To be brutally honest, I thought all the actresses sucked   Well, with the possible exception of Touga.  Nonetheless, the musical was very entertaining in an Ikuhara kind of way, and I agree that the songs were very good.  I especially liked the musical mix of "Nanibito mo Kataru Koto Nashi" ("No One Has a Thing to Say;" Touga's second duel song in the series).  Also good were the Shadow Girls' song, which was true to their persona if maybe a little more consciously inscrutable, and the surprisingly compelling versification of the Chick Speech.

I think it's really funny that they're all women.  It seems like a very Ikuhara thing to do somehow.  This is the guy who broke into popular anime consciousness by making Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune lesbians.  He's also stated (in interviews, yes; take with a pillar of salt) that he hates Tuxedo Mask, Touga, and Akio; they're trying to take his woman!

...is it terrible that the first thing I thought when I saw it was "gosh, Anthy has fat thighs"?

Seriously, it was - er - Dios and Akio were both wearing lipstick and Saionji's hair was all straggly and, well, the backing dancers were really, really shaking their booty. Basically, it was hilarious but also slightly painful.

I loved Nanami, though! A Nanami musical would be a very, very special thing.

Heh, I have Gio's old copy, and I still haven't watched it. Maybe I should, if only to laugh.

Fluffy wrote:

Seriously, it was - er - Dios and Akio were both wearing lipstick and Saionji's hair was all straggly and, well, the backing dancers were really, really shaking their booty. Basically, it was hilarious but also slightly painful.

I loved Nanami, though! A Nanami musical would be a very, very special thing.

Dios was very weird... I'm not sure if the same actress played Akio too or not, but why couldn't they have used any male actors?

Oh, didn't Nanami have about 10 seconds on the stage? I think that was ridiculously short, but at least they captured her characteristics.

I always go to watch the musical for a laugh.  It's too great.

I thought Utena and Dios were really bad, though--I didn't like Utena's actress, and Dios...well, two words: blonde wig.  All of the song remixes were great though, and Touga's actress was plain hot.   Hurray for scary female Touga in gogo boots!

azuresquirrel wrote:

I'm pretty sure that the Utena musical was performed by a Takarazuka theater company - in which women play all the roles. I kind of like the concept myself, but then again I'm just plain fond of crossdressing.

From what I understand, Takarazuka theater was in itself a huge influence on Ikuhara when he made SKU. Having seen some of the costumes they come up with on their own, I can definitely see why.

Giovanna wrote:

azuresquirrel wrote:

I'm pretty sure that the Utena musical was performed by a Takarazuka theater company - in which women play all the roles. I kind of like the concept myself, but then again I'm just plain fond of crossdressing.

From what I understand, Takarazuka theater was in itself a huge influence on Ikuhara when he made SKU. Having seen some of the costumes they come up with on their own, I can definitely see why.

The Takarazuka Musical Revue is a very specific theater company, and they did not produce the Utena musical (although the idea of all the actors being female is drawn from them).

As for the influence of Takarazuka on Utena...it's a little bit less direct than Ikuhara drawing influence from the Revue. Rather, the "God of Manga' Osamu Tezuka grew up in Takarazuka (the town), and drew inspiration from the troupe when creating early shoujo manga such as "Princess Knight." Successive shoujo artists such as Riyoko Ikeda then followed Tezuka's lead.

Interestingly, the Takarazuka-inspired Rose of Versailles was adapted into one of Takarazuka's most famous and often-revived musicals. It all feeds back on itself.

The "otokoyaku" (Takarazuka performers who act in the roles of men)-esque character type is now fairly widespread in shoujo and, to some extent, anime in general. I don't mean characters inspired by the characters that otokoyaku play, though - I mean characters inspired by the masculine-acting, charismatic otokoyaku themselves. Prominent examples of such characters include Oscar from Rose of Versailles; Kaoru no Kimi and Saint-Juste from Brother, Dear Brother; and Sailor Uranus from Sailor Moon. Utena herself is also a character in the same vein.

Now, in his commentary track on the last disc of the American release of SKU, Ikuhara denies being directly inspired by Rose of Versailles (I'll leave it to your discretion to decide how much you trust anything Ikuhara says about his creative process), but admits to wanting to appropriate tropes of the shoujo genre. By the time SKU was made, Takarazuka-esque elements were already part of those tropes.

A great book about Takarazuka: http://www.amazon.com/Takarazuka-Sexual … 30?ie=UTF8

Dallbun wrote:

INFO

Whoa, thank you.

Having seen a little of RoV, I simply refuse to believe it wasn't influential at all. Brother, Dear Brother is definitely an influence being that Juri looks exactly, EXACTLY Saint-Juste.

I actually got my hands on both and plan to do an SKU-inspiration trip report.

The musical... oh, I appreciated it, but hm.  I laughed.  I thought it was tacky, and I laughed.  Hard.  But that's just because live versions are very difficult to pull off.  I thought it was funny that only select characters had dyed hair or wigs.  Utena's hair is traditional black, and Touga's is bright red.  Not to mention the lipstick.  I think my favorite part was when the Student Council met and the series song "Legend of the God Abraxas"  (name right/wrong?  It's hard for me to label the music correctly) started to play.  That sort of tie made me appreciate the musical and giggle. 

Aside from that, I really don't mean to sound ungrateful for someone's effort, but I think the musical isn't that good.  A bit ridiculous even.  I'd rather just watch the anime.  But for what it is, live action, it's quite nifty.  I really do like Touga's actress.  I couldn't stand the Utena though... not sure why.  I guess she just didn't seem special enough.  Maybe it was the hair... darned if I know.

Dallbun wrote:

From what I've seen, the Utena musical is a little bit eh. I'm fonder of the Sailor Moon musicals, which lend themselves more to a campy fun musical format.

I recall in an interview Ikuhara said he wanted to do another musical and supervise it more. Obviously this never happened but if I were to offer a reason for why the SKU musical is 'eh', I think it would be that they never decided whether to be serious or whether to be balls out ridiculous. Either extreme could go very well given the storyline, but ridiculous is naturally much easier to pull off. I might be mistaken but the game seemed to go that route, what with the duelling Chu-Chu and that godless shot of Akio in the opening.

A serious SKU musical...is an interesting thought. It would never happen because everyone would screw it up, but...very interesting thought.

The musical is hilarious. It isn't good by any stretch of the imagination, but it's a lot of fun.

Whenever I think of it I'm reminded of the fact that I read that Bollywood was remaking Fight Club a few years back. Both those concepts make my pants tingle in a similar way.

Archambeau wrote:

There's a reason why they had KaNNa record all the songs for the OST release.

She was the only member of the cast who could sing.

She sang /everything/? Seriously? Then she must be very good at changing her voice. o_o; -must listen to the OST now-

And I think Utena and Touga sang pretty well. I mean, Utena was completely off key and stuff, but she had lots of energy and her singing sounded real, which was a good and Utena-ish thing, in my opinion.