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Gekijōban Shōjo☆Kageki Revue Starlight (劇場版 少女☆歌劇 レヴュースタァライト, Revue Starlight: The Movie) is a Japanese-language theatrical animation produced by Kinema Citrus and Bushiroad. It was released in theaters across Japan on June 4, 2021.

Staff[]

  • Original work by Bushiroad, Nelke Planning and Kinema Citrus
  • Directed by Tomohiro Furukawa
  • Written by Tatsuto Higuchi
  • Character designs by Hiroyuki Saida
  • Deputy direction by Takushi Koide
  • Chief animation direction by Sachiko Yasuda and Tomoko Sato
  • Mechanical designs by Takeshi Takakura and Yasuyoshi Uezu
  • Design co-operation by Akika Ozato and Shiori Tani
  • Graphic designs by Yuto Hama and Mao Yamaguchi
  • Color designs by Chie Yoshimura
  • Art direction by Kentaro Akiyama and Kenji Fukuda
  • 3D-CG direction by Hisayasu Kamiya
  • Cinematography by Kazuto Izumida
  • Editing by Masayuki Kurosawa
  • Sound direction by Haru Yamada
  • Music by Tatsuya Katō and Yoshiaki Fujisawa
  • Original songs by Kanata Nakamura
  • Animation production by Kinema Citrus
  • Produced by Revue Starlight Production Committee

Cast[]

Japanese cast[]

English cast[]

Synopsis[]

Starlight — This is a story of a far off star, a long time ago, and in the distant future.
Two young girls, captivated by the glamour of the performance, exchange promises:
"We'll become stars." "I'll wait for you on stage."

Sacrificing ordinary pleasures and joys, they strive to fulfill their destiny.
At just five years of age, they give it their all.

That's dangerous, isn't it?

Eventually, they meet up again.
One continues to stand on the stage of tragedy, while the other pulls back and dives in again, rewriting their destiny... A shining new chapter has begun.

Neither the girl who fell from the tower nor the girl who was imprisoned exist anymore.
But if that's the case... How will this new chapter end?

Nobody knows who created Starlight.
Where does the glamor come from and where will it go?
Who is the protagonist of this story?

That's what I want to see.

Don't you agree? Ms. Karen Aijo, third year student of Seisho Music Academy?[1][2]

Summary[]

WARNING: This section may contain spoilers for the anime and the movie. It is not recommended to be read unless one has seen both.

The film opens as, having performed Starlight together, Hikari Kagura defeats Karen Aijo in a chaotic revue, declaring their parting while the Starlight tower and the Tokyo Tower fall to cataclysmic ruin in a desert.


As they enter their graduating year, all but a few of the Stage Girls of Seisho Music Academy's 99th class intend to apply to the top national theatrical troupe. Karen, mourning Hikari's return to London, is without future plans. While on their way to visit the troupe, the group are waylaid in a surprise revue when both their subway train and the city landscape transform into a stage. Detached and without exertion, Nana Daiba dispatches of nearly everyone, posing cryptic questions about their future that only Maya Tendo seems to comprehend, and leaving them playing out a graphic tableau of death.

In extended flashbacks, Karen's childhood since meeting Hikari is shown: once shy and withdrawn, she becomes outgoing and finds her love for the stage with Hikari's encouragement. Receiving a Starlight poster folded as an envelope from Hikari, Karen keeps it as a lifelong possession. Even over years of theatre training to reunite with Hikari on the stage, Karen, however, repeatedly shrinks from learning about Hikari's activities.

After receiving the unfinished Starlight script for their graduating performance, featuring new lines calling for change and rebirth, the Stage Girls arrive at understandings of Nana's exhortations. On another train, the Giraffe, appearing in the form of vegetables, drops tomatoes which each of the Stage Girls bite into. Karen, oblivious to all this, is left alone in a solitary train car heading through a vast desert to the Tokyo Tower.

In the underground theater, Kaoruko Hanayagi, as a bakuto, deals a game of chō-han at an illicit gambling den in a Shinto shrine complex. She faces off against Futaba Isurugi, as a sukajan-clad delinquent, as both crash dekotora trucks through the walls. Squabbling over Kaoruko's resentment for refusing to return to Kyoto together, Futaba offers rationalizations but cannot face Kaoruko when the scene changes to a seductive cabaret club. Atop high scaffolding, the pair mount opposing trucks and race head-on with their weapons drawn, only to fall off together. In resignation, Kaoruko acquiesces to Futaba's victory and receives her motorcycle as a gift.

Spurred by the Giraffe to search for Karen, Hikari boards a train in the London Underground, arriving beneath the underground theater, but instead finds Mahiru Tsuyuzaki opening a multi-sport event in a track and field stadium. Forced halfheartedly into a revue that morphs into a variety of sport competitions instantaneously, Hikari is defeated by Mahiru, and then further menaced in a frightening pursuit through the deserted backstage area. After being browbeaten into tearful contrition for leaving Karen, Hikari is solaced by a once-more encouraging Mahiru in a medal ceremony and sent on her way.

