Information: Buying Goods: how to buy Takarazuka goods

With so many new people coming into the fandom via LJ, YouTube , and this darling Wiki itself, there is understandably a great deal of curiosity concerning how exactly one goes about building up a Takarazuka collection. We old-timers (listen to me; I've been a fan since April '05!) like to boast about the difficulties involved, and our epic struggles to acquire so-and-so's out-of-print personal book or shinko programme or first post-Zuka album; but the reality is that it's not really all that difficult... once you get used to it!

Now. None of the Japanese online shops that carry Takarazuka merchandise ship overseas. That leaves us with only four methods of getting Zuka.

1. Live in Japan.

2. Visit Japan.

3. Arrange the universe so that someone who is doing either 1 or 2 owes you favours.

4. Open an account with Crescent Shop.

The first three being impractical for many of us, this guide shall concentrate upon the exciting things you can do via the fourth. It may well end up reading like an infomercial for Crescent Shop. For that I make no apologies: Crescent Shop is the only shopping service that will buy items within Japan and ship them out of Japan. They do this efficiently and conscientiously, and for that I am their biggest fan. Masamichi-san, if you're reading this, domo arigato gozaimasu!

(A list of online Takarazuka stores can be found on the TakaWiki Links Page.)


It is a myth that only people who can read Japanese can go Zuka-shopping successfully. Virtually everything in this guide, I worked out by myself in my first few months as a fan, when I didn't have any fan friends to guide me and I didn't speak a single word of Japanese. If I can do it, you can do it. All you need is some idea of what to look for and where; if you're curious about the particulars of any given item and you don't have a more knowledgeable fan friend to ask, write to Crescent Shop. They're very good about helping you to find exactly what you want to buy.

There is, however, some basic Japanese vocabulary that can be very helpful to you. Even if you find the kanji difficult or impossible to recognise, you need to be able to copy and paste these things into search engines.

Troupe Names:

• 花組 = Flower Troupe
• 月組 = Moon Troupe
• 雪組 = Snow Troupe
• 星組 = Star Troupe
• 宙組 = Cosmos Troupe

Star Names

• 轟 悠 = Todoroki Yuu
• 真飛　聖 = Matobu Sei
• 霧矢 大夢 = Kiriya Hiromu
• 水夏希 = Mizu Natsuki
• 柚希 礼音 = Yuzuki Reon
• 大空 祐飛 = Oozora Yuuhi
• More on TakaWiki's actress charts.

Types of Shows

• 宝塚大劇場公演 = Takarazuka Daigekijou Koen (a play performed in the Takarazuka Grand Theatre; most shows fall into this category)
• 新人公演 = shinjin koen (performed by actresses who have been in Zuka less than seven years)
• ディナーショー = dinner show (a small-scale hour-long concert showcasing a particular Takarasienne)

The titles of the shows themselves are not so straightforwardly explained, but if you can read the troupe name, the stars' names, and the date, that's usually all you need to look at TakaWiki's performance charts and narrow down its identity to a couple of possibilities.

And if you still don't know what you're looking at, reverse-engineer it at J-Talk. This is the best of a bad lot of automatic translators, and although you mustn't take its outpourings as gospel, it can be very useful for giving you at least a partial translation from kanji to romanji. Sometimes a couple of syllables is all you need to match up a show's Japanese title with its English or romanji equivalent, or to let you search TakaWiki for an actress's romanji name.

If you're trying to go in the other direction, from romanji to kanji, you may find the WWJDIC helpful. But enough of that. It's time to talk about the fun part.



The official Takarazuka goods store is Quatre Reves (which really should have been renamed in 1998, but never mind that). It has branches in Takarazuka and Tokyo as well as online, and it sells everything you've ever wanted with your star's name or logo on it. Pens, scarves, keyrings, little things like that — and photographs, postcards, notecards, notepads, clear files, mousepads, etc. for each new show. They don't keep merchandise around for very long, though, so if a show you love is playing now, now is the time to buy.

