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Sakura Taisen Appreciation Half-Week: Cowgirls with katana on stage!
Continued from this post!
Kosuke Fujishima, who some of you may know as that guy who draws really incredibly awesome women, is the man responsible for the original Sakura Taisen character designs, and much of the game and anime artwork. He was succeeded by the also-awesome Hidenori Matsubara. Between the two of them, they've produced an incredible body of Sakura Taisen-related artwork. Here's some of the best of it.
Okay now. Remember what those characters look like. Burn their visages into your mind's eye... Because things are about to get freaky.
So, Japan.
Japan has this fascination with turning successful anime/manga/game franchises into... er, stage musicals.
They did it to Sailor Moon, the did it to Utena, they did it to Prince of Tennis, and of course they also did it to Sakura Taisen. At first blush, Sakura Taisen would seem like a logical choice to make the jump from small screen to stage. After all, the main characters already ARE stage actresses! But any Sakura Taisen stage adaptation runs into immediate problems.
First, four of the characters (Iris, Reni, Coquelicot, and Ricarrita) are little girls. The obvious solution to this problem is to cast little girls to play the roles of little girls, as the Sailor Moon musicals did. BUT NO. All of Sakura Taisen's little girl characters are played by thirty-year-old actresses. Next, another problem: None of these little girl characters are Japanese. Iris is French, Reni is German, Coquelicot is Vietnamese, and Ricarrita is supposed to be freakin' Mestizo. But does any of that matter? No! Let's cast thirty-year-old Japanese actresses for the lot of 'em!
This is a bigger problem that just the four little girl characters, though. MOST of the Sakura Taisen characters are not actually Japanese. Now, by and large, it doesn't actually matter that exclusively Japanese actresses are being cast as various East Asian, European, and white American characters. But there is one character who is particularly problematic.
One character, Sagitta, IS SUPPOSED TO BE A BLACK WOMAN.
So what did the producers of the Sakura Taisen stage shows do?
...
Yeah, they went there. Yeah, they did that.
See for yourself. Here are scans from the program book of the 2007 Budoukan show:
From that same performance:
That was each of the different theater troupes singing their own theme song. Remember those theme songs?
Heck, just search for Sakura Taisen Budoukan on Youtube and you'll find all sorts of trainwrecky goodness.
Note: That is a LOT funnier if you can understand Japanese. But all you need to know is, Reni's plaid pants are epic. Just epic.
And that's just from ONE show. There are others. Many others.
In fact, Budoukan is relatively tame compared to some of the stage shows. I mean, they get sillier. Much, much sillier.
COMING UP NEXT: THE GREATEST CHRISTMAS SONG EVER WRITTEN.
But first, bonus, just because I felt like scanning them: Pages from the program books of the two stage shows featuring the New York troupe, one from 2006, the other from 2007.
Ricarrita is terribley cute, Diana's wig is unbelievably awful, and blackface is D:
Kosuke Fujishima, who some of you may know as that guy who draws really incredibly awesome women, is the man responsible for the original Sakura Taisen character designs, and much of the game and anime artwork. He was succeeded by the also-awesome Hidenori Matsubara. Between the two of them, they've produced an incredible body of Sakura Taisen-related artwork. Here's some of the best of it.
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Okay now. Remember what those characters look like. Burn their visages into your mind's eye... Because things are about to get freaky.
So, Japan.
Japan has this fascination with turning successful anime/manga/game franchises into... er, stage musicals.
They did it to Sailor Moon, the did it to Utena, they did it to Prince of Tennis, and of course they also did it to Sakura Taisen. At first blush, Sakura Taisen would seem like a logical choice to make the jump from small screen to stage. After all, the main characters already ARE stage actresses! But any Sakura Taisen stage adaptation runs into immediate problems.
