| 1 | %%Note: Use ''-Re LIVE-'' when pertaining to the mobile game for consistency in naming format. |
| 2 | |
| 3 | |
| 4 | [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/shoujo_kageki_revue_starlight.png]] |
| 5 | [[caption-width-right:350:Let's aim for Top Star![[note]]In center: Hikari Kagura (L) and Karen Aijo (R). Clockwise from top left: Maya Tendo, Nana Daiba, Junna Hoshimi, Futaba Isurugi, Kaoruko Hanayagi, Mahiru Tsuyuzaki, and Claudine Saijo.[[/note]]]] |
| 6 | |
| 7 | -->''"And it shall be bestowed upon you, the Star which you have longed for --"'' |
| 8 | |
| 9 | When they were children, Karen Aijo and Hikari Kagura made a promise with each other that they would one day stand on the stage of Starlight, a theatrical production famed all over the world. However, Hikari transferred schools and moved to England. Time passes, and now the girls are 16 years old. As a student at Seisho Music Academy, Karen is very enthusiastic about the lessons she takes every day, holding the promise she made with Hikari close to her heart. But as the cogs of fate turn, the two girls are brought together once again. The girls and their classmates will compete in a mysterious audition process to become the "Top Star". |
| 10 | |
| 11 | ''Shoujo☆Kageki Revue Starlight'' is a Japanese multimedia franchise created by Bushiroad, featuring two stage musicals, an anime, three manga series, and a mobile game. The musical first premiered in September 2017, with a second run in January 2018. A second musical premiered in October 2018 and is set for another run in July 2019. Produced by Kinema Citrus, the anime began airing in July 2018. |
| 12 | |
| 13 | A mobile game titled ''Shoujo Kageki Revue Starlight -Re LIVE-'' was released in Japan on October 22nd 2018, while the global version was released on April 22nd, 2019. ''Shoujo☆Conte All Starlight'', a series of animated shorts, premiered in July 2019. Episodes are first made available to ''-Re LIVE-'' players within the game app, then uploaded to the [[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpcs9GP_NIBxzDfNTWolNPw official YouTube channel]] and are free to view for 2 weeks. |
| 14 | |
| 15 | Two movies have been announced. The first movie: ''Shoujo☆Kageki Revue Starlight Rondo・Rondo・Rondo'', which was released in Japanese theaters on August 7, 2020, is a feature-length recap of the anime's events told in [[PerspectiveFlip Nana's perspective]] with brand new scenes not shown in the original TV series. The second movie features a brand new story set during the 99th's third year in school and premiered in Japanese theaters on June 4th, 2021 after a delay from its original date of May 21st due to COVID-19 concerns. The Blu-ray of the movie released in December later that same year. |
| 16 | ---- |
| 17 | !!The franchise contains examples of: |
| 18 | * TheAce: Maya and Claudine excel in all areas of revue. The former is the daughter of a famous actor, while the latter has been acting since childhood. Akira and Shizuha from ''-Re LIVE-'' as well as Koharu from the second stage play are also their own schools' respective top students. |
| 19 | * AbortedArc: Despite having a live concert revolving around it, the ''Starry Diamond Revue'' story arc in the ''-Re LIVE-'' mobile game is this, as out of the six songs, only the ''Sirius'' and ''Orion'' Revues got full event stories and playable units featuring all the characters involved in those Revues. ''Gemini'', ''Auriga'', ''Taurus'', and ''Procyon'' weren't as lucky as they only have ''1 card each'' attached to their respective Revues before the game abruptly stopped releasing content related to Starry Diamond. What's worse is that only the events of the ''Gemini'' and ''Sirius'' Revues are referenced in later event stories outside of the characters' Bond Stories, while the rest don't get so much of a mention or a hint of acknowledgement after all is said and done. On the plus side though, the ''Gemini'' and ''Auriga'' units have mini-games attached to them at least, so they're not ''completely'' forgotten. |
| 20 | * ActorAllusion: Creator/BrittneyKarbowski voicing a character named Karen. [[Literature/Gamers2015 Hmm, sound familiar?]] |
| 21 | * ADayInTheLimelight: |
| 22 | ** Episode 5 focuses on Mahiru. |
| 23 | ** Episode 6 is Futaba and Kaoruko's episode. It's notably the first episode where TheProtagonist Karen doesn't have a major role. |
| 24 | ** Episode 7 does the same for Nana. Her name is even the title of the episode. |
| 25 | ** Episode 8 is Hikari's turn. In fact, for two thirds of the episode none of the other girls even show up physically, only in her flashback or the photo Karen sent to her. |
| 26 | * AdaptationalBadass: |
| 27 | ** The Seisho girls are capable of more impressive feats during the auditions in the anime than they are in the stage plays. Justified, since an animated medium allows the characters to [[RuleOfAnimationConservation fight more creatively than live actors could]]. |
| 28 | ** The Korosu from the stageplays go from [[HumanoidAbomination humanoid enemies]] created by Seisho's Class B whose only advantage is their overwhelming numbers against the girls, to outright [[EldritchAbomination monstrous beings]] of different shapes and sizes in the mobile game, capable of erasing stories from existence and memory. |
| 29 | * AdaptationExpansion: |
| 30 | ** The anime as a whole to the first stage play as it fleshes out the characters more and further expands on the general lore behind the Revues thanks to its 12-episode format. |
| 31 | ** Seisho's Christmas event in ''-Re LIVE-'' is a perspective-flipped retelling of the ''Overture'' manga's Christmas story in its final chapter, detailing what the rest of the 99th were up to while Hikari was out preparing her Christmas surprise for them. |
| 32 | ** The 'Wartime of Farewells, Rerun' event is a second performance for the in-universe play. The event story expands on plot points mentioned in the related card set and had few scenes altered. |
| 33 | ** For the 2nd anniversary of the JP server, Rinmeikan's 'Ghost Patrol Story' also gets an event featuring the rerun of the play, expanding on the original play of the initial sets. On top of a new event story, they also had 3 new cards introduced along the event and an event Memoir. |
