Japan, art and culture

The Takarazuka Revue is a Japanese all-female musical Theater in the city of Takarazuka, Japan. Women play both male and female roles in lavish productions, often Western-style musicals, but always with strong Japanese elements.
The all-female Takarazuka Revue Company touches something deep in the Japanese psyche, or at least the female Japanese psyche. Many of the fans are female and most of them are young. And the stars they adore most are the otokoyaku, the actresses who play the male parts. In Japan's male-dominated society the otokoyaku represent a vicarious way for young women to live out fantasies of strength and power. But what they really come for is romance, the pure, old-fashioned, fairy-tale variety. So Takarazuka gives them just that, nice stories full of romance and spectacle but devoid of crudity or passion.
The company is made up of hundreds of members that put on performances across the country and abroad year-round. Thousands more teenage girls apply to join every year but the Takarazuka Music School takes on only 40 to 50 new students a year. Those lucky enough to get in face two years of strict discipline and rigorous training. After their first year of training, students choose whether they want to be an otokoyaku or musumeyaku (female role). Again competition is fierce, with factors like height, build and voice playing a large part. Once training is complete, students graduate and join one of the troupes.
Every year, each troupe does one run in the company's home city of Takarazuka, near Osaka, and one in Tokyo. The rest of the year, they play other theaters around the country or tour abroad. Though Takarazuka incorporates many elements of western theater, it retains strong Japanese elements. The epitome of the Takarazuka show is The Rose of Versailles. It's the story of Oscar, a girl who is brought up as a boy in 18th-century France, but it comes not from a romantic French novel or play but a Japanese manga. The company's structure and the school's training regimen strictly follow the sempai-kohai (senior-junior) relationship that forms the core of many Japanese institutions, including those in sports and business.

Takarazuka was founded in the city of the same name in 1913 by Kobayashi Ichizô, the president of Hankyu Railways. The city was the terminus of a Hankyu line from Osaka and famous for its hot springs. To boost both travel on the line and business in the city, Kobayashi decided to take advantage of the public's increasing interest in Western song-and-dance shows but with a cast of young, unmarried girls of unquestionable virtue. In a country that even until recently frowned on kissing in public, such scenes - implied rather than acted out - between two girls was deemed more or less acceptable. By 1924, the company had become popular enough to get its own theater.

There is a two-year Takarazuka music school at Takarazuka city in the west of Tokyo. Girls of 15 - 18 years old are allowed to take an entrance examination for the music school. Every year 40 girls enter this school and receive education and training for two years. After having finished this two-years course, they are scheduled to join the Takarazuka dancing team.
The girls in the school are called "Takara-sienne".
The Takarazuka dancing team and their school started in 1913 and continued their activity until 1945, the end of the second world war. It started from the ruins again in 1946, one year after the end of the war.
The repertoire of their dance and musical drama performances are wide, from traditional Japanese to Western ones. After the war, the Takarazuka attracted young girls' hearts. But when people started to watch TVs, they did not come to the Takarazuka theaters - one in Tokyo and the other in Takarazuka city- anymore. It was a time of crisis for them.
The managing director came up with a new idea. He thought that they should perform musical dramas composed and based on animes or mangas which young girls were reading at the time.

It is a story about two officers of the body guard corps of the Princess Marie-Antoinette.
One officer is a young man, and the other a young woman.The woman has been raised as a boy from her childhood because her father was an aristocrat and wanted his son to be one of the bodyguard corps for the King in the Palace. But contrary to his expectation, the newborn baby was a girl. Then, the father raised the baby girl as a boy in order that she should be able to become an officer of the bodyguard corps. It is a love story of two persons, a young officer and a young female officer.
The French revolution broke out, which caused a drastic change for their lives...
S.Y.

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Tomiko was the daughter of Hino Shigemasa, born in Yamashiro province. She became the wife of the 8th Shogun (= the emperor or the king) Ashikaga Yoshimasa at age 16 in 1455. She had her first child on the ninth day of the first month of 1459, the child died the same day however. Unlike her passive husband, who had very little interest in political affairs, Tomiko was savvy and manipulative, and placed the blame for the child's death on the wet-nurse, Imamairi no Tsubone, whom she exiled to Oki island on lake Biwa (Imamairi no Tsubone committed suicide on the way).

By the mid 1460's, Yoshimasa had decided that he didn't want to be bothered with the duties of office and decided to rescind his position of Shogun. However, as Tomiko had not born him a male heir, he convinced his younger brother, Ashikaga Yoshimi, to first assist him in office, and then gradually claim the title of Shogun. Tomiko was averse to this, but at the time had no leverage to contest the appointment, until a year later, when she gave birth to the future Ashikaga Yoshihisa. With her standing in the Hino family, and backed by Yamana Sozen, two factions developed in the capital, one faction supporting the newly appointed Shogun, Yoshimi, and the other supporting the succession of Yoshihisa. Thus, this desire of lady Tomiko to place her son in line for the succession led eventually to conflict in the land, and the Onin War began.

In the feudal ages, there were two heads, that is, the Shogun ( the emperor or the king ) who had an actual political and military power, and the Tenno who had no actual power.
The Shogun became the Shogun only when he was appointed or approved by the Tenno.
No one obeyed the Shogun unless he should be approved by the Tenno. On the other hand, the Tenno had no actual power so he and his family were supported by the Shogun. One could not stand without the other.
There were aristocratic people called “Kuge” or “Kizoku” who were positioned under the Tenno and supported him. On the other hand, there were feudal lords under the Shogun. The feudal lords obeyed the Shogun’s orders and paid taxes to the Shogun. There are a lot of warriors called “Samurai” under the feudal lord. In old feudal society, people wore different clothes and hats, and had different hair styles according to the social ranks they belonged to. Only the Shogun and feudal lords were allowed to wear clothes and hats that aristocratic people wore. Common Samurais wore different clothes and hats.

In the Hino family, there were two daughters. The elder daughter became blind after having a disease with high fever. So, the younger daughter, Tomiko, was determined to be married to the prince instead of her elder sister. The blind daughter ( a little girl in white clothes ) was sent to a Buddhist temple accompanied by a monk to be a Buddhist nun.

Below some pictures of a movie about Hino Tomiko.