Takarazuka Elisabeth Role Division and Its Star Track Implications: A Far Too Long and Rambly Analysis
Hello and welcome to my WAY TOO LONG rambling post in which I analyse the way that Takarazuka divides the roles in Elisabeth in an effort to figure out what the cast is going to be for the upcoming elisabeth.
(Mizu is side-eyeing the amount of time I put into this)
I will post my predictions soon, but for now, here you get the whole analysis (please don't mind any typos I may have made in this I did not beta read it):
Tracking in Elisabeth - By Lost Who Is Entirely Too Invested In This Entire Thing
The way Elisabeth is adapted in Takarazuka adheres to specific types of tracking trends, which are interesting to look at both in an attempt to predict the way the roles might be decided and also just because it’s interesting. So here is a little breakdown of what these roles might mean, how they relate to tracking, and what kind of sienne usually gets cast in them!
Der Tod – The easiest of all the roles. This is your topstar, obviously. However, what is interesting to note here that Elisabeth as a musical tends to slot into specific spaces of a topstar-run that this current hana version is already subverting in some ways and might subvert in others.
For the topstar, notably, this show statistically most often comes either at the beginning of a topstars run as a grand theatre ohirome (2002, 2007, 2014) or as their final or penultimate show (final: 1996, 2005, penultimate: 2009). Those times that it doesn’t, where it falls squarely in the centre of their run (1997, 1998, 2016, 2018), it has been the musumeyaku’s taidan show twice, and her penultimate show once. That leaves only 1998 where it really fell centre run for everyone involved, although it looks like perhaps we might see that climb to two now, if neither Hitoko nor Misaki taidan on it.
Elisabeth – While you would think this is similarly simple, it isn’t. Sisi can go either to your topmusumeyaku, or in the two occasions that the topstar involved did not have a topmusumeyaku (2005 and 2009, both in Tsuki) to an otokoyaku. In 2005 this was nibante Sena Jun, who was about to be topstar herself, but in 2009 this was somehow, incredibly, Nagina Ruumi, who was: not in tsukigumi at the time and only came over for that one show, and had never had a lead before, shinko or otherwise. We can assume that is an outlier that should probably not be counted.
Also interesting here is that with the exception of the very first Elisabeth in 1996, and this newest announced 2026 one, every single topmusumeyaku that played Sisi was with her ‘second husband’ – having already seen her topstar partner taidan and doing Elisabeth with their second one. This makes Hoshizora Misaki the only one along with Hanafusa Mari who is doing it with their first partner, and also puts her on the younger end of the spectrum (though still significantly older than O’Hana was when she did her first Elisabeth).
Franz-Joseph – Franz-Joseph starts getting into slightly more complicated territory. This role has been played by a senka-member three times (2002, 2005, 2014), but other than that has always been the nibante role. In general, this has happened when the nibante was more on the junior side, and we can see overlap here twice with this being a topstars debut show, meaning their nibante was also new at the time (2002, 2014).
Another reason might be that, as in Tsuki 2005, there was no well-defined nibante in the troupe (with Kiriyan advancing faster on the track than Yuuhi despite Yuuhi being older), so grabbing someone from senka was less complicated. Franz is a very complicated role technically, both because the songs are difficult and because you have to age the character through the show, so usually senior performers are a pre. This can also mean it is a very big step to take on Franz for performers for whom it is not their normal kind of type-cast, and can help them develop and prepare for top stardom.
Luigi Lucheni – shifting down then, Lucheni is a sanbante or nibante role depending on whether a senka performer is around to be Franz or not. People have argued that this is a signifier that people are for sure going to be topstar, but in my opinion that is confusing correlation with causation; once you are sanbante your chances at hitting topstar are pretty big to begin with, and a nibante getting cast as Franz is not necessarily an indication that they will not, as there have been two nibante Franz’s that didn’t make it to topstar (2007, 2018), and one Lucheni (2016) that didn’t make it either. In both cases the nibante in question was already in a strange situation that had nothing to do with Elisabeth; Ayabuki Mao had Otozuki Kei behind her who had a VISA contract, and Miya Rurika was older than the topstar she was nibante for, both situations didn’t really have anything to do with Elisabeth. But since Lucheni is also sometimes a nibante role (due to someone from Senka playing Franz) this entire statistic is, in my opinion, not really a sign at all. Lucheni is, obviously, the flashier role, and so people tend to be more enthusiastic about it.
