Revue Starlight: Rondo Rondo Rondo

Note: This post is considered an episode review and it dives into spoilers for the movie.

Revue Starlight: Rondo Rondo Rondo is a compilation film based on the TV show. The film is named after “Rondo Rondo Rondo”, one of the show’s BGM tracks that’s more or less associated with Nana (and one of the best tracks in my opinion). I wasn’t sure if I was going to cover this. After all, compilation films are just glorified recap episodes. And having gone over the TV show a ton, I wouldn’t bother going over the story all over again. But as it turns out, there are a couple of things about the movie that I want to address so here I am, giving the movie its own post.

Let’s first address the possible elephant in the room regarding the aspect ratio. As is common with TV nowadays, Revue Starlight is largely animated in 1.78:1. For whatever reason however, the staff wanted Rondo Rondo Rondo in 2.35:1 so they decided to crop the hell out of the old footage to accommodate the new aspect ratio. The only exceptions are the Revue of Starlight Gathering scene in Episode 12, as it already had a faux widescreen effect, as well as any new animation made for the movie. Now to be fair, the cropping done on the old footage is generally pretty good. There’s barely any shots where important visual information is lost or just look plain weird. I figured I mention it since it’s quirky change made for the movie but chances are, you’ll forget this is a thing as you watch the movie.

When I first heard of Rondo Rondo Rondo, I was curious as to how the TV show would work as a movie. Revue Starlight is mostly a serialized story but some of its early episodes are pretty self contained form one another. It’d be difficult to edit those into one coherent film. There’s also the obvious issue surrounding the run time. The show runs for about 25 minutes per episode. In total, that’s about 300 minutes or 5 hours. Naturally, a lot would have to be cut out for a 2 hour movie.

Unsurprisingly then, the transition from TV to film has some mixed results. The last two episodes are largely unchanged but everything before those gets skimmed over. Like, the movie gets to the end of Episode 8 at the one hour mark. That’s how extreme the pruning can get. Episodes 2, 5, and 6 are the biggest victims in the adaptation process. The movie pretty much just reuses the revues in a sort of action scene montage. I suppose that’s one way to work around the episodic structure of the early episodes but as a result, you can tell that the movie omits a ton of stuff. And without all that stuff, these fights don’t have as much impact as they do in the TV show. Frankly, I’m shocked that the movie keeps the Revue of Promise. Getting rid of it would mean Kaoruko and Futaba has little to no role in the movie but I’d also argue that their episode is the least relevant to the overarching narrative. If anything could be cut, that fight would certainly be it. And like I said, the movie cuts out a lot of the buildup so this fight ends up feeling completely out of place from everything else.

There are a couple of instances where the movie rearranges certain events, presumably with the intention to make the story flow better in the new format. The Revue of Pride happens before the Revue of Desire. I was very surprised by that but to be fair, Karen’s first duel with Maya is more relevant than her rematch with Junna. Moving the latter into later in the timeline and shoving it into the fight montage makes sense. Hikari’s backstory shown in Episode 8 is shown much earlier, happening in between the slap scene in Episode 3 and the reconciliation scene in Episode 4. There are a couple of benefits to this change. For one, it allows the movie to explain why Hikari slaps Karen as well as the consequence for losing the revues a lot sooner. Two, it lets Nana’s arc move straight into the Revue of Solitude and that tightens up the pacing for the movie. Probably the most amusing arrangement is the decision to explain the plot of “Starlight” right before Nana’s arc starts. At first glance, this means the movie gets to that bit of worldbuilding faster than the show. However, I think the real reason behind this change is because the movie frankly glosses over the play’s role in the story, due to trimming much of the early episodes. It has to explain the play before Nana’s arc or else you’d have a hard time understanding the character’s relationship with the play.

To accommodate for all the re-editing going on, Rondo Rondo Rondo actually uses new versions of the insert songs from those heard in the TV show. The only exceptions are “Hoshitsumi no Uta” and “The Knowledge of the Stage Girl”. The latter being reused is kind of funny to me as that song and its respective scene doesn’t hit as hard because the movie skimmed through most of the character arcs. For the most part, the changes are pretty negligible. Like, you might notice a couple seconds being cut out here or a new instrument being added into the arrangement there but that’s generally about it.

In a couple cases however, the remixing is quite drastic. “Love’s Wicked Pitch” for example, nearly forgoes the Broadway-esque arrangement in favor of one based in chiptune, with most of the vocals having an electronic distortion to them. A random choice but not going to lie, it’s pretty charming. I’m glad that the vocals are still intelligible and not truly 8-bit. That would’ve been a step too far. A very neat touch is how the song goes back to normal at the end. It’s as if the chiptune represents Mahiru’s warped feelings towards Karen and the original arrangement represents her snapping out of it. Another major remix is “A Song or the Blooming of Flowers?”, which now has an enka-esque rearrangement. This one I’m frankly less hot on. I miss the fusion of rock and traditional music and I feel like this song is working overtime to compensate for how butchered Kaoruko and Futaba’s arcs are in the movie.

