YMMV / Shoujo Kageki Revue Starlight

• Enjoy the Story, Skip the Game: Fans generally agree that -Re LIVE's- story chapters and characters are its main strongest selling points and not its lackluster gameplay.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Maya and Claudine. The duo are by far the most prominent characters in the fandom, far outclassing any of the others—if you looked at fanart and fanfic, you could be forgiven for thinking they were the protagonists, even though Claudine is a tritagonist at most and Maya is below her as well. This is largely due to them having by far the most intense relationship of any of the cast.
• Fan Nickname:
  • "Geoffrey" for the Giraffe, after the mascot of now-defunct company Toys-R-Us.
  • From those who came from the BanG Dream! Girls Band Party! fandom, we have "French Yukina" for Claudine and "Kyoto Arisa" for Kaoruko due to them sharing VAs with the aforementioned characters respectively. Likewise, Yachiyo is labelled as "Pink Sayo" by fans for the same reason.
  • "The Yumeoji Family" for the Gemini unit consisting of Claudine and both Yumeoji sisters, due to all three girls having blonde hair and for Claudine acting as a sort of motherly figure to the Yumeoji sisters for both of their behalfs, leading fans to call Claudine the Yumeoji sisters' "honorary mom". Alternatively, their unit is also called "The Ponzu Trio" due to ponzu being bizarrely brought up in the middle of the song out of nowhere and for being the most memorable part of it.
  • Andrew is called "Doryuu" by fans because of his Verbal Tic.
• Fandom-Enraging Misconception: Several people have referred to the anime as an "idol anime" based on its premise and trailers, and as such, dismissed it out of hand as yet another series in an already saturated genre. This has earned the ire of many fans, who quickly point out that theatrical performance is a very different subject than the idol industry, as well as how the series takes much more inspiration from the Takarazuka Revue (similar to Revolutionary Girl Utena and Sakura Wars) than anything idol-related. Fans are also irked by this perceived mislabeling possibly playing a role in inhibiting the success of the series as a whole, with potential viewers either declining to watch it or dropping it early due to interpreting it as "yet another idol anime".
• Friendly Fandoms:
  • With BanG Dream! and Love Live!; all three are Bushiroad-related franchises involving girls that sing and have a lot of Les Yay. The former even had an official collaboration event with Revue Starlight in Japan to promote both series together. Both have been featured in crossover events in -Re LIVE-.
  • On a similar note, with Symphogear, as both feature a lot of Les Yay, topped with a more unique combat-focused magical girl style that breaks the norm. They've had crossover events in both -Re Live- and Symphogear XDU.
  • One of the more niche, but strong ones; Kamen Rider. The jokes mostly stem from how Maya has similarities (down to the same last name) to the main protagonist of Kamen Rider Kabuto, how Suzu's actress, Minami Tsukui, portrayed Yoko Minato (not to mention the banana jokes between Kaito and Nana), and recently, the Desire Grand Prix getting comparisons drawn to the Revues ^{(Spoilers for Kamen Rider Geats)} Especially after its revealed that the Desire Grand Prix prize where the winner's desire is granted at the cost of the losers losing theirs, very similarly to how the Top Star's wish being granted results in the loss of brilliance for the losers. It's to the point that pixiv has a tag for crossover art between the two series.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Claudine constantly wanting to take Maya's place as the 99th's top star in the anime takes a darker turn in Re LIVE as Claudine eventually gets her wish of being at the top during the Main Story's seventh chapter...at the cost of Maya being mysteriously erased from existence and from everyone's memories.
    • It's even worse when you realize that the seventh chapter was coincidentally released on two specific though different dates on both the Japanese and Worldwide servers: on Maho Tomita's (Maya's voice actress') birthday for the former, and the day after Maya's actual birthday for the latter.
  • Though it also sort of counts as Hilarious in Hindsight to others as well, Tamao Tomoe is voiced by Tomori Kusunoki, who is best known for voicing school idol Setsuna Yuki of Nijigasaki High from Love Live! School Idol Festival ALL STARS, a video game spin-off of the Love Live! franchise. The plots of both the first Love Live series and its sequel spin-off involved both school idol groups competing in the titular contest in an attempt to win it to save both their schools from shutting down. Though it doesn't exactly involve their entire school being shut down (just their performance department), guess what Tamao's and Rinmeikan's entire plot is about in Re LIVE? The hilarious/harsher in hindsight part about this involving Setsuna and Tamao sharing the same voice? Setsuna's school doesn't have the same threat of being shut down unlike µ's and Aqours's respective schools in their series.
  • While she doesn't say it out loud in the story proper, Shiori's profile states that she believes she had something to do with her older sister Fumi suddenly leaving Siegfeld due to the latter's refusal to speak to her as well as her conscious efforts to avoid her younger sister whenever possible in the present day. -Re LIVE's- 9th Main Story chapter confirms her suspicions as it was Fumi's resentment of her that caused Fumi's fall from grace as Frau Jade as well as her eventual departure from Siegfeld and transfer to Rinmeikan in the first place.
