This week’s column is about how a desire to sell more train tickets culminated in the development of shojo manga.

It has to do with the all-female Takarazuka Revue, a theatre troupe based in and named after the city of Takarazuka in Japan.  It was created in 1913 by Kobayashi Ichizo, as one of a series of schemes to increase tourism to the city of Takarazuka via a railroad line that he owned.  He chose an all-female troupe to contrast with the established all-male kabuki theatre.  From its start, the Takarazuka Revue combined traditional Japanese theatrical styles with Western music-hall styles.  Its first show opened in 1914, and the Revue was successful enough that Kobayashi established an academy for Revue members in 1919 to feed the demand for Takarazuka actors.

Still going strong, today the Takarazuka Music Academy, whose motto is “Be pure, be proper, be beautiful,” accepts young women in their late teens and features a demanding curriculum that includes classes in dance, acting, music, singing, history and etiquette.  Students specialize in either male roles (otokoyaku) or female roles (musumeyaku), assigned based on physical characteristics, personality, and personal choice.  They learn to exaggerate stereotypical male and female characteristics in their appearance, speech, and acting, even keeping this up off the stage so as not to break the illusion.

This excerpt from page 12 of Takarazuka: sexual politics and popular culture in modern Japan, by Jennifer Robertson, give an idea of the sort of characteristics the actors strive to portray:

“A player of men’s roles, for example, must stride forthrightly across the stage, her arms held stiffly away from her body, her fingers curled around her thumbs to form a fist.  Her arm and hand gestures are expansive and bold; when she stands still, her legs are apart, with feet firmly planted and pelvis pushed slightly forward … In contrast, a player of women’s roles pivots her forearms from her elbows, which are kept pinned against her side, constraining her freedom of movement and consequently making her appear more ‘feminine.’”

Women had not been allowed to act on the public stage in Japan since 1629, and much like the West, at the time the Revue was founded women actors had reputations as prostitutes.    The Revue actively sought to counter that stereotype, with Academy officials keeping tight control over the lives of the students to ensure that there was no scandalous behavior.

The Takarazuka Revue was the first Japanese troupe to perform the revue, a type of theatrical show featuring songs, skits, and dancing.  Today it is divided into six troupes, Hana (Flower), Sora (Cosmos), Yuki (Snow), Tsuki (Moon),  Hoshi (Star), and Senka (Superior Members), whose members act with the other troupes when needed.

Troupes put on traditional Japanese and other Asian plays as well as Western-type plays and musicals. The latter performances include an adaptation of the novel The Phantom of the Opera (not the Andrew Lloyd Webber version), Guys and Dolls, Gone with the Wind, and shows adapted from manga and anime including Black Jack, Revolutionary Girl Utena, and The Rose of Versailles. 

By now, you’re probably wondering what all this has to do with manga, aside from the stage shows.  It has to do with Tezuka Osamu, one of the most influential mangakas of the 20^th century.  Tezuka spent most of his childhood in Takarazuka, and his mother was an enthusiastic supporter of the Revue who took him to many performances.  He became fascinated with the actors’ gender-bending, the themes of the plays, and the stage effects used to portray scenes.

Tezuka used these elements in Princess Knight, published from 1953-56, about a young princess forced to disguise herself as a prince in order to maintain her claim to the throne.  This manga is seen as the origin of modern girls’ manga, or shojo.  The play on gender was directly influenced by Tezuka’s memories of the Takarazuka Revue, as were other elements.  Paul Gravett quotes him in Manga: Sixty Years of Japanese Comics: “My characters’ costumes as well as the scenery that surrounds them owe much to the theatre.  More importantly, the spirit of nostalgia toward Takarazuka pervades and infuses my work.”

Gravett adds that the big, sparkling eyes characteristic of Tezuka’s work that are seen today as emblematic of manga were influenced partly by Western animation techniques, and partly by the stage techniques of Takarazuka actors.  They used their eyes to express emotions, and focused attention on them through the use of makeup.

Princess Knight in its turn inspired the classic shojo manga The Rose of Versailles, published in 1972, whose plot is similar.  In it, the Lady Oscar is raised by her father as a boy in the turmoil of the royal court in Revolutionary France.  The topics of gender identity, hidden selves, and forbidden loves explored in The Rose of Versailles and  Princess Knight were picked up by other mangaka, usually female, in the 1970s and beyond as the shojo genre developed and new sub-genres like boys’ love appeared.  These mangaka also pushed the boundaries of page design, creating the shojo look of panels scattered across the page, big, expressive eyes, and tone designs emphasizing emotions.

The Takarazuka Revue began almost a century ago, and nobody could have predicted the profound effect a theatre established as a tourist attraction would have on manga, an art style and a phenomenon that wouldn’t be developed in a form familiar to us until the post-World War II years.

Further sources of information:

The English-language Takarazuka Revue website is at:  http://kageki.hankyu.co.jp/english/

Searching for “Takarazuka” on YouTube.com will reveal a few clips of performances that fans of the Revue have uploaded.

There is a wiki dedicated to the Revue at http://www.takarazuka-revue.net/

If you’re interested in a more scholarly treatment of the Revue, look up Jennifer Robertson’s Takarazuka: sexual politics and popular culture in modern Japan, published by the University of California Press.