This month the school scrapped several longstanding and unwritten rules that governed the behaviour of students for decades

For more than a century the Takarazuka Music School has transformed thousands of young women from unpolished amateurs into accomplished singers, dancers and actors who perform to sell-out audiences with kitsch adaptations of everything from Japanese manga to classic western novels.

But the school, based in the Japanese hot spring resort from which it takes its name, is not just in the business of nurturing talent.