I’ve been terribly ignoring Snow Troupe the last few years, and somehow managed to miss pretty much all of Komu (Asami Hikaru) and Maikaze Rira’s reign as top. I am now belatedly playing catch-up.

So, I watched this revue without checking the summary on the wiki first, which explains why I completely missed the point of… oh, just about every scene.

So, Todoroki Yuu makes an appearance in this, and is apparently a “Rose Collector” while Asami Hikaru is… a guy with a fancy tattoo? And there’s all these scenes about roses and dreams, and a white city scene and… You know, I find it’s better *not* to try to understand what the heck is going on, and just enjoy the individual moments.

I had seen one scene from this already, on YouTube (Where else?), so I was prepared for the Tom/Komu “slash.” It seemed like in pretty much every scene together, Tom and Komu would end up dancing sensually. The choreographers were definitely having fun pushing the Takarazuka limit, with such numbers as “Rosso and the rose collector mysteriously and violently dance. The noblewomen join them. The rose collector falls victim to Rosso.” I think you get the gist. ;)

There was a lot of interesting dancing, but for once I actually really enjoyed the line dance. I was shocked to learn this morning that what I thought was a bunch of *kittens* dancing, was actually supposed to be… wolves? Uh, yeah, very menacing. Anyway, I tend to like “trick” line dances – ones with lots of “waves” of legs and arms and neat visual effects, and this one had a lot of that.

The costumes were very typically “Takarazuka” but there was some interesting, different music and choreography, which always attracts my attention, since I’ve seen so many revues now that they tend to blend together. I’ve started to automatically like anything that looks or sounds different.

Asami Hikaru – I liked her a lot in her younger days, and it’s funny to see how she pretty much never changed. Her “presence” improved, and after she became top, she started holding the stage with more confidence, but there’s always a simmering energy about her, of someone who keeps herself constantly under pressure. This brings an intensity to all her performances that can be incredible, or very tiring to watch. I think this is part of what gives her such good chemistry with Tom, that they took advantage of in all the dance scenes, because Tom’s energy is always a little more… not laid back, but calm or… disassociated, somehow. Amused.

Maikaze Rira – I hadn’t seen her in much before she became Komu’s partner. I knew she’d be a good dancer (being paired with Komu) and from a friend’s description a long time ago, I’d imagined she would be more of a “frail” musumeyaku – in order to make Komu seem less scrawny. ;) I was pleasantly surprised by the strength of her presence and her strong singing voice in this. And, yes, she and Komu dance very well together. :)

Takashiro Kei – I’ve just never quite “click”ed with her, and I feel bad about that. She always seems like a really nice *person*, but onstage she just doesn’t do it for me. I can recognize that she’s a good performer, and she seemed kind and earnest, but… hmmm… I’m sorry. I’ll just stop now.

Shirahane Yuri: I got to see Shirahane a few times in this. She went on to be Kozuki Wataru’s partner and now will be Mizu Natsuki’s. Liked what I saw of her quite a bit, but I think I’ll need to see her in a full length role before I decide if she’s a *favorite*.

Todoroki Yuu – Since she’s joined senka, she just seems… the way she’s always been, only more so. The “push” of presence she puts out is almost overdone to me. (Ack, now I’ll be annoying the Tom fans…) I guess it’s that there wasn’t really anything new in her performance, like they’ve decided there’s no need to encourage her to grow anymore, just giving us what we’ve liked all these years is fine.

Sou Kazuho – Not someone I know well *at all*, but she kept reminding me of other otokoyaku. Otokoyaku I really like. At one moment I’d be reminded of Touko, then of Tani, then once even Charlie (something in a glance). I suspect she’s an otokoyaku I’ll be constantly confusing with other people, as she just has that general “type” that I like.

There were some other people I spotted that I really liked (Mirai Yuuki seems so mature now), but I can’t remember names, so I’ll leave this here.