Lawyers outlined the final days of a budding entertainer of the famed all-female Takarazuka Revue who took her own life in late September after sacrificing sleep to perfect her art and enduring daily verbal abuse from the older members.

The 25-year-old member of the Cosmos Troupe was found dead in the grounds of her apartment complex in Takarazuka, Hyogo Prefecture, on Sept. 30. Police suspect she jumped from the building.

In addition to working almost six straight weeks without a single day off prior to her death, the exhausted woman endured repeated insults and other power harassment from senior members of the troupe, according to lawyers for the bereaved family.

During a Nov. 10 news conference, the lawyers said they plan to seek an apology and compensation from Takarazuka Revue Co. as well as railway operator Hankyu Corp., which owns the entity.

The woman was in her seventh year with the Cosmos Troupe. As such she had to both handle the matinee performance by about 45 younger members as well as rehearse for the main evening performance of the Cosmos Troupe. Preparations to ensure the younger members look riveting on stage were done after the main performance was over, meaning the work extended well into the night.

Those in their seventh year are considered at the top of the group of younger members. The woman was part of an original cohort of eight members, but in her seventh year only one of those members remained as the others had quit the troupe. That meant those two members had to handle all the chores of looking after their younger members.

In addition, former Takarazuka Revue members said that those in their seventh year also had to bear any criticism raised by older members of the troupe about the way the younger members looked.

From her sixth year, the woman signed a service agreement contract with Takarazuka Revue. But the lawyers asserted it amounted to a labor contract because the document obligated the woman to take part in rehearsals and other revue activities.

Takarazuka Revue had a contractual obligation to ensure its employees were physically and mentally in tip-top shape, the lawyers said.

They used a record of the woman’s temperature as well as her exchanges with her mother through the Line messaging app to calculate her overtime. For the one-month period between Aug. 31 until her death, she worked a total of 437 hours, of which 277 hours were overtime.

Rehearsals normally ran from 9 a.m. until midnight. The woman also worked on the script for the performance by the younger members after she returned home, meaning she survived on only around three hours of sleep each night.

The exchanges over Line also showed that senior members of the troupe heaped verbal insults on the woman right up until her death, calling her a liar and stupid. They also blamed her for any mistakes by the younger members, saying it was her responsibility to get it right.

At the news conference, the lawyers read a statement from the bereaved family that said: “While placing our daughter in an extremely exhausted state through abnormal working hours, the revue chose to ignore the situation. We ask that it accept its responsibility and apologize, and we also ask the senior members who engaged in power harassment to accept their responsibility and apologize.”

Hiroshi Kawahito, one of the lawyers who attended the news conference, said: “To have the life of a young woman with a promising future taken at a company that is representative of Japan’s arts and entertainment is an extremely serious matter. Hankyu must make every effort to respond appropriately.”

Both Takarazuka Revue and Hankyu released statements on Nov. 10 saying they took the matter gravely and pledging to make a sincere effort toward the bereaved family.

Takarazuka Revue held a news conference on Oct. 7 at which it said a committee of outside lawyers and others would investigate the woman’s death. On that occasion, a company official denied a report by a weekly magazine earlier this year that the woman was bullied by senior members.

(This article was written by Takashi Narazaki, Ai Tanabe, Tomoki Morishita and Mamie Kawai.)