hakama
On ceremonial occasions, Takarazuka students wear a black kimono with crests and a green hakama. Seeing all of them wearing that at the New Years’ ceremony is truly stunning. At the 50th and 60th anniversary events, all 400 members, including the Upper and Lower Trainees, gathered on stage for a huge chorus, and when the curtain rose there was a wild tumult of applause.
When students retire from Takarazuka, most will wear the black kimono with crests and hakama for their descent down the stars in the finale. Apparently the thinking is that since they entered Takarazuka yearning to wear this hakama, they want to wear it one last time as they depart.
It’s not clear when exactly this green hakama became the standard, or who decided on it. In any case, girls in the Taisho era all wore hakama and western style shoes to school, and wore hakama in maroon, purple, green, and many other colors. Takarazuka also used to be that way, but at some point the rule became that the hakama had to be green.
Before the war, Takarazuka students all wore green hakama belted high over their chests, and one of the signature parts of the look was their white tabi socks. They often dressed this way for dance practice as well, and when I first joined Takarazuka this gave it a rather fantastic quality.
Perhaps one of the benefits of requiring everyone to dress this way was that they were obviously Takarazuka students at first glance, so nobody could misbehave.
Like the lyrics for OH, TAKARAZUKA, which I wrote about earlier, saying ‘We and our blue hakama/Are known to one and all’, even though the hakama are actually green they are known more widely as the ‘blue hakama’18. As the blue hakama became known as the type used by Takarazuka students, they began to be worn less by schoolgirls in general outside of Takarazuka. Schoolgirls and Takarazuka fans began to see them as something to idolize, and they became a symbol of Takarazuka students.
‘The Violet Flowers’, in happy times and sad times too
Violet flowers are another symbol of Takarazuka. This began when ‘When the Violet Flowers Bloom’ became basically the theme song of Takarazuka.
‘When the Violet Flowers Bloom’ was a song used in Shirai Tetsuzo’s first revue after returning to Japan, ‘Parisette’, which I discussed earlier. The original source song was ‘When the Lilac Flowers Bloom’, but lilacs weren’t well known in Japan at the time, so the lyrics were changed to be about violets.
There’s no other song as widely sung as ‘When the Violet Flowers Bloom’. When Takarazuka performers appear on TV, they will always sing this song. It’s also always sung at any kind of party or special event in Takarazuka. It’s even sung at weddings for people from Takarazuka.
It isn’t only used for those happy events: at the funerals for Kobayashi Ichizo and Kobayashi Yonezo, the Takarazuka students all gathered to sing it while fighting back tears.
With this song being used for both happy and sad occasions, violet flowers have now become inextricable from Takarazuka.
Violet flowers also seem perfectly suited for the Takarazuka motto of ‘Pure, Proper, Beautiful’, and violet flower bouquets are used even between members of Takarazuka.
The first person to sing ‘When the Violet Flowers Bloom’ from the stage of Takarazuka was Amatsu Otome, in ‘Parisette’. She played the wife of a flower-seller, who was bragging to a Japanese man called Yamanaka about how all the gentlemen used to flock around her when she was young. ‘They used to call me the greatest belle of Paris when I was a girl, I was all the rage’, she’d say and everyone would laugh. And then, when Yamanaka finally bought some flowers from her, she sang ‘When the Violet Flowers Bloom’.
Here I’ll present the lyrics for the song. Please try singing them for yourself. I believe there are few chansons this widely known.
Spring—the blooming violets
Herald the spring
Spring—why do we long for you so?
Joyful and enchanting, those spring dreams of sweet love
Our hearts become intoxicated with
That spring full of blooming violetsWhen the violet flowers bloomed
I first came to know you
I thought of you morning and night
Those enchanting days
When the violet flowers bloom
Even now my heart stirs
I’ll never forget you or our love
When the violet flowers bloom
The school theme song and company theme song
This is currently the school song for the Upper and Lower Trainees, but in the past it was the company song for the Takarazuka Revue. It was written by the late Music School Principal Hikita Ichiro, who gave his entire life to Takarazuka, in his younger days.
School Song
Verse 1
Where the white clouds swirl around Mt. Rokko
And the green pines flourish
Gracing the beautiful foothills
Our school of maidens
In the land of revues, Takarazuka
In the land of revues, TakarazukaVerse 2
Our hopes flow on forever
Along the pure Muko River
The essence of that sweet clear water
We resolute maidens
In the land of revues, Takarazuka
In the land of revues, TakarazukaVerse 3
No matter how far to the other shore
Our ideals soar above the clouds
Flying to that eternal sanctuary
We maidens, spring birds
In the land of revues, Takarazuka
In the land of revues, Takarazuka
You may have noticed that newspaper advertisements from Toho are surrounded by a border of musical score. You should try reading it one day. It’s the music for the Takarazuka Music School’s school song. This score is used as a border for all kinds of Takarazuka and Toho materials, from posters to newspaper advertisements19.
On January 1st, all Takarazka Music School trainees, Takarazuka Revue members, musicians, staff members, not to mention Takarazuka Film Studio and Takarazuka New Arts Theatre staff all gather for a New Years’ greeting ceremony.
In the past, back when Miyako Chocho20 and others were in the Takarazuka New Arts Theatre company, all of them also joined in on singing the school song. After the ceremony, when some of us ran into Miyako Chocho, we all laughed when she said ‘We just can’t deal with that Music School song!’ and ‘When I got to that ‘We maidens, spring birds’ bit, I get so damn blushy, so I’m sorry but I just mumbled my way through and faked it.’
