Ho Yay / Shoujo Kageki Revue Starlight

"You're cute, even when you cry... My Claudine"

The franchise is about a group of students in an all-female school aiming to be the "Top Star" in a revue troupe. Seeing two girls intimately dancing and holding each other in romantic poses is the norm here. This makes a lot of sense considering the franchise is heavily inspired by the Takarazuka Revue, the famous Japanese all-female troupe where every part is played by women, even male roles (and it's worth nothing that Akiko Kodama, the current director of the Revue Starlight stage musicals, formerly was a member of the Takarazuka Revue).

But even outside of the whole revue troupe stuff, there are plenty of homoerotic moments between the girls:

Karen and Hikari

• The relationship between those two in general is full of romantic beats. A childhood promise, reuniting after losing contact for years, still wearing their old hairclips, one of them acts aloof to protect the other from something she believes is dangerous…
• Chapter 6 of the prequel manga is a dream Hikari had before the start of the anime. It has both of the girls as "Phantom Thieves" trying to steal a jewel. And "Phantom Thief Starlight" (Karen) spends most of her scenes flirting with "Phantom Thief Divine" (Hikari). She sends her a pretty dress, dances with her during the party (while wearing a tuxedo), kisses her hand and when they are running she Bridal Carries her. Again, this is all Hikari's dream.
• The events of episode 4 can be read as Hikari "playing hard to get" in a rather convoluted way. Not only she makes Karen follow her around Tokyo the entire day, the last stop of the little trip is Tokyo Tower. Beyond the meaning the place has for them personally (the aforementioned childhood promise), a famous tourist spot is the perfect place for a romantic date. And the talk they have afterwards isn't very far away from that.
• Episode 10 had the two make promises to each other under intimate lighting, capped off with them seeing each other as their younger selves.
• A single-panel manga in the mobile game had Karen sniffing a flustered Hikari's hair and commenting that her scent hasn't changed.
• One of Hikari's Bride June quotes is, "If I ever get married, I think I'd like it to be at... Tokyo Tower?" Keep in mind the significance of Tokyo Tower to Karen and Hikari's relationship.
• Their duet Fancy You has a lot of romantic subtext in the lyrics including "The warmth of us being together became one and filled us to the brim". Then there's the actual song title. For Americans, it could be seen as Karen and Hikari describing the other, but in British slang, fancy means being attracted to someone, including romantically. And considering Hikari studied in London...

Karen and Mahiru

• From the very start of the series, it is hard to deny that Mahiru has a crush on Karen. She is always smiling when looking at her, gets distressed when she sees her getting closer to other girls, and wants to do the role of the "fated couple" with her in the Starlight.
• Episode 3 drops the pretense and goes explicit about it, as Kaoruko invites Mahiru into the bath with her and interrogates her on her attraction to Karen while simultaneously pointing out the romantic and sexual connotations of their current situation.
• Episode 5 has the pair take to the audition stage together in the "Revue of Jealousy" which is, obviously, used by Mahiru to express her frustration at Karen being "stolen" by Hikari and her fear that without her relationship with Karen she has nothing she can value. The first stage play similarly also has Mahiru confronting Hikari over "stealing" Karen from her.
• The same episode has Mahiru display a Covert Pervert side towards Karen. She buries her face in Karen's pillow, gets entranced by her sweaty towel, and almost goes for an Indirect Kiss via Karen's water bottle before Hikari catches her.
  • The latter gets a Call-Back in a skit in the mobile game, where Karen offers Mahiru a drink from her bottle but Hikari's gaze prompts Mahiru to decline.
• One of the single-panel manga in the gacha game has Mahiru state, rather bluntly, "My favorite food is Karen-chan." Karen's reaction is embarrassed but not displeased.