The six pale mauve bars down the left-hand side of the main page lead to:

• Star Goods (for each of the six tops)
• Troupe Goods (for each of the five troupes)
• Show Goods (sorted by troupe)
• Postcards (by star, at the top, and by show further down)
• Stage Photographs (by show)
• Takarazuka Hello Kitty

If you see a red bar across the little picture of something, that means it's out of stock. The text ※ネット販売いたしません indicates that something is available in the physical shops, but not over the internet.

The next bars lead you to different Hankyu shops, such as...


Takarazuka Video and the TCA Pictures Shop sell all the same things. The one I'm going to tell you about is TCA Pictures, because the interface is a little more user-friendly, and it has much bigger item pictures.

You need to look on the right-hand side on this one. There are six photo buttons, one for each troupe, showing the top star and the troupe symbol: clicking on one of those will take you to a page that shows all the merchandise for that troupe. This is good for browsing, but will lead you into great temptation.

The left-hand panel is full of links you can click to get to lists of merchandise for particular actresses, and, further down, for the other troupes. The right-hand panel is where you'll see the items for sale. All DVDs, CDs, and videos are clearly marked as such: "ライブＣＤ" is the full soundtrack to something, "主題歌CD" is the singles CD, which typically has the two main songs plus karaoke versions, and "PianoSound" is only the piano music. Sometimes you'll see "ビデオ" for video, but DVD is always DVD.

Back on the front page, above the photo buttons, you'll find a series of drop-down menus and a text box underneath. This is for searching. You can copy and paste the kanji name of someone you're looking for, or leave the box blank, and narrow your search in the following ways:

• By type of merchandise
• By troupe
• By year
• By category of show (shinjin koen, TCA special, etc.)
• By limiting the results for whatever you type in the box below to titles, actresses, venues, or song names. (Thanks to lokai for that last one.)

In this way it's relatively easy to get, say, all Flower Troupe shows from 2002, or all Moon Troupe shinjin koen, or all shows in which your favourite Senka member performed with Star Troupe.


Every official in-print publication concerning the Takarazuka Revue is available through the publisher, Hankyu Books. These fall broadly into three categories.

Magazines

• 宝塚GRAPH: Takarazuka Graph, which prior to 1998 was spelled in katakana (宝塚グラフ). This is a largeish-format magazine, full of big glossy pictures of Takarasiennes. A typical issue will contain stage photographs for two or more current productions, rehearsal photographs for a show that may not yet have begun playing, lavishly-illustrated interviews and conversations between 'siennes, and, since 1998, several portraits of the covergirl(s) taken by prominent photographer Kishin Shinoyama. The most recent issue is always here, and back issues start here.

• 歌劇: Kageki. A smaller magazine, about the same size as a paperback book and the thickness of Vogue in January. Two-thirds of it tend to be devoted to articles, which makes it much less valuable to those of us who can only look at the pictures. However, the full-page portraits in the front are always nice, especially in January, when they print pictures of all the important 'siennes. Be aware that the covergirl often appears nowhere else in the magazine. The most recent issue is here, and back issues here.

• Le Cinq (or ル・サンク). This is slightly thinner than a Graph, but with larger pages, and is devoted exclusively to stage photographs of a particular production. There is a Le Cinq for every Grand Theatre show, and for many Theatre Drama City shows etc. that feature prominent actresses. Every so often you'll see one with Bow Hall or shinjin koen pictures in the back, or the full Japanese script of the play in question. The most recent issue is here, and back issues here.

• Foursome was Le Cinq's predecessor, in the days in which there were only four troupes. It had roughly the same number of pages as Le Cinq, but printed on thinner paper, and they were enormous. Foursomes are thus tricky to ship, but extremely desirable. They are all out of print.

Programmes

The newest, shiniest programmes always have their pictures on this page. At the bottom there are buttons leading to pages on which the programmes are sorted by troupe, by year, and by venue. The venues are, from left to right:

• Takarazuka Grand Theatre. These programmes contain lovely big portraits of the stars, and smaller ones of everyone else in the troupe, rehearsal photographs, plus a lot of Japanese information and two precious pages of English.

