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Anime’s greatest pervert inspires all-female stage play in Japan with Takarazuka City Hunter

Casey Baseel May 11, 2021
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Wherever you find trouble and beautiful women, you can expect to find Ryo Saeba too.

In addition to being a private eye and bodyguard, Ryo Saeba, star of City Hunter, is also the greatest pervert in the anime/manga world (really, he won the election and everything). So really, we shouldn’t be surprised that in Ryo’s latest caper he’s going to once again be caught up in circumstances that find him surrounded by beautiful young ladies.

The twist, though, is that this time around Ryo is going to be a beautiful young lady too. The Takarazuka Revue, Japan’s renowned all-female theater troupe, has announced that its newest production will be a stage adaptation of City Hunter. Rather than adapting an existing story from the 1985 City Hunter manga or one of its many anime installments, this looks to be a new story, and a musical one to boot, with the official title Musical City Hunter: The Stolen XYZ.

As always, the entire cast for the Takarazuka stage play will be made up of women, with Sakina Ayakaze playing Ryo and Kiwa Asazuki as Ryo’s partner/love interest/violent punisher Kaori. Other characters slated to appear include Mick Angel, Kaori’s older brother Hideyuki, and even the bald and brawny Umibozu, who’s visible on a background billboard in the production’s poster.

The costume designers are staying mostly true to Ryo’s iconic (and very cosplay-friendly) outfit, though it looks like his customary crimson T-shirt is now made out of leather. And yes, Kaori’s pervert-pulverizing hammer seems set to make an appearance (the one shown in the poster bears the message “In celebration of the stage adaptation!”

▼ Ryo and Kaori as they appear in the City Hunter anime

This isn’t Takarazuka’s first time adapting a popular anime series, but City Hunter’s character artwork, both in the original Tsukasa Hojo manga and in the anime character designs by Sachiko Kamimura, is filled with the broad-shouldered builds that were in vogue during the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. That inspiration should make for an interesting challenge for Takarazuka, but if the all-female troupe could pull off a play with Abraham Lincoln as its central character, they should be able to find a way to make Ryo work too.

Tickets go on sale July 17, with the musical opening on August 7 at the Takarazuka Grand Theater in Takarazuka City, Hyogo Prefecture, where it will run until September 13 before moving to the Tokyo Takarazuka Theater from October 2 to November 14.

Source: Takarazuka Revue official website via Japaaan, Comic Natalie
Top image: Takarazuka Revue official website
Insert images: Takarazuka Revue official website, SoraNews24
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Follow Casey on Twitter, where, fittingly, he had the phrase “kurikaeshi” pounded into his head by the ending theme to City Hunter Bay City Wars.