User42738468

So the Revues in Revue Starlight are super complicated. They’re left a little vague and there’s so much visual and auditory information on screen at once, that it’s hard to explicitly say what’s going on since most of what we register is subconsciously understood.

Plus the fighting is cool and that can be distracting.

Revues are even more confusing in the movie, since unlike the in the episodic format of the original show, where we could easily set up the conflict in the school half of the episode and resolve it in the revue half, this one has all of the set up for the fights occurring for every single character at the same time, so it’d be easy to forget some important context since there is just so much going on at once. Plus the extra animation budget means they go all out on the fight scenes, so there’s even more to take in!

So this is my attempt to kinda lay out everything that’s happening and do a deep dive on each of the Revues. And since the movies start with the Kaoruko-Futaba Revue, I will too.

Kaoruko vs Futaba Hikari vs Mahiru Junna vs Nana Claudine vs Maya Karen vs Hikari

There’s a joke about how it’s the two of them getting a divorce, and honestly that’s pretty close to the truth.

The revue is basically a PSA about why healthy communication is important since literally everything would be solved if the two of them would just put aside their egos for a bit and listen to each other. What they really should have done is resolved this in couple’s counseling, but no, they just had to be dramatic about it and settle it with a literal duel. But they’re theater kids so it makes sense.

Anyways, the whole reason their fight escalated so far is because they were so focused on themselves that they didn’t take a moment to touch base with each other to figure out if they were on the same page.

Take Futaba for instance. She’s applying to the New National Theater Troupe.

Back when Futaba applied to Seisho, she had the lowest score of all the accepted applicants, which makes it tough since New National only has a 2% acceptance rate. That’s even lower than Seisho’s 3.3% acceptance rate! Because of all this, Futaba doesn’t think she’ll make it.

After all, Futaba still couldn’t beat Kaoruko when it counted in a Revue, even though she learned from Claudine and practiced everyday. Futaba doesn’t think she’ll actually make it into New National, this is a reach for her. The only reason she did that is so she can aim high, hit low. Futaba is constantly amazed and inspired by everyone else around her, so she knows that this is the only way she can keep up.

I mentioned the low acceptance rates of both Seisho and New National before, and I think that it was intentional that they were so similar. They are both considered the pinnacle of their fields, with Seisho being one of the best theater schools in Japan, and New National being one of the best troupes in the world! So New National is a lot like Seisho, and Seisho was great for Futaba. She did struggle, but she met so many stage girls who inspired her to be better. And it was at Seisho that Futaba found her own star, so New National is a great place for Futaba to bloom.

But despite acting like she’s fine with getting rejected, she is hyped to go to see New National on a Field Trip. And according to Mahiru, Futaba’s list of questions is even longer than her’s, which shows that they’ve been excitedly learning about the troupe together. So it’s likely Futaba does really want to get in. 

On the train too, the girls who end up going to the troupe are having a blast acting out the play they’re going to see New National Perform! (A neat little detail is that they are all practicing the line the top star says! All of them are aiming to become the lead!)

But on the other hand, Kaoruko is straight up not having a good time, since if Futaba goes to New National, then they won’t be together anymore.

Admittedly, she starts off in a much better place than last year. Even though she is returning home next year, this time it isn’t a sign of failure. Last time, she was going to return in an attempt to ignore reality, but she’s grown since then. Now she’s going to take the lessons she’s learned at Seisho, and continue to apply them while she journeys to be the best dancer in the world! She’s no longer running away from the expectations put on her, both as an heir as well as her promise to Futaba, and that’s awesome to see since that was her big thing that she had to deal with in the show!

But it’s interesting that while Futaba is unsure about whether or not she can get into her top choice, Kaoruko only has one idea on her career survey, since she’s the heir, so she’s guaranteed to become the next head of the Senka-Ryu dance school. She’s so certain that that is her future, she doesn’t need backup options.

Although, despite maturing from last year, Kaoruko’s still a pretty self centered person, so if things aren’t going the way she likes, she is pretty harsh with her criticisms. And this is most prominently seen when Kaoruko plans on ditching the New National Field Trip.

She says she’s in a bad mood because today’s the anniversary of the auditions, but a part of me thinks that it’s mostly because she doesn’t want to see New National, the Troupe that Futaba would rather be with than her.

But clearly the lack of auditions this year is taking a toll on her. Kaoruko’s goal is still to be the best, as stated in her career counseling session. But I think she also genuinely missed what the Auditions made out of her. She says that the auditions and the competition to be the top star pushed all of them to be their best self, and it’s not hard to see why. After all, if it wasn’t for their Revue, Futaba may have lost faith in Kaoruko, and left her. And now that there is a chance that Futaba may leave her again, making her jealous of herself from last year who took part in the auditions, the one who could make Futaba stay. And so, Kaoruko lashes out at them for not caring about becoming the top star of the audition. 

But none of them agree. They look at her with a mixture of concern and confusion. Because they aren’t aiming for that stage anymore. It’s not what they need right now. Also because winning an audition means stealing everyone else’s radiance or trapping yourself forever like Hikari. I’m not 100% sure if Nana ever explained what was going on with her time loops, but what I’m trying to say is that they really don’t want to be the top star of those auditions anymore, since they all know it only brings suffering. 

So Kaoruko storms off and calls them all useless for not agreeing with her, for not wanting to be the top star from her warped perspective, but in private, Kaoruko knows that’s wrong. She admits it when she comes face to face with Claudine, who stares her down.

She doesn’t actually want to be the top star. But her promise with Futaba is that she would become the best, and that Futaba would be right by her side and would be the first to see it. Just like the rest of them, she doesn’t want to be the top star of that audition, but unlike them, she can’t explicitly say what she wants.

I think the reason Kaoruko can admit this to Claudine in particular, is because Claudine is almost a foil to Kaoruko. I know in the show they draw explicit parallels between Maya and Claudine as well as Kaoruko and Futaba, with the former of the pair being the leader and the latter being the follower. Both pairs of them push each other to be the best, with the leader having a duty to meet the follower’s expectations, and the follower having to push themselves in order to make sure the leader can’t rest.

But Claudine and Kaoruko have been in the spotlight since they were young. And while Kaoruko became spoiled, Claudine remained a hard worker, even after hitting the roadblock that is Tendou Maya. There’s also the fact that they are both teachers to Futaba, who looks to them both for guidance. Which is why, in the Revue later, Kaoruko expressly blames Claudine for Futaba leaving her, since she was the one who offhandedly suggested that Futaba aim for the troupe.

Also, earlier I said my theory that the real reason Kaoruko didn’t want to go to New National was because that’s where Futaba was applying, and my reasoning is because while Junna and Claudine talk about Futaba applying their on Claudine’s suggestion, we get a close up of Kaoruko looking disgruntled.

And then while listening to the others talking about their future plans, Kaoruko gets annoyed at them, calling the next station useless, with an overview shot of New National’s stage, or the future.

Because for Kaoruko, the next station won’t have Futaba, so it’s useless to her. She’s getting pissed because everyone’s excited for the future, but it sounds terrible to her.