Well it seems like my original plan to write every week has officially gone up in smoke. There are a couple reasons for that. For one, and probably the biggest reason, is that I underestimated the difficulty involved in writing a blog, especially regularly. Really I have just been busy with school so I haven’t really found the time. The other reason is that, because of school and other things, I don’t do things every weekend that I feel is worth writing about. However last weekend and the weekend before I did take a few trips out to do some interesting things.
Baseball in Osaka: Hanshin Tigers vs. Chunichi Dragons
On October 5th me and a few other students went to see the local Osaka baseball team, the Hanshin Tigers, take on the Chunichi Dragons. Now your probably thinking “Baseball in Japan?”, but it’s actually really big here. Brought to the country in 1872 baseball quickly grew into Japan’s most popular sport. Some players from the Japan league have even went on to play in the majors, including names like Ichiro Suzuki and more recently Shohei Ohtani. So baseball is a pretty big deal here and the fans really get into it, maybe even more then we do in the states. While we have a chant or two back in the states and will cheer during big games or moments a large portion of the games are more laid back affairs. Here in Japan that is still somewhat true but they do things a bit differently. They have far more cheers and chants and the entire stadium, in true Japanese fashion, gets involved. And these cheers come up almost every at bat for their respective teams, even the away team had a large section of traveling fans. But probably the thing that is most different is the 7th inning stretch. While here in America we sing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” in Japan each fan blows up and releases a whistling balloon after, what I assume, the song for the related team is played. At the beginning of the 7th the opposing teams fans song plays and they release their balloons and during the stretch its the home teams turn. It’s quite a fun experience and while “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” is fun and all I think this has a little more pizazz.
Other then those differences and concessions that are decidedly more Japanese it’s still a baseball game so if you like those you will have a good time.
Takarazuka Revue
Last weekend I did something a bit different then baseball and went to a theatre performance. Specifically I went to see the Takarazuka Revue. Started in 1913 by the president of Hankyu Railways, Ichizo Kobayashi, as a way to increase tourism to Takarazuka the show quickly gained in popularity. The thing that sets the Takarazuka Revue apart from just an ordinary theatre is that all the roles, even the men’s roles, in the play are played by women, basically the opposite of Kabuki. Its an interesting twist but one that, at least for me, you don’t really even think about once watching the performance.
Speaking of the performance, it was in one word wonderful. The show that I went to happened to be preforming two separate plays, this isn’t typically but happens sometimes. The first play “Castle of the White Heron” was a Japanese fantasy that followed Abe no Yasunari and Tamamo no Mae as they were drawn together time and again over multiple reincarnations. Due to the fact that it was a musical told mostly in song as well as the fact that it followed multiple reincarnations it was a little hard to fully follow given my limited Japanese. However, the music kept it wholly entertaining and while I would have liked to follow it I had no less of an entertaining time regardless. The second play they preformed was called “Outsiders in the Renaissance” a musical play that followed Leonardo da Vinci in a play that depicts the creation of the Mona Lisa. The plot is obviously a bit deeper then that and if you would like to read the full info on the plays you can do so here. This play was a bit easier to follow, given that it only had like 2 or 3 songs and more typical acting as well as following a single main character. I enjoyed it immensely and found the story captivating even if I could only pick up bits and pieces of the actual dialogue. It probably says something about the level of acting that was on display that I was able to follow it as well as I did. At the end of most shows they also have what I believe is typically called the Revue, which is basically just a quick moving predominance with dance number after dance number coming one after the other culminating in a final presentation of the actors in that days play sort of as a final bow. It usually has a loose theme but is mostly just a lighthearted fun performance. All in all it’s a really good and enjoyable time and probably one of my favorite things I’ve experienced in Japan so far. If you have even a passing interest in theatre I would highly recommend going. Getting tickets is quite easy as they have an English website that you can buy them on, which you can find the link to in the website I linked to earlier with the play synopsis, however they have a tendency to sell out pretty quick so be sure to plan ahead.
And that has been the big things during the last two weekends. I also included some pictures of the Tezuka Museum that is in Takarazuka about a block down from the theatre. It’s a museum dedicated to Osamu Tezuaka, the “the god of manga”. It’s pretty small and would only take about 30 minutes to an hour to go through so I’d recommend it if you go to the revue and are interested in manga.
Gaidai Gaiden 