Director: Tomohiro Furukawa
Screenplay: Tatsuto Higuchi
Voice Cast: Momoyo Koyama as Karen Aijō; Suzuko Mimori as Hikari Kagura; Aina Aiba as Claudine Saijō; Ayasa Itō as Kaoruko Hanayagi; Haruki Iwata as Mahiru Tsuyuzaki; Hinata Satō as Junna Hoshimi; Kenjiro Tsuda as the Giraffe; Maho Tomita as Maya Tendō; Moeka Koizumi as Nana Daiba; Teru Ikuta as Futaba Isurugi
Viewed in Japanese with English Subtitles
[Some Overt Spoilers Throughout]
Probably the most surprising thing coming into reviewing Revue Starlight the animated series, twelve episodes long, is that this all originates from a significantly larger media project including a stage play, one which has spiralled out into an elaborate franchise which includes additional animated films, video games and a manga. This is surprising as, delightfully, this is a case of a franchise which feels very idiosyncratic and uniquely personal into itself, at least allowing this television series to grow out with its own creativity. Certainly as I will get into this series, knowing it has follow-on work, including an extended world of other schools beyond the one we have here as the main setting, it really comes to a testament of how this series, whilst very indebted to one figure I will refer to a lot throughout, works completely as its own one-off. A distinct, potent one in terms of its artistic style and using it for emotional drama that feels not like it is part of a media product to sell to an audience at all but with themes it wants to tell to said audience.
To sell the show, this exists in the world of Seisho Music Academy, a school for theatrical performers who are all trained in dance and acting amongst many skills. The 99th class here the central characters working towards another performance of the titular Revue Starlight, a play about two goddesses who are separated in a metaphorical tragedy trying to touch a star. The lead among them is Karen Aijō, a girl who coasts on by only to be given a new passion in her class when her childhood friend Hikari Kagura transfers from an academy in London in England, their childhood promise having been to perform together as great stars in such shows Revue Starlight. The show borders magical realism and surrealism as a metaphor for their emotional states, following seven other main characters involved, because of a lift in their school that transfers students to an underground environment. This is where a secret audition transpires to find the true actress among them dubbed the "Top Star". These are done in duels, musical duels with singing, where the target with your weapon of choice is to remove a badge hanging a cape off the opponent's shoulder with whichever choice of weapon you want.
Notably, everyone one of the lead characters is female, as Seisho Music Academy is an all-girls school. The only male voice in the entirety of this show is the mysterious figure presiding over the auditions. Said figure is a cosmic talking giraffe, which may give you further emphasis that the show embraces the surreal. It is not a surprise, and is a delight, to know that lead director of the series Tomohiro Furukawa worked extensively with Kunihiko Ikuhara, the figure legendary for helming the likes of Revolutionary Girl Utena (1997) and projects Furukawaworked on like Mawaru Penguindrum (2011). I will say ahead of time, I had immediately seen that Ikuhara's influence was throughout this show aesthetically, including having an idiosyncratic animal mascot in the giraffe, so learning of the direct connection means a greater deal. It says a great deal that Furukawaactually worked with the legend and used the influence to their advantage. This is not a detraction as, for a media franchise which involves mobile phone game tie-ins, letting the director take this show into its pop surreal emotionally charged form was among the best things in Revue Starlight's favour, especially as from the get-go, this program looks and sounds exceptional, in style and music, and the aesthetic influence is for its plot's favour as well as distinct.
Particularly as this is a show about the drama, the audition duels themselves extensions of the cast's various anxieties and concerns not only in their desire to become great actresses, or even when they lose their passions, but also emotionally beyond the stage. This show does not flinch in either depicting the stress of thinking you are not good enough in your work, trying to overcome feelings of weakness. It deals with the closeness of these characters in friendship and when stress frays it. It also has no qualms in subtext and overt nods to romantic chemistry amongst the all-female cast either, even dealing with an episode entirely about Karen's roommate and fellow student Mahiru, who is explicitly with romantic longings for her only to now play second fiddle behind a childhood friend, or how sleepy headed Kaoruko and tomboy Futaba's relationship is insanely close even if merely perceived subtext from a viewer to have, riding on the latter's motorbike with Kaoruko falling asleep in motion, clearly have a chemistry beyond a friendship.
