flightworks

ELMAN (Eruman, エルマン) is a manga by Kinome (twitter/tumblr) that ran on Comico from January to July in 2015. It has some thematic similarities to and some of its characters have very tiny cameos in Kinome's current series Logica & Fallenstar (see masterpost), so I've decided to translate it too!

Elman is told in four arcs and an epilogue spanning 30 chapters, and is a science fantasy series with a strong focus on slice of life and comedy as it follows a large ensemble cast through a very hectic three days. The most prominent characters are a young human named Story who works for an out-in-the-sticks branch of Environmental Organization, which reconstitutes objects and lifeforms reduced to dust by "zero-energy phenomena", and the eponymous Elman, an intergalactic celebrity. This story is as a whole more lighthearted than Logica & Fallenstar, but it still involves elements of existential horror.

You might like this story if you enjoy the Mother series, Kaiba, The Little Prince, or Jinrui wa Suitaishimashita (Humanity Has Declined).

These translations are meant to be aids for fans who want to support the manga but aren't fluent in Japanese. I do not want these translations being used to make scanlations--any scanlations that are using these scripts are doing so without my permission and should heck off. (but if you're a representative of an english-language manga publisher that is looking to localize the series: feel free to hire me lol i'd be very happy to help it reach a broader audience, especially if i'm getting compensated)



( CHAPTER LIST )

SHOUJO KAGEKI REVUE STARLIGHT (Girls' Opera Revue Starlight, 少女☆歌劇レヴュースタァライト) is an anime series directed by Furukawa Tomohiro and produced by animation studio Kinema Citrus that ran during the summer season of 2018. The anime is one branch of a multimedia project that also includes a stage musical and mobile game. You can check out its official website here.

The Revue Starlight anime tells the story of nine second-year students at Seishou, a vocational high school that aims to raise the next generation of stage talent, who have been assigned to perform the classic tragedy musical Starlight each year at the school's annual festival in order to show their growth. Aijou Karen is the class clown, gently teased for her lax demeanor by her classmates, but when Kagura Hikari--a childhood friend she hasn't seen in 12 years--suddenly transfers into the class from England, Karen becomes embroiled in a magical girl tournament run by a talking giraffe who seeks to choose the "Top Star" from amongst nine candidates. Matches consist of one-on-one melee battles while the girls sing musical pieces.

The anime is highly character-centric and often includes references to the real-life Takarazuka Revue, as well as visual homages to the works of Ikuhara Kunihiko, director Furukawa's mentor. The voice cast are the same actresses who play the characters in the stage musical, and the anime is produced by a team of ambitious rookies whose love and passion for the project led to them biting off more than they could chew--so much so that they were briefly in danger of not being able to finish the show on schedule but were saved with a little help from young animators all over the globe. You can read more about the production ups and downs and animation techniques here on the Sakugabooru project's blog.

You might enjoy this series if you like musical theater, Ikuhara's works, and/or magical girl shows in the vein of Princess Tutu.

Revue Starlight is available to watch on Amazon, but the quality of the subs is unusually poor and is full of easy mistakes, beyond the scope of wacky errors usually produced due to simulcasts' unforgiving schedules. So, I've decided to step in and translate scripts to the episodes myself. These translations were not made for profit, and I'd rather these don't get used by any fansub groups.


EPISODE LIST
01. Stage Girls
02. The Stage of Fate
03. Top Star
04. Promise Tower
05. Where Sparkle Lies
06. The Glory Road to Our Parting
07. Daiba Nana
08. Into the Light
09. On the Night of the Star Festival
10. The Show Must Go On
11. We Are
12. Revue Starlight