DeepL translation of https://note.com/suzumya/n/n7ee2160d039c

0. The train scene has little explanation.

In this scene, despite the obvious sudden change in the story, such as Nana Oba's change, the other girls' words and actions that leave them perplexed, and the sudden blood spewing and the stage girls' collapse, little explanation (at least on an explicit level) is given. The line "I feel like I've had a strong drink" is particularly confusing to us first-time viewers.

For this reason, this article will try to follow the specific descriptions and write down the interpretations. For those who are confident about the story, it may be tactless to talk about it, but we would be very happy if it can be used as a reference for those who think it's great but didn't really understand it.

The theme of Revue Starlight the Movie itself is very simple, and the film is structured in such a way that a simple theme is repeatedly expressed in multiple stages. For this reason, this article is not so much an interpretation of the theme itself, but rather a confirmation of how the theme is connected to the individual depictions.

1. the scene is a 'stage' in the first place

The first thing I want to confirm is this premise.

The scene in which Oba Nana says 'I feel like I've had a strong drink'. The words are repeated forcefully, ignoring the girls' confusion and ignoring the flow of the scene. It is exactly a line, and Oba Nana demands that someone else takes that line with another line. In other words, I think it can be said that Nana Oba is trying to present that scene as a stage to the girls (or to us, the audience).

Looking at the scene as a whole, we can see in various places the description that emphasises the fact that the scene is a stage, such as the "stage set-up" of speakers and blood glue, and the "show" direction of another swing of the twin swords coming in late (a device that is conscious of the audience's presence, i.e. presentation as a stage).

2. who can and cannot go on stage

There are other words presented as lines in the scene. The train always goes to the next station," said Nana Oba just before the scene. Then what about the stage?　What about us?" The words "Then, what about the stage?

In response, Saijo Claudine does not return her line (or, because she is not aware that she is on stage, she cannot "return" her line) and is repelled, while Tendo Shinya replies, "I am already on stage if the stage and the audience want me to be". In terms of both the dialogue and its content, Tendo Shinya is the only one who is able to clearly go on stage in that scene. (Here, it may help to remember that in the TV version, Tendo Shinya's opening line, "Tonight, I give you a sparkle", was the only one that turned towards the audience, which may make you grin a little.)

The fact that she is the only one who can go on stage can be seen in the fact that she immediately recognised the blood splashes as 'stage equipment' (i.e. she quickly grasped that it was a stage), and the fact that she is unique is also shown again later in the scene at the rally for the 101st Seisho Festival. At that rally, Maya was the only one among the stage girls in the circle of students.

Why is this? In Saijo Claudine's words, why was 'only she' allowed on stage?

To answer this question, the line from Nana Oba to Shinya Tendo was: 'The train always goes to the next station. Then what about the stage?　What about us?" The question is not only about the train, but also about the stage. In short, only Amado Shinya was able to truly look ahead to the "next stage". That is why she was able to answer the question. She was able to go on stage. She was able to take part in the 101st Seisho Matsuri Kessokai, the occasion for the creation of the "next stage". This is the difference between Shinya and the other girls.

Girls other than Shinya can also be differentiated in terms of how much they have their sights set on the "next stage". (The distinction can be seen, for example, in the interview scene at the beginning of the film, and this distinction is also reflected in the order of seating on the train and the degree to which they are wounded on the train. (You can check the seating order in the Youtube trailer or something like that, so please check it out.)

[Are you looking ahead to the next stage?
The next stage is in sight, but there are still problems (≒things that need to be talked about) with certain people → Mahiru, Futaba
............................
The following are some of the most important issues that have arisen in the past few years.
Undecided, lost → Banana, Hanakoi
Undecided, unsure → Banana, Hanako
She is obsessed with the past (i.e. the audition) → Kako

Kako Hanayagi was obsessed with the audition, not the next stage, so she misinterpreted the scene as an "audition" rather than a "stage". In addition, Saijo Claudine and Hoshimi Junna were not truly focused on the next stage, so they could not grasp that the scene was a stage and could not respond, or "act", to lines such as "the train always goes to the next station" and "I feel like I've had a strong drink".

