If you are a fan of all-female musical theater review troupes, then you really don’t want to miss this series by Kumiko Saiko. I reviewed Kageki Shojo!! The Curtain Rises, which was the prologue to the story, following the fortunes of a number of young women as they seek to enter the Kouka Musical School.
I read, but did not review volume 1, as it was covered fully in the anime, which I did review and is for the moment, still streaming on Funimation.
In Kageki Shojo!!, Volume 2, we learn why, specifically Sarasa is here and the forces that have shaped her abilities. This volume motivated me to talk about the character of the Girl Prince in Yuri Studio S03 E01: The Girl Prince. In part because, as I say, Sarasa is a Girl Prince and there is never any doubt that she will be able to play one on the Kouka stage, but also because this story also struck at the heart of the fundamental inequity of the Girl Prince archetype.
In Volume 2 we learn that Sarasa should have been able to perform on the kabuki stage. That she would have been a natural – that everything her childhood friend Akiya has to work to master, came naturally to her. We also learn that she very likely may be the illegitimate daughter of a kabuki master. We don’t need to ask why she is never given that opportunity, do we? The answer is, of course the same sexism faced by all girl princes since the archetype first entered literature. And you know what? I am sick of it. I am sick to death of men (and they women who prop them up) telling women that they cannot do or be something.
Sarasa is an amazing character. Instead of letting the way the kabuki world treated her get her down, she’ll take the exact same path laid down by Oscar to create her own reality as Oscar. It’s maddening that she is not allowed to do what she would be best at, but it will be triumphant when she is equally the best at what she has now set her sights upon.
Not all of us face the kind of barriers Sarasa faced, but all of us face some barriers, whether they be societal expectations or familiar barriers. And, like Sarasa we can take steps to create our own path. If we can’t all be Oscar, we can all be Erminia, letting the world that held us down burn, while we run off to make a new life for ourselves, the way we want it to be.
Like Oshi ga Budokan Ittekuretara Shinu, Kageki Shojo!! is not great at cheerleading the industries it’s portraying, but it’s doing a great job in helping me envision a future where this controlling bullshit is history. ^_^; Now if only the people in those industries could imagine that, as well.
Saiki’s art is gripping, she does amazing body language, as one might expect, since this is a 2-d manga about a 3-d form of performance. Her characters are blank canvases upon which each scene has to be created. Except for Sarasa, who is as fully formed as Athena when she stepped out of Zeus’ head.
Ratings:
Art – 9
Character – 9
Story – 8
Yuri – 0
Service – 1 on principle
Overall – 8
As this series touches deeply into the worlds of musical revue and kabuki, I think it’s a worthy read for fans of the female kagekidan and kabuki traditions.
Kageki Shojo!!, Volume 2 is available from Seven Seas on Amazon, Global Bookwalker, RightStuf or your favorite manga store.
