C'est moi, la star! 
Claudine Saijo (西條 クロディーヌ, Saijō Kurodiinu) is a character in the Shōjo☆Kageki Revue Starlight franchise. She is a second-year student from the Actor Training Department at Seisho Music Academy's 99th Graduating Class, as well as second seat of the class.
Born to a Japanese father and a French mother, this talented Stage Girl already has a long career as a child actress. Upon entering the school, she meets the brilliant Maya Tendo and immediately begins a staunch rivalry [1].
Appearance
Claudine has wavy waist-length ash-blonde hair that she generally wears loose, she always wears a black headband, however, she does not push her bangs back with it, so they cover her forehead and deep magenta eyes.
Her Seisho uniform consists of a gray blazer with dark-gray trimming and a gray knife-pleated skirt, a white button-up shirt, a red ribbon tie, and brown loafers, which she wears with black thigh-high socks.
Her casual outfit consists of a light-blue blouse with puff sleeves and a deep V-neck with ruffles, black waist-high cuffed capri pants, and red shoes. Around the dorm, she wears a black short-sleeved sweatshirt with a red hood and blue shorts.
Her revue outfit comprises a black jacket with silver piping, a standing-type collar with two silver tassels at the joint, four frogs with silver buttons at the ends, black cuff flaps with silver trimming, and a silver armband and epaulettes over a white button-up shirt. Her belt is golden with a silver buckle, and silver aiguillettes hang from it. Her skirt is a black kick-pleated skirt with a white band near the bottom, a black ribbon at the back, and a light-gray tulle dress tail. Like all the other girls, she wears black boots with golden trim detailing and a tassel, as well as a red pelisse jacket with golden piping over her left shoulder, held to a red shoulder belt by a golden aiguillette and a golden button. Her weapon is a longsword with a black gem at the base of the blade.
Personality
Reflecting her wealthy upbringing, Claudine always speaks and acts gracefully. She often shows a more casual attitude towards her friends, and sometimes even teases them. However, her demeanor drastically changes when Maya Tendo is involved, be it physically or whenever her name is brought up. She can become very aggressive and competitive when Maya is around, and always tries to compete with her on every given occasion. She seems easily flustered when Maya acts very friendly with her, though. When shocked or overwhelmed, she usually switches to speaking French, though she usually does so by just saying common phrases.
In the 4-koma manga however, Claudine turns into a tsundere character around Maya and she vents her embarrassment to Karen Aijo when she said Claudine actually looks up to Maya personally, delighting Maya in return.
Background
Born to a Japanese father and a French mother, Claudine is a very talented actress as she started her career as a child actor, appearing in various advertisements and TV commercials when she was young. Growing up with set expectations from the people around her, Claudine used to believe she was very special compared to the other kids her age. But then, as she grew older and entered Seisho Music Academy of theater, she realized how limited her capabilities are when she met Maya Tendo during their middle-school audition, a "thoroughbred" genius and currently the academy's very top student in her own class.
In the Overture manga, Claudine is known for her earlier theater performance titled "Arrie", which earned her some younger fans that look up to her. She has also appeared in TV commercials such as "Lou's Ointment" where Maya phrases the advert's tagline when aiding Claudine in the manga itself.
Relationships
Maya Tendo
Claudine is always seen together with Maya despite their aggressive rivalry. In both anime and manga, she is Maya's designated partner and they are often seen practicing together during class and even privately. This is because Maya believes Claudine is the only person in the class who is capable of matching her in terms of skills and techniques. This has caused Claudine to feel frustrated most of the time, because no matter how hard she trains, she can never beat Maya and always falls second in place. But then it was revealed in episode 10 that Claudine actually feels grateful to Maya personally, and supports her to shine brighter during their Revue of Duet.
Claudine holds Maya in a very high regards, thinking that Maya is the natural selection to the revue's Top Star spot, given her pedigree. Yet when they both lost to Hikari Kagura and Karen Aijo in the final day of the revue audition in episode 10, Claudine broke down and cried as she refused to accept the outcome of the audition, ripping off her own button and blaming herself for her lack of strength in supporting Maya during her final confrontation with Karen, and shouting on stage telling everyone that Maya "never loses". Maya then walked to her slowly and spoke in French, assuring Claudine that they haven't completely lost yet because that stage simply did not belong to them.
