Actor Asami Rei appeared on Tetsuko Kuroyanagi's long-running talk show "Tetsuko's Room" (TV Asahi), which aired on December 11th. She talked about her memories from her time with the Takarazuka Revue.
Her reason for joining Takarazuka was "because it seemed like I could get away from my parents and have more freedom." Her older sisters liked Takarazuka, but she had never seen it and knew nothing about it. Still, she passed the audition. In addition to her braids, she wore bottle-bottle glasses because she had poor eyesight, and she was told by her superiors to keep her hair neat, so she held it in place with lots of pins. She recalls being "a strange underclassman."
After taking the Japanese dance exam, he was a "bad student" who was told by the judges, "You should at least memorize the steps," and "Come (to the opera company's Japanese dance class) and we'll take a good look at you."
"Thanks to everyone, I was given a lot of substitute roles," she says, but when it says "Substitute Asami Rei," she laughs, "I think it's awful because I have to memorize (my lines, etc.)." When her senior, Ohtori Ran, was having a bit of a sore throat, someone asked her, "Can you (substitute)?" She was surprised to have such a kind upperclassman who would ask her, but revealed, "I took it upon myself and said, 'I can't do it,' and Ohtori looked like she had no choice and went on stage herself." "Normally, you'd go through the ranks of substitutes and move up one level at a time," she recalls, smiling, "but it was a mess."
She is still healthy and says, "I am very grateful to my parents for raising me to be so healthy." She doesn't do any particular exercise, but she does stretch and use her voice in the morning, and there are many parks nearby, so she takes a detour on the way home after shopping, and she does other things to stay healthy.