• Heartwarming in Hindsight: Before she was eventually cast as Shioriko Mifune in Love Live! School Idol Festival ALL STARS, Moeka Koizumi, Nana's voice actress, mentioned in an interview that she once auditioned to be a member of Aqours for Love Live! Sunshine!! but didn't make the cut. Come the "Bright Sparkling Stage" collaboration event with Aqours in -Re LIVE-, her character Nana gets to have a unit where she dresses up in You's Kimi no Kokoro wa Kagayaiteru Kai? outfit (complete with "Yousouro!" salute) and gets to mingle with the Aqours girls herself, so in a way, she gets to be a member of Aqours like she wanted to be.
• High-Tier Scrappy: Discussions of powercreeping in -Re LIVE- is fairly common. But with the release of 'The Hermit, Mahiru' during the 2nd anniversary Brilliance Festival banner, many players generally gave up the thought of the game having a semblance of balance.^note  Hermit Mahiru has stats that are 2000+ over anyone's stats in every stats, making sure that she can hit hard and tank lots of damage, her kit also makes her extremely versatile in every situation and her Unit Skill is blalantly broken.
  • Generally each time a new card is released it will almost certainly powercreep a previous existing card in pure stats and ACT panels.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • The big temper tantrum Elle throws as well as her fangirling over wrestler Hiroshi Tanahashi in some of the episodes of the Shoujo Conte All Starlight gag series become this after The Reveal in Main Story 11 of -Re LIVE-.
  • Ayasa Itou once did a livestream where she had Kaoruko and Arisa, two of her most popular roles, meet together under the premise that they live in the same universe in that skit. Come a year after that livestream, -Re LIVE- eventually confirms that both the Revue Starlight and Bang Dream! franchises really do share the same universe together in an official crossover event in the game...and Arisa and Kaoruko get to interact with each other in it too!
  • "I hate Starlight!"^Explanation Nana Daiba said this line at some point in the story. Nana's VA, Moeka Koizumi, who also voiced Shioriko Mifune in Love Live! School Idol Festival ALL STARS, performs Karin Asaka's solo "Starlight" in Nijigasaki Shuffle Festival live performance, a song notorious for being Hotter and Sexier and provocative choreography.
• Incest Yay Shipping: There's a portion of the fandom out there that ships the Yumeoji sisters together.
• LGBT Fanbase: As a Takarazuka Revue inspired Anime, the show also had a gay following given the homoerotic subtext.
• Memetic Badass:
  • Thanks to her rep as the head of her class as well as her overwhelming skills onstage in the anime, Maya seems to have garnered this reputation. "THIS IS Tendo Maya" indeed.
  • After The Reveal in episode 7 of the anime, Nana is also given this status by fans, with most of them claiming that she's an even bigger one than one than Maya is, because every time they clashed in the anime, Nana always came out on top.
  • Aruru as well in -Re LIVE-, mostly because she's the only Stage Girl who uses guns in the Revues vs everyone else's more medieval weapons, with fans claiming that she would more than likely give everyone a Curb-Stomp Battle by shooting at everyone casually. And then there's what she accomplished on her own in Main Story 10 of the game.
  • Michiru is often nicknamed by fans as "the true Final Boss of Siegfeld" despite Akira being the actual top student in their school thanks to her craftiness, the fact that she wields a greatsword in the Revues in spite of her small stature, that she's the 2nd best student in Siegfeld, her hidden scary side, and the most important and popular reason: that Akira is actually submissive to her most of the time in private, after that one scene reveal in Siegfeld's School Story.
  • Tamao, after her character development is starting to be getting this, with many speculating that she will be the Top Star for the Arcana Arcadia Arc.
  • Shiori is starting to receive this as she is noted to be extremely talented in the story. Although she rarely gets to show it off, her badassery is starting to show up in recent story content. She manages to fight Michiru to a standstill during their Arcana Arcadia Revue, even pushing back Michiru before she started coughing. Michiru giving up to Shiori during the Revue fueled her reputation. Especially since she's stated to be giving off the Platinum and Sapphire Shine by herself. It also helps that prior to this, she was fully capable of easily defeating her older sister on her own during the "The Revue of Gemini" in the Starry Diamond live, and it's only due to Claudine's intervention that she was prevented from claiming the win for herself.
• Memetic Loser:
  • It's common to see fans joke about Mahiru being the "loser" in the Hikari/Karen/Mahiru triangle, especially since she has no pairing of her own outside of her one-sided crush on Karen... at least, in the anime continuity. The second stage play introduces Suzu from the Seiran General Art Institute, whose backstory is connected to Mahiru's and has lots of Les Yay with her, averting this trope there.
