Thanks to Alicia Haddick’s post on Bluesky, we were made aware that Takarazuka was once again doing a video on demand for one of their musical performances, with subtitles. Castlevania: Awakening Under The Moon was performed by the Flower Troupe, starring Sea Towaki as Alucard and Misaki Hoshizora as Maria.

My only experience with Castlevania (other than general knowledge absorbed by osmosis from fandom) were the two Castlevania series on Netflix. The first series, Castlevania, had surprise lesbians so it got a review here on Okazu. The second series, Castlevania Nocturne was mostly just blood and gore, so I stopped watching. 

But! I will never turn down a Takarazuka challenge. My wife and I were discussing some of the shows we’ve watched that were not…great…. A few were unengaging enough that I never reviewed them and at least one – starring a very famous Top Star pair – was horrifying. But, generally I find Takarazuka enjoyable enough, even though I must carry a handkerchief to cover my mouth when I inevitably start laughing uncontrollably at some small absurdity. I tell you all of this in sincerity – I am not a True Fan (TM). I just enjoy the kitschiness. So if you are a True Fan (TM) of either Castlevania or Takarazuka, perhaps skip this review. Thank you for your understanding. 

Castlevania: Awakening Under The Moon follows the adventures of Alucard, Dracula’s prodigal half-human, half-vampire son, some years after he has killed Dracula, who has risen again and is still set on revenge against the humans who killed his human wife, Lisa…despite the fact that her final words were to not hate humans. 

The story takes an interesting turn when the vampires hijack the French Revolution for their own needs. In the meantime, Richter Belmont (Seino Asuka) and Maria are fighting vampires and Alucard is saving people from vampires for his own reasons.  It made sense and really did not make sense, but I liked it.  Why French Revolution when vampires are a Eastern European thing? No idea, roll with it.

My favorite scene is a flashback to an incredibly creepy ass village where gormless villagers are celebrating the return of their beloved dead with a very sticky song that leads to a predictable influx of vampires . The whole scene is absolutely creeptastic in that way that only isolated villagers and their bizarre rituals can be.*

Aside from that one song, none of the other songs were memorable, and “that one song that will be the repetition of the word ‘love’ over and over” is clearly part of the revue portion, which was not included with this VOD performance.

A couple of other notes. Most of the lead otokoyaku costuming gave the main characters long hair, which made Alucard and Richter and others look prettier than the usual Takarazuka “short” cut. And Kizuki Yuuma looked *amazing* as a bearded Dracula. Hot as blazes. I wish the Dracul character had been allowed to be the bad guy….but sadly no, he was turned into a character of pathos. The story inserts a shadow priest-like figure, “Shaft” who is the Zirconia to Dracula’s Queen Nehelenia. I *did* like the Church being full of vampires right from the outset. Yep. Check.

If you have never have had a chance to see a Takarazuka show, this is a fantastic opportunity. The online ticket was only $15.20 USD, a tenth of what a live performance ticket might run you (not including the flight to get to Japan). It’s full of exactly the kind of wonderful staging**, expository songs and over much acting, costuming and dancing that makes Takarazuka a fun experience. You’ll need a Windows browser on a PC or Safari on a Mac to watch the video, but the quality was good, the subtitles worked fine in English and the whole procedure was much more simple than I expected. This video will be available through the end of March.

Whether you’re a fan of Castlevania or Dracula/vampires*** in general, or Japanese all-female musical revues or just want to see what all the fuss is about and get a better grasp of series like Kageki Shoujo, Revue Starlight and the upcoming Scenes From Awajima, grab a ticket to Takarazuka Flower Troupe’s Castlevania: Awakening Under The Moon.

Ratings:

Music – 6 It was kinda stodgy
Story – 9 – All kinds of ridiculous and messy
Characters – 9 Hard to dislike anyone other than the priests, really
Staging – 9 It’s always super fun

Overall – 8

We all know vampires instill fear
But the real horror is Robespierre
Bloodthirsty undead may scare
Of gormless villagers beware
Real monsters are the humans who are near

* I recently read two books for ANN about this very thing, About A Place In The Kinki Region and Divine Incursions, both out from Yen Press, both super good creepy folklore-horror, if you like this kind of thing.