• Tokyo Takarazuka Theatre. The same as the Takarazuka ones, but with stage photographs instead of rehearsal pictures. Occasionally the cast will change slightly between Takarazuka and Tokyo, so emphasis may be placed on different actresses.

• Bow Hall. These ones are only a few pages along, with no English and only black and white pictures inside. Worth having only if you're obsessed with the lead actress or, of course, if you read Japanese.

• Other Theatres. These vary. I've seen some (usually 1,000 yen) that were almost as fun-filled as Grand Theatre programmes, and others (more like 600 yen) that were little more than Bow Hall programmes. In my experience, however, they all at least contain full-page colour portraits of the stars.

Photo Books

Otherwise known as mooks (magazine books). It's impossible to resist them for very long, filled as they are with gorgeous pictures of everyone worth looking at. The ones you are most likely to come across (and to want) are:

• Personal Books. There have been three series of these lovely little books, released monthly over 2001-02, 2004-05, and 2007. Each glorifies a particular second- or third-ranked otokoyaku over the course of fifty pages of photographs. Although the focus is on off-stage portraits, there are also stage photographs, scrapbook pictures of the 'sienne in question as a child and a young woman, and vital statistics. The pages are larger in the second series, but the photography is better in the first and third. Really, the third is an attempt to recapture the fabulousness of the first!

Books in the first series included a conversation between the 'sienne and someone older connected in some way with the theatre; the 'siennes in the second series, however, conversed with one another. Thus Mizu Natsuki is in Kiriya Hiromu's book, Oozora Yuuhi is in Sena Jun's, etc. The third series has interviews with current or recently retired top stars.

• On this page you'll find the Young Star Guides (blue for baby otokoyaku, pink for baby musumeyaku), which focus on rising 'siennes, and the annual revue mooks, which focus on everyone. Besides pictures, these latter volumes also contain short interviews, a few stage pictures, and special features like a timeline of Takarazuka history in the 2004 book, and a tour of the town of Takarazuka in the 2005 one. There is also a mook devoted to the 90th Anniversary Sports Festival, and a special 90th anniversary book containing class lists, show lists, etc. covering the entire span of the revue's history.

• Below them you'll see troupe-specific books called The Takarazuka (ザ・タカラヅカ). If you have a favourite troupe (and chances are if you don't now you'll end up with one eventually), you need their The Takarazuka book so much I'm finding it hard to put into words. There aren't enough superlatives to describe how much fun they are for the serious fans of a particular kumi. Stage pictures, star pictures, rehearsal pictures, shinjin koen pictures, backstage pictures, conversations, personal messages... it would be easier to list what isn't in these books: their phone numbers. Everything else is here, including birthdays, hometowns, and blood types. There are three series, published in 1997, in 1999-2000, and in 2003-2004; most of the third series remains in print, but the earlier ones are now only available secondhand.

• Takarazuka Otome (宝塚おとめ) is the annual directory of all currently active members of the Takarazuka Revue, sorted by troupe, with full-page portraits of the top stars at the end. Their names are also given in romanji, which is why this book is so good to have at one's elbow for identifying gorgeous otokoyaku one can't remember seeing before.

• Other photo books, most of which focus on a single star. They're fairly self-explanatory. The Kishin books contain all Kishin Shinoyama's photograph for Graph magazine over a particular period; the red one with Wao Youka on the cover is the We Love 'Sienne book, fabled for its dark and interesting photography.

Takarazuka-an carries everything. However, their selection of back issues is seldom as extensive as that of Hankyu Books, and their website has far fewer pictures so it's difficult for a novice Zuka shopper to decipher what exactly she's looking at.

Takarazuka.co.jp is the website of an official Takarazuka goods store, and like Takarazuka-an they carry a bit of everything — but I would recommend that you avoid them. Their online catalogue is never up to date, and in the past they have mixed up my orders and taken their own sweet time in sorting out the problems.