Maya and Claudine

• While the series gives great emphasis to how all the girls are rivals competing for the position of Top Star, the rivalry between those two receives special attention, being portrayed as particularly intense. Indeed, if one pays close attention to Claudine in the first two episodes, it seems that she is always looking at Maya when there is no teacher in the room to pay attention to.
• They are the best and second best students of their class respectively, so they played the role of the "fated couple" when their class performed Starlight in their first year.
• When Claudine is in a sour mood in episode 3 after losing to Maya, Futaba immediately guesses it has to do with Maya, because "nothing else would put you in a mood like this". On her end, Maya seems to be quite impressed with Claudine's determination, and even a bit regretful of having defeated her, which is no small deal seeing how much pride she has of her position as the number one of her class.
• As shown in episode 4, Claudine uses photos of Maya as reference when she is pondering how to better herself. She gets very embarrassed and angry when Karen almost takes a peek at them.
• When Maya comments that Karen may become a tough opponent, Claudine gets irritated, almost as if she was jealous.
• One magazine picture of the two has Maya push Claudine into a deep stretch, so deep that it looks like she's doing something else to her. Claudine's embarrassed and blushing face does not help. What's more, the colors of their leotards are complementary in a way that's commonly coded as romantic when it occurs between a boy and a girl.
• Episode 10 is an exercise in how much Les Yay you can put between the two without flat-out stating they are a couple:
  • When stretching together, Claudine recounts how they first met. She expects to be answered with a But for Me, It Was Tuesday, but Maya reassures her she remembers it well. Claudine then goes on to explain how meeting Maya helped her grow and thanks her for that. And due to the stretching they were doing, Claudine was basically hugging Maya the entire time.
  • During the Revue Duet against Karen and Hikari, the two grab each other in a blatantly romantic position while they both think about how there is nobody else with whom they could work together so perfectly.
  • After they lose the Revue, Claudine starts crying, blaming herself because she can't believe Maya lost. Maya reassures her it's all right, and they can keep striving to better themselves together from now on. The kicker is that they address each other as "my Maya" and "my Claudine".
• In the manga, Claudine remembers her past working as a child advertiser, specifically one she did for ointment. Later on, when she hurts herself and scrapes her leg, Maya uses the very same ointment Claudine advertised in her younger years, and recites the ointment's slogan without ever explicitly hearing it from Claudine. So either she already knew about it or she looked for Claudine's past works after meeting her.
• In Main Story 7 of the mobile game, "Maya Tendo" Erased, Claudine is the only one to remember Maya after she's been erased from everyone's memory. Claudine gets very flustered when Karen points this out at the end of the chapter, and Maya looks very pleased to find out about this.
• In the mobile game event Blessed Brides Deux JUNO, Claudine is very eager to play the romantic lead opposite Maya. Granted, the whole class is always shooting for a starring role, but Claudine's the only one who keeps referring to the part as "Maya Tendo's bride."
• The crossover event with Symphogear has them cover Fushichou no Flamme, which was the first song sung by Tsubasa Kazanari and Maria Cadenzavna Eve, who also have a lot of ship tease together. And considering how the event mostly stars these four...
• The second movie drips with it, but this time with the roles reversed:
  • Their opening pre-battle lines are mockingly said by each other before they have their duel.
  • The whole conflict starts because Maya is jealous that Claudine was able to get accepted into a prestigious acting school, where Maya herself is denied. Her dilemma also has shades of her being angry that Claudine is leaving her wholesale, since she likes having a rival to help push her to her best and vice versa.
  • A non-insignificant part of the confrontation has Claudine in masculine dress, with Maya in more feminine attire.

Futaba and Kaoruko

• Those two are always together, and unlike with the other pairings they were already close before the start of the series. Futaba even says they are like family in the manga. They are frequently seen in affectionate positions one could expect from a couple, such Futaba drying Kaoruko's hair after bathing or giving her a Lap Pillow. Kaoruko also tends to cling to Futaba rather intimately when she is drowsy.
• The prequel manga focuses on a different girl each chapter, exploring their motivations and personal problems. The chapters focusing on Futaba and Kaoruko stand out because they are specifically about their relationship with each other. Those chapters are even titled "Our first time living together" and "Our first fight", and they both have a plot that would easily fit in a romantic comedy.
• In episode 3 Futaba unhesitatingly says that Kaoruko is special to her. In the same episode, Kaoruko teases Mahiru for her blatant crush on Karen, but at the same time she compares their relationship with the one she has with Futaba. Hm…
• Episode 6 is focused on the pair, and like the manga it plays like a romance, though of a more dramatic type. Romantic scenes with those two include Futaba having to race to the train station to talk Kaoruko out of quitting the school and returning to Kyoto, culminating in them reconciling on stage.
• In Main Story 14, Kaoruko calls Futaba a "cheater" (per the official English translation) for letting Tamao ride on her motorcycle before Futaba reassures her that "they're them" and "we're us."