** So there is one weird scene, using the screens in the back of the stage as Alucard and Maria fly to Dracula’s reverse castle, where Maria begins to fall and – quite randomly, I thought – plummets towards her death, but is saved by Alucard, of course. I couldn’t stop laughing because wtf? Why? It was so random.

*** If you like Takarazuka doing vampires I highly recommend Poe no Ichizoku, which I reviewed in 2019. That was swell.

While we were in Tokyo for the 100 Years of Yuri Tour, a number of us went to see a Takarazuka musical revue. I wrote about it here on Okazu, immediately after. I determined that I would definitely be buying this on Blu-Ray, because it was so epic. And, having watched it again, everything I said stands.

Hoshi-gumi Takarazuka Grand Theater Performance Musical Full-Course “GOD of STARS- Sacred Meal” / Space Revue Fantasia “Éclair Brillant” (星組宝塚大劇場公演 ミュージカル・フルコース 『GOD OF STARS -食聖-』/スペース・レビュー・ファンタジア 『Éclair Brillant 』) was flippin’ fantastic. It was everything Takarazuka all rolled up into one nutty narrative, with catchy music, crazy costumes, charismatic actresses and a bunch of songs that get lodged in your head for a week.

The story was almost exactly as I remembered it. I had wondered why I initially thought Red Boy was the Monkey King, but upon rewatch I understood why – in the first scene, Irene’s mother and she talk about how Saiyuki was her favorite story. You may be familiar with the manga/anime franchise, but the name is the Japanese rendition of the Chinese epic we know as The Journey to the West, which stars Sun Wukong (Son Goku), the Monkey King. Ah-hah! It wasn’t my imagination, there was a reference. I feel a bit better about that.

The first scene introduces us to Irene Chow, whose father makes the best gyoza. We then switch scenes to heaven where Celestial being Red Boy is celebrating his existence as “God of Stars,” when he meets with an accident.

We then find ourselves in Singapore watching Top Chef Hong Xing-Xing being confronted by Irene for his attempt to gentrify the waterside dive area known as Paradise Hawkers. Ousted from the show and his life by sponsor “Golden Group” CEO Eric, Hong is replaced by Dragon Lee, and framed for crimes. He finds himself alone, stripped of everything except his pride, and ends up at Paradise Hawkers…where he once again meets Irene. They bond over both not having parents: Hong has never known his and Irene’s mother left when her father started drinking, then he left too. She’s running the the family restaurant alone, but she has no cooking skills at all.

Hong attempts to regain his position and his pride by challenging Dragon Lee to a cooking contest. Hong heads off to the mountains to study cooking at “Kobayashidera” while Irene follows a lead to find her mother in Shanghai.

The day of the big challenge comes and Hong arrives, with Irene’s father in tow! His Celestial parents come down having found Red Boy at last, and we are all reunited with our families. Irene and Hong get each other, Dragon Lee and Chinese pop star Christina live happily ever after.

What I very much enjoyed about the show was the music, which was very catchy and ear-wormy. I’ve been singing “Ore koso God of Stars” on a loop in my head since watching it, replaced from time to time with ”Eien no Kirameki,” I think was the title of this show’s version of the word “love” on repeat. (“Ai shinjite, Ai wo mitsumete Ai wo yume mite…”)

The revue portion, which did not seem very long when I watched it live, did drag a bit. Kurenai Yuzuru does not dance, really, not even the “spin-and-pose” style that passes for dancing most of the time in Takarazuka. She merely stands and moves her arms a bit. It was not inspiring, but I had ceased to watch her much anyway, in favor of Makoto Rei, who played Dragon Lee.

The DVD has one bizarre technical glitch in the revue portion during a rendition “That’s Life” by three of the otokoyaku. The glitch, in which the singer’s mics cut out,  appears to be from the actual show, because you can hear the singers from time to time, barely behind the music. It is bizarre because they left it in and didn’t just use a different performance for the Blu-Ray.  As it was “That’s Life” I didn’t count it much of a loss. ^_^;

Still absolutely outstanding were the performances by both Makoto Rei as Dragon Lee and Maisora Hitomi as Christina Chang.