  • Claudine is also teased by the fandom for her status as always being second best to Maya and how she can almost never beat her at anything despite her fiery competitiveness towards her. Combined with the popularity of their ship, fans have started calling Claudine the "French Bottom" to Maya's status as "Top" when it comes to their relationship with each other and for Claudine's inability to come out on top most of the time.
  • In the Chinese fandom, The Rinmeikan Performance Arts students are treated this way due to the fact that in-story Revues and the Starry Diamond Revue, any Revue involving them had them on the receiving end of a Curb-Stomp Battle aside from the Procyon Revue.
    • Fumi gets hit the hardest with this, in the whole franchise. This is due to the fact that in-story, she is less talented than Shiori, she joined Rinmeikan whose Performance Department is falling apart, and most importantly all of Fumi's -Re LIVE- cards are hilariously bad even at their niches. ^note  She has the honor of being the first Moon Tank in-game(Benzaiten) with a fairly decent kit but bad synergy. Most players also note that her cards are decent but below average or a clone of an existing moveset, sometimes even inferior. Her Premium Banner unit, Tsu the Crane has been dubbed the worst Premium Banner unit released for having an extremely gimmicky CA and terrible Act Panels
  • For a card example, Kaoruko's Tamatsubaki no Kimi unit is mercilessly mocked by the fandom for being the only card in -Re LIVE- to not be released ever in the WW server, especially after Procyon Aruru, Cheerleader Akira, and Cheerleader Tamao all got released ahead of her, with many fans joking that her Tamatsubaki no Kimi card doesn't exist.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • "THIS IS Tendou Maya" and later, "THIS IS potato." One BD commentary track called Maya "This Is -san", which also became a meme.
  • Koharu Yanagi of Seiran is herself a Fountain of Memes, what with the "you're so noisy" face◊ she pulls in the manga adaptation catching on among fan artists drawing it as her default expression in gags; her manner of speech being a target of parody by the cast to the point of Youko Kadoyama (Hisame) getting labeled as a "pro" at Koharu impressions; and Maho Tomita saying Maya's "This Is Unforgivable! Yanagi Koharu!" not only on request, but putting a new spin on it when Koharu's actress guested on her show — "This is unforgivable, Nanaki Kanon!"
  • The Giraffe's catchphrase, "Wakarimasu", is also a pretty popular quote among fans and often cite it with relation to the show.
  • Calling "Rose Poems"^note aka, the duet between Akira and Shiori and the feature song for the "Waltz With the Beautiful Beast" event in Re LIVE the "official gay anthem" of Starlight because of the dripping amounts of Les Yay involved in the lyrics, Siegfeld's version of the play it was based on during the event story, as well as the ballroom-esque dance performed by Hotaru Nomoto (Akira) and Hikaru Tono (Shiori) in the Starry Diamond live, is also a popular meme in the fandom.
    • Alternatively, spamming **AI TO IU** whenever the title of the song is mentioned.
  • LET'S PONZU!!^Explanation Actual lyrics sung by the Yumeoji sisters during the second verse of the song "Zeus no Chuusai" or the "The Arbitration of Zeus" from the La Revue Eternelle album as a bizarre follow-up to Claudine's line of "call-and-response" in the same song. Because of how hilariously random yet still in-character it was for Fumi to sing it and then Shiori to follow up on it as well as with Claudine's genuinely confused reaction to the line, this meme caught on like fire overnight once the full version of the song was released.
  • The "Driving the Auriga"^note  titled "Gyoushite, Gyousha-za" in Japanese song unit consisting of Junna, Yuyuko, Lalafin, and Mei Fan, is a Fountain of Memes in itself thanks to their quirky and seemingly hilarious random lineup as a group yet one that really blends well together based on their interactions during the song. Tons of fanart was spawned immediately after their group was revealed in their song's first preview.
  • SusanOWO ^Explanation  Susanoo's name, which is typically romanized as either "Susanoo" or "Susanō" in translations, is spelled out as "Susanowo"in Re LIVE's Global version, leading to a lot of snickers from the fanbase because Susanoo's name had been spelled out with OWO emoticon attached to it. It's not uncommon to see fans photoshopping Susanowo Maya's face with the OWO emoticon once her card became available in servers.
  • Just like Dia from Love Live! Sunshine!!, Fumi is frequently portrayed as a siscon to Shiori, sometimes to the point of stalking, and being hostile to anyone who tries to be too close to her younger sister (usually, in fanon, her target is Akira).
  • The rather infamous scene near the end of the live version of the Aldebaran Revue in Starry Diamond has spawned tons of Black Comedy memes after it was publicly previewed. Examples are: "Armless Nana" or "Fried Banana", calling live Maya "Feral Maya" for her aggressive depiction onstage vs her more stoic characterization in the anime, and in Japan, nicknaming the Aldebaran Revue and the song, "Uragiri no Crete" / "Treacherous Crete" as "Uragiri no Tomita", or "Tomita's Betrayal".