Nana coldly scorns Junna Hoshimi's retreat from performance to study theatre in university, offering her a blade as if to prompt seppuku. After futile attempts to ensnare Nana in a labyrinth paved in famous quotations all while raining down arrows and copies of the word "star", Junna, reduced to tears by her contempt, claims her blade as her own and fights back, renouncing the quotations for words of her own. As she battles obstinately through spotlit haze, Junna steps onto an unseen position zero and defeats Nana through her shocked denial, before the pair reconcile and part without looking back. Meanwhile, confronted by Hikari on a train platform high above the clouds, the Giraffe drops a tomato before bursting into flames and falling to the desert far below.

Maya and Claudine Saijo perform a play on the stage of a conventional, empty theater, in which the Devil in human guise (Claudine) wagers for the soul of a stage performer (Maya) by the signature of a contract. In turn, the pair trick each other with artifices as the Devil seeks to take the performer's soul in return for a display of brilliance. Discarding their roles, they goad each other into a frenzied, passionate duel across a web of aerial pathways and platforms. Claudine defeats Maya, fulfilling the contract as the stage set burns down in a towering conflagration. Holding hands, the pair commit once more to their rivalry to come.

Arriving on the Tokyo Tower, Karen finds Hikari with a half-eaten tomato. Still speaking of only Hikari, she is unnerved by suddenly seeing the stage and the audience anew. Denied of another stage with her, she falls dead as an uneaten tomato explodes. Weeping, Hikari confesses to running from her own admiration of Karen. She drops her envelope and Karen's body through a chute, beckoning her to return, and a position zero-shaped metal box with Karen's face lands on a rail car, which carries the box through a fierce sandstorm by igniting rocket engines and launching off a ramp. The rocket exhaust incinerates, in its wake, Hikari's envelope and scenes of Karen's past life. A reborn Karen emerges from the box in front of Hikari, and both are paraded in ostentatious displays of stage lighting.

Hikari's radiance, visible for miles, awes Karen and snaps her sword in two. Both thrust their weapons, and the former stabs the latter squarely in the chest. A geyser of position zero-shaped boxes erupts forth from Karen, tearing the Tokyo Tower in two, and the tower's upended tip plants into a vast position zero swathed across the desert. The pair, including the other Stage Girls watching from afar, cast away their pelisses as the revue ends. Unharmed, Karen looks forward to her next stage as she is given a tomato by Hikari.

The end credits features illustrations of Hikari encountering her fellow students at their new professions and studies across the world. In a post-credit scene, Karen is seen at an unspecified audition, her destination unrevealed.

Revues[]

Note: Bolded names indicate the winner of the Revue.
WARNING: This section may contain spoilers for the anime and the movie. It is not recommended to be read unless one has seen both.


Music[]

Main article(s): Shōjo☆Kageki Revue Starlight Movie Insert Songs Album Vol. 1 / Shōjo☆Kageki Revue Starlight Movie Insert Songs Album Vol. 2

Blu-ray release[]

The movie was released on Blu-ray in Japan on December 22, 2021. Similar to its prequel film, it was released in a three-sided digipack case with various physical content, chief amongst them three discs: one a Blu-ray disc containing the movie, a bonus Blu-ray disc containing exclusive, never-before-seen extra content, and one a CD disc containing a new song performed by Starlight Kuku Gumi.

The release was announced during the live part of the final performance of Shōjo☆Kageki Revue Starlight -The LIVE- #3 Growth on August 1, 2021,[3] with pre-orders opening on August 6. Some stores from which the Blu-ray is available to purchase contain enclosed benefits such as posters and other features.[4]

International release[]

Sentai Filmworks have licensed the movie for release in the United States and Canada. It received its regional premiere during the Anime Central convention in Rosemont, Illinois on May 20, 2022, before being released in nearly 150 theaters nationwide for one night only on June 5, 2022, with encore screenings the following day.[5][6]

A Blu-ray release of the movie by Sentai Filmworks was made available for purchase on October 25, 2022, with pre-orders opening on July 27, 2022.[7] Pre-orders made on Sentai Filmworks' official website came with a limited edition slipbox to hold the release, which includes an English dub alongside the original Japanese-language version, and a subtitled Japanese promotional video.

Videos[]

Trivia[]

  • The movie was originally slated for release in Japan on May 21, but was pushed back to June 4 due to the Japanese government declaring a state of emergency following an increase of COVID-19 cases across the country.[8]
  • The illustrations featured during the end credits were drawn by Mebachi, who is best known for illustrating the ending of the anime series and the end credits of its omnibus film.

References[]

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