Takarazuka Kagekidan (The Takarazuka Revue Company), a
Japanese all-woman
theatrical company, was formed around 1915 as a counterpart to what had by then become all-adult-male
Kabuki theatre. Kabuki was founded in the 17th century by a woman
dancer,
Okuni of
Izumo. However, in 1629, by decree of the
Tokugawa Shogunate, first all women and then all boys were banned from appearing in the plays in order to stem "
disorderly conduct" and "
prostitution".
The group, now consisting of about 400 members, is broken up into four troups, "
Flower (hana)", "
Moon (tsuki)", "
Snow (yuki)", and "
Star (hoshi)", which perform in rotation. The women who perform the
male roles, and have much bigger
fan followings, are referred to as "otokoyaku". Those who play the female roles are called "musumeyaku". Directly
translated, these two terms become "male-role-player" and "daughter-role-player". All "Takarasiennes" have to have attended two years of the Takarazuka
Music Academy, also founded by Kobayashi, where there is
strictness in both
subject matter taught and status/position within the
insular society of Takarazuka.
Takarazuka's founder, Kobayashi Ichizo, had two hopes for the
theatre. He was using it to provide a
stepping stone for women into the new consumeristic
Japan of the early 1900s: he located the theatre in a
resort town situated on the Hankyu train line, which he owned, and made sure that there were plenty of
shops around the
station. He also wanted the theatre's pieces to, ultimately, emphasize the
role of "Good Wife, Wise Mother (ryosai kenbo)" that was the state-mandated model of
female behavior as codified in the national
Meiji Civil Code from 1898 to 1947. It is interesting to note that, while he
stressed that having
women playing men's roles would not have a
reverse effect than hoped, and while publicizing the idea that the
otokoyaku would, in fact, make better Good Wives and Wise Mothers from having been in a man's shoes and thereby more able to anticipate his needs, he also, more
subversively, publicized the otokoyaku/musumeyaku
romances in order to use the
erotic tension as a
selling point.
Jennifer Robertson wrote a difinitive
book on the subject: Takarazuka,
Sexual Politics and
Popular Culture in
Modern Japan.
I have to admit that, despite the rather archaically hetero-centered
story lines, I was enthralled by the
glitz and
kitsch, and the otokoyaku themselves, a few of which I drank with occasionally - lucky me! The musumeyaku were, as are most ultra-feminine anime females, a bit too squealy for me to listen to for
any length of time.