| 34 | * AdaptationalNiceGuy: Because the anime adaptation is a LighterAndSofter take on the story, nearly all the girls, with [[NiceGirl Karen]] being the sole exception as she's mostly the same in both mediums, are considerably nicer to each other in the anime unlike their more aggressive stage play counterparts. In the stage play version, their rivalry with each other is borderline hostile enough that they mostly don't consider each other as friends and their revue auditions are comparatively more aggressively intense as a result. In the anime, their rivalry is friendlier, and while still intense, their revue auditions are much less hostile as a result. |
| 35 | * AdaptedOut: The teachers from the stage play: Class A's meek adviser Tsuruko-sensei, Class B's stern adviser Karasuma-sensei, and the imposing Seisho headmaster Souda-sensei are all missing in the anime version and are instead replaced by Class A's adviser, Urara-sensei (though Class B's adviser has yet to be seen) and the Giraffe, both of whom are {{composite|Character}}s of all three characters. Subverted with the Korosu from the stageplay as while they're absent in the anime, they show up in the game as enemy units the girls have to fight against. |
| 36 | * AdultsAreUseless: Subverted; the class's wacky scheme to conceal Karen and Hikari's nighttime absence from the teacher appears to work, but when they get back the next morning, the teacher passes by on a bike and sentences everyone involved to a CoolAndUnusualPunishment known as "The Legendary Hazing", it's left to the audience's imagination [[NothingIsScarier exactly what it entails]], but Junna's discription of it doesn't paint a pretty picture. |
| 37 | * AffectionateNickname: Nana is frequently known as "Banana" by her classmates, due to her TrademarkFavouriteFood. It also comes from her full name Daiba Nana; if you split the family name you get "Dai Ba Nana", or "Big Banana". |
| 38 | * AloofDarkHairedGirl: Hikari comes across as this when she meets Karen for the first time since they were children, though it is hinted that her aloof nature is an act. Koharu is also relatively quiet and distant from people, mostly owed to her lack of friends before high school. |
| 39 | * AlternateContinuity: At first glance, the stage plays and the anime may initially share certain plot and character elements, but ultimately are this to each other due to the differing plot points and character relationships in each medium. The ''Overture'' prequel manga and the ''-Re LIVE-'' mobile game both follow the anime's storyline while ignoring or contradicting the plays' events, while the second stage play continues where the first stage play left off and incorporates characterization from the anime at some parts. Curiously, the pamphlet of ''#2 revival'' suggests that [[CanonWelding some of the events in the anime (or at least, events that happened similarly but may not have played out exactly the same way due to said plot contradictions between both mediums) also took place in the stage plays' continuity]], such as stating, "[Claudine and Maya] teamed up on the final day of the auditions". |
| 40 | * AlternateSelf: The Korosu from the stage plays and the Korosu from the mobile game are considered entirely separate entities from each other thanks to their different origins, purposes, and appearances in both mediums. However, their role as antagonists for the Stage Girls to fight and defeat remains the same. |
| 41 | * AnimationBump: Hikari and Junna's duel in Episode 1 was already impressive enough animation-wise but one certain shot is an obvious stand-out moment: [[https://www.sakugabooru.com/post/show/54478 the part where Junna grabs onto a ring and is hoisted into the air,]] mixing a bit of CGI in seamlessly as the "camera" moves to create a true sense of space. |
| 42 | ** In general, all the auditions count as an AnimationBump, but there's some noticeable moments in the more grounded scenes as well, like [[https://www.sakugabooru.com/post/show/52242 Maya's introduction]]. |
| 43 | ** Episode 7 includes a very subtle but memorable example: the episode doesn't have a lot of extravagant animation, focusing mainly on staging to set the mood, but at the very end of the episode, [[spoiler: the shot of Nana turning to face and seemingly address the audience]] is very fluid, making the moment all the more unsettling. |
| 44 | * AwLookTheyReallyDoLoveEachOther: |
| 45 | ** Despite the characters all vying with each other to be Top Star, and their not too pleasant interactions with each other at times, they all band together to try and keep Karen and Hikari from getting into trouble after both girls miss the school curfew and don't return for the night. When the two girls do return in the morning, the rest of the class is there to greet them and welcome them back. |
| 46 | ** They initially come off as the most impersonal school in ''-Re LIVE-'', but the Edels from Siegfeld care a lot about each other. The event "Siegfeld General Hospital High-Class Prescription" is a good example of this. |
| 47 | * BackToBackBadasses: During the final day of the auditions, Karen does this with Hikari and Maya does this with Claudine since it's a two-on-two duel. |
| 48 | * BetweenMyLegs: Hoshimi in episode 2. |
| 49 | * BewareTheNiceOnes: Sweet ''Mahiru'' ends up giving Karen a run for her money during their audition duel, all the while saying that she has no talent, confident or radiance. Episode 7 reveals that [[spoiler:Nana has been keeping her class in a timeloop for decades, which is a lot on its own, but she's also had to consistently beat the likes of Maya and Claudine in revues in order to do so.]] This applies to ''-Re LIVE-'' too. Michiru presents herself as the most approachable of all the Edels but has quite the tactical mind and a respectable streak of ruthlessness. Tamao is probably one of the nicest, if not the nicest, character in the game, but by Arcana Arcadia, she becomes impressive enough to garner the attention of Akira and Kaoruko, both of whom had previously looked down on her. |
| 50 | * BigBad: In the first stage play, the closest thing to one in the story is Seisho Music Academy's own headmaster, Souda-sensei, with both Maya and Nana serving as [[TheHeavy two separate antagonists]] against Karen. In the second stage play, it's Seiran General Arts Institute's Yakumo-sensei. |
| 51 | * BigDamnHeroes: After Hikari is PinnedToTheWall by Junna, Karen is quick to jump to the former's aid. |