  • Forbidden Kaoruko^Explanation For reasons no one is quite sure about, Kaoruko's Tamatsubaki no Kimi unit never got released in -Re LIVE's- WW server, even after Procyon Aruru, Cheerleader Akira, and Cheerleader Tamao, all three of whom are also units whose releases got delayed in the WW server, were released ahead of her. This led to Kaoruko's Tamatsubaki no Kimi unit being mercilessly mocked by the WW fans as a Memetic Loser, with many fans even jokingly claiming that she's either a card of legends and myth, or that she's non-existent.
• Memetic Psychopath:
  • Nana, particularly her The Phantom of the Opera unit in -Re LIVE-, is frequently portrayed as a Yandere (whether for Junna or for her classmates in general) in a lot of fan works thanks to her behavior and motivations for said behavior in both the first stage play and especially the anime.
  • Due to how The Chariot, Shiori's voicelines sounds, she's getting this treatment too. It helps that it fits the theme and meaning of the Major Arcana itself.
  • Tamao's often extreme statements about her devotion to Rinmeikan and how into her role as Death she gets in Arcana Arcadia have inspired a slew of jokes about Tamao being like the Joker and calling her a war criminal.
• Never Live It Down: Maya unexpectedly betraying Nana in the Aldebaran Revue in the Starry Diamond live. Even Mahiru, Junna, and Futaba's voice actresses wouldn't let Maho Tomita (Maya's VA) live it down!
• One True Pairing: Among all the most heavily teased couples on the show, Maya/Claudine stands out as the most popular by far. Between their complicated rivalry and the emotional resolution to their team duel against Hikari and Karen in episode 10, it's no wonder.
• One True Threesome: Considering the fact that Mahiru has a one-sided crush on Karen, who is largely paired with Hikari, and doesn't have her own pairing otherwise in the anime (especially since the others are paired up in twos already), it is not uncommon for some anime viewers to ship all three of them together as a compromise to address Mahiru's Memetic Loser status. This was helped along by a myriad of adorable interactions between Mahiru and Hikari in -Re LIVE-.
• Rewatch Bonus: It certainly can be rewarding to look back on Nana's behaviour over the course of the show, after she was revealed to be rewinding time and incredibly suspicious of Hikari's sudden appearance.
  • The Giraffe's fourth-wall-breaking, audience-addressing speech in the finale contextualizes much of his actions in the entire plot.
• Ships That Pass in the Night:
  • Though Claudine/Maya or "KuroMaya" is a very popular ship on its own, there were some fans who also shipped Claudine together with Yachiyo from Siegfeld Institute of Music, whether jokingly or otherwise, due to their VAs' close friendship with each other and their other roles as Yukina and Sayo of Roselia respectively from BanG Dream! Girls Band Party! despite the two having never had any substantial form of interaction yet with each other in the game. Giggles went round as soon as the introduction tweet for Watson Claudine showed Yachiyo asking to call Claudine "Kuro-san" in the "Great Detective Karen Case Files" event.
  • Early on in the game's history, Yachiyo and Fumi ("YachiFumi") became popular due to fandom speculation about a possible past relationship between the two and its lingering fallout due to Fumi's abrupt and untimely departure from Siegfeld. They finally interact in "Venus & Cupid - Angelic Thread of Love," where it becomes clear that they weren't very close when Fumi was still at Siegfeld, but the ship still enjoys considerable attention.
• Ship-to-Ship Combat
  • Between fans of Akira x Shiori and fans of Akira x Michiru. Doesn't help that the game provides fuel for both ships during event stories...and that's not getting into the Akira x Aruru shippers yet...
  • Present to some degree with Rui x Tamao and Rui x Yuyuko.
• Signature Scene:
  • Karen's dynamic entrance, her "transformation scene" where she first changes into her Revue outfit, and her intervention of Hikari and Junna's Revue to save the former from the latter at the end of the first episode sold many viewers into watching the series.
  • Nana's "It's so blinding..." scene in episode 7 also counts
• Spiritual Successor: To the works of Kunihiko Ikuhara in general, due to heavy usage of symbolism, unusual Transformation Sequence, the presence of a wacky animal, and love for dramatic poses (the latter being slightly more justified here than in Ikuhara's works because the story is about a revue troupe). It helps that the director of the anime, Tomohiro Furukawa, worked under Ikuhara in Penguindrum and Yuri Kuma Arashi. The similarities run deeper when you take into account that Revue Starlight is heavily influenced by the famous all-female Takarazuka Revue and Ikuhara is heavily influenced by Japanese theater, including Takarazuka, giving Starlight an "ouroboros of influences."

---