Passion, Longing, Pride, Jealousy, Promise, Isolation, Bonds, Fate and Tragedy, everything needed in making a Top Star.
Before LA even starts, Shoujo Kageki Revue Starlight is about THEATER stage girls not idols, alot of people make the comparison and THEY are different and it’s because of Shoujo Kageki Revue Starlight’s focus on theater stage girls that initially caught LA interest in this anime, as LA knew even without looking at the staff and studio that this was gonna be unique in the realms of the “entertainment industry” anime, in this case theater girls but it takes a much more thematic look at it in being the “Top Star”.
Shoujo Kageki Revue Starlight both dives into the daily grind of intense training into being a theater stage actor both in the scripting and live performances and thematically in being a theater stage actor striving to be the Top Star and it’s manifested in it’s core cast.
Shoujo Kageki Revue Starlight manages to also instill in it’s characters both their own development as characters as well as displaying their drive to wanting to be Top Stars through a rather elaborate “revue” competition run by a talking giraffe (no seriously) voiced by Kenji Tsuda. Our main narrative focus of Shoujo Kageki Revue Starlight belongs to Karen Aijo voiced by Momoyo Koyama, the typical genki main female protagonist where she stumbles into the revue and takes part because of a promise. That promise belonging to Hikari Kagura voiced by Suzuko Mimori, the stoic and calm collected type who happened to be childhood friends with Karen, we also have Mahiru Tsuyuzaki a friend of Karen with her own issues involving Karen, Junna Hoshimi voiced buy Hinata Satou, being a passionate theater stage actress and personally one of LA favorite characters as she grew on LA as well as Claudine Saijou voiced by Aina Aiba, the second best stage girl with a rivalry to the best stage girl in their class, Maya Tendou voiced by Maho Tomita we also have childhood friends Futaba Isurugi voiced by Teru Ikuta, the brash active type to Kaoruko Hanayagi voiced by Ayasa Itou and to round off Nana Daiba voiced by Moeka Koizumi who ha spun jokes about banana’s to her and well one of the most surprising character reveals form her to say the least making her an interesting character study case to say the least.
With an all girls cast, also adds in that yuri undertones, which is quite prevalent. Examples being Kaoruko and Futaba, Claudine and Maya’s obvious rivalry, Junna and Nana’s and the most obvious being Hkari and Karen with Mahiru being the third wheel. Hikari and Karen’s friendship displays stunning levels of yuri undertones through their friendship that it’s intrinsically linked to the main play the main cast are involved in at their school and ohh boy does it show.
Shoujo Kageki Revue Starlight main draw is it’s revue, being where it’s the most action packed, whilst having some of the more thematic connections to both the trials and tribulations in being a theater stage girl AND the symbolism it has. See the revue’s different themes it present to it’s core cast reflects many of the characters relationships in the process, something LA picked up round the third revue which was of certain characters fighting had that symbolism of the revue in question in place only making the revue a marvelous spectacle but subtle foreshadowing of what the characters was thinking without needing them to speak, the revue let’s that do that for them.
Shoujo Kageki Revue Starlight’s episodes does for the most part consist it’s structure of having the character in question having their character focus episode, dealing with it before the revue and then once the revue starts, they release all their feelings into their revue, reflecting on the character and developing in much more interesting characters, they became memorable and the fact that the revue’s rules doesn’t exactly eliminate them permanently from the anime allows the core cast to stay and develop with each revue.
LA is gushing LA knows but Shoujo Kageki Revue Starlight is soo multi-faceted, it was one of the rare few LA that kept LA interested all the way through the Summer of 2018 because of it, seriously, Tomohiro Furukawa only learned from the best (for those who are not in the know, he was learning from Kunihiko Ikuhara of Utena fame and you can see where that flourish and that thematic drive of Shoujo Kageki Revue Starlight is coming from and LA just loved it.
If there was one little flaws LA found from Shoujo Kageki Revue Starlight the it would be it’s episodic structure of looking at each of it’s characters in it’s early episodes but that just a VERY small flaw to what outweighs it as Shoujo Kageki Revue Starlight strengths just utterly outweigh many of it’s small flaws. Like to the defense of it’s early episodes, it’s trying to get use used to it’s setting and characters and sure some of it’s characters are stereotypical at first but even then LA will even say that has a defense as the episodes goes on, we learn more about them and some with hidden depths of their own too so even this small flaw of “stereotypical characters” quickly changes and evolves latter on as well. Seriously with such small flaws LA can think of, LA can easily defend it thus it’s a matter of yes, LA sees the flaws of Shoujo Kageki Revue Starlight, but Shoujo Kageki Revue Starlight backs itself up with great writing and improving immediately, from both it’s characters and it’s plot and no not even being nonsensical thus is a flaw makes sense due to it’s intentional symbolism of being a theater stage girl comes into play thus the manifestation and goal of wanting to be the Top Star and how cohesive the plot and characters are with it’s solid thematic symbolism in the process. Shoujo Kageki Revue Starlight has flaws yes, but it’s strengths outright outweighs it’s small flaws that might as well be nitpicks by this point.
In terms of animation, done by Kinema Citrus, well besides the reusable “revue intro” animation, the animation was outright superb to say the least, the theatrics, the slick and polished character designs, the FIGHTS scenes along with the beautifully detailed backgrounidng work and LA will say this but the background work especially in the revue ALONG with it’s fight scenes inter-layered together only made the animation top notch to say the least. LA really wasn’t expecting Kinema Citrus to blow LA’s mind with it’s animation by man it did just that, the animation is nothing to scoff at and with the level of detail is worthy of praise.
As for voice acting, well for an anime primarily focused on it’s character and well theatrics and singing, well for the large majority of it’s core cast being all completely new to anime, LA wasn’t expecting such great performances from them, besides Suzuko Mimori, Aina Aiba and Ayasa Itou who had some roles previously and all three of them being previously being idol roles before (Love Live and BanG Dream respectively), but nonetheless the entire cast did superb, sure moe along with some of their archetypal character cadences aside, but to add that with their singing and their flair for the dramatics is the reasoning in saying this cast mostly compromised of new actresses into anime…for their first foray did amazingly well and it’s veterans did as expected as well.
Shoujo Kageki Revue Starlight by all means was in contention for LA to be LA’s favourite anime of Summer 2018 and really it deserved it, sure it had some episodic structure, but look deeper into it’s symbolism and philosophy of being a theater stage girl, it’s great cast of interesting characters, it’s beautifully done animation from it’s fluid fighting scenes to just it’s set designs of each Revue, Shoujo Kageki Revue Starlight by all means stole LA’s heart at what it did with vigor that LA would give Shoujo Kageki Revue Starlight one of the best animes of Summer 2018 for what it executed and bringing to light theater stage girls and their trials and tribulations to be the Top Stars.
Shoujo Kageki Revue Starlight, being Tomohiro Furukawa’s directorial debut made a blast for such a debut, who learned from the best and LA would like to see more from him. Shoujo Kageki Revue Starlight was multi-faceted, multi-layered from it’s plot and characters to it’s massive amount of great to subtle symbolism executed amazingly well in tandem, it was just hands down amazing, LA just can’t sing Shoujo Kageki Revue Starlight praises enough…
LegendAqua 