| 52 | * BoardingSchool: Seisho Music Academy is this, with a few of the characters being roommates. The other three schools introduced in ''-RE Live-'' are also this as well. |
| 53 | * {{Bowdlerize}}: The Worldwide server censored and changed this one important conversation between Aruru and Shizuha likely as a means to downplay the ''very'' dark implications happening during the scene so that the game's age rating would go unaffected. [[spoiler: Aruru found Shizuha cutting herself, asking her why during the Arcana Arcadia Main Story, as Shizuha was having trouble with the 'Judgement' role she is playing.]] This only applies to the English translation, as the Korean and Traditional Chinese translations are not edited like this. On the other hand, only the text in English was translated differently. Aruru's voiced dialogue from the original remains unchanged: |
| 54 | ** Original JP |
| 55 | --> Aruru: [[spoiler: ...って、なにしてるの！？ そのカッターナイフ、どうするつもり！？ (..., What are you planning to do with that cutter knife!?)]] |
| 56 | ** Worldwide version |
| 57 | --> Aruru: [[spoiler: ...What are you doing?! Why are you pinching yourself?]] |
| 58 | * BreakingTheFellowship: [[spoiler: The main conflict of the second movie, as the girls participate in another round of revues to come to terms with their respective partners taking different paths after graduation.]] |
| 59 | * BreakingTheFourthWall: In Episode 12, [[spoiler:the Giraffe turns to the "camera" and addresses the audience directly. Not the audience of the revue, the audience of the ''show''. He theorizes that performances such as Karen's and Hikari's exist because audiences such as the ''viewer'' wish to see them. He implicitly blames audiences for the tragedies that appear to be unfolding, directly discussing the entire show's theme about how cutthroat and competitive the musical theater industry is in Japan - ultimately building greater spectacles on the crushed hopes and dashed dreams of those talented individuals who still come up just a little short.]] |
| 60 | ** Before the final revue in the second movie, [[spoiler: Karen faces the audience and asks Hikari if the audience was always this close, if the lights on the stage were this hot, and if the stage had always been this terrifying.]] |
| 61 | * ButNotTooForeign: |
| 62 | ** Claudine has a Japanese father and a French mother. |
| 63 | ** Lalafin from ''-Re LIVE-'' is Half-German, Half-Japanese. |
| 64 | * ChildhoodFriends: Karen and Hikari, as well as Futaba and Kaoruko. From the game, there's Aruru and Misora, and Akira and Michiru. |
| 65 | * CanonWelding: The franchise seems to be doing this lately by welding the canon of the stageplays with the mobile game, ''-Re LIVE-''. |
| 66 | * CallBack: |
| 67 | ** Mahiru and Karen happily reminisce the day they first met each other during ''-Re LIVE's-'' first Christmas event, the story of which was given more detail in the first chapter of the prequel manga, ''Overture''. |
| 68 | ** "The Ghost in the Theater" play the 99th (sans Hikari who had yet to transfer at that point) did during their training camp in their first year as detailed in the ''Overture'' prequel manga ends up [[ChekhovsGun becoming important]] in the 7th Chapter of ''-Re LIVE's-'' Main Story as it winds up being the one crucial piece Claudine needed [[spoiler: to fully remember the disappeared Maya.]] |
| 69 | ** Futaba and Claudine bring up the Bobotie dish Junna made for their class in ''Overture'' at the beginning of the "Hello to Halloween" event story, [[DamnedByFaintPraise complete with Futaba recalling it as "that weird dish from our first year", and Claudine once again calling it the dish they were all too immature to appreciate at the time]]. |
| 70 | * CliffHanger: Episode 10: [[spoiler:With Hikari and Karen victorious from their Revue Duet, they are pitted against each other for one more revue, on an elevated stage. Hikari reminds that, in spite of the two winning the duet, the auditions must still end with only one victor. Hikari strips off Karen's coat, and Karen falls off the stage. The episode ends there.]] |
| 71 | ** Rondo Rondo Rondo ends with [[spoiler: Nana seeing a vision of the girls laying in a bloody mess on the stairs of the Starlight tower and Hikari saying her fated stage with Karen still hasn't ended.]] |
| 72 | * CoatCape: As seen in the page image, the characters all wear this as part of their revue costumes. Stage combat in the series is won by the victor managing to dislodge the loser's coat. The girls from Siegfeld in the mobile game wear coats like this as well. |
| 73 | * ComplainingAboutRescuesTheyDontLike: Hikari is not the least bit pleased that Karen jumped in to duel Junna after the latter [[PinnedToTheWall pins her to a stage fixture]] with an arrow, as Karen interfered with an audition for the Starlight revue. |
| 74 | * ContinuityNod: |
| 75 | ** [[https://twitter.com/satohina1223/status/1150770556402143233 According to]] Creator/HinataSato, when coming up with the third tragedy of Junna's rant about class 2-A's "three great tragedies" (itself a reference to the "great tragedies of Creator/WilliamShakespeare", something Junna mentioned in the first musical) in ''#2 revival'', she took into consideration the anime and ''4-koma Starlight''. Satou changed up this particular line for every showing of ''#2 revival'', and while "half-twintails that don't suit me," used in the matinee on day 3, was presumably about one 4-koma gag of Junna putting her hair up for an audition, it also drew titters from viewers who knew of Satou's [[ActorAllusion other roles as twintailed characters]] Leah Kazuno in ''Anime/LoveLiveSunshine'' and Alice in ''Stray Sheep Paradise''. |
| 76 | ** An ad promoting the 27th Summer Performance Festival involving Seisho, Siegfeld, Rinmeikan, and Frontier (the same important festival the 4 main schools of '' -Re LIVE-'' were preparing for in fact) can be seen on a train the Seisho girls are riding in in the sequel movie. |
| 77 | ** As shown in the sequel movie, Karen's second choice of performing arts school if she didn't pass the entrance exams to Seisho is revealed to be Seiran General Art Institute. |
| 78 | * {{Crossover}}: |
| 79 | ** With ''Anime/TojiNoMiko'' for a 2019 collaboration with their mobile games. |
