Tag Archives: Sienne: Hokushou Kairi

That’s RanKING! – November 2015

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In That’s RanKING!, a multi-year Kageki Top Star Q&A feature, the Top Stars rank each other based on various questions.

This month’s question: Who do you think is most likely to keep active until late at night?

That’s ranKING! – who’s in first place?

For 2015’s monthly corner, we ask each Top Star to rank who most matches each month’s theme and share images and anecdotes. The votes are calculated with First Place as 10 points, Second Place as 5 points, and Third Place as 3 points. Please enjoy the 5 Top Stars’ variety of answers and stories!

This month’s question: Who do you think is most likely to keep active until late at night?

  • First Place: Sagiri Seina – 31 points
  • Second Place: Asumi Rio – 16 points
  • Second Place: Asaka Manato – 16 points

Sagiri Seina (Snow Troupe)

I really like staying in the rehearsal room until it’s so late at night they’re about to throw me out, so I guess I might be the most nocturnal of us. It’s not that I really have nocturnal habits, but it seems like the darker it gets, the better my body can move (laugh).

Maa-kun [Asaka Manato] seems to keep up the same pace from the time she gets up to the time she goes to bed, so I put her in second place.

In third place is Michiko [Hokushou Kairi] since she’ll decide “This is when I’m going to bed!” and then make all her plans for the day around that.

Masao [Ryuu Masaki] and Mirio-chan [Asumi Rio] seem like the type to do everything at their own pace and just think “I’ll go to sleep when I feel like sleeping.” (laugh)

Asumi Rio (Flower Troupe)

Recently I’ve become way more of a night person, so I think I might be first. My mind is really active from around 11pm to 3am, and even when I return home I’ll end up thinking about my roles for a while and my engine just keeps running (laugh).

I put Masaki-san in second place. When she was doing shinjin kouens, she would always stay up really late rehearsing by herself, so I think she can keep going even at night.

For third place…hmmm, I have an image of her being really passionate, like “I won’t sleep until I do this!” so I think it’s Chigi-san! [Sagiri Seina]

Asaka Manato (Cosmos Troupe)

I think first place is Chigi-san. I feel like she’s always doing everything really efficiently so she would just keep going that way even late at night.

Mirio is in second place. I don’t know if she’s really full of energy, but recently she was saying “even though I have to sleep, I can’t.”

I don’t feel like Ryuu-san or Hokushou-san really stay up that late, so I guess third place has to be me. Even in the middle of the night I’m still pretty energetic. But I can’t handle mornings. Even though I’m called ‘Asaka’1 (laugh).

Hokushou Kairi (Star Troupe)

Ryuu-san is in first place, since I see her as a night person.

Second place is Chigi, I think. She said once that she stayed up watching television and by the time she realized the time it was midnight! (laugh)

I’m in third place: since I have tons of things I need to do, a lot of times I end up staying up until late at night. But since I always wake up early in the morning, I’ll run out of energy at around 11pm, and when I get up I’ll be fighting drowsiness.

Ryuu Masaki (Moon Troupe)

I think first place might be Maa-kun. I always picture her as being energetic even when it’s late.

And then…since Chigi-chan is the type to think “I’ll do what I need to get done” until it ends up getting late, she’s second place.

Since I see Mirio-chan as getting into situations where once it’s night she realizes “Oh, I forgot that!” (laugh) I think she’d definitely end up staying up late a lot, so third place.

I think Hokushou-san would finish everything early, so she probably wouldn’t stay up late very much.

I wouldn’t be able to stay up late, I don’t have enough concentration ability (laugh).

1 – Asaka’s stage name contains the character for ‘morning’ (朝, asa).

Looking Back on 2015: Hokushou Kairi

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One of the yearly retrospective features from the December 2015 issue of Kageki, featuring Star Troupe Top Star Hokushou Kairi (who had just joined the troupe from Senka midway through the year).

Looking Back on 2015: Hokushou Kairi

Since I’d always wanted to be in a show with a happy ending that had action scenes and a human element to it, Jirokichi of the Wind: Night Flight Over Edo fulfilled all my dreams for years. It had a lot of new challenges, such as fight scenes at a higher level than anything before, so I felt like I was pushing my limits every day (laugh). I’m really glad that I was able to achieve what I did then and have those experiences.

In [Billboard Live]1 there was a lot of pressure since I had to stand on the Billboard stage and put on a performance to match first-class recording artists, but I took on the various challenges with the intention of giving the audience a good time. As a result, it felt like I was performing from a place really close to the audience, and I felt even more than ever that I was able to enjoy the music together with the audience. It was really fun.

And then, in May, I transferred troupes to Star troupe. In the three years before that I had been in Senka, performing with all the different troupes, so I suppose you could say I was gathering a wealth of experience…I’m glad I could go to my new troupe with those assets.

The national tour performance Great Pirates was a show that required a lot of communication between everyone as we were putting it together, so I’m glad I had it for my first production after changing troupes. Amour, That is… fulfilled my dream to show a Takarazuka revue show to the whole nation, so that made me really happy, and I’m really grateful for the new scenes that were put in for this production.

The role of Sky in Guys and Dolls was performed by past Takarazuka stars so I was a bit uneasy about performing it myself, but I decided this was the place to display everything I’d learned until then and fought to perform it well.

In the Takarazuka Traditional Japanese Dance Recital I had the difficult task of performing in “Shooting Star”, a work for 4 dancers. While dealing with that challenge, I understood the real importance of continuous, habitual practice.

I’m going to have a lot of shows giving me new challenges next year, so I’m eager to carry on the traditions of Takarazuka while giving everyone entertainment that isn’t limited by the bounds of Takarazuka.

1 – While she wrote Music Palette (the title of her dinner show in 2014), the details and dates clearly reference her Billboard concert from 2015.

Takarazuka stars of all troupes gather for traditional year-end performance

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This article about the 2015 Takarazuka Special was published by Daily Sports Online on December 20th, 2015.

Takarazuka stars of all troupes gather for traditional year-end performance

On the 19th, stars from 5 Takarazuka Revue troupes gathered for the traditional year-end performance Takarazuka Special 2015, held at the Umeda Arts Theatre in Osaka. Excluding Flower Troupe’s Top Star Asumi Rio, who was performing in Tokyo, there were 4 Top Stars performing: Moon Troupe Top Star Ryuu Masaki, Snow Troupe Top Star Sagiri Seina, Star Troupe Top Star Hokushou Kairi, and Cosmos Troupe Top Star Asaka Manato, as well as Todoroki Yuu of Senka and 50 up-and-coming young stars from all their troupes.

Moon Troupe’s Ryuu Masaki, who announced her retirement yesterday, said “This is my last Takarazuka Special. I’m going to give it my all.” Star Troupe’s Hokushou Kairi, who is participating in her first Takarazuka Special as Top, said “I have my learner’s mark on,” as she displayed the learner’s permit mark emblazoned on the back of her jacket, which gained huge applause from the audience.*

In each troupe’s segments, they performed parodies of their Grand Theatre shows of that year. Since it’s not ordinary to see the actresses being so silly, the audience was in a whirpool of laughter. Also, this year there was audience participation, since at one point the actresses descended into the audience and taught the choreography for the new song “New Century, Next Dream” composed for this year’s performance. With the audience and the stage performers in unison, everyone was excited.

Finally, Todoroki Yuu stated “for Takarazuka’s 101st year, we want to create our Next Dream together with everyone.”

* (as far as I know not having actually seen the show) Hokushou Kairi is referring to the sticker that new/learning drivers in Japan have to put on their cars. Example below.