Nana and Junna

• Nana reveals that she get jealous whoever anyone other than herself calls Junna "Junjun". Note that she also calls Junna her Junna.
• In the manga, Junna points out that their relative heights are seen as the most optimal in boy-girl relationships. She also says this while they practice dancing together.
• In the mobile game, Nana gets the opportunity to write her own script for 'The Phantom of the Opera', and casts herself as the Phantom and Junna as Christine. Nana proceeds to ramp up the romance between the Phantom and Christine in her version, to the point where Junna agrees that the most natural ending is for the two to end up together.
• In chapter 7 of the mobile game's Main Story, Junna claims that seeing Nana perform as Flora made her feel very strongly that she was the only one who could play Claire opposite her, and that if she had, her Claire would've never let Flora go.
• Junna and Nana play romantic opposites five times in the mobile game, and in Nana's side story where they act as the Prince and the Swallow, they even kiss.
• The first chapter of Ashikaga Yoshiteru Nana's bond story is titled "Junnana," which is one of their ship names.
• Nana's confrontation with Junna in the second movie features a not at all ambiguous scene of her pinning Junna to the ground and wanting her to never leave her.

Others

• The CD jacket covers feature the girls in intimate couple poses. One has Karen/Hikari, Nana/Junna, and Maya/Claudine, while another features the above and Futaba/Kaoruko, only adding Mahiru to Karen/Hikari.
• A single-panel manga in the mobile game shows Futaba, Mahiru, and Claudine hanging out, with the conversation topics they bring up being respectively Kaoruko, Karen, and Maya.
• Karen seems to find Claudine notably pretty, saying that Claudine is the most likely out of all their classmates to get swept up by a pretty boy on a white horse in "Blessed Brides Deux JUNO" and straight up calling her attractive in Scheherazade Karen Bond Story 1.
• In Justice Nana's bond story, Shizuha talks at length about how Aruru pulled her out of a dark mental space and says that she loves Aruru (大好き in the original Japanese). Nana compares how Shizuha feels "saved" by Aruru to how she feels saved by Kukugumi, mentioning Junna in particular, who she's established to have romantic feelings for (see above).
• In the Frontier school story, after she runs into Tsukasa, Misora consistently refers to her as "really pretty." Then, when they do have a proper conversation, Misora talks so much about how inspiring and brilliant Tsukasa was when Misora watched her perform at S-Con that Tsukasa agrees to join Aruru's S-Con group.
• In Dorothy Aruru Bond Story 1, Aruru says that, after watching Misora in the Wizard of Oz, she "fell for both Dorothy and Misora."
• In the first chapter of Sachi Honjo Tsukasa's bond story, Yachiyo interprets her character's, Sonoko Yuki, feelings for Tsukasa's character as love. In Sonoko Yuki Yachiyo's Bond Level 30 Talk, Yachiyo says that she wishes that she and Tsukasa could "keep the same relationship that Sachi and Sonoko have," before adding in a "just kidding."
• The image for Main Story 8 (Dying King) is Akira kabedoning Yachiyo, which feels pretty self-explanatory re Ho Yay.
• While still on the topic of Yachiyo, in Diaochan Yachiyo's second bond story, she and Mei Fan act as Diaochan and Lü Bu respectively, characters from Romance of the Three Kingdoms who are romantically involved. The chemistry between the two is apparently so great that Shiori says:
  Shiori: Is...this what the chemistry between a grown man and woman looks like? You're both so dreamy!
• At the end of the "Waltz with the Beautiful Beast" event, Akira asks Shiori to "fill my chest with the pains and joys of romance" and "swear you'll overwhelm me with the maddening frustrations and all-embracing warmth of love." Even in the context of the scene, which is Akira and Shiori reflecting on their performances as Belle and the Beast, it stands out quite a bit.
  • This is the event that Rose Poems, the Disney Princess-like duet between the two, comes from. In the Starry Diamond performance of it, Akira and Shiori's voice actors waltz, and at the end of the dance, Shiori's voice actor spins into Akira's voice actor's arms.
