This survey of what all the Moon Troupe members like about their Top Star was published in the July 2016 GRAPH, a couple months before her retirement.
Please note: Ryuu discusses her weight/body image unfavorably in this feature a few times.
Continue readingIn That’s RanKING!, a multi-year Kageki Top Star Q&A feature, the Top Stars rank each other based on various questions. The 2016 version of the column has questions sent in by readers.
This month’s question: Who knows the most about bugs?
That’s RanKING! – Who’s in first place?
For 2016’s monthly corner, we use questions sent in from readers and ask each Top Star to rank who most matches each month’s theme by sharing their impressions 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: Who knows the most about bugs? (Question from ‘Elmer’)
Snow Troupe – Sagiri Seina
First place is Maa-kun [Asaka]. That’s because she’s from Saga! [Laughs] There are bugs in Saga, right? They’re in Nagasaki too! …I guess I wouldn’t want to have someone say that to me [laughs]. Michiko-san [Hokushou] seems to have a lot of knowledge about stuff, so even though she says she doesn’t like bugs I feel like she knows about them, so she’s in second. I’m fine with bugs but I don’t know that much about them, so guess I might be third. Fourth place is Masao [Ryuu], and fifth place is Mirio-chan [Asumi]. Masao doesn’t mind bugs but I don’t think she’s interested in them either, and I feel like Mirio-chan hates bugs.
Star Troupe – Hokushou Kairi
First place is Ryuu-san, because she seems she’d know a lot about colorful insects. Second place is Chigi [Sagiri], since I think she would have caught bugs when she was little. I see Asaka-san as being in third place. To tell the truth, I actually detest bugs, and I don’t know much about them so I’m last place. I didn’t hate them so much when I was little, but when I was in the Takarazuka Music School I was cleaning a balcony once, and from a cherry tree, a fuzzy caterpillar—… Of course I couldn’t scream, and I twisted to try and shake it off, but I had to keep going… I kept cleaning while I was practically fainting, so after that I was really traumatized [laughs].
Cosmos Troupe – Asaka Manato
Hokushou-san! If you flipped through the pages of her memory, I feel like she would have a whole page full of memories about bugs, all ‘Oh, so bugs…’ kind of things. Chigi-san is from Kyuushu, which has a lot of nature, and I think she definitely caught bugs when she was little! I’m also from Kyuushu so I’ll be third for the same reasons. A long time ago I used to catch cicadas, but now I can’t stand them. I feel like Mirio would be like ‘Mr. Bug, stay away~’ [laughs]. And I see Masao as having very little interest in bugs. ‘Oh, there’s a bug, huh,’ that kind of image.
Flower Troupe – Asumi Rio
First place is Chigi-san, since I think a bug catching net would suit her. I think second place might be Masaki-san [Ryuu]. She has a favorite bug: she said ‘rhinoceros beetles are really spirited’ so I think she’d be like that [laughs]. Third place is Hokushou-san. She seems to know a lot about bugs, and would be able to tell you ‘in this area these bugs are likely to appear’. Since I grew up in the countryside, if I see a bug I generally know what it is, and I’m not scared of them…but I’m not an expert.
Moon Troupe – Ryuu Masaki
Somebody who knows a lot about bugs…? Maybe Maa-kun. Well, I say she knows a lot, but I feel like if you asked her about bugs she would get really into it and research all kinds of things. Second place is Chigi-chan, since she definitely seems like she fits the ‘outdoorsy’ image. Micchan is in third place. Even if she personally doesn’t like bugs, she knows about a lot of different things so I think she’d definitely be able to tell you about bugs. I can’t stand bugs at all. I think Mirio doesn’t like them at all either. But if there was a bug on my clothes or something, I think she’d have the courage to get it off for me…
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?
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).
One of the yearly retrospective features from the December 2015 issue of Kageki, featuring Snow Troupe Top Star Sagiri Seina.
Looking Back on 2015: Ryuu Masaki
My first show of 2015, Gone With the Wind was a restaging of the production from January of last year, so it was the first time I was challenged with taking the same role and starting over from a blank for a restaging. In order to give the show a fresh atmosphere once again, I threw out all the feelings I had absorbed from the first time and worked on creating new ones. It was even harder than making a new role from scratch, but it was a good experience for me as a performer.