As the characters' dramas are the main core of the show, naturally with everyone getting an episode in the centre of their goals in the duels, thankfully everyone is fleshed out. Everyone is three dimensional. The best in their class, Maya and Claudine, who have a rivalry with Claudine feeling always second, are not just villains. Even curveballs are thrown in as, with spoilers warned ahead in this review, the character I immediately attached too Nana Daiba, dubbed Bannana-Chan for her fruit obsession and banana bunch hairdo, even got something out-of-the-blue and abruptly dark. That being briefly turned into a tragic villain for her episode when you realise a groundhog effect can transpire with the auditions, able to wish for anything including repeating the same year if you become Top Star, more tragic as Nana never after that is just a villain. Some anime, whilst still compelling, would have had the lovable comedic character stay the abrupt villian only, winning the auditions to keep time still, but it is a testament to Revue Starlight's craft that by the end of the series, she is just someone in fear of the future and, as another character later puts it, is a big (taller than the others) person who is yet secretly vulnerable. For a show that was clearly, with research, put of a media franchise to promote, it says something about anime in general that one series adaptation, where allowed to, can take risks and feel more personal, even the lovable comedic character based on banana puns suddenly turning into complex figures. It became a show where everyone is as sympathetic as everyone else, where abruptly it will quote Hermann Hesse, the author of Steppenwolf, within the same show that has the aforementioned talking giraffe.
Even the giraffe eventually, after coming off as a master manipulator, as the auditions have losers robbed of their "spark" of performance, gets a happy conclusion where he sees a performance that raptures him. This, to use polite language, is a show which does not kid around with pushing its emotional edge as far as it can do with the aesthetic, but all for something ultimately heart warming. Even when entirely grounded for an episode, such as Karen and Hikari reconnecting after a series of jaunts across the aquariums across the city, the drama is that to care for. When an abrupt betrayal in the final episodes feels abrupt but with meaning, with greater shock as the show to the viewer as much for a character suddenly feel a knife in the heart, but it all builds within very little time for something meaningful for the final episode. That, especially as it leads to the last episode fully in the supernatural, it leads to a strange personal purgatory of building stars out of sand to reach stars on wrecking ball chains that knock you over again, a Myth of Sisyphus scenario based on one figure not wishing to take the shine off others, or metaphorically as not wishing to take away from another and hurting them by outperforming them.
The show is not as idiosyncratic as Ikuhara's work, feeling in truth a more accessible form of his storytelling, but that again is not a bad thing, and a lot of its content for others would still be out there to be blunt about it. Key aesthetic traits from Ikuhara'swork to tell stories, including repetition of symbols and literalisation of meanings, are used to a huge advantage to flesh out the cast and, ultimately, making it a success alongside the production quality. It looks exceptional, and as a show which is as much about its style, it looks distinct right down to individual end credits per episode and the character being its centre. For a show as well where the audition fights have musical numbers, based likely as much from Takarazuka Revue, an all-female Japanese musical theatrical troupe that started in the 1910s, the musical numbers sung by the cast within them are as well diverse and as good, all obviously with lyrics fitting the material of the emotional drama. That the show itself as a much a critique of ideas of such groups, the pressures of such a prestige training and wanting to be the best, intertwines with the spark of energy from such groups' influences too.
To tell more would spoil the show when it is more intriguing to know that the series has more narrative in its whole, beyond these twelve episodes. Mentioned already, Revue Starlight the series is a fully fleshed out show in itself. It completely captivated me throughout its length, and with knowing little beforehand, it was a pleasure to have encountered.