  • There's also the Andromeda Shiori bond story, where Shiori asks Akira what kind of person she would love before clarifying that she wants to construct her interpretation of Andromeda around Akira's Perseus's ideal heroine. The kicker is at the end, when Yachiyo points out that Akira's description of her ideal heroine is basically just Shiori.
• Mei Fan enrolls at Siegfeld, which required her to move to another country and learn Japanese from scratch, after being inspired by Akira's performance in Elysion. She constantly tries to impress Akira and gets jealous when Akira pays more attention to Shiori. Her attraction is mentioned by Michiru in "Waltz with the Beautiful Beast," where she says that Mei Fan is "presently head over heels for Akira."
  • On Akira's end, Mei Fan's determination to perform alongside her won her over quickly, despite her own insistence that she didn't need any 'fans' on her stage. Michiru even points out that Mei Fan's passion has Akira 'burning' in response.
• Akira and Fumi's relationship is very reminiscent of exes after a bad breakup. Akira's greatest disappointment over Fumi leaving primarily lies in that she wasn't able to help Fumi properly, and she expresses a lot of anger in *Dying King* over the fact that Fumi wouldn't communicate her troubles more openly. The Stranded Stage Girls event story is filled with tension between the two as they fail to work together, eventually escalating into a full-on fight where they air out their grievances over their past relationship.
• Michiru dedicates herself to helping Akira become Frau Platin because when they were kids, Michiru saw Akira "[shine] brighter than the lead on Elysion." Akira also holds a great deal of admiration for Michiru. In Phantom Michiru Bond Story 2, Akira says, "I was saved by your angelic voice just as Christine was by the Phantom, after all" and says that she will be Michiru's Christine, not to mention that as a kid she says she is working towards Elysion to stand on the same stage as Michiru. For what it's worth, they're pretty strong parallels to Karen and Hikari, both having promises to star in a play they saw together as children.
• For a general picture of their dynamic, Ichie seems to take great delight in pranking Fumi in order to make her smile while Fumi frequently gets annoyed with Ichie's antics but still seems to have a soft spot for her. There's way too much specific stuff to list properly, but some highlights include Ichie writing a love letter all over Fumi's script while they're rehearsing to play Diaochan and Lü Bu, Fumi mentioning in one of her Benzaiten Home Screen quotes that she's blushing because Ichie complimented how she looked, and this exchange from Tales of Onikurenai:
  Fumi: Flattery won't get you anything.
  Ichie: Whaaat? Not even an invitation to dinner at your place tonight?
• In Priestess Hifumi Mahiru's second bond story, Rui fawns over Mahiru, calling her "kind and beautiful." Yuyuko then teases her about having a type, namely "kind girls with long black hair," alluding to the similarities between Mahiru and Tamao.
• In Main Story 13, while trying to encourage Rui to use her full potential as a stage girl, Yuyuko tells Rui that she "loves [Rui] on stage" and compares her love for Rui to Rui's love for Tamao, which is very explicitly romantic. In the second Magician Yuyuko bond story, Nana compares Yuyuko's feelings for Rui to her feelings for Junna, which have also been well-established as romantic (see above).
• In Main Story 9, Tamao and Fumi's bond is highlighted after the Rinmeikan Performance Department is shut down. Fumi claims that Tamao is her "new ruler" who saved her after her failures at Siegfeld, even outright declaring that she likes Tamao and pledging her undying loyalty to her. Tamao thanks her and accepts her feelings, calling Fumi her "most trusted samurai".
  • During script readings in Main Story 14, Fumi's character Temperance says about Death (Tamao's character): "...Heh... Death sure has gentle eyes. I wonder if Death will put an end to my life full of regrets... It's like an 'angel'..." It's worth noting that the Gekifest play is meant to mirror the characters' real lives to some degree.