Then in April was the opening of 1789: Lovers of the Bastille. Looking back on it now, I feel honored at being able to perform in such a masterpiece, and to be honest I’m glad I did it. But at the time I was working so hard on it that even saying I poured all my energy out on stage wouldn’t cover it. I didn’t have enough left over to even think about anything else. My role of Ronan was rather unusual for a Top Star as he is a commoner, and it seems that a big topic was how I would establish myself among everyone else on stage while handling the challenge of putting together this new kind of role. Another major thing was Director Koike giving me one of the show’s themes as my own song, so I was even more aware than usual of how I was presenting myself while singing.
Dragon Night!!, in September, was my first concert-style performance, and while making sure the audience enjoyed themselves was the main goal, I of course enjoyed myself as well! I let myself run free and enjoyed myself from the bottom of my heart.
The last performance of this year is Manon and Golden Jazz. My role in the play, Charles, has a really complex life, and I feel like it might be the first time I’ve encountered a character like him. It’s the kind of role where I think afterwards I will have grown as a person. Director Inaba wrote the revue show Golden Jazz for me since he said jazz suits me, so I’m really happy about that.
When I think about all the characters and shows I encountered this year, it makes my heart beat fast. It was a year where I confirmed once again how strong the support from the rest of Moon Troupe is. Next year I’ll make sure not to forget to let myself enjoy things, and I hope it will be a year that challenges me even more.
This article about Ryuu Masaki’s retirement announcement was published by Daily Sports Online on January 3, 2016. (The article title may seem not to entirely fit the content, as it references a section of the interview that was not quoted in the article.)
Ryuu Masaki: “Set free” by retirement announcement
Takarazuka Revue Moon Troupe Top Star Ryuu Masaki, who will be retiring on September 4th of this year at the Tokyo Grand Theatre, agreed to an interview at the Tokyo opening of the Moon Troupe performance “Manon” which concludes performances on February 14th.
It is her first Tokyo performance since announcing her intent to retire on December 15th of last year. At the last performance of “Manon” in Takarazuka, all her colleagues who she had already informed of her retirement “embraced me without a word. It hurt so much it was hard to breathe, but I felt like I had been set free,” she said with a refreshed expression.
After the announcement, “the way the other members of the troupe look at me is even warmer than before. I’m really happy,” she said with gratitude. Regarding the performance, she said firmly “I want to go back to and strengthen my original resolution to give it my all each day.”
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.
This article about Tamaki Ryou’s ascension to second supporting star was published by Daily Sports Online on November 13, 2015. (This was prior to Ryuu’s announcement of her own retirement, but her quotes in the article seem to foreshadow it.)
Moon Troupe’s Tamaki Ryou becomes most junior supporting star
On the 17th, when the first day of performances of Takarazuka Revue Moon Troupe’s “Manon/Golden Jazz” took place at the Takarazuka Grand Theatre in Hyougo prefecture, Tamaki Ryou appeared onstage as second supporting star. Up until then, she had shared the position of supporting star with Nagina Ruumi and Miya Rurika, but during the finale she was dressed differently from all the other troupe members in an eye-catching spangled suit, and descended the stairs with Top Star Ryuu Masaki and Top Musumeyaku Manaki Reika wearing huge feathers.
Tamaki debuted in 2008: it has been 8 years since her debut, making her ken-8. Joining Flower Troupe’s Serika Toa (ken-9), Snow Troupe’s Nozomi Fuuto (ken-13), Star Troupe’s Kurenai Yuzuru (ken-14) and Cosmos Troupe’s Makaze Suzuho (ken-10), Tamaki’s appointment makes her the most junior second supporting star in all the troupes.
Tamaki is 172 cm in height, and her strong point is her dynamic dancing. So far, she has had 3 junior performance leads as well as Bow Hall lead roles. After graduation from junior performance roles, it was clear that the company had high hopes for her as she played Amami Yuuki’s role in the restaging of “Puck”. She has made marked improvement in singing and acting, and now she has officially become second supporting star.
Starting March of 2016, she will be playing the lead role in the national tour of “Passion–Jose and Carmen/Apassionado!! III” with Manaki as her partner.
Current Top Star Ryuu gave a hint of her confidence in the improvement this would make for the troupe, commenting “right now there are lots of positions for young actresses. It’s time for Moon Troupe to change.”