Kean
Tom was brilliant. If you're a Todoroki Yu fan, you really owe it to yourself to see this one. I'll admit that I haven't seen a lot of Tom shows, but of the ones I've seen I thought this was the best. This is my first time seeing her live and she definitely has a lot of charisma. Kean was a larger than life guy and Tom brought that to the role. She could also be really funny. Tom's voice is what it is. If you don't like it, you're probably not going to start liking it now. Personally Tom's not my favorite vocalist in Zukaland, but I didn't mind listening to her for several hours. Also, yay for good casting. When put side-by-side with last year's miscast Oklahoma, it was a relief to see Tom in a role where her age didn't work against her. She looked like she was having a lot of fun on stage. Did I mention the sexiness of her long hair wig?
It is true however that most of the hoshigumisei didn't get very big roles. This show is about, as the title suggests, Kean. There weren't that many scenes with only Tom, but there were a good deal of scenes with just Tom and one or two other characters. However, when the rest of the hoshigumisei came out, they did so with a lot of talent and energy. I thought Chie worked well with Tom, even if her part wasn't very big. I also liked Minami Mari and Aono Yuki as Kean's love interests.
The show itself is a departure from typical Zuka in that it's a little more cynical and honestly, more intelligent/ambitious than a lot of other shows. (If I have any free time at school tomorrow I'm going to write something long on this subject). I won't pretend that I understood all of the philosophy with my limited Japanese, but with the summary I was able to at least get an idea of the direction they were going in. Without knowing enough of the dialog I can't really judge whether it was completely successful, but I appreciated the ambition regardless.
The other significant departure from normal Zuka shows was (as mentioned above) the number of scenes that just involved Tom and one or two other siennes. For this reason, I think it may have worked better in the more intimate Bow Hall. Oh, and speaking of unusual things, there was no finale. I'm guessing this was at the request of the original writers when Zuka was negotiating the rights. I always like seeing siennes dancing around at the end of a show, but given the highly philosophical nature of the last scene I think this was a reasonable decision. On an unrelated note, I really liked the score.
Sadly tickets aren't selling very well. This makes me sad since Hankyu took a risk by putting on such a unconventional show. I do enjoy the silly side of Takarazuka, but it would be nice if there were more shows like this.
Highly recommended for: Tom fans.
Recommended for: Hardcore hoshigumi fans, people who are looking to see a show that's a little different