It is definitely a bit of an oversized sanbante role, if you do get it as sanbante you really get something to chew on, probably because in the original Austrian musical if there is a male ‘nibante’ role, it is in fact Lucheni, not Franz, but in Takarazuka a lot of his material gets reassigned to der Tod. You can still kind of see it especially in the Elisabeth shinkos, where Lucheni often returns to nibante status due to the fact that by cutting scenes out Lucheni gets a lot of extra narration.
Rudolf – Rudolf is an interesting part with regards to tracking, especially recently. It falls into the sanbante/yonbante slot depending on what is going on in the troupe and whether or not there is a person from senka involved, but it can be a little more complicated than that because the part gets switch-casted a lot in recent productions.
Up to and including 2007 it was relatively straightforward: either san- or yonbante depending on whether or not they had a senka actress playing Franz Joseph. These siennes, bar Asami Hikaru (who is always the exception to almost every rule) all had at least one non-top small theatre lead before they got to play Rudolf.
From ’09 on it gets more complicated as we start double casting Rudolf and switching this part with the revolutionary trio (Elemer, Stephan and Gyula). Twice this split was done between three siennes, and twice between two. In both cases where it was three, it was because the people who were at yon/gobante rank age-wise were not really on the star track anymore, but the person under them was. In ’09 the tracked kid here was Asumi Rio, and in ’16 it was Sakuragi Minato, both of whom were the youngest one in their group of three. In ’14 and ’18 the situation was different: these were both cases where the yon- and gobante were in direct competition with one another and the younger sienne was extremely tracked or extremely popular, but the person above them was also still very much on the track. In both cases this eventually resulted in the older Rudolf being transferred out of the troupe and out of the way of the younger Rudolf (Serika Toa to Sora and Akatsuki Chisei to Hoshi). Of this group, Kazama Yuno is the only one that had not had a small theatre lead before she got Rudolf, but she too was extremely tracked at the time and kind of an exceptional case.
In hanagumi at the moment it would appear neither of these situations really exist, making it entirely possible they will go for a single-cast for Rudolf (which would be a nice break), but it is also possible we’ll still get some sort of split-cast since it has been the standard thing to do for the last 4 times. If they consider having had a small theatre lead right now qualifier that would not leave a lot of options in hanagumi at the moment, and picking a young sienne that hasn’t had one would be an implication that this person is about to absolutely explode on the track.
Young Rudolf – Young Rudolf is a very interesting role because it can either mean nothing or it can mean a lot. In 1996, it was the role given to Aran Kei, who was also doing the shinko lead for the show, and in ’97 it was Tsukikage Hitomi, a future topmusumeyaku. In recent productions, it more commonly goes to a prominent young musumeyaku, or in the case of the ’16 production to Hoshikaze Madoka, future topmusumeyaku and the shinko cast Elisabeth. This means there’s a fairly high chance this happens again now, but it is also possible this role goes to just a talented background performer. Overall the more common option is still an otokoyaku, with 7 out of 10 otokoyaku, although Ranze Keito switched to musumeyaku afterwards.
Sophie – Sophie is also an interesting role, this has been a (fuku)kumichou five times and a senior diva musumeyaku five times, giving it a 50/50 chance of being a (fuku)kumichou or not. Out of these, it has always been an otokoyaku twice (one of whom, Mirai Yuuki, has continued to play the role in Toho after her taidan). The one thing that is certain is that this is never a young musumeyaku, and there is a very good chance it is a kumichou role.
Max – Max is most commonly a senka role, unless there is a specifically popular kumichou in the troupe at the time or another senior that has a specific reason for receiving the role. In ’05 this was Koshino Ryuu (kumichou and very popular), and in ’18 for example this was Kizuki Yuuma (currently in senka but then she wasn’t) who was douki with this cast’s Elisabeth and specifically chosen because of that. Senka is a much more common option though, 7/10 casts have a senka Max.
Lichtenstein – This is usually an older diva musumeyaku with a very good voice (see, Miho Keiko, Harune Aki, Touka Yurino before she was kumichou), but has at one point been the future topmusumeyaku of Soragumi Shijou Rui.
Ludovica – This is a flexible role, though the throughline is that this role goes to a seasoned musumeyaku, with a single otokoyaku exception (Ema Naoki in 1997). It’s been a senka role twice, a kumichou or fukukumichou four times, and another three times another senior musumeyaku.
Sztaray – is generally played by a senior musumeyaku who is not yet a kumichou but many of whom will be (fuku)kumichou at some point. They’re not generally tracked musumeyaku or musumeyaku who have leads (with rare exception), but they are generally prominent troupe members that one would expect to stick around.