| 80 | ** With ''Music/HatsuneMiku'', where Mahiru has to star in a special play featuring Hatsune Miku as one of the main characters, though the Miku featured there is an explicitly non-sentient A.I. projection just like in real life and not an actual person in-story. |
| 81 | ** With ''VideoGame/BangDreamGirlsBandParty'' in ''-Re LIVE-'' in a collaboration event, where the girls of Poppin' Party get to meet the five main characters of ''-Re LIVE-'' and help them for a special play involving bands. |
| 82 | ** With ''Anime/LoveLiveSunshine'' in another collaboration event in 2020, where the Seisho girls meet Aqours to celebrate a 100 year old festival both groups are participating in by having a performance collab together with them. |
| 83 | ** With ''Anime/{{Symphogear}}'' in a 2021 collaboration event, featuring Hibiki Tachibana, Tsubasa Kazanari and Maria Cadenzavna Eve. There's also a ''Fushichou no Flamme'' (Tsubasa and Maria's first duet) covered by Maya and Claudine. |
| 84 | ** With ''VisualNovel/SteinsGate'' in another collaboration event, where Rintarou Okabe helps out the Seisho girls in a play where he insists that the story ''must'' have a happy ending for its characters. |
| 85 | ** With ''VideoGame/SakuraWars'' in another 2021 collaboration event, featuring Karen, Hikari, and Mahiru meeting Sakura Shinguji, Gemini Sunrise, and Erica Fontaine from said series after the latter three were mysteriously displaced from their homeworld to the ''Revue Starlight'' universe when Karen opened the tametebako they were using for their production of ''Urashima Taro''. |
| 86 | * CrystalBallScheduling: The franchise is, as a whole, made of this trope. Often events in the plays the characters are doing reflect what they're going through in the real world, with the parallels between the play ''Starlight'' and Karen and Hikari's story in the anime being only a few of many, many examples. |
| 87 | * DefeatEqualsFriendship: After Karen defeats Junna in stage combat twice, the former ostensibly manages to win the latter over to her way of thinking, as Junna becomes much more amicable towards Karen. |
| 88 | * DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: When Kaoruko is interrogating Mahiru on her feelings towards Karen in the bath, she holds a rubber duck between her fingers and makes it ''squirt water''. |
| 89 | * DoItYourselfThemeTune: The opening and ending themes are sung by the nine main characters. |
| 90 | ** The ED, "Fly Me To The Star", gets extra credit for the number of different versions it has. In each episode the same song is sung by different characters, either solo or as a duet, as each character gets focus on them in the plot. |
| 91 | * DreamingOfThingsToCome: When she dozes off in class in the first episode of the anime, Karen has a dream of falling atop of what seems to be Tokyo Tower after someone familiar [[spoiler: (Hikari)]] pushes her off of it. [[spoiler: Guess what happens near the end of [[WhamEpisode episode 10?]]]] |
| 92 | * EldritchAbomination: The [[TheHeartless Korosu]] are dark, oddly shaped creatures who exist to feed on stories from around the world and wipe them off from existence completely unless they're defeated in stage combat. Though their exact purpose and origins are completely different between the stageplays and ''-Re LIVE's-'' iterations, their inhuman nature stays the same. |
| 93 | * EnforcedMethodActing: Occurs multiple times in ''-Re LIVE-''. |
| 94 | ** In the ''"Detective Karen on the Case"'' event, Karen is forced into better understanding her role of Sherlock Holmes by being given an actual mystery to solve, that being to find who stole her precious umeboshi. Also applies to the girls in the roles of Lupin and Moriarty [[spoiler:(Yachiyo and Mahiru respectively)]], as it's them who collaborate to steal it and make it a mystery for Karen to solve, effectively putting them in their respective roles as well. |
| 95 | ** During the Unnamed Play arc, Tamao goes out of her way to act in a way that provokes others. She acts haughty, arrogant, and competitive towards Kaoruko when she is generally good-natured even when Kaoruko provokes her. She is completely dismissive of Rui and even implies that Rui is a helpless burden when she is normally nurturing and gracious. She is distant and aloof towards the other girls in Rinmeikan when she is usually rallying them all to work together and cares deeply for each one of them. This is because she is intentionally invoking OOCIsSeriousBusiness in everyone she meets to make them terrified of her both on and off the stage. Oh, it's probably worth noting that the Major Arcana role she's playing is none other than '''Death''', who is corrosive, indiscriminately cruel, and feared by all for its unpredictability. |
| 96 | * ExactWords: As a rule, the school's gates are locked at 6 '''in the evening''', and any students who make day trips out into town have to be back by then. Because no one mentioned the bolded part of the rule to Karen when she went out to look for Hikari, the two girls wind up returning to school by 6 ''in the morning''. [[SubvertedTrope It doesn't save them]]. |
| 97 | * EvolvingCredits: The visuals of the ending credits changes depending on which characters are the focus of the episode. |
| 98 | * EvolvingMusic: The ending theme is sung by different characters depending on which of them are the focus of the episode. In Episode 7, an instrumental version is used. |
| 99 | * FoodAsBribe: After learning that Nana has ambitions to write for revue, her classmates start giving her candy in the hopes that she will consider them for starring roles in any plays she writes. |
| 100 | * {{Foreshadowing}}: Fans have noted that TheReveal in Episode 7 was actually foreshadowed subtly and cleverly in the first half of the anime, [[https://twitter.com/359456/status/1032703428034588672 with at least one Japanese fan making a video noting some of these moments.]] |
| 101 | ** One notable moment is the announcement of Hikari's transfer in the very first episode being met by a [[spoiler: very brief but pointed shot of Nana reacting with surprise]]. Her entrance is also [[ShoutOut uncannily similar]] to Homura's introduction in ''Anime/PuellaMagiMadokaMagica''--the main character has a strange dream involving an AloofDarkHairedGirl, and that girl transfers into her class the same day. It later turns out that (spoiler for both ''Revue'' and ''Madoka'') [[spoiler:just like Homura, Hikari is trying to end a long-running GroundhogDayLoop and save the protagonist from having her soul (or "shine") taken away]]. |