After episode 10, both Maya and Claudine resume back into their old routine hanging out next to each other, but this time without their usual aggressive rivalry anymore.
Futaba Isurugi
Claudine shares a sporting relationship with Futaba in the anime, compared to the rest of the girls in the series. Due to Futaba's frankness and casual demeanor, Claudine is seen having closer friendship with Futaba in episode 3 when Futaba noticed Claudine's unusual behavior and irritation during the day in school. Futaba easily brought up Maya's name when asking her the cause of her grumpiness, and offered her a lollipop. They showed a closer bond of their friendship in episode 6, when Futaba got into a fight with Kaoruko Hanayagi and escalated their argument by moving into Claudine's room, leaving Kaoruko on her own. In the end of episode 6, when both of them finally reconciled, Futaba gave Claudine a whole stack of snacks wrapped in a big furoshiki bag as thanks.
The Rest of the Group
Claudine has a good established relationship with the rest of the group, such as Karen Aijo, Mahiru Tsuyuzaki, Hikari Kagura, Nana Daiba, Junna Hoshimi and Kaoruko Hanayagi. She always behaves casually and more calm whenever she interacts with them, sometimes even teases Mahiru by blowing into her ears, and playfully commenting how everyone "bribed" Nana in episode 3, but did the same as she also gave her share of macarons to Nana as "incentive", which got Karen calling her unfair, since she was one of the two main actors in their previous 99th Starlight play.
Revues
Anime
Unnamed revues:
- Claudine vs Maya Tendo (Episode 2)
- Claudine vs Futaba Isurugi (Episode 3)
- Claudine vs Hikari Kagura (Episode 5)
- Claudine vs Junna Hoshimi (Episode 6)
- Claudine vs Karen Aijo (Episode 8)
- Revue of Fate
Live
- Revue of Maze
- Revue of Spring Thunder
- Revue of Ultramarine
- Revue of Rainbow
- Revue of Gemini
Etymology
- Traditionally said to mean "lame", the root of the name Claudine is likely to have come from a Sabine word similar in origin to the Latin clausus ("shut, closed").
- She is affectionately called "Kuro-chan" by her close friends.
- Despite her image color being orange, it is never shown in her outfits and accessories, as is the case with the other girls, and her outfits tend to feature black instead. This might be a play on the fact that her nickname, "Kuro", means "black" (黒).
- She is affectionately called "Kuro-chan" by her close friends.
- Claudine's surname Saijo means "west" (西) (sai) and "article, clause, item, stripe, streak" (條) (jo).
Trivia
- Her favorite gift is macaroons.
- She loves tuna.[2]
- She enjoys listening to gamelan music.[5]
- She is not above swearing.[6][7]
- She is the only character for whom the ornamentation of her revue outfit is silver instead of golden.
- Along with Nana Daiba, she is the only character whose revue outfit does not feature their image color; however, Nana's weapon still has a gem that does, while Claudine's is black.
- She is the only character whose gem in her Starlight goddess outfit does not match her image color.
- She is the only character that has no dedicated stage or her own revue song in the TV series.
- Thanks to her obsessive rivalry with Maya Tendo, their pairing quickly became the most popular in fandom. To such an extent that their reconciliation in episode 10 even became the cause for a separate stream with their voice actresses, and the tag with the name of their ship entered the trends of Japanese Twitter.
Gallery
Stage Cards
Memoirs
_Seisho_Music_Academy.png "(1st Anniv.) Seisho Music Academy.png (1.23 MB)")
Outfits
*For Stage Girl Live2D Models, please visit their respective card pages.
References
- ↑ https://www.en.revuestarlight-relive.com/character/claudine/
- ↑ https://revuestarlight.fandom.com/wiki/Nutcracker_Claudine_Saijo/Bond_Story
- ↑ G's Magazine.com's July 2017 Issue
- ↑ Shōjo☆Conte All Starlight Episode 24
- ↑ https://revuestarlight.fandom.com/wiki/Knight_of_the_Black_Lion_Nation_Claudine_Saijo/Bond_Story
- ↑ Shōjo☆Conte All Starlight Episode 21
- ↑ Mayakuro Midnight Revue Episode 4
8. Outfits References : https://karen.makoo.eu/chara/104