Grünne – Grünne is very often played by an otokoyaku (fuku)kumichou, though it very occasionally happens that it is another non-track high-ranking otokoyaku.
Schwarzenberg – In the early days this was generally a pretty senior (often +ken10) otokoyaku, but from around 2007 this tended to be people that were recognisable from the side-track, having gotten fairly big roles, but who generally have had no (or perhaps one single) shinko over their career and tend to start wearing moustaches early in their career.
Rauscher/Hubner/Kempen – Generally similar to Schwarzenberg, but often for somewhat less prominent people. Occasionally Hubner and Kempen can be quite young otokoyaku as well. The one thing you can be sure of is that you won’t find anyone from the track here.
The Revolutionaries: Elemer, Stephan and Gyula – Especially in the earlier versions before we had the switch-cast for Rudolf, Elemer was quite consistently the show’s yonbante, and the youngest of the revolutionaries Gyula was generally one of the tracked kids from the pool below. Stephan, the ‘middle child’ of the revolutionaries was more often someone track-adjacent but possibly falling off it. In this period, Elemer also was the honko cast for Shinko Tod twice. Once we start getting switch cast Rudolf, the revolutionary trio is what Rudolf switches with. This has meant that the rank differences between these three characters are a lot more arbitrary, except that Elemer continues to be the largest role amongst them that in for example 2018 was the switch for the sanbante, while Stephan was the switch character for the yonbante, leaving Gyula as the least tracked of the three.
Szeps – In the early years this was just another background otokoyaku from the side-track, but as time moved on this was more often a senior otokoyaku and even a senka member twice.
Windisch- This is quite often a nibante musumeyaku, in fact has been the future top musumeyaku three different times, though in all cases the musumeyaku was at least ken 4 or older by the time she did this. It has also been a semi-prominent senior musumeyaku six times (with one performer repeating the role twice), and an otokoyaku once (in 2016). In this case it was a reasonably prominent background otokoyaku with a specific character acting skill and stand-out vocals.
Madam Wolf – This role is generally given to a diva or senior musumeyaku (six times, one of which was a very established but older nibante musumeyaku), usually with specifically impressive vocal skills, and three times to an otokoyaku, generally off-track but prominent.
Madeleine – Madeleine has been the next topmusumeyaku four times over the years, nibante musumeyaku that did not make top once, and a promiment otokoyaku (sometimes tracked sometimes not) three times. This is clearly a role that holds importance and can mean a lot if it’s going to a nibante musumeyaku for her position on the track. The most recent hanagumi production (2014) cast a fairly prominent tracked otokoyaku for the part (Minami Maito), rather than putting her in the revolutionary trio.
Éljen Singer – the Eljen singer is usually a junior otokoyaku that is being positioned for the star track, occasionally this is the role given to shinko tod (like in 2016, when it went to Rukaze Hikaru).
Black Angels – There are nine black angels (+ madeleine, making for a total of 10), usually the youngest three to four of these are shinko kids that are being positioned for the star track, and the older six are semi-prominent otokoyaku that might be on the side track and are often specifically chosen for their dancing skills.
Court Ladies – Since the court ladies make up a lot of the choruses for Sophie, these tend to be strong vocalists which often include reasonably prominent older background musumeyaku and occasionally a young tracked musumeyaku (this has also included future topmusumeyaku very early in their careers).
The concept that married people live longer is interesting. I'm sure there is some merit to the idea that if you're married there is someone there to nag you about going to the doctor, but I think much larger factors are having the finances of dual incomes and access to an immediate support person.
Surgeries require having a designated person to look after you. Many injuries require driving to somewhere like an emergency room which can be hard to do if you are the one injured. If you're home with the flu, it's hard to tell when it's bad enough to go to the hospital without another person checking on you. And if you pass out it requires another person to find you like that to get medical aid.
You can prop it up as the benefits of marriage, but I think there's a much deeper discussion to be had about how we've built society around marriage as an inevitable conclusion and neglected to build support systems that function outside of romantic pairings.
tomodachi life giving you so many oppertunities for custom images and text with no filters means the obvious answer is of course to fill it with sex and penis. which is why i appreciate that every tomodachi life post ive seen is actually pretty lacking in sex and penis. instead we've been giving our miis enough cigarettes to kill a small village.
You don't even need to study for the Rorschach test, btw, it's super easy. All they do is show you a bunch of stupid pictures of your dad getting eaten by a horse
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