| 102 | ** Another early hint of [[spoiler: Nana's interest in Hikari]] was dropped in Episode 2 when [[spoiler: Nana is the one who confronts Hikari trying to force the elevator open.]] |
| 103 | * FreezeFrameBonus: In Episode 9, Hikari shows Karen a copy of ''The Starlight Gatherer'', the book on which the ShowWithinAShow is based and scraps of English text are visible as they page through it. Notably, it opens with the passage |
| 104 | --> The Star remembers it all. |
| 105 | --> When Fury was Passion. |
| 106 | --> When Curse was Faith. |
| 107 | --> When Escape was Bravery. |
| 108 | --> When Jealousy was Affection. |
| 109 | --> When Despair was Hope. |
| 110 | --> When Arrogance was Pride. |
| 111 | --> The Star remembers it all, together with its twinkles. |
| 112 | |
| 113 | The viewer will soon learn that Fury, Curse, Escape, Jealousy, Despair, and Arrogance are the goddesses played respectively by [[DontYouDarePityMe Junna]], [[BeleagueredAssistant Futaba]], Kaoruko, [[ClingyJealousGirl Mahiru]], [[IJustWantToHaveFriends Nana]], and Karen in last year's performance. With the exception of Pride/Arrogance (since over the course of the anime Karen's more closely associated with Flora) the current and former identities of the goddesses are suspiciously apropos for the characters who portrayed them. |
| 114 | * GratuitousEnglish: |
| 115 | ** Maya finishes her fights saying this. Amusingly, she didn't bother changing the eastern order of her name despite speaking in English. |
| 116 | --> This is Tendo Maya. |
| 117 | ** Justified for [[spoiler:the giraffe in London, as it is, after all, in London. When Hikari responds to it in Japanese, it switches to Japanese for her]]. |
| 118 | ** Perhaps due to their school's America motif, all of the Frontier kids [[spoiler:including Elle]] have at least one or two English words in their revue introductions. |
| 119 | * GratuitousFrench: Being half-French, Claudine occasionally throws some French words in her speech. When she's [[ZanyScheme playing sick to keep the teacher from learning Hikari and Karen broke curfew]] she exploits it by dramatically saying things like "the weather is nice today" in a language she knows the teacher won't understand. |
| 120 | ** On a roll in Episode 10. [[spoiler:After Maya and Claudine lose in the Revue Duet against Karen and Hikari, they share a conversation that is all in French.]] |
| 121 | * GreenEyedMonster: Mahiru realizes she's in love with Karen, and starts getting jealous when Karen spends more time with Hikari, even practicing extra. The envy is what fuels her in their duel, and for a ''long time'' she has Karen on the ropes. |
| 122 | * GroundhogDayLoop: [[spoiler:Nana has actually won the auditions of the Giraffe a long time ago, and the wish she made when she became Top Star was to be able to perform Starlight with her friends again, the ''exact same'' play they did in their first year. She was sent back to when they had just arrived at school, and since them she has been repeating the same cycle of performing Starlight in the first year, becoming Top Star in the second, and them going back in time.]] |
| 123 | * HardWorkHardlyWorks: Junna trains herself to near-exhaustion, but finds that she still can't hold a candle to characters like Maya and Claudine, who possess natural talent for revue. |
| 124 | * HoistByHisOwnPetard: Hikari's attempts to prevent Karen from participating in the auditions only serve to make the latter all the more determined to get to the bottom of them. |
| 125 | * {{Homage}}: Many scenes in the anime have visuals and thematic beats paying tribute to ''Anime/RevolutionaryGirlUtena''; of particular note is how both series involve the characters having surreal one-on-one fights with each other where they have to knock something off the opponent's body. Considering director Tomohiro Furukawa worked with Creator/KunihikoIkuhara on two other anime series and is considered his protégé, it makes sense. |
| 126 | * HowWeGotHere: The main story of the mobile game ''-Re LIVE-'' opens with Karen and Hikari clashing against Siegfeld's Akira Yukishiro and Michiru Otori in a dual revue overseen by the Giraffe. The rest of the game's story then shows the circumstances that led to these new round of Auditions against the new schools in the first place. |
| 127 | * ImprobableWeaponUser: In the ''-Re LIVE-'' mobile game, some cards will give the stage girls things that match the theme that they will wield as their weapons such as Cheerleader Yachiyo using pompoms as her crossbow, Yuyuko throwing christmas bells instead of kunais in her Oyuyu card and writing brushes in her Magician card. |
| 128 | * LateArrivalSpoiler: |
| 129 | ** The mobile game already assumes that you've watched the anime series, so details like [[spoiler: Karen and Hikari winning the Auditions, them getting the lead roles of Flora and Claire for the 100th Seisho Festival,]] and that [[spoiler: the Auditions drain the Brilliance of the Revues' losers when a Top Star is chosen,]] are immediately given away to the players right at the beginning of the first Main Story chapter. |
| 130 | ** The 3rd ''Revue Starlight'' live, "Starry Diamond", also assumes that you've cleared at least Main Story 9 [[spoiler: as the Rinmeikan Stage Girls' stage introduction lines, which were changed during and after Main Story 9, don't bother hiding that their school's Performance Department was reformed into the Performance Association after it was effectively shut down at the end of that Main Story.]] |
| 131 | * LeaningOnTheFourthWall: The last scene of episode 7 is framed in a particular way so it looks like Nana is talking to the viewers. |
| 132 | * LighterAndSofter: The anime compared to the stage version. In the original stage play, the girls' rivalry and competitiveness were played up more, with the characters being borderline antagonistic and even hostile to each other even outside of revue battles, though they all eventually become better by the end. Contrast this to the anime where the girls are friendlier and closer to each other from the start, and where the story drives every one of them to become even closer than they already were throughout the events they go through. The anime also has more slice of life scenarios between the girls and Seisho Academy's cutthroat curriculum is also toned down and much less harsh as a result of omitting Seisho's headmaster Souda-sensei. The Revue battles are treated as fantastical instead of being a part of Seisho's education like in the play and the Auditions are more or less magical in nature in the anime unlike in the play where it's only implicit. |
