[ENG SUB] Legend of the Midnight Sun (Star, 1992)

[nightless_castle]

Summary: A planet is trapped in a harsh and eternal winter, the warmth of the sun long forgotten and the aurora hung frozen in the sky. Though there is no end in sight to this long winter, the people do not lose hope, for legends say that a king (Shion Yuu) who sleeps in the frozen aurora lights will awaken and restore the sun to their planet once more.

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I love this show so much. More information about this children's fairy tale musical and a (very passionate) no spoiler review below.

This show is notoriously rare and difficult to find. It's been aired on skystage at least like twice, but the clearest copy I could find is a 480p video with a watermark on it.

Also known by its official (most likely machine translated) English title: “White Night Legend”, this show was top stars Shion Yuu and Shiraki Ayaka’s top star debut performance. Like Puck, this one was Star Troupe’s 1992 “children's show” when Takarazuka FamilyLand was still a thing. Although conceptually a children's show it has a lot of mature stuff I feel like would fly over kids heads. I’m basically obsessed with it.

This show is like a children's storybook come to life. The sets and costumes are beautiful. My favorite part in this musical is the prologue (the first screenshot) which is a lot like a ballet (and I love ballet). The story is a fantasy full of kings, princesses, and fairies with a very RPG adventure type plotline. The setting is Scandinavian and Norse mythology inspired, but apart from that it’s set in a completely fictional world. I think fairy tale fantasy stories like this are perfect for Takarazuka. I really wish they’d do more of it rather than romanticizing and appropriating other countries’ cultures for their “land of dreams”, which is something I feel very strongly about as a person of color.

The show strikes a good balance of being cheesy/corny and genuinely heartfelt that it’s just so lovable. I always appreciate media that's not just for all ages, but actually takes itself seriously while also still knowing how to have fun.

That being said, there were a few scenes with the villains that were probably a little scary for kids and if I went to see this as a child I know I would’ve been scared LOL.

In fact, apparently Asaji Saki said that she made kids cry when they saw her exiting the theater still dressed up as her character Guy (the villain in the show). Which is hilarious and endearing.

That being said... Guy is the best character in this show.



This show has Asaji Saki doing the bee's knees with a deadpan face. End the debate. This is the best show ever.

The story, like a classic fairy tale, is really simple and super easy to follow and understand for everyone. It's very pure and wholesome, but for a children's show there were a lot of actual stakes and emotional scenes (light spoilers but... characters die basically).

The show has a lot of messages that's meaningful for both children and adults. In particular, there is one part in the story that’s about valuing your own feelings and respecting people’s boundaries which I really appreciated. Without spoiling too much, basically a bunch of characters are forced to spit out their secrets and “ugly truths of their hearts” against their will by the villain, which in turn hurts another character. Basically the message they’re trying to get across is that it’s human to not want to share some of your feelings, and that not telling the truth can be a kind thing to do to not hurt other people. Not wanting to tell the truth isn’t necessarily a bad thing nor is it “lying”. Our emotions are complex and the feelings that we keep secret aren’t “ugly”, they’re just human. It’s something I don’t think I see in kids media very often, it’s usually “you have to tell the truth no matter what because it’s the right thing to do”, and punishing the “liar” rather than trying to understand the kids feelings in the first place. This show doesn't make light of kids' emotions, which I feel is very very important. There’s also another thing that happened which I thought was really sweet, and reinforced the “white lie” lesson to prove the show actually practiced what it preached but that's going into spoiler territory.

Also, a bit surprisingly, there is a kiss scene in this show that is one of the longest kiss scenes in Takarazuka history. According to Ayaka (who giggled about it in an interview), their longest record was 27 whole seconds! I don’t think it was that long in this recording, but it was still pretty long.



I really love Shion Yuu and Shiraki Ayaka as a duo (they’re my all time favorite Takarazuka couple in fact) and they were very sweet here too. There were many romantic moments between their characters that made me squeal. The director of this show, Tani Masazumi, also directed CAN-CAN (Moon, 1996), which is infamous for being the broken Broadway romance that Takarazuka fixed, so I guess I trust this man to write love stories… sometimes (it’s complicated). There’s also another romantic moment with a side couple that just made me scream inside like I was a middle schooler reading shoujo manga again. I won’t say it here but all I can say is that it’s at this time stamp → 01:06:00. Truly everything was building up to that moment.

In the interview, Shion Yuu also talked about how cute the reactions were from the children in the audience during this show. With minimal spoilers, there is a scene where Odin says something to “the children” (in the story), and the children (in the audience) actually answer her back. So cute!! It’s adorable how kids can just yell in theaters like that lol, so pure. Also she said she could hear a lot of children crying during the sad scenes.

By the way, there's the legend herself, Hanafusa Mari (who was only 19 years old at the time) in a prominent role as a fairy named “Mimir” who has a kind of scary but also cute animatronic fairy creature on her shoulder that's voiced by Izumo Aya (who knows how to do a super cute and childish voice despite usually doing older women roles. So versatile!).



As for the music, I personally found it enjoyable. Guy had the best song and he didn’t even sing in it. Just shows what an absolute king he is. There’s also a really cute number with the fairies that makes me feel like I'm 4 years old again watching Hi-5 on TV. So good.

Probably one of my only little gripes with this show might be the pacing, and the delivery of some lines which I felt could’ve been done more impactfully. They had to pack a lot of things into a 1 act runtime so I wish it was just a little longer. In fact, there was a lot of dialogue cut out from the show but was there in the script.

In conclusion, this show is very near and dear to my heart and I just think it’s a very pleasant watch. It’s also super fun to watch with friends, especially friends who get super invested in things and know how to have fun, so if you can, grab someone to watch this with and enjoy the show!

Oh and one last thing, while you watch this show I want you to keep in mind that the “Shion” in Shion Yuu’s name means “violet” or “purple”. Just keep that in mind. Enjoy!

Translator’s Notes

I have the program of this show but the “official” translated names and summary for it was kind of shoddy. Whoever translated it probably had no idea what the show was actually about or the fact that it was inspired by various mythology. For example Freyja’s name was translated into “Faire” (?) and Odin was written as “Oldin”.

In Norse mythology, there’s a debate on whether the goddess Freyja and Frigg are the same goddess, but in this musical she’s clearly supposed to be some sort of mashup between the two. Although I think “Freya” is a more common and modern spelling, I went with the old Norse “Freyja” just because.

For ガイ I translated his name into “Guy” as I suspect his name’s inspired by the legend of Sir Guy. For シルビア I went with "Silvia" with an "i' as there’s also a goddess named Silvia in Roman mythology.

ミーミル was written in the program as “Mimil” but it should be “Mimir”, after the Norse God of wisdom and knowledge.