Shoujo Kageki Revue Starlight Episode 1 (First Impression)

Nani?

It seems after closing the last Toys R Us store after their unfortunate bankruptcy, Jeffrey the Giraffe decided to follow a whole new career path by traveling to Japan and being the head of a theatre academy, making girls beat the crap out of each other in order to gain the lead role in a play.

Okay no but seriously, what the hell is up with the talking giraffe?

Revue Starlight started off normally until the last five minutes or so of the episode. We follow a girl named Karen Aijo, a girl who’s part of the 99th acting class of Seisho Music Academy. It’s an academy where girls with the love of theatre and the arts in general go to polish their skills in acting, singing, dancing, stage production, script creating, etc. It’s a pretty cool school, and main character Karen seems to have a love for the play “Starlight”. It sounds like she and her class has already performed it before but amateurly, so they’re trying hard to make Starlight even better, as well as working hard on another play. We see a montage of the girls practicing hard in their lessons as Karen describes. I’m liking Karen so far. With these kinds of shows, the main character is always the genki, loud, act before they think, clumsy, kind of dumb, so I was worried Karen would be this way too when we found her oversleeping. I mean, in the end of the episode she acts before she thinks, but for the most part Karen seems like a really talented girl that takes her lessons pretty seriously. She’s genki, but not overly genki. Though, maybe she’s a little naive. We also got introduced to the rest of the girls in Karen’s class, but it’s going to take me awhile before I can remember their names. The only ones right now I remember are Karen and…

Hikari. She’s Karen’s childhood friend, both with the love for the stage. They make the promise that they’ll stand on the stage together, sealing their promise with the hairpins they wear. They each have the same picture of them as kids with them. However, Hikari doesn’t seem as happy to see Karen again after all these years. When she was little she went overseas to an academy in England and has now returned to Japan as a transfer student at Seisho Music Academy. Hikari, unsurprisingly, is extremely talented in everything. Dancing, acting, singing, she can do it all and the girls in her class are mesmerized by her. However, one of the girls (can’t remember her name) says she lacks passion and emotion, and is just too cold. We saw that coldness as she silently followed Karen and Mahiru to the dorms and replied with one word answers, then left their room when given the tour. She hasn’t really spoken to Karen and instead ignores her. But we did see her laid out on her bed with the childhood picture, so there’s still something there. But what was probably troubling her was the audition.

Judging from the PVs, I knew the audition process was going to be intense with some fighting, but the underground stage with the factory machines and weapons and giraffe and strange elevator and indoor Tokyo Tower was…something else.

The actual audition was actually really cool to watch as Hikari and glasses girl sang and fought it out. The outfits, the props on stage, and the ridiculous amount of weapons they had was entertaining as hell as the strange giraffe explained what was happening. Basically, they’re literally fighting each other to win the lead role. Their passion and yearning for the top role is so strong that they put their skills to the test, and the winner is decided by knocking the other’s coat down before theirs. The animation in this scene was suprisingly fantastic, which, again, I’ve already seen from the PV. The action is animated so much better than actual action shows, so it was really pleasing to the eye. Fast-paced with the cool song. Hikari was getting herself in a rut. With Karen not liking what she was seeing, she literally jumps and enters the stage with her own outfit and weapon. Mind you, there is literally a factory that mass produces this stuff, this is wild. Anyway, Karen enters the scene without thinking and takes down glasses girl and “saves” Hikari. Now, I’m not really sure what this’ll result with. Either, Karen gets the role, or no one gets the role because Karen wasn’t invited to the audition. Either way, it’s understandable why Hikari was so angry with her. Karen no baka!

Ok, but wow…this got strange real fast once Karen got in that elevator. But I think I like that? The show so far had been pretty typical. I was liking it, but this strange turn of events makes things a lot more entertaining…and weird. Maybe a little too weird? But the whole audition process is so cool that I’ll maybe give the giraffe a break.

Actually, no, I can’t. It’s a random talking giraffe.

Anyway, I liked it. We couldn’t hear the song during the audition too well but I think it already has a full version out. Shoujo Kageki Revue Starlight seems to be a new franchise under Bushiroad, the same madmen behind other musical franchises such as Symphogear, Love Live!, and my recent fave, BanG Dream! From what I looked up, Revue Starlight looks like it already has some singles out and is going to have a stage production soon so it looks like this is their next big thing. I wouldn’t be surprised if they make a mobile rhythm game for this sometime in the future. Either way, so far I like the show. I liked the way the girls in the class interact with each other, but mainly the trippy stuff in the end is going to make me stick by this longer. Oh, and I love musicals. And Suzuko Mimori. Easy as that.

Possibility of watching: Guaranteed

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