| 133 | * LostInCharacter: |
| 134 | ** In episode 11, Hikari disappears for months and nobody seems to know where she has gone or how she can be contacted. Episode 12 reveals that [[spoiler: Hikari was trapped in the underground theater, endlessly repeating a one-person reenactment of the tale of ''Starlight'']]. Played more comedically in Mona Lisa Hikari Bond Story 2, where the only thing to get her out of acting as Mona Lisa is being told to act as Mona Lisa acting as Hikari. |
| 135 | ** Nana runs the risk of it in ''-Re LIVE-'', admitting that in the course of writing her adaptation of Franchise/ThePhantomOfTheOpera, she found herself over-empathizing with the Phantom. |
| 136 | ** For a more humorous take on the trope, in ''4-koma Starlight'', Junna immerses herself so deeply into the role of a 5-year-old for an audition that, even after getting the part, she still does not break character. |
| 137 | --->"Hold it!! Junna's autosuggestion hasn't worn off!!" |
| 138 | --->"Go call for someone who knows hypnosis!" |
| 139 | ** Akira's practically shaped her life around becoming the Dying King from Elysion's Chapter of Kings. She often calls herself a king, and a lot of how she acts is based off how she believes a king should act. |
| 140 | ** Lalafin sometimes breaks the fourth wall by narrating events happening in real time like a tokusatsu show. |
| 141 | --->'''Lalafin''': Everything up until we arrived at the shopping mall has been the A Part, so now we're starting the B Part. |
| 142 | --->'''Aruru''': What? A Part? B Part? What's that mean? |
| 143 | --->'''Lalafin''': You don't know? In anime and super hero shows, there's the part of the show before commercials and the part after commercials. |
| 144 | * MaximumFunChamber: Due to Karen and Hikari being out after curfew, and their friends attempting to hide this from the teacher, the whole class gets subjected to "traditional hardcore training." Supposedly it's so intense that previous victims dropped out of school afterward. Exactly what it consists of is never revealed, but it leaves some of them pretty sore the next day. |
| 145 | * MeaningfulBackgroundEvent: Episode 8 mostly focuses on Hikari, however, during the Revue of Solitude, [[spoiler: we see Karen facing off against Claudine... And Karen wins]]. This barely gets seconds of focus [[spoiler: but shows just how far Karen has come.]] |
| 146 | * {{Metafiction}}: The series approached topics like this in the television series, but it goes full throttle in the second movie, where the characters each have to challenge their partners and peers on the "roles" they're all supposed to play in their spheres (this includes the roles they play as characters in the series), discussion on what happens to a character who has fulfilled their role, and the Giraffe bringing back its speech on how audience investment keeps the girls in this bloody feud. |
| 147 | * MoodWhiplash: The last few minutes of the first two episodes practically ooze with this. To wit, Karen is yanked from the atmosphere of an otherwise normal acting school, dressed up in a revue costume, and dropped onto a stage, where she is expected to sing and engage in stage combat with her classmates as part of the auditions for the Starlight revue. And if that wasn't enough, the auditions are overseen by ''[[TalkingAnimal a talking giraffe]]''. |
| 148 | ** Similarly with Rondo Rondo Rondo, where [[spoiler: the giraffe informs Nana everyone is writing a new ending to Starlight. Moments later Nana sees blood dripping from one of the star props and then sees a vision of the girls laying in a bloody mess on the stairs of the Starlight Tower.]] |
| 149 | * NoCommunitiesWereHarmed: The premise of the series is very heavily inspired by the Creator/TakarazukaRevue. More specifically, Seishou Music Academy is based on the real-life [[http://www.tms.ac.jp/english/ Takarazuka Music School]], right down to the similar uniforms. The military-esque uniforms the girls wear during stage combat are also typical of the kinds of costumes common in Takarazuka productions, and the dramatic direction of the "auditions" calls to mind the melodrama that characterizes Takarazuka productions. It's worth noting that Akiko Kodama, who currently directs the Revue Starlight stage musicals, was part of the Takarazuka Revue for almost a decade. |
| 150 | * NonstandardCharacterDesign: In a series otherwise full of perfectly normal humans, the presence of a talking giraffe and the MoodWhiplash that accompanies his scenes and plot involvement is rather jarring. |
| 151 | * NothingIsScarier: The ending sequences of Episodes 3-6 feature one or two characters with their voice actresses singing "Fly Me To The Star," with different variations based on who is featured in that particular episode. In Episode 7, [[spoiler: Nana is the focus of the ED... but there is no singing.]] |
| 152 | * OffscreenMomentOfAwesome: Unlike the first stage play, we don't get to see Maya and Claudine's clash in their Revue against each other while Karen and Junna were having their second square off. Instead, we're treated to the aftermath: Maya standing victorious over a defeated Claudine amid the ruins of their revue's stage. To a certain extent, most of the other revue duels that aren't the main focus of the episodes in the series count too. |
| 153 | * OneGenderSchool: Seisho Music Academy, the school where the series mainly takes place, is an all-girls' school. Since Seisho is heavily based on the real-life Creator/{{Takarazuka|Revue}} Music School, which is also all-female, it only makes sense. The mobile game introduces more schools, all of which are girls-only as well. |
| 154 | * PickyEater: Kaoruko is subtly implied to be one, dumping parts of her lunch she dislikes onto Futaba's plate. |
| 155 | * PinnedToTheWall: In Episode 1, Junna pins Hikari by the coat to a star-shaped stage fixture with one of her arrows. |
| 156 | * Powercreep: A new card is released almost every week, and the new card will almost certainly have an upgraded kit of a pre-existing card or have new gimmicks that are reworked variants of old gimmicks. New card base stats also gets inflated every few months. |
