The school training teenage girls to become actresses in the Takarazuka Revue, Japan's famed all-female musical theater troupe, has abolished absurd and silly rules observed for decades by students, including bowing to trains that might be carrying senior-classmates, school officials said Saturday.
The Takarazuka Music School spent several years trying to abolish the unwritten rules whose origins are unknown, which also include making prescribed facial expressions toward senior-class members and saying only "yes," "no," and several other prescribed words when talking with them.
The school officials said although they still place importance on maintaining discipline, they have decided to scrap the rules in consideration of growing social awareness over harassment issues following a spate of scandals involving punishment and bullying in schools and sports clubs.