Takarazukas Elisabeth Is Like If Somebody Took 1984 And Made It All About How Winston And Julia Fell

Takarazuka’s Elisabeth is like if somebody took 1984 and made it all about how Winston and Julia fell in love like it was all a fairytale.

Takarazuka’s theme song for Rose of Versailles is so cheap and cheesy, it overshadows the subtle poetics of Ikeda Riyoko’s words. (Also the ending of RoV’s anime slaps harder than any song the Revue can write)

The only good Takarazuka show I’ve seen so far is El Halcon because Aoike Yasuko is such a good action writer that even when her material is heavily watered down and compressed, it’s still, at the very least, fun to watch. Heard Haikara-san ga Tooru is good too but haven’t tried.

ive gotten into takarazuka when i found out they did elisabeth! do you have a fav takarazuka tod perhaps? i think ayaki nao was a quite seductive tod (though takarazuka ofc have their own interpretation of tod!)

I’m going to be brutally honest here - I do not care for the Takarazuka productions of Elisabeth. Part of it is getting to know some of the fan culture surrounding the Takarazuka productions in general, and their fetishistic nature towards the actors, but most of it is that I just do not vibe with the direction it takes. I don’t like how it romanticizes the story, I don’t like how Elisabeth’s role is reduced, I don’t like how spineless they make her. I absolutely know that this is how Takarazuka does this and that many fans enjoy it, and that’s fine! There’s room for lots of interpretations of the story, and I am fine with this one’s existence (plus it releases lots of proshots and has gorgeous costumes). But it is really not my thing.

All of which is a really long way of saying that I do not have a favorite Takarazuka Tod, because I do not watch it enough to have one, and when I do,  I focus almost entirely on Elisabeth. Because if they are going to reduce Elisabeth to a secondary role in her own musical, then I, spiteful contrarian that I am, will focus on her and her alone, just to show them. So there.

(Though I guess I did like Asumi Rio as Tod, but I think that’s less a sign of her quality and more because I watch the 2014 cast the most, because I find Ranno Hanna to be a cutie patoot.)

We as a fandom don’t talk enough about this

In Chat Blanc, when Gabriel tries to separate Adrien and Marinette, Marinette’s response is to comply to that demand and breaks up with Adrien, prompting him to run after her and is forced to out himself as Chat Noir. This incident leads to the blue-eyed nightmare that is Chat Blanc.

But in Pretension, when Gabriel tries to separate Marinette and Adrien again, this time by threatening Marinette that if she doesn’t give up Adrien, he will make sure she can never work a single day in the fashion business. However, this time, Marinette stands up to Gabriel. More importantly, she reassures Adrien that she will NEVER abandon him.

This is important for 2 reasons:

1. It really demonstrates how gutsy Marinette has grown. She is no longer weak in the face of a looming authority like Gabriel Agreste. She is now confident, assertive, and not going to obey anybody, much less Gabriel.

2. Marinette shows Adrien that she can be his emotional pillar of support, so that he is no longer alone. He has somebody to rely on when his father fails (which, let’s be real, Gabriel gets worse and worse each season). And to show him that standing up to Gabriel is possible and absolutely the right thing to do, she could have inspired him to try and stand up for himself too.

Is Chat Blanc still a looming specter of threat? Perhaps as both Marinette and Adrien grow up into confident and self-assured adults, he will become less and less of a nightmare, just a “what could have been.”

In other words, I’m not pressed about the reveal. It’ll happen when it feels natural and consensual for both sides. Even if that means season 12 🤣🤣🤣

Oh my gosh somebody wrote me an essay I’ve never felt more honored 😭

This is definitely my more recent interpretation of the Nopperabou arc too, but you have even more interesting observation and interpretation 💖

I am also thinking of 2 details that could support or extend this interpretation.

1. When Kusuriuri asks “who did you kill” the last time, and Ochou realizes “they’re all me,” there are several visual flashes of Ochou’s body being mangled. Like hung, or piked, or tied and slashed (sorry for the graphic description 😬). This could represent all the different ways Ochou has contemplated suic*de.