What, you ask, do I do with all this information and the mile-long shopping list I'm already composing? Easy. You take your list to Crescent Shop, and pay roughly a 20% commission for them to act as your personal shoppers in Japan.

Celga now offers a similar website shopping service, but not having used it myself I can't comment.


I expect some of the numbers you've been seeing on the sites listed above have had you scratching your head, or perhaps recoiling in horror. Congratulations on acquiring the most expensive hobby in the world that doesn't involve a yacht.

Yes, it really does cost this much. No, you're never going to see Zuka on sale. Yes, 6,300 yen is cheap for a DVD — they are more usually 8,400 or 10,500 or even in rare cases 12,600. All I can say to make you feel better is that they really are worth it. They're not like other DVDs. You'll watch over and over, day in and day out, gazing in slack-jawed wonderment at the beauty before you.

But if you can't afford new merchandise, or if you're a fan of older stars whose books and videos are out of print, there are still...


You're probably already aware that very few Takarazuka items show up on eBay, and that when they do they're not exactly cheap. The main Japanese auction site, however, Yahoo! Japan, is a positive treasure trove of inexpensive Takarazuka merchandise.

Unless you have a Japanese shipping address, and can read Japanese (in which case, what are you doing reading this?), you can't create your own Y!J account. There are three services that place bids and deal with Japanese sellers on your behalf: Celga, Rinkya, and of course Crescent Shop. I have never dealt with Rinkya, but I am told they have an excellent search function and that their fees are lower for very expensive items, i.e. over $400. Out of the two with whom I have personal experience, Celga and Crescent Shop, Crescent Shop is far superior, for the following reasons:

• Fees. Crescent Shop's are significantly lower for the sort of relatively inexpensive items Takarazuka fans normally buy. With Celga, you pay $5 for an auction that ends below 1,000 yen, and $10 for an auction that ends between 1,001 and 10,000 yen; with Crescent Shop, you pay 500 yen, which is slightly less than $5, for any auction up to 4,000 yen, and 12.5% thereafter.

• Shipping. All three auction services consolidate shipping for you to reduce the expense, and now Celga as well as Crescent Shop can put new items and auction wins in the same box, but Crescent Shop still has the edge because they're better packers. The large stack of mooks I bought via Celga literally rattled around in the box; everything from Crescent Shop arrives neatly coccooned in bubble-wrap, items wrapped together according to size, padded so that no harm can possibly come to them.

• And, the big one... Crescent Shop's new automated system. When you bid with Celga, you fuss about making deposits, waiting for their staff to place your bids manually, waiting for them to email you invoices, waiting their proscribed seventeen days before asking them if your items are in stock... when you bid with Crescent Shop, you PayPal? your deposit and are able to begin placing bids yourself, in real time, immediately. And when your items arrive at Crescent Shop, you find out the same day.

All the nuts-and-bolts details of how to order can be found on the websites of the services named above. Finding what you want to buy is just a matter of copying and pasting names and titles into search boxes.


It has been suggested that we Western Takarazuka fans win spiritual bonus points for going to such great lengths in the pursuit of the things we love. Certainly our Zuka is hard-won, and I think we often enjoy it more because of that. Personal books would be a trifle less special if we could just buy them at Borders — and if every Blockbuster had all five versions of Elisabeth, we'd miss the challenge of acquiring them all and the prestige of having done so.

I hope you (whoever you are) find this document useful, and not too long-winded. I have locked this page because I'm quite paranoid about people monkeying about with things I write, but if you have any questions, or suggestions for expanding it, I shall be happy to take them into consideration. Anything that makes the process of acquiring Takarazuka slightly less painful is well worth knowing!


If you have a local Japanese bookshop, such as Kinokuniya, they will be able to order in subscriptions to Graph, Kageki, and Le Cinq, in all likelihood less expensively than if you ordered them from Japan yourself via Crescent Shop.

For those without this convenience, Sasuga Books offers a very reliable airmail service, and CD Japan a slightly less reliable one.

---