| 157 | * RotatingProtagonist: The prequel manga focuses on a different character in each chapter. |
| 158 | * RuleOfSymbolism: Everything about the stage combats is a metaphor for how fiercely competitive the theatrical world is. |
| 159 | * RuleOfThree: |
| 160 | ** In the scene when Hikari is introduced to the class, Karen excitedly jumps to her feet, and is subsequently scolded by her teacher and told to sit down, three times. |
| 161 | ** Three times in episode 5 Mahiru is caught by Hikari trying to do ''something'' with Karen's stuff. All three scenes end with Mahiru throwing the object with a small scream. |
| 162 | ** The stage combat between Karen and Mahiru has a baseball joke where Mahiru hits Karen with her mace as if she was hitting a ball, throwing Karen in a trapdoor that leads to another stage. The joke is naturally repeated three times. |
| 163 | * SavingTheOrphanage: The Rinmeikan girls' primary motivation for entering the Auditions and winning it as Top Stars in the first place is to save their school's Performance Department from being shut down. |
| 164 | * SecondPlaceIsForLosers: Claudine is bitterly resentful towards Maya for being the lead in rankings, and seeks to usurp her position. After episode 10, although the two are on better terms than before, their rivalry remains, but with less hostility. |
| 165 | * SecretKeeper: The Auditions are not common knowledge, and known to only a small handful of students. The giraffe also threatens Karen with penalties if she were to tell anyone else about the auditions. In the stage plays, the rule of secrecy is non-existent, and while the Auditions still aren't common knowledge among students in that continuity, they're more or less part of the chosen students' ''education'' in school. |
| 166 | * SecretUndergroundPassage: Seisho Music Academy contains one of these, accessible through an elevator located in an obscure corner of the building. It leads to the stage where the giraffe holds the auditions. |
| 167 | * SelfDeprecation: Mahiru tells Karen that she only came to the school to please her grandmother, and doesn't have any talent, radiance or confidence...while beating Karen to a pulp during their duel. |
| 168 | * SelfSacrificeScheme: [[spoiler: Hikari's reason for taking part in the auditions is to pull one of these off to prevent Karen from having her brilliance stolen. Her plan is to become Top Star but refuse the wish that came with it so the brilliance of the losers wouldn't be taken. It backfires, as Hikari's disappearance leaves Karen so miserable that she essentially loses her brilliance anyways.]] |
| 169 | * SeriousBusiness: Junna treats revue as this, and shows open hostility towards anyone who shows admiration towards others who are good at the field, believing that such people are not serious about bettering themselves and advancing past said individuals. |
| 170 | * ShesAManInJapan |
| 171 | ** "Wartime of Farewells", one of the plays in ''-Re LIVE-'', is about knights on two opposing sides of a war. The English translation has characters refer to roles in the play by male pronouns, which posed little issue at launch even if considering [[CrosscastRole Seishou is an all-girls school]]. However, Chapter 7 of the Main Story, released for the Japanese server eight or so months after launch, revealed names of some knights... obviously ''female'' names like "Mariavera", "Claudia", and "Katalina". |
| 172 | ** In the English localization, Akira is occasionally referred to with he/him pronouns. |
| 173 | * SevenIsNana: Episode 7 is, sure enough, all about Daiba ''Nana.'' Her name is even the title of the episode, making it something of a PunBasedTitle. |
| 174 | * ShownTheirWork: The writers are clearly well-versed in the field of Japanese revue, with [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIG8bWpwIpg&t=53s several subtle nods]] to the field that might be missed by a casual viewer. |
| 175 | * ShowWithinAShow: The in-universe play ''Starlight'' is the main focus of the anime and stage plays. ''-Re LIVE-'' also features productions of several shows by the various schools, some of which are original works, and some of which are references to well-known fictional works, usually in conjunction with the gacha release of characters in their stage costumes. |
| 176 | ** "Wartime of Farewells", the play alluded to in the Seishou students' higher-rarity cards at launch, [[ChekhovsGun becomes relevant again in Chapter 7 of the Main Story]], when most players would either have seen characters from the set on gacha banners or pulled them and therefore have some knowledge of its story. |
| 177 | ** "Elysion" and "Captain Twins" feature in the storylines of Siegfeld and Frontier respectively, and the Rinmeikan production "Ghost Patrol Story" is featured in various Memoir cards. Variants of characters from these schools wearing their stage costumes are permanently in the ''-Re LIVE-'' paid gacha pool. |
| 178 | ** So far, every act of Arcana Arcadia has included parts of Play A's script. |
| 179 | * ShrinkingViolet: Mahiru is normally incredibly shy, unless she's onstage performing. Shiori and Rui from the mobile game are also the same way. |
| 180 | * SiblingYinYang: The Yumeoji Sisters from ''-Re LIVE-'' have polar opposite personalities. Whereas Fumi is more temperamental and blunt, Shiori tends to be more soft-spoken and meek compared to her older sister. |
| 181 | * {{Sleepyhead}}: Kaoruko is often seen on the verge of falling asleep. |
| 182 | * SlidingScaleOfCooperationVsCompetition: While most of the school views attaining Top Star as a goal and thus compete with each other for the position, Karen wants to shine on the stage collectively with all her classmates. It is to be noted that this is a very radical opinion, as [[ThereCanBeOnlyOne there can be only one Top Star]]. |
| 183 | * SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome: To cover for Karen and Hikari when they miss the school curfew, the girls think of a ruse that mostly relies on the teacher looking in the right direction in the right time and failing to see through Claudine's obvious acting. It seems to have worked, but as the teacher casually informs them the next morning, it didn't. |
| 184 | * SwappedRoles: |
