Takarazuka-Part 1

This is how Takarazuka imagines Hamlet and the Scarlet Pimpernel

Takarazuka is a popular Japanese, all-woman theater troupe that performs musical period dramas in the most outlandish "male" drag you've ever seen. I'm familiar with drag-kings (women performing as convincing masculine archetypes) and this isn't anything like that. These woman make Liberace look like John Wayne. You can tell by the pictures above they're not really trying to appear male, more like beautiful women in hyper-stylized masculine garb. Thankfully, the obsession they have with boots is gloriously mystifying.  I could fill a lot of blog posts with the Takarazuka material I've gathered, but for now here's somebody else's clip. Skip forward to about the 1 minute mark.