This is a lengthy interview with Tamaki Ryou, mostly about her future ascension to Top Star and the opening of the national tour (which happened just after the article was published).

The original article was written by Murakami Kumiko and has been published on a few different sites. I accessed it from Asahi Star File. (Archive link here.)

Moon Troupe’s Tamaki Ryou: This year’s theme is ‘wings’

Tamaki Ryou, who has been appointed as the next Top Star of Moon Troupe, is now performing in her first National Tour lead role with current Top Musumeyaku Manaki Reika as her heroine. The tour comprises the musical Passion—Jose and Carmen, based on the novel by Merimee, and the revue show Apassionado!! 3. Her rapid ascent to succeed current Top Star Ryuu Masaki, who retires in September, only took her eight and a half years, so she stated that her theme for this year will be the character for ‘wings’. On April 9th and 10th she will be performing at the Ichikawa City Cultural Hall in Chiba Prefecture.

‘Wings.’ That is how future Top Star Tamaki Ryou represented her feelings for this year, just before the opening of her first National Tour lead.

“I want to walk and fly by myself. I don’t have any time to spare to look back. I’ll keep going forward, even if I only make it one centimeter. Since I’m getting so many new challenges this year, this year I have ‘wings’.”

Tamaki will be travelling around the country with Top Musumeyaku Manaki joining her as her partner.

“In the tour, I’m holding up the reputation of all of Takarazuka, not just Moon Troupe. But I have to do it anyway. I need to make it worthwhile for the audience members who come to watch us.”

Top Star Ryuu will be retiring after the last performance of her next show. Tamaki’s succession as Top was announced just before the opening of the tour. Since the creation of the Star system, this speed is only second to Amami Yuuki, who became Top after six and a half years. Even though Tamaki only wore feathers¹ for the first time last year, she doesn’t have any spare time to be bewildered.

“Ryuu-san has amazing energy, and she learns lines and choreography really fast. She keeps an eye on both how the audience feels as well as things in the troupe. I want to learn from and be inspired by her until the very last moment before she graduates.”

In the play being performed with the tour, Passion, Jose, an earnest young man, meets his destined woman, played by Manaki, only to have her toy with him.

“Before starting rehearsals, my head was crammed [with ideas], but that just seems like mere role-building now. I want to perform in an honest, natural way.”

Tamaki was raised in Moon Troupe². She has been paired with Manaki before, in a junior performance.

“She is a sensitive performer with a lot of heart. She has a large presence. I want to be able to take what she offers. Responding to what she does is a large part of it. She has a really fresh approach to things.”

On the other hand, the revue show, in accordance with its Spanish title, is full of ‘zealous’ enthusiasm.

“I want to present energetic ‘zeal’. The years an otokoyaku has put in really show. But even if your skill increases, what you have inside doesn’t change. To make the meaning of that clear, whatever you have now, you should give all of it. I want to see how much I can release myself onstage.”

She’s prepared to take center stage before the standard time of maturation, the ‘10 years to otokoyaku’³. “If I think about how I was a year ago, I’ve become a lot stronger. I was too conscious then of ‘how an otokoyaku should be’.” Because of overthinking it, there were times when she couldn’t simply enjoy herself on stage.

“By now there’ve been a lot of moments where I just thought I was having fun,” Tamaki said with a laugh. She’s broadened into an ideal otokoyaku.

“I started to think I couldn’t present attributes like ‘passion’ and ‘broad-mindedness’, words like that. There’s definitely some aspect that only I can bring out. I want to be an ‘otokoyaku-like otokoyaku.’ That’s my unchanging base.”

The masculine physique she was blessed with is her strongest point. She has an air of unpolished sensuality.

“Personally I love that sharp, ultra-otokoyaku feeling from the Latin atmosphere. I’d like to go down that route and wear sharp suits and a tough atmosphere until the very end.”

Tamaki refers to the performances of actors and theatre performers such as Kamikawa Takaya, Tsutsumi Shinichi, Namase Katsuhisa, and Abe Sadao. Raised as the heir of Moon Troupe, she will now fly even higher.

1 – The large parade feathers are reserved for the highest ranking members of the troupe.

2 – Meaning she was first assigned to the troupe and stayed there without transfers.

3 – An industry saying regarding how long it takes to master the art of otokoyaku performance.