The line "like I've had a strong drink" seems to refer to the fact that the battle with the stage girls in such a state ended with a momentary strong stimulus, "like I've had a strong drink". Wild Screen Baroque is a stage produced by "director Nana Oba" to kick these stage girls' asses and get them moving forward. 3.

3. two ways of depicting the act of "acting

Why does the act of "acting" play such an important role in the train scene? Why was it required of them to "recognise that they were on stage and perform" in that scene?

Of course, this may have something to do with the fact that they are stage girls, but what does the act of "acting" mean to stage girls in the first place? Or, what kind of relationship does the theatre version of Revue Starlight depict between stage girls and "acting"?

Looking back at the story from this perspective, it can be read that the theatre version of Revue Starlight depicts the act of "acting" from two aspects. Specifically, (1) the performer and the role are two separate things, and (2) the performer and the role are one and the same.

(1) The separation of performer and role is first emphasised in the scene where the stage girls are confronted with their own bodies on the train just before entering the wild screen baroque. Here, the role that is about to be played (i.e. the body that does not speak) and the performer who plays it (i.e. herself) are completely separated as two different things. The motif of Tendo Shinya's "vessel of God" is also used to show that there is no such thing as a vessel of God, and that it is Tendo Shinya, a human being with a soul (=heart), who plays the role, again distinguishing between the performer and the role.

In contrast, the theatre version of Revue Starlight (2) emphasises the fact that the performer and the role are one and the same. Since (1) (i.e. that the performer and the role are separate) is a kind of natural assumption, the film's main focus is paradoxically on emphasising (2). (As an aside, the fact that it is necessary to emphasise (i) rather than (ii) also shows the heterogeneity of Tendo Shinya.)

The oneness between performer and role is then indicated by the nature of Wild Screen Baroque itself, which is "a stage for the performers to exchange their true feelings". Kako and Futaba's true feelings for each other in the roles that change from one to the other are easy to understand. What the stage, in which the boundary between performer and role becomes increasingly blurred, shows is the state of the stage girl for whom acting is a way of life. In this sense, "stage girls are kept alive by the stage".

4. "We are already dead".

Now that the meaning of "acting" has been confirmed to a certain extent, I will return to the question of why the train scene required the audience to "recognise that it is a stage and act".

At the end of that scene, Nana Oba fades out with the line "We're already dead". And to begin with, the name of the revue of the train scene is 'The Revue of Killing Everyone', and as the name implies, the stage girls bleed to a symbolic death.

For the stage girls, to live was to play a role on stage, so death would mean the end of the role, the end of the stage. And the role and stage that has ended is the "Girls' Revue Revue Starlight" itself.

Originally, the story of "Girls' Opera Revue Starlight" was supposed to end by rewriting the ending of the repeated tragic play "Starlight" (TV version). But the story, which was too fascinating, continues to re-enact itself in response to the audience's desires, and the end of the story is the death of the stage girls (Rondo Rondo Rondo).

Having witnessed the death at the end of the reenactment, Girls☆Geki Revue Starlight had to deal with the 'aftermath of the finished story', which the story did not originally have to deal with. The theatre version of Revue Starlight faced this issue, and the answer was simple and powerful: 'Atashi reproduction', 'Aishiro Karen Aishiro is going to the next stage' and 'We are already on the stage'.

And the submission of the answer 'reproduction' also requires the realisation that she is already dead (not just dead). It is also a step in this recognition that at the end of the film, after Hanako leaves the tower (i.e. the tower-shaped white tape at her feet, a metaphor for the story Revue Starlight itself), she reflects on herself and says, "There's nothing" before dying.

If this is the case, Oba Nana's throw of lines such as 'the train always goes to the next station' and 'I feel like I've had a strong drink' would also encourage this recognition. Whether or not they can get on stage and play a role. In other words, after dying as performers of Revue Starlight, whether they are able to recognise this, reproduce new roles and go on stage.

The girls really couldn't get their lines. The girls were not even really aware that they were dead.

That is why Nana Oba kills all the stage girls. The girls go on stage once more so that they can die properly at the end.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)