Kaleido Star Vol. 1: Welcome To The Kaleido Stage Review

Originally published on otakureview.net

The Intro

Anime meets Cirque de Soleil in this wonderful title from famed Sailor Moon director Junichi Sato and once again he manages to strike gold with this wonderful piece of work!

The Story

In Kaleido Star, the main story revolves around our young star the sixteen year old Sora as she leaves her home in Japan against her parents wishes to join the world famous circus performance group, Kaleido Stage in the city of Cape Mary. In this first volume we are given the first five episodes of this 52 episode series (the final episode aired in Japan in April of this year!) and over the course of two hours we get to meet some of the other stars of the troop such as Layla and Yuri and some of the newcomers who joined at the same time as Sora such as Charlotte, Anna and Mia as we get to see Sora trying to prove herself constantly throughout this volume.

The Good and the Bad

The first thing that should grab anyone about this series is very easily the incredible animation that is used! I have yet to hear anyone complain about it and I honestly don't think that anyone will! The video transfer is absolutely gorgeous, the colors are bright and vibrant and everything about it almost makes you feel as though you're really there.

The only real complaint I have about this series thus far is that the characters have yet to really pull me in. While the story itself is incredibly moving and touching (I shed tears by the end of episode 1), the characters have yet to show me any real depth and that is causing me to be just a bit standoffish but that is really a minor complaint to have thus far when there are still 47 episodes left to see!

Dub vs. Sub

When I first saw this volume in it's original Japanese I laughed and cried along with it. Everything was wonderful and while the complaint about the characters still applied, I walked away from it feeling really good about what I saw. Unfortunately, I can't say the same thing about what I saw when I watched it in the English dub.

While the English dub isn't horrible it definitely didn't strike me as anything special and I was pretty disappointed since the usual ADV players just didn't deliver. The main role of Sora is played by Cynthia Martinez and while she does a good job of portraying that youthful enthusiasm that you would expect out of Sora, it's still not quite there.

Though not everyone on the English dub cast is a disappointment. Easily the two best standouts in the cast would be Jay Hickman who plays the spirit of the stage, Fool, and Luci Christian who plays the dorm supervisor and stage diva Sarah.

Jay Hickman delivers an incredible performance here as each line is delivered in such a deadpan serious way that you can't help but smile whenever he says something outlandish or perverted. Luci Christian also delivers a great performance (with a wonderful English accent I might add) as Sarah. I busted a gut when she first appeared on screen and I can't wait to see more of her as the series continues!

The other complaint I have with the dub track is that for some reason ADV felt the need to censor and edit some of the script from it's original Japanese form which absolutely irks me. The changes are definitely obvious if you listen to both tracks.

While I haven't given up on the dub track completely, I do feel that I'll be watching the Japanese track a lot more than the English.

Music

The music in this series is wonderful! The opening and ending themes are really catchy Jpop tunes that really match the animation perfectly. I also enjoyed the background music used within the series but easily my favorite piece of music is when Sarah is on stage performing. The voice used here is absolutely breath taking!

Extras

Unfortunately not a whole lot of extras to speak of. We are given clean opening and closing animations and about 5 and a half minutes worth of production sketches but that's about it (besides the usual trailers).

Overall

Overall I am giving this volume four stars despite the English dub track. While this series isn't fabulous and far from perfect, I would have no issues what so ever about telling others to watch this series nor would I mind watching it again sometime. It's a cute and beautiful series with a wonderful theme of going after what you dream of.

We're only five episodes in so don't be afraid to come see Kaleido Star before the curtain falls and it's too late!