This review contains spoilers for both the original Revue Starlight anime and material original to the film. This is your only warning.
“Take it, the star you wished for.”
“They make more sense in Japan.” That’s long been the party line of the occasional North American defender of the anime recap movie. The sub-medium is much-maligned, but only rarely watched, on this side of the Pacific. An apologist will tell you that TV reruns are rare in Japan, so recap movies help cement a series’ legacy in a way analogous to what syndication–or more recently, finding a second life on streaming–does over here.
Perhaps they’re right to be defensive. The format is intriguing in its own right, and Revue Starlight: Rondo Rondo Rondo is an exceptional example. On their own, recap films present a “greatest hits” version of a TV anime. The fights, the dramatic dialogue, the moments of deep emotion, without, necessarily any of the downtime, exposition, or more minor character moments of the parent series. This also means that they’re generally pretty impossible to follow on their own. (That’s very much true of Rondo Rondo Rondo, certainly. This review, as well.) But if it’s a price paid, it’s a minor one.
But all of this is true of recap films in general. Of Rondo Rondo Rondo in particular, several things are notable. The film does not merely simplify and compress its parent series’ plot, it actually rearranges and recombines it. Splicing in new footage to these films is a common practice, but Rondo Rondo Rondo uses the technique to add a number of extra scenes, which explores the role of Daiba Nana, the mysterious 99th Class Student #15. The core story remains the same, and anything that could be said about Revue Starlight could equally be said about Rondo Rondo Rondo, but this central alteration is worth exploring.
Nana, by many’s account, is Revue Starlight‘s most interesting character. Rondo Rondo Rondo doesn’t exactly expand her role’s scope, but it does elaborate on her nature as a commentator, as the only one of the stage girls who understands the nature of the revues, and so on. More here than in the main series, Nana is Revue Starlight‘s “villain”, in as much as it has one. Her arc, laid out in more compact terms here, hits a bit harder, and the “behind the scenes tours” she gives of the other side of the revues are illuminating.
Elsewhere, the changes are more general, and on the whole are more or less a lateral move. Suggestion is traded in for explication, subtlety for drama. Rondo Rondo Rondo on the whole is more upfront about what it means, but that’s not a bad thing, given that Revue Starlight is still sometimes misunderstood.
Part of Revue Starlight‘s core is that on a basic level, the promise the Giraffe represents; eternal brilliance through artistic transcendence at any cost, is false. All art, no matter its renown, its resonance, or its craft, is transient. Likewise, the flickering flame of fame is fickle, and burns as short as it does bright. Even among those who scale the summit, no one reaches the top alone. This emphasis on transience is partly why Revue Starlight is based around theatre in the first place. It, alone among the major art forms, is infinitely transient. No play is ever performed the same exact way twice.
As a critic, a commentator on the arts, Revue Starlight is the sort of series that puts you in your place. What truly great art accomplishes, what Revue Starlight accomplishes, and what Rondo Rondo Rondo cements, is that for every rule or bit of theory written, every genre named and tagged, every character archetype analyzed and catalogued, there is always, always the possibility of shattering the glass. There is always another path.
This reflects, of course, on Nana’s own circumstance. Locked by her own fear of change into repeating her first year again and again, it is only an unpredictable outside actor that diverts her course. And within this fact, lies the second half of Revue Starlight‘s core thesis.
The paradox is this; despite its transience, art matters, so much, to all of us. Stage Girls as Revue Starlight renders them commit the “sin” of striving for transcendence, but by the actions of Aijou Karen, they’re redeemed. But Karen herself can only move to action by their help. And they, in turn, are fueled, even after they fail the auditions, by that same striving. Through transient bonds–between people, between works, and between each other–something eternal is, nonetheless, created. It’s not an exaggeration to call this one of the miracles of humanity. Rondo Rondo Rondo‘s great triumph is making it even clearer just how well Revue Starlight gets all of this.
Which brings us to the very, very end of Rondo Rondo Rondo. After the TV ending, there is an ominousness. A note that the book on which “Starlight” is based has an unknown author, flashes of uncharacteristic, violent, and disturbing alterations of the series’ own imagery–the stage girls lay dead, blood stains cape clasps and outfits, and splatters the theater floor. It’s all quite a lot!
What to make of this, in light of everything else? A more definitive answer must wait for the release of the film that serves as a proper sequel to Revue Starlight (and to Rondo Rondo Rondo). But for now? Only the reaffirmation that nothing is truly ever settled. Revue Starlight has never seemed to be the sort of series that is comfortable tying things up neatly. Not when there is drama yet to be had, not when there are stories left untold.
The show, as they say, must go on.
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