First, four of the characters (Iris, Reni, Coquelicot, and Ricarrita) are little girls. The obvious solution to this problem is to cast little girls to play the roles of little girls, as the Sailor Moon musicals did. BUT NO. All of Sakura Taisen's little girl characters are played by thirty-year-old actresses. Next, another problem: None of these little girl characters are Japanese. Iris is French, Reni is German, Coquelicot is Vietnamese, and Ricarrita is supposed to be freakin' Mestizo. But does any of that matter? No! Let's cast thirty-year-old Japanese actresses for the lot of 'em!
This is a bigger problem that just the four little girl characters, though. MOST of the Sakura Taisen characters are not actually Japanese. Now, by and large, it doesn't actually matter that exclusively Japanese actresses are being cast as various East Asian, European, and white American characters. But there is one character who is particularly problematic.
One character, Sagitta, IS SUPPOSED TO BE A BLACK WOMAN.
So what did the producers of the Sakura Taisen stage shows do?
...
Yeah, they went there. Yeah, they did that.
See for yourself. Here are scans from the program book of the 2007 Budoukan show:
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From that same performance:
That was each of the different theater troupes singing their own theme song. Remember those theme songs?
Heck, just search for Sakura Taisen Budoukan on Youtube and you'll find all sorts of trainwrecky goodness.
Note: That is a LOT funnier if you can understand Japanese. But all you need to know is, Reni's plaid pants are epic. Just epic.
And that's just from ONE show. There are others. Many others.
In fact, Budoukan is relatively tame compared to some of the stage shows. I mean, they get sillier. Much, much sillier.
COMING UP NEXT: THE GREATEST CHRISTMAS SONG EVER WRITTEN.
But first, bonus, just because I felt like scanning them: Pages from the program books of the two stage shows featuring the New York troupe, one from 2006, the other from 2007.
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Ricarrita is terribley cute, Diana's wig is unbelievably awful, and blackface is D:
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Oh, and the most amusing fact is that these actresses are the actual seiyuu who worked with ST games/anime. I wonder if they knew about all these musicals before they signed their contracts.
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Really? Wow. I guess that's why they didn't cast any actual little girls in any of the little-girl roles.
So did Orihime's actress refuse to get involved in the musicals, or what? Because I can't help but notice that Orihime is absent from every. single. musical. And she's usually the ONLY character that's missing...
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As for Orihime's seiyuu, she participated in several shows. Not in all of them, but still. Check these:
Another interesting fact is that Sumire retirement OVA was created to celebrate her seiyuu's retirement from the musicals.
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Er, any idea why she's not in the more recent musicals? I suspect it might have something to do with the actress, but... Orihime always seemed like such a popular character. I'm surprised that, assuming that there was a problem with her voice actress participating in the musicals, they didn't just go out and hire some other actress to play her role.
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So they did get a bunch of real actresses in to do a totally bizzare life-imitates-art thing after all. :D
I was actually a little freaked out when I saw real-life versions of the Sailor Senshi, especially the Starlights. (Mutters about Sayuri Katayama's terrible hairdo in the first Stars musical) But medium translations need a little...um, space?
"The obvious solution to this problem is to cast little girls to play the roles of little girls, as the Sailor Moon musicals did. BUT NO. All of Sakura Taisen's little girl characters are played by thirty-year-old actresses."
NO!!!! HEEEELLLLLLP MEEEEEEE!!!! (Eyes bulge out) :D
(Has images of a 30 year old Sera Myu Chibiusa)
NOOOOOOOO!!!!
:D
Regarding the "blackface" thing...I think it's kind of hard to find real Vietnamese, Russian, and black people in Japan who are wonderful performers in the Japanese language, so they had to do their best. I don't think they were being racist. Blackface probably has different connotations in Japanese culture. (Pardon me if I'm wrong, I'm not that familiar with it.)
Darn you, Nena, you've made me go and find the Sakura Taisen opening song on YouTube, and now I'm playing it over and over again and it's stuck in my head! DARN YOU!!! :D
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(I hope they don't have a version of it on steel drums and mbira or something. :D On the other hand...I hope they do!)