While not remixed that heavily, there is one noticeable change to “The Bond of the Stars”. In the original TV version, Karen sings the last two lines, where she promises to protect the bonds between her and the others. For the movie version however, Nana sings them and the staff actually reanimated the scene with this change in mind. Whereas the TV version comes across as Karen assuring Nana that everything will be alright, this version gives the impression that Nana is trying to get Karen to understand where’s coming from, even after losing the fight. It’s also worth noting, given Nana’s prevalence in the movie (more on that later).

Surprisingly, “Star Divine -finale-” is not used for the Revue of Fate like in the TV show. Instead, Rondo Rondo Rondo uses an alternate version of “Star Diamond”, a Revue Starlight promotional single that was released after the TV show aired. Not sure why the movie uses a different song; my only guess is that the staff didn’t want to make yet another version of “Star Divine”. Whatever the reason might be, I really like “Star Diamond” so I have no problem with it being used in this fight. If anything, the two songs are pretty similar in terms of tone and theme so “Star Diamond” suits the revue about as well as “Star Divine” did. Something that I always liked about the Revue of Fate is Maya and Karen singing the last two lines before exchanging the final blows. The movie version of the fight thankfully keeps this moment with altered lip flaps to accommodate the different song.

Rondo Rondo Rondo has almost tens minutes of new animation. These scenes appear to take place after the last revue between Karen and Hikari and they have Nana and the giraffe commenting on everything that has transpired, particularly the revues. I like to think that this entire movie is actually Nana and the giraffe trying to understand the plot and all the trimming and structural changes are because these two can’t get the details straight. Knowing this series, that could very well be the staff’s conceit. I don’t think these scenes add much to the recap but there are a couple of things that are rather odd about them. The fact that these scenes take place after the TV show raises the question as to why Nana is walking down memory lane in the first place. The blinding lights that the show often associates Nana with makes an appearance but they’re blue in most of these scenes, which is odd since they used to have a yellowish tint before. Nana sounds awfully serious as she recounts past events and she seems to pay particular close attention to Karen’s involvement in everything.

The last couple of new scenes at the end of the movie are where things get very puzzling. As Nana finishes commenting on the plot, the giraffe remarks that the author of “Starlight” is unknown and that the girls have created a new ending for it. I assume that he’s suggesting the play being a wild card of sorts. Nana then notices that the giant star props from Hikari’s one woman show are colored red and she believes that interprets them as a sign of her and the others’ demise. This is then followed by the ominous sight of everyone lying death with their blood splattered across the stage. It is easily the most graphic scene in the entire series. The movie then cuts to Nana in her Stage Girl uniform, agreeing with the giraffe that things are far from over and a new chapter in the story is about to begin. In a different scene, Nana remarks that she and her friends are already on the “stage”, before then being greeted by Hikari. After the credits, we see Hikari back in her desert wasteland, echoing the same comments as Nana made earlier. As Hiakri stands atop the ruins of a fallen Tokyo Tower, the sounds of an incoming train can be heard.

I barely know what to make of any of this. Like, these last few scenes are clearly a hook for the movie sequel. And yet, I really don’t know what exactly it’s teasing apart from the simple fact that there is one more chapter in the series. About the only things I can gleam from here is that Nana might be an antagonist again and Hikari might have separated herself from Karen once more. That worries me a little; I think the girls’ arcs in the TV show are great so I’d hate to see Revue Starlight pull a reversal on them.

Rondo Rondo Rondo is a pretty enjoyable recap though I hesitate to say you can substitute watching the TV show with it. The story is coherent enough in movie form but so much of its impact is lost due to how much abridging the movie has to do in order to fit it within two hours. Add onto the fact that the new scenes take place after the TV show and it’s clear that this movie is simply meant to refresh fans’ memories before they get to the movie sequel and without the need of binging through 12 episodes again. If you’ve just finished watching the TV show, you might be better off looking up the new scenes in a compilation video on YouTube. If you’re curious about the different/new music, the whole soundtrack for the movie is available on streaming services such as Spotify. That all said, I think there are a couple of cool changes in the movie and at the end of day, it’s still Revue Starlight so I had a good time watching it.

At long last, I’m finally left with the movie sequel. I’m intrigued as to how the story will continue though coming off the recap’s new scenes, I’m a little worried as to what it’ll entail. That said, I’ve really enjoyed this series so far so I have high hopes that the sequel will be able to deliver something good.