Reviewing episode 5 of "Girls☆Geki Revue Starlight", I'll do it! The girls are standing offstage!

Episode 5, "Kirameki no Arika" is the long-awaited Mahiru Rusaki installment. I had been eagerly waiting for Mahiru's revue episode, as I had been plenty anxious and burdened so far that I was afraid that the sudden appearance of Hikari would take my favorite Karen (......) away from me.

In episode 5, it is revealed that Mahiru's parents live on a farm in Hokkaido called Tsuyu-zaki Farm. The package sent from her parents' home is a mountain of vegetables, including a large quantity of potatoes, pumpkins, and corn. Among these, the presence of potatoes is particularly emphasized, perhaps in reference to Mahiru's upbringing in Hokkaido, where potatoes are simple and unassuming compared to their surroundings, but they taste great and bring smiles to everyone around them. In my memories of last year, when I was treating my family's produce, Hana Koi's presence was conspicuous. The fact that the letter from the grandmother says, "Please eat with Hanako and the others," gives the impression that Mahiru usually only tells Hanako about her in her letters and phone calls.

What I think is a good structure of the anime "Revue Starlight" is that the change in relationship due to Hanako's defeat by Tendo Shinya in episode 3, "Top Star," and her realization of the height of the summit, and Hanako's reconfirmation of her bond and promise to Hikari in episode 4, serves as a prelude to episode 5. When I head to the lesson place, I find that Hikari is playing the role of Hanako's lesson partner, which I usually play myself. Not only that, there is an air of communication between Maya and Hanako. For Maya, who is a solitary person because she is at the top of her game, the fact that she still likes to be challenged even after being defeated was depicted in episode 4 against Claudine, but for Mahiru, the change happened without her knowing it. It is a great stress for a girl who thought she knew everything to change without her knowledge.

Mahiru's heart dam finally breaks as she experiences a series of the most disgraceful scenes in which her feelings for Hanakoi overflow as she is trapped, and Hikari, her love rival, sees them. This is the scene that leads up to the review scene. But what was surprising here was that the match-up card for the fourth day of auditions, "Jealousy Revue," was "Hanako Aishiro vs Mahiru Rusaki.

Let me explain here that in the stage version of "Revue Starlight -The LIVE- #1", which is the counterpart to the anime, the match card for "Jealousy Revue" was "Mahiru de Rosaki vs Hikari Kagura". It is very interesting that the key matchup in the story was changed between the stage and the anime. Compared to the stage version, where Mahiru's jealousy was directed at Hikari, who was trying to steal Kao from her, the anime version of the revue, where Mahiru's strong feelings for Kao were directly directed at Hikari, was more vivid and closer to the essence of Mahiru's character.

Through the review, we can see that Mahiru's love for Hanakoi, which could be called a dependence on her, is the flip side of her lack of confidence in herself and her admiration for the sparkle of her fellow stage girls. I laughed when the "weight" of Mahiru's affection was expressed in terms of the "weight" of her blunt-edged, stage-shattering attacks, but the emphasis on her "bad guy" side makes the depth of Hanakoi's nostalgia, which accepts such distortions as part of her best friend, stand out.

It was interesting to note that Mahiru and Hanakoi did not interrupt other stage girls' revues at ......, but rather passed by them one after another. If this review is Mahiru's mental picture, she might be thinking "Mahiru can coexist with other leading actors because she is self-aware that she is a supporting character on stage," "I don't care about other people's battles, as long as I am with Hanako-chan," "I want to show other stage girls how I and Hanako-chan are shining with each other in such a friendly and sparkling way," and so on. I don't care about the battles between the other main actors, I just want to be with Hanako. The main people reacting to these two were Shinya, Junna, and Hikari, the stage girls who have been deepening their relationship with Hanako and making Mahiru squirm.

It is on the side of other people's stage that they perform. It is backstage that they confirm their relationship with each other. Mahiru can confidently perform only on a handmade stage with Hanako. However, it is not the weight of Mahiru's feelings or the intensity of her expression that is superficially expressed in the revue, but the way she cuts straight to the root of Mahiru's "lack of confidence" that I think is the greatness of Hanakoi. Rather than denying Mahiru's feelings for the stage, her family and friends, and her wish to shine, she found and affirmed them in a way only she could. It was poignant that the phrase "I'll become Mahiru when the night is over" from the revue song came just as Hanakoi's feelings reached Mahiru.

As a result, it seems that the strength of Mahiru's feelings for Karen didn't really reach her, but I think the biggest burden on her up to this point was her fear that she was the only one out of the loop, and that Karen would change. Therefore, I think that the fact that she was able to express her feelings one-on-one and that Hanako understood her better than she understood herself was more valuable to Mahiru than the victory in the revue.

The last sweet potato party, with its atmosphere of everyone being happy as long as they eat delicious potatoes, has a somewhat "Milky Holmes" feel to it. It was also heartwarming to see Maya-sama's kuishinbo attribute come out in the "This is sweet potato" scene.

And Mahiru's words, "If you want to make your loved ones smile, you can sparkle as many times as you want," made me think of the keyword "atashi reproduction" that describes the entire work.

(Text by Kiri Nakazato)