Women play all roles in lavish, Broadway-style productions of musicals and stories adapted from films, novels, shōjo manga, and Japanese folktales.

Kobayashi believed that it was the ideal spot to open an attraction of some kind that would boost train ticket sales and draw more business to Takarazuka.

Regardless of the era of the musical presented, period accuracy is relaxed for costumes during extravagant finales which include scores of glittering performers parading down an enormous stage-wide staircase, known as the ōkaidan, and a Rockette-style kick line.

Lead performers portraying both male and female roles appear in the finale wearing huge, circular, feathered back-pieces reminiscent of Las Vegas or Paris costuming.

"[13] However, although Takarazuka embodies Shiraishi's idea that the actresses become "good wives and wise mothers" upon leaving the company, it also simultaneously represents progressive feminist points of view.

Some believe that its appeal to the female audience is on account of the perceived link to freedom from traditional Japanese society's imposed ideas of gender and sexuality.

In Brau's view, the otokoyaku represents the woman's idealized man, free from the roughness or need to dominate found in real life.

While tending to be a home for young performers (with Yūki Amami in her sixth year reaching the status of top star in the 1990s), the members of the Moon Troupe are also strong singers.

In recent years, many of the company's prominent musumeyaku have also originated from the Star Troupe, such as Hana Hizuki, Shizuku Hazakura, and Yuki Aono.

The Cosmos style is influenced by performers like Asato Shizuki, the founding otokoyaku top star; Yōka Wao and Mari Hanafusa, the "Golden Combi" who headed the troupe for six of its first eight years.

Stories based in Japan and modeled on historical accounts or traditional tales are often referred to as nihonmono (日本物) or, less frequently, wamono (和物).

[19] Other manga adaptations include The Window of Orpheus, also by Ikeda, Osamu Tezuka's Black Jack and Phoenix, and Yasuko Aoike's El Halcón.

[21] In June 2013, the Revue would debut at Tokyo's Tokyu Theatre Orb an adaptation of another Capcom video game, Sengoku Basara,[22] done by the Flower Troupe.

This focused on character Yukimura Sanada, played by Tomu Ranju, the same actress who had taken the role of Phoenix Wright prior to becoming a top star.

In 1993, Tommy Tune wrote, directed and choreographed the revue Broadway Boys to accompany the Moon Troupe's rendition of Grand Hotel.

In 2006, Takarazuka worked with Frank Wildhorn, musical writer and composer of Jekyll & Hyde and The Scarlet Pimpernel, to create Never Say Goodbye for the Cosmos Troupe.

What follows is a series of remarks from both the graduating actresses and the top star, interspersed with the opening and closing of the curtain as well as the calling of troupe members to and from the stage.

These theories, put forward by Western scholars, complement each other, drawing on the traditional homoerotic elements of Japanese performing arts, and the ancient subversive nature of the feminine in Japan.

[35] Favoring the first theory, American Jennifer Robertson[36] observes that lesbian themes occur in every Takarazuka performance, simply by virtue of the fact that women play every role.

[34] Robertson sums up her theory thus: "Many [women] are attracted to the Takarazuka otokoyaku because she represents an exemplary female who can negotiate successfully both genders and their attendant roles and domains.

"[37] The other theory, supported by Canadian Erica Abbitt,[38] is that the female audience of Takarazuka is drawn not exclusively by lesbian overtones, but rather by the subversion of stereotypical gender roles.

While the original goal of the show may have been to create the ideal good wife and wise mother off stage, on-stage gender roles are, by necessity, subverted.

While not denying the presence of lesbian overtones within Takarazuka, Abbitt proposes the cause for the largely female audience has more to do with this subversion of societal norms than sexual ones.

[citation needed] The lesbian characters Haruka Tenou and Michiru Kaiou of Sailor Moon were loosely based on the actors of the Takarazuka Revue.

[47] The Tokyo theater group Kegawa Zoku ("Fur Tribe") has produced homosexual parodies of classic Takarazuka shows like Gone with the Wind.

A 1996 black-and-white photograph of moon troupe top star Jun Shibuki, taken by Daido Moriyama, appeared on the October 1999 cover of Art in America.

The head of Takarazuka City's police department, who was part of the incidents investigation team, suggested that the company should be held criminally liable for professional negligence resulting in death or injury.

Though this event is not officially acknowledged by the company, there remains a cenotaph dedicated to Hiromi in the Takarazuka Music School parking lot, along the Mukogawa river.

[54] On November 14, 2023, Takarazuka executives held a press conference to release findings by an independent committee following the suicide of a 25-year-old Cosmos Troupe member on September 30.

[57] Takarazuka Revue chairman Kenshi Koba announced at the press conference that he would step down from his role on December 1, saying that the company did not sufficiently fulfill their duty of care for her safety.