My wife had not joined us for the show in Japan, but after our raves, she joined me for this viewing. Her verdict was “It was cute. I enjoyed it.” which is all I can ask.

Ratings:

Staging: 8 Less moving parts than usual, but still, the scenery was super fun.
Story – 9 Who wouldn’t like a story about a celestial being reincarnated on earth as an Iron chef?!?
Music – 8 Loads of fun, well sung, and this time, for the first show I have ever seen…written by a woman.
Dancing – 8 Bits of it were fantastic, just not the bits done by Kurenai

Overall – 9

I have now seen in person Takarazuka performances set in France, Austria, China and Singapore. Let’s talk about “exotic places” as common fantasy theme for women.

This BD is a terrific reminder of a terrific night and for all the everythings Takarazuka can bring to the table, I highly recommend GOD of STARS. 

Once again, I found myself standing in the Takarazuka Tokyo Theater gift shop, surrounded by riches of useless excess, and thinking, “I have to get something.” But there’s so much and I so don’t follow any star or troupe, that its often hard to decide! And this was before we saw God of Stars, after which we were motivated to go back and buy stuff.*

Then I saw a title and show that intrigued me. Clan of Poe is a well-known manga by BL pioneer and “Magnificent 49er,” Moto Hagio, that is out now as a deluxe set from Fantagraphics, with translation by Rachel Thorn. And so I ended up returning home with a Takarazuka DVD for this classic BL story as a musical, Poe no Ichizoku (ポーの一族). (It is also available on Blu-ray.)

Edgar Portsnel and his sister Marybell are abandoned by their father, and they are discovered in the woods by Hannah Poe who, Edgar discovers, is a “vampanella.” The story is Edgar’s evolution from naive waif to uncaring alpha vampire. Played by Asumi Rio, Edgar was annoying as fuck as a waif and did a lot of obligatory self-loathing when he and Marybell became vampanellas, but the less he cared about the humans around him, the better a character he was. ^_^ Edgar and Marybell meet Alan Twilight, played extremely well by Yuzuka Rei, who comes to love Marybell, until she is killed and he confronts his family about some whiny stupid thing then runs into Edgar’s hungry waiting arms. After which they both return to the boy’s school they had attended. I very much enjoyed how they looked at the boys around them like I do the menu at a restaurant. ^_^

Okay, so the story is not for me, obviously. I would have preferred to see Marybell run off with John’s wife (a thing she gets close to, which is why he shoots her.)  But as vampire BL goes, this wasn’t bad. It was violent, and the vampires were creepy and manipulative, both physically and emotionally, so you couldn’t really ever like any of them. But Alan and Edgar get a nice pas de deux or two and hold hands during the finale, so I guess that’s what pays the bills. ^_^ My money goes on the manager of the Hotel Blackpool (which I still think ought to have been named Whitby,) Tatsuki Mio, I believe. She was lovely.

I will say that both music and dancing, (despite being set in Europe of the imagination) were less stodgy than older shows, much as I found with God of Stars. So a new generation of composers and choreographers have made a positive impact on me, which is nice.

Ratings:

Music – 8
Story – 9 If you like BL, it was super fun
Characters – 8 Alan was the standout
BL – 6 Vampirey seductive stuff via Takarazuka filter

Overall – 8

What did I think of Poe no Ichizoku?

Edgar was no Allen Poe,
But it’s hard to give it a hard no.
I wasn’t sure what I thought,
but my attention was caught
By the attractive manager in the bow (tie).

*I ended up buying a multi-pack of clear files, some of which will end up in Lucky Boxes and a Suica card case on a retractable cord, which was really helpful. I liked the other deign better, but the one I got was more useful.

Here is a poster of Asumi Rio and Yuzuka Rei as Edgar(in the chair) and Allen (leaning) for you to enjoy. Good smouldering on Edgar’s part.