![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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.
 |  |  |  |  |  |  |
 |  |  |  |  |  |  |
 |  |  |  |  |  |  |
 |  |  |  |  |  |  |
 |  |  |  |  |  |  |
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:
no subject
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.
no subject