2. A psychiatrist once told me that sometimes mental illnesses manifest as a way for a part of you to let you know that something is deeply wrong. It’s something that your body knows and your mind knows but you refuse to acknowledge. So in order to get your attention, it twists itself and exhibits as a mental illness i.e. depression, anxiety, etc. OR inversely, it could be a part of you that’s trying to protect you but is taking everything to the extreme and you become miserable for it.

And I think that’s what happens with Ochou.

Both the traumas that she never addressed and her defense mechanism manifested into the Man in the Fox Mask. Who represents both her repressed fantasy and her repressed issues. Of course, that part of her is trying to protect her, trying to make her happy. The problem is, it doesn’t have an answer other than pretending to be the man of her dream. But when even that doesn’t work out, its only solution is su*cide.

But here’s something interesting. Around the end, Hyper is shown with his magical sword drawn. But after Ochou says to the little confetti “thank you so much, I’ll be okay now,” Hyper’s sword is shown again WITHOUT the magical pew pew firework beam. This has always been intriguing to me. And it reminds me of another thing that psychiatrist said: “sometimes you have to appease that part of you and reassure it that you’re gonna work on your issues, and that you’re gonna be ok. So it can stand back and not make you so miserable anymore. Because it’s trying hard to protect you, it just doesn’t know how to do it right.” And I think Ochou managed to subdue her Mononoke by embracing it and appeasing it.

So personally, I think Ochou did not actually end her own life after all. She has recognized the problem, and she’s leaving them behind to work on herself.

(Oh shit is this too long? I get excited when people write me essays)

@amaryllis14612 Your post about the Man in the Fox Mask made me think more deeply about why I think he is a part of Ochou.

I remember that the Medicine Seller said that Ochou had fallen in love, and when this person is revealed to us, we see that it is the Mononoke. However, at the end of the episode, we find out that the Mononoke is actually Ochou. Taking all these facts into account, we can come to the conclusion that the masked man is a part of Ochou that wanted to be happy and free, but she kept that part of herself inside her heart, so it is represented as someone else. Ochou developed self-love, and this self-love led her to seek freedom, the freedom she found in ending her own life.

At least that's how I like to think about it :))

❝— Feelings and memories. They only exist inside my heart.

— Even if we live at the same time, or have the same visions, what we carry in our hearts will never be the same.

— Your face, your voice, your image, which only exists inside me.

— Who are you?❞

The second act of Nopperabō is presented in this way. I think that's a way of saying how our hearts carry different hurts, and that this also applied to Ochou, who had created such an unthinkably huge will to be free, that she no longer recognized that part of herself, and only within from Ochou's heart, it became a whole another person.

What is Dorian saying to Klaus? Wrong answers only

The Mononoke production team really went and fed Sakurai Takahiro to the Bakeneko. As much as the outcome may potentially result in complicated feelings in some, I MUST commend their guts and their decision to stand against mistreatment of women (shows how aware they are of the masterpiece they are working on). And it makes me respect and look forward to the movie even more.

have you watched toho elisabeth?

I have not watched the Toho version in full for several reasons.

1. Elisabeth in Japanese to me doesn’t sound as good as Elisabeth in German. Due to the differences in diction, I find the original German much more expressive and intense. Japanese can be expressive and intense too but it doesn’t do so in the context of Elisabeth.

2. Toho, as I have read, is like a compromise between the Takarazuka version and the Viennese version. And that, to me, does not work. As I have said, the Viennese version is laid out so intricately, the smallest detail can throw the whole show out the window. They, of course, keep Rondo of Love and Death because the Japanese audience has spent almost 20 years prior to Toho associating Elisabeth with Rondo. Even when the Viennese Revival cast toured Japan around 2006-2007, they had to add Rondo (which was a stupid request).

Anyway, due to those reasons, I haven’t watched Toho. I might later but for now, if I want to watch a masterpiece I would watch Pre-2012 Viennese version, and if I want to hate-watch, I have a dozen Takarazuka versions to choose from.