Shoujo☆Kageki Revue Starlight

As preparations begin for Seishou Music Academy's yearly Seishou Festival, the girls of the 99th class are gearing up to perform their very own rendition of Starlight, the tragic tale of two goddesses drawn together by the glow of the heavens but destined to be pulled apart, never to meet again. Created to foster the next generation of theatrical talent, this girls' only school works to improve the singing, acting, and dancing skills of its students.

One student is 16-year-old Karen Aijou, an easygoing girl who has dreamed of performing on stage since she was a child. Her love for theater is further invigorated when her childhood friend Hikari Kagura transfers to Seishou Academy. Through her old friend, Karen stumbles upon a secret elevator leading to a massive theater underneath the school. Hosted by a talking giraffe, this arena serves as a battleground where her classmates participate in duels to determine who among them deserves the title of "Top Star," earning them the right to play one of the lead roles in Starlight. Emboldened by the promise she made with Hikari to someday be stars together, Karen enters these mysterious battles in the hopes of making their dream a reality.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Daiba, Nana Main

Koizumi, Moeka Japanese

Tendou, Maya Main

Tomita, Maho Japanese

Saijou, Claudine Main

Aiba, Aina Japanese

Kagura, Hikari Main

Mimori, Suzuko Japanese

Tsuyuzaki, Mahiru Main

Iwata, Haruki Japanese

Hoshimi, Junna Main

Satou, Hinata Japanese

Aijou, Karen Main

Koyama, Momoyo Japanese

Hanayagi, Kaoruko Main

Itou, Ayasa Japanese

Isurugi, Futaba Main

Ikuta, Teru Japanese

Kirin Supporting

Tsuda, Kenjirou Japanese

Katayama, Yuuki Producer

Iwasaki, Atsushi Producer

Ogasawara, Muneki Producer

Taketsugu, Akane Producer

Reviews

May 10, 2024

whiteflame55

Recommended

There are a lot of things to love about this series that are pretty straightforward. I think the music is consistently strong, there's pretty great fight choreography throughout (as might be expected of one large stage show), there's an investing plot to follow that takes some intriguing twists and turns, and since there's a central aim from everyone to become the "Top Star," there's a really good central conflict that keeps things interesting.

Even on parts of the series I didn't particularly love at first glance - the relative safety the girls experience in these fights with bladed weapons, the mostly predictable sets of fights ... leading up to the finale, and the two girls ending up at the center of it all in the end - actually fit quite well into the central themes of the show and match its aesthetic. This is a giant theater first and foremost, after all. It's a production, one that the giraffe who observes it all claims to "understand" because it's straightforward. The Starlight play acts as a play within a play, a microcosm that dictates generally how things will go in this arena. I kind of love that, and I think the themes of the series are pretty solid as a whole.

The difficulties I have are with the characters and their individual arcs. There's a certain degree to which I see each character's arc as an individual, which means their stories necessarily are contained to a certain span of time and wrap up in some form by the end of it. I recognize that there are many characters in this series to juggle. Still, I found it difficult to buy the means by which so many of them wrapped up. I won't spoil individual arcs, but many of them felt too neatly resolved, particularly one that felt pretty central to the narrative and had some broader implications for the plot. The series offered lots of interesting character arcs, but they almost all felt like they ended chiefly because the plot demanded that we move on and pull focus to the leads. That might be thematically appropriate, but it bleeds these arcs of significance and makes certain sacrifices that come later feel like they only meaningfully affect two people. It's not so much that they vanish into the background either - we continue to see them late into the series and they remain important, but their roles seem to shift to support rather than continuing to seek that "Top Star" status.

A lot of interesting opportunities at worldbuilding also take a backseat to the central relationship. There are other schools where this is happening and where other wishes have been granted and performances are ongoing. There are other classes of students being admitted to this school, or who are the upperclasswomen to our central cast, yet we hardly see them. I know there is enough going on that keeping the story pretty tight is kind of required to make sense of everything to create what I would say is still a pretty fulfilling arc for the central two, and maybe the movie does more in this regard, but I was left wanting a bit by what the show teased in its broader strokes.

Overall, while I thought this was a really good series, its focus ends up drawing attention away from the aspects that most intrigued me. The central two get a good arc, but I can't say I was ever solidly invested in their characters, whereas I was interested in getting a deeper dive into some of their fellows. I think there's a lot to love about the world that was built here and the cast is diverse and interesting enough to keep things interesting, but I also see some missed opportunities that hold this back from greatness for me.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Nov 2, 2023

Latooq

Mixed Feelings

I feel I have to clarify it before putting my thoughts into this review. I'm not into idols, I don't listen to them, I don't buy their merch, and I don't want to become an idol. Sometimes I pick some niche show so it could accommodate me with something personal that mainstream shows usually can't. I chose Revue Starlight despite its genre because it seemed to have some meta aspect in contrast to almost every other idol show and because the movie made enough noise for me to notice and eventually pick this tv series.

From the very beginning the show demonstrate its weird and, in ... the same time, unique concept. There are girls studying in an academy who aspire to become stage actresses. Although they seem to get along with each other, in effect, they are rivals, who strife to get to the top. That competition is demonstrated through "imaginary" duels they regularly participate in. As unique as it could be sound, that pattern repeats throughout the entire cour: the slice of life sequences are alternated with these battle auditions. And the SoL scenes is something I hardly relate to. But the thing is these SoL sequences are also a metaphor. Even though the anime takes place in the theatrical school, the students go through grown-up staff. But what the point of it if the characters and the story are bland. Revue Starlight will inevitably loose to every show that has a meaningful message in addition to a good story and characters.

The less popular an anime is and the more niche topics it tackles the higher production values I guess. The whole show just looks stunning. Almost every episode has a fight scene that looks better than in some popular shonen show. I'm not a fan of that type of music, but I can't deny the quality of the OST, OP, and ED.

Having watched the first episode, I felt that every other episode simply follows the same formula to the T. Revue Starlight has more thoughts put into it than in some idolmaster, it's more original and it has more than just singing, dancing, and gigs. In spite of that, the anime really did fail to captivate me.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Jul 15, 2019

QueenOfShoujo

Not Recommended

"This whole anime felt like drinking lukewarm water. "

I went into this with no expectations really. The art looked good and I needed something to watch that was dubbed so I could work while watching it. Despite the lack of expectations it still managed to fail them. The single reason I finished this show was because I didn't want to bother to go out looking for something else.

This anime is a mix of a bit penguindrum in the way is has absurd things happen that aren't really meant to be taken literally but also aren't completely metaphorically. And a bit of Madoka Magica almost exactly ... as far as plot points, I wont go into detail because of spoilers though. The worst part is, it does both these things badly.

There are like zero stakes for any of these people, and the one stake they give us, they don't highlight enough as a problem to get me to even care a little. The characters are hardly fleshed out. I believe there are about 9 girls, and all of them have less character depth than anyone in Assassination classroom which had 25+ character to deal with.

There is not a single thing in this anime that another anime hasn't already done way better. This whole anime felt like drinking lukewarm water. I have seen a few people praising it because it is like an idol anime, but has the fantastical fighting twist, but the twist is not worth everything else being a little better then just ok.

Maybe the subbed version gives the characters more emotion in their voice, but nothing would fix the bad writing. If you are going to watch it, don't watch the dub at least.

Reviewer’s Rating: 3

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