| 185 | ** In the ''Mafia Famiglia Crossfire'' event in ''-Re LIVE-'', a mix-up in the costume department causes all the girls' costumes' measurements to be incorrect. It was the measurements themselves were assigned to the wrong roles, so the costume that was supposed to be for Kaoruko fits Nana perfectly, the costume intended for Maya fits Kaoruko, and so forth. Interestingly, the roles they were going to play were ones that fit their characters to a tee, with Maya playing a powerful and strategic mafia boss, Kaoruko playing the dainty and sheltered mafia boss' daughter, and Nana playing the maid who would do anything to protect the daughter from harm. But because of the wardrobe mix-up and a limited timetable, the girls have no choice but to take on each other's roles at the last minute, with Maya as the dutiful maid, Nana as the daughter, and Kaoruko as the boss. They make it work, and they note that being put in roles that were unnatural for them helped expand their acting capabilities. |
| 186 | ** Also in ''-Re LIVE-'', it's noted that as children, Misora and Aruru's first performance together was in a production of The Wizard of Oz with Misora as Dorothy and Aruru as Toto. Now, as teenagers, they're doing Wizard of Oz once again with Aruru in the role of Dorothy with Misora as Toto. |
| 187 | * TalkingAnimal: The auditions for the Starlight revue are overseen by a talking giraffe. |
| 188 | * TarotMotifs: |
| 189 | ** Stars and a Tower (right next to each other in Major Arcana numbering) figure prominently in both the play "Starlight" and Hikari and Kagura's story. |
| 190 | ** ''-Re LIVE's-'' Arcana Arcadia is centered on Play A, a play where all the characters are assigned tarot cards as roles. Both the characters of Play A and the game's characters' arcs are heavily based on their tarot cards' meanings. |
| 191 | * ThereAreNoTherapists: Whether the revues do involve actual fighting or not, the hypercompetitive environment these characters are in is not doing them any favors mental health-wise, with consequences ranging from working to a self-harming degree (Junna in Episode 2 of the anime and [[spoiler:Shizuha]]) to inferiority complexes (Fumi being the most extreme example) and more. That's not even counting outside circumstances, such as the pressure Kaoruko has had on her since birth to take over her family's dance school or [[spoiler:Aruru's baggage over being left at an orphanage when she was a baby with no knowledge of her birth parents]]. However, there's no sign that any of them have mental health support. |
| 192 | * ThereCanBeOnlyOne: There is only one Top Star. However, Karen seeks to change that. |
| 193 | * ThoseTwoGuys: Masai and Amemiya, the two main representatives of Seisho's Class B (who are also part of the 99th Class), are the main scriptwriters and directors of Class A's plays and are always seen together. |
| 194 | * TimeLoopFatigue: [[spoiler: Subverted. Despite Nana repeating the same school year 60 times, the other Seisho girls were completely unaware of its occurrence. Nana even seemed to be unaffected by the repetition despite retaining her memories and acting out each year exactly as the first.]] |
| 195 | * ToneShift: Starting at the second half of the show, in episode 7, the story breaks the episodic pattern it established and goes into backstories that reveal sinister truths about what's going on, and the tone becomes more serious and less like a typically cute SchoolgirlSeries. |
| 196 | * TransformationSequence: The sequence where Karen dresses up for the auditions is effectively treated as such by the show, right down to being StockFootage in future episodes. Since it would be hard to stretch the act of putting on some clothes too long, most of the StockFootage is dedicated to the process of ''making'' the clothes and accessories. |
| 197 | * UnknownRival: Mahiru resents Hikari for being ChildhoodFriends with Karen, and becoming the focus of Karen's attention since her return. Hikari is oblivious to these feelings. |
| 198 | %%** CarryABigStick: Mahiru wields a mace. |
| 199 | %%** CoolSword: Claudine uses a longsword, while Karen wields a cutlass. |
| 200 | %%** KatanasAreJustBetter: Nana wields not one of these, [[DualWielding but two]]. |
| 201 | %%** RoyalRapier: Maya's weapon is this. |
| 202 | %%** WhipSword: Hikari wields a downplayed example, a dagger tied to a rope (a westernized ''kusari-gama''), though she can also use the dagger on its own. |
| 203 | * WhatTheHellHero: Mahiru delivers one to Karen during their duel, calling her out for spending so much time with Hikari. In Main Story 15, [[spoiler:Ichie gives one to Fumi for not addressing her trauma from Siegfeld and projecting her unfulfilled wishes onto Tamao]]. |
| 204 | * WhamEpisode: |
| 205 | ** Episode 7. [[spoiler:Turns out there is a GroundhogDayLoop going on because Nana became Top Star long ago and she refuses to let her happy days with her classmate end. Also, Hikari randomly showed up after many loops, which implies there is much more to her than meets the eye.]] |
| 206 | ** Which is followed up immediately with episode 8. [[spoiler:When Hikari was abroad in London, the school she attended had the auditions too, complete with what seems to be the exact same giraffe. She lost, after which it was revealed to her that the creation of a Top Star drains the motivation and energy of all of the losers, which makes the whole thing even more sinister than it already was]]. |
| 207 | ** In the 7th chapter of ''-Re LIVE's-'' Main Story event, [[spoiler: Maya seemingly gets erased from existence with none of her classmates from the 99th remembering anything about her.]] |
| 208 | --> ''Main Story Chapter 7 title card'': [[spoiler: "[[WhamLine Maya Tendo Erased]]"]] |
| 209 | * WhamShot: Episode 10 ends [[spoiler:with Hikari stripping off Karen's Revue coat, and Karen falling off the stage.]] |
| 210 | ** The last few chapters of Main Story 13. [[spoiler:Part 14 has Shizuha committing self-harm, which is arguably the darkest the game ever gets, and Part 15 is where it's revealed that Aruru is an orphan and has been performing her happy-go-lucky attitude this whole time.]] |
| 211 | * WinWinEnding: [[spoiler:The ''Procyon'' Revue ends with all four of its participants winning Position Zero without having to engage in the usual stage combat as per tradition, a first for the franchise.]] |
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