It wasn’t because of Miyako Chocho’s declaration, but when the time came for Takarazuka’s 50th anniversary, the decision was made to create a Takarazuka Revue company theme song, separate from the school song.
They took submissions from inside the company, but none of the results were satisfactory, so in the end I was chosen to write the lyrics instead, and after hiding the names on the melodies created by all the composers, the Board of Directors picked one, which turned out to be by Nakamoto Kiyozumi.
This was how the Takarazuka Revue company song, by pure coincidence, came to be written and composed by the Takagi-Nakamoto duo. This company song is always performed at Takarazuka Revue ceremonies.
Company song
Verse 1
Takarazuka, our Takarazuka
Pure, proper, and beautiful
We’re proud of its grand history
Oh, Takarazuka
With your beautiful proud traditions
We praise and sing them loud
Resolute on that shining pathVerse 2
Takarazuka, our Takarazuka
Our young dreams under the green mountain
In the lofty scents of romance
Oh, Takarazuka
Our melody weaves the beautiful rainbow
We praise and sing it loud
Resolute on that glorious pathVerse 3
Takarazuka, our Takarazuka
May your light of hope last forever
On the ideals of the artist’s journey
Oh, Takarazuka
The wind calls out sweetly from tomorrow
We praise and sing it loud
Resolute on that far-off path
How the Takarasiennes got their name
Takarazuka students used to be called many things, like Takarazuka Girls, or Zuka-Girls, or Takarazuka Musume21, until Shirai Tetsuzo took the word ‘Parisienne’ (girls from Paris) and played with it to create the new Japanese word ‘Takarasienne’, which has now become the term universally used to refer to Takarazuka students.
‘Takarasienne’ was the name of a revue Shirai Tetsuzo produced in November of Showa 12 (1937), after returning from his second trip to study abroad.
In this show, Shirai Tetsuzo switched over from works with themes extolling Paris, as he had done up to that point, to works extolling Takarazuka.
With the title of this revue, Takarazuka students began to be called ‘Takarasiennes’, and it seemed much more appropriate a name for them than things like ‘Takarazuka Girls’ or ‘Takarazuka Musume’. Since Takarazuka had been focusing on Parisian chansons and things in the Parisian revue style all the way back to ‘Mon Paris’, ‘Takarasienne’ seems like the perfect thing to call them.
I produced a show titled ‘Glorious Takarasiennes’ in November of Showa 37 (1962), which opened in Toho22 for the 30th anniversary of Toho being established. This show was themed around Takarasiennes and Takarazuka, with many different songs about different ‘Takarasiennes’.
1 – Both are read the same, but the first character originally meant ‘five’ before changing to one with simply an honorific meaning.
2 – It seems he means Benzaiten here, not Bishamonten, but I can’t speak for the rest as there is little information about this temple.
3 – A famous Japanese musician and pop songwriter of the Showa era. I couldn’t independently confirm this specific detail.
4 – At time of publication.
5 – While the facilities were rebuilt in 1992, the official address remains the same.
6 – This team, first founded in 1936 as the Hankyu Baseball club, now exists as the Orix Buffaloes, as it was sold by Hankyu in 1988.
7 – This seems to refer to former Takarazuka member Fukamidori Natsuyo and jazz vocalist Mizushima Sanae, but information was hard to find on Mizushima.
8 – Amatsu Otome is a Showa era musumeyaku renowned for her Japanese Dance skill. Hanayanagi and Fujima are Japanese Dance school names, so could refer to multiple people. Hanayanagi is most likely Hanayanagi Toshinosuke. There seem to be multiple people working with Takarazuka who have used the name Fujima Kanjurou, and this Fujima is most likely one of them.
9 – This was a show made for the local Kansai TV channel, as Sky Stage did not exist until 2002.
10 – Former Takarasiennes used to be called OBs before the term was feminised to OGs, but ex-Takarazuka male creative staff are often called OBs as well, so it could be an umbrella term here.
11 – This is the subtitle of a revue from 1934, ‘Spring Dance: Takarazuka-Ondo’.
12 – This is a Japanese folk-style song, hence the ‘Ondo’ name, so it has a lot of call and response elements that don’t render well in text.
13 – Since supplanted by other songs such as Takarazuka Forever, but still turns up occasionally.
14 – Takagi might be using ‘chanson’ to refer to early western pop music in general, as this is an American novelty song from 1928. Original sheet music for CONSTANTINOPLE can be found here, and is in the public domain in most countries. https://imslp.org/wiki/C-O-N-S-T-A-N-T-I-N-O-P-L-E_(Carlton%2C_Harry)
15 – The hakama never changed color, but the color ranges covered by the Japanese words for ‘blue’ and ‘green’ made a significant shift in the 20th century. Takarazuka Hakama are now consistently called ‘green’ but traffic lights remain ‘blue’. Probably since Takagi was alive during the shift, the words go back and forth a bit when he discusses the hakama.
16 – Due to its generic title I couldn’t find any further information on this show.
17 – A prolific songwriter who was considered one of the founders of what became enka.
18 – This is no longer the case, but it is unclear when the switchover happened in the company and fandom.
19 – They’ve since stopped doing this as print advertising methods advanced.
20 – A famous stage and film actress of the Showa era.
21 – ‘Takarazuka Girls’ and ‘Zuka Girls’ are both English words rendered into katakana.
22 – Seems to be used here to refer to the Tokyo Takarazuka Theatre.