#the audacity of me maintagging this despite not proofreading or anything

[caged-canaria]

Soragumi's National Tour: Great Pirates/Heat On Beat Review, or How Soragumi Gave Me My Groove Back And How I Got There

TW: mentions of the incident (implied)

I miss my old life.

What a way to begin a review about a silly Takarazuka performance right?

I miss when I was 19 and a baby fan and... quite simply a baby with all my dreams yet to be realized. When I discovered Takarazuka, my dream was to move to Japan. After a lot of waiting and wishing and hoping, that dream came true.

As I welcomed my second year living in Japan, I started to contemplate where I'd be going from here. I started to look back on where I had come from, and I started to miss my wide-eyed self.

I missed coming home in 2017 and watching Tsukigumi on repeat while trying to ignore exams just lurking around the corner.

Personally, Zuka had not been "fun" in the past year. For... obvious reasons, and also because it just started to feel distant to me. I didn't feel connected to Tsukigumi as I had been before, even though my oshi, Kazama Yuno, was there so I watched them a number of times. And Soragumi... well...

My home troupe had been Tsukigumi for a good chunk of my early Takarazuka fan life, then when I moved, my first live show was High&Low/Capricciosa. It changed my life seeing Takarazuka in the flesh. As soon as I saw Makaze Suzuho, the tears started flowing and when I saw *Kiki*... Oh...

(And then Zun beamed into my opera glasses during Capricciosa and my heart was hers from then on)

All that to say, Soragumi turned into my favorite troupe.

Then the latter half of 2023 happened.

I wasn't able to see Le Grand Escalier because I had qualms about seeing Soragumi after what had happened. I was full of complex feelings, as was... Is... everyone, probably.

But seeing them again... oh, the complete and utter joy it brought me.

As soon as the curtains lifted to reveal Serika Toa I started weeping. Seeing her again felt like the a nostalgic wave crash into me. I felt a piece of my "old life" had come back to me. I couldn't stop weeping but my glasses were starting to fog up so I told myself to hold it together.

It was nice to see Soragumi again.

I had not seen any previous production of Great Pirates before, so I was coming in blind. My expectations were very low, but thanks to that, I had a great time!

The story wasn't stellar. It felt much longer than 95 minutes. There were many scenes that felt like padding to me that while showed off the kakyuusei, didn't do much to further the plot or develop the characters.

The main character, Emilio felt very flat to me. He had this whole revenge story which in theory should be compelling but... it wasn't. Serika Toa did a great job at trying to give this character layers but there's only so much she can do when the character has 2 layers at most. She's so tall and commanding.

Sakura didn't have much to do in this one, but I couldn't complain because most of her few scenes had her singing and I can listen to Sakura sing for years and years. She is, in my humble opinion, the best musumeyaku vocalist in Zuka right now. She looked like a doll in her blonde wig and her big, beautiful gowns. She brought determination to Elaine and her love duet with Serika Toa was so lush and breathtaking. Those two have the most beautiful voices together.

Zun was great as Kidd, giving him a sense of maturity despite his aggressive nature. I felt like he and Kiki had good chemistry together which made me feel like the true romance in this show was between Kidd and Emilio. They even had a little slow burn, tsundere friendship going on which I very much enjoyed.

The dark horse in this show for me was Sendou Naru, who was one of sexy villain Moeko's sexy henchmen. She was Hamming it up and she looked like she enjoyed every second of the role. I hope we get more roles like this for Naru in the future!

There was also Mashiro Yuuki, who played comic relief. She's always very funny so it was fun training my opera glasses towards her to see what kind of mischief her character was up to. (When I saw it, Sakura accidentally dropped her hair ribbon during the romantic duet and I wondered who was gonna pick it up and then Mashiro adlibbed picking it up and played with it too! It was great. She's very clever!)

The songs were good, classic Takarazuka fare. But *Soragumi* sounded so beautiful together, the choral parts were sublime. My enjoyment of each song number was doubled because of how well Soragumi delivered them.

The climax was my favorite part of the show right up until the ending. I had no idea that would be the ending because I had never seen Great Pirates before and wow did I feel so unsatisfied.

All in all, Great Pirates was not great but there were many parts of it that were enjoyable. It also gave birth to a new ship so that's always a plus in my book!

Now, for the main event, Heat On Beat. This is Kikigumi's only proper revue. And wow, did they make the most of it.

Heat On Beat had always been Tsukigumi, performed by Sena Jun, Kiriya Hiromu and Ryuu Masaki. Like Great Pirates, I had not seen any production of HOB before (shamefully. Or maybe I have, but I had forgotten) so I came in not knowing a lot about it. I was expecting a lot of dancing and a lot of Heat and boy, did they give me that!

When Kiki first turned to face the audience, she was met with cheers. And I felt the vibe shift. I was having *fun*. Of course it goes without saying that Takarazuka is always fun for me but that was the first time I felt laid back. This was fun, I thought.

Heat on Beat was a delight from start to finish. There were no lulls and even the ballad parts never slowed the show down. In fact, I wanted it to be longer! I wanted it to go on forever. It was a revue full of Latin and jazz numbers.

Sakura was dazzling in every scene she was in. Like... wow what a gorgeous girl and what a gorgeous presence. Her voice soared all throughout the theatre and I felt so lucky to be able to hear it. There was one scene wherein she used her lower register and Wow did the hairs on my arm stand so quickly. My favorite scene of hers was definitely the punk girl scene, her smile is captivating. Please watch her!

Zun was also great and her chemistry with Sakura is impeccable. I think they would make a great top combi. (Fingers crossed!)

Soragumi did a great job as well. I can't go without mentioning my new child Sendou Naru, of course, but everyone did well! Moeko and Kotty all gave great performances! (But they were always in the same scene as Naru so my opera glasses were trained on her, haha.)

Serika Toa's legs are loooooong. And they sure do make use of those long legs in this show. There's a lot of leg choreography and the tango is the best dance to show off Kiki's legs. Anyway, enough about her legs.

Kiki is a top star.

I was fully intent on locking in on Zun during the kuroenbi but then there was something so commanding about it that made me just put my opera glasses down and watch the entire thing. The formations were beautiful, the choreography very cool. I heard people weeping as it went on. Please don't miss this kuroenbi. This would be Kiki's last proper kuroenbi after all, so the girls truly gave it their all. (And in the theatre I watched it in, the girls' steps were very audible so it made it feel even more impactful)

Heat on Beat was a treat. It brought me so, so much joy. I felt more pieces of my old life coming back and I asked myself why.

Why, of all times, did I feel so joyous?

Then it was when I realized that Heat on Beat was from Tsukigumi and Soragumi had made it their own. Two pieces of my past coming back as something new... it felt full circle.

I am glad I saw Soragumi. I am glad I saw Great Pirates and Heat on Beat. It gave me the hope to keep going and reignited my love for Takarazuka. Thank you, Soragumi.

The dream continues...!

Side story: I was staying in a hostel in a women's only dormitory room and the staff asked me if I was there to travel and I was like "I'm seeing Takarazuka!" and he was like "A lot of guests have come to see Takarazuka today!" and then lo and behold all the ladies in my dormitory room were Takarazuka fans and we all gushed about our faves and Soragumi and we all became fast acquaintances!