It makes sense that after 10 episodes of dueling and auditioning, this week takes time to focus on the central pair Karen and Hikari. As soon as she “betrays” Karen in the cliffhanger last week, it soon reveals that the reason she does it is to not steal anyone’s else brilliance (especially Karen’s), even at the cost of herself. Admittedly, while I myself was expecting a bit more, this episode does have some emotional impact with some powerful scenes. By taking Hikari out of the equation (I swear if I ever come across with any document that has giraffe logo on it, I would dump it to the rubbish bin immediately), it takes a toll to Karen and effectively kills her joy to perform. Or as my sub says it, she loses her brillance. Which makes it all the more tragic because Hikari sacrifices herself in order to save Karen and the rest from it. As far as the narrative goes, I don’t think anyone of us is surprised at all these developments. Revue Starlight has been foreshadowing about this star-crossed love for quite some time and how Karen-Hikari relationship parallels with the Starlight story.
So it’s inevitable that we learn there is some more chapters in the Starlight book and it’s Karen the one who is willing to translate the whole book, with the help of every other member of the cast (poor Mahiru, always plays the housewife role). It’s the way for Karen to get back to the root, not only finding her own inspiration again after Hikari gone, but also finds Hikari through there. I also feel it’s more than appropriate that Karen’s walk to Hikari’s castle is accompanied by the whole case with their decor settings. We’re reaching the end of the stage production now, it’s perfect that these scenes play out like a play. Characters sing, characters function within their role (and their allocated spot) and leave Karen so that she can face her own issues by herself.
These stage-like quality, unfortunately, reduces our supporting characters into “roles”, so this episode we don’t feel them like real characters. There was one little moment that breaks that trend, however, which hit me harder than it should. It’s the moment when Tendou Maya implies, through her flashback, that when she sees Hikari’s eyes in one of their practices, she can sense that her eyes are empty. Hikari had been fighting and dueling even though her “brilliance” is forever gone, just barely make it back by the promise of Karen, and decides to win so that she can be an ultimate sacrifice. I already love the surrealist background of her palace, which vast desert and here she is, bare naked and all alone. That single image speaks more strongly than thousand words and I hope that, really hope that Revue Starlight can sweep me away again with its final episode.
