StarLight

StarLight ("SutaaRaito" in Japanese) is a magical girl/slice-of-life comedy written by Ryan Nurse and Altrix Studios. It follows Sanae Hikari, a high school student who becomes the magical girl White Star in order to protect her hometown of Mitsuzawa from monsters. She must also contend with Black Star, a villainous magical girl who is secretly her best friend Amaya Kurozawa.

First conceived in October 2012, Nurse began writing StarLight in 2013. The series officially debuted in January 2015 as part of Project 20:15, and began publication on FictionPress and SparkaTale in April that year. It is known for its irreverent, fourth-wall-breaking style of humor, with a number of meta-jokes made throughout, as well as direct parodies of other magical girl shows such as Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon and Puella Magi Madoka Magica.

StarLight has received mostly positive reviews, and is one of Nurse's most popular projects. Volume 1 was published on Amazon Kindle on 23 December 2015, making it Nurse's first professionally-published work. A sequel, StarLight Q, is planned to begin publication in January 2018.

Synopsis
The plot concerns Sanae Hikari, a student at Mitsuzawa High School who has just entered her second year. One day, a gift from her archaeologist parents turns out to be a magical Emblem that transforms her into the magical girl White Star. The Emblem's forger, a youkai named Kousen, used to protect Mitsuzawa centuries ago before being sealed away; she now passes this duty to Sanae, who has to battle monsters drawn to the city by the Emblem's power, while trying to keep on top of her schoolwork and hide her secret identity. On top of that, she finds herself confronted with a rival, Black Star - who, unbeknownst to her, is secretly her best friend, Amaya Kurozawa.

Major characters

 * Sanae Hikari: The series' main protagonist. Using the White Star Emblem, she can turn into a magical girl to fight the monsters that attack the city.
 * Kousen: A youkai from the Realm Above, who used to protect Mitsuzawa centuries ago before being sealed away. She now acts as Sanae's familiar and tutor, while trying to get to grasps with modern times.
 * Amaya Kurozawa: Sanae's best friend. Secretly bitter about her lonely, boring life, she wields the Black Star Emblem and becomes White Star's rival.
 * Kage: A youkai who used to protect Mitsuzawa together with Kousen until the two fell out. She is still angry at Kousen, and is happy to fuel the rivalry between the pair's successors. She loves beer and has a verbal tic, saying "nyaa~" at the end of most sentences.
 * Hitomi Murasakime: A blue-haired first-year student, and the founder of the White Star Fan Club. An energetic girl, her distinguishing trait is her mismatched eyes: one green, one purple.
 * Nagisa Tezuka: A green-haired first-year student, and White Star Fan Club member. Confident and hot-headed, she admires White Star for her strength and tenacity.
 * Mio Natsume: A blonde-haired first-year student, and White Star Fan Club member. Mio is calm, intelligent and studious on the surface, but is secretly a yuri fangirl who ships White Star and Black Star.
 * Hinata Morishita: A red-haired first-year student, and White Star Fan Club member. Shy and a little clumsy, Hinata hopes to one day be as brave as White Star.

Supporting characters

 * Yui Inaba: Sanae and Amaya's homeroom teacher. She is revealed in "Operation Christmas Cake" to be a lesbian, who is in a relationship with a woman named Yuriko.
 * Kazuo Ishihara: A conspiracy theorist who is constantly bombarding Sanae and Amaya with insane theories. He is convinced - and rightly so - that Sanae is White Star, but is never able to prove it.
 * Ryouichi: A first-year student who fell hopelessly in love with Sanae when he first saw her. He constantly tries to get his beloved "senpai" to notice him, but to no avail.
 * Card Game Guy: The protagonist of a separate card game anime that is also being filmed in Mitsuzawa. He is in the same class as Sanae.
 * Maki: A green-haired girl who becomes Ryouichi's girlfriend after the events of "She Will Be Loved". She dislikes yuri, preferring more traditional romances.

Development
Nurse began planning StarLight in October 2012, under the working title Star of Wonder. Nurse's initial inspiration was "those cliched girls' shows where the protagonist is an ordinary high school girl by day but has some whole other life going on at night ... I thought, 'it's been done to death now, it's time someone parodied it'." Almost all of the series' characters and most of its core story concepts, such as the contrasting relationship between Sanae/White Star and Amaya/Black Star, were created within a single day; additional world-building ideas, such as the Realms Above and Below, were added later in development.

After two abortive attempts at writing the first episode, Nurse made the decision to turn the series into a light novel instead, the first of his projects to be written in this format (later followed by Don't Say a Word). Despite this, Nurse has stated that he still plans for the series to be adapted into an anime once it has been completed. Indeed, during the series' trademarks fourth-wall-breaking sequences, characters usually refer to themselves as being in an anime rather than a novel, though they also often refer to "readers" rather than viewers.

Initially, the series' trademark fourth-wall-breaking humor was intended to be confined to Hitomi, as a chuunibyou-style quirk of the character: her purple eye would supposedly have the power to "break through the fourth wall". However, Nurse ultimately decided that it would be funnier if every character could do this, and changed it so that this was the case. Kousen is the only character who does not break the fourth wall, befitting her more serious personality.

Style of humour
Like many of Nurse's works, StarLight is heavily influenced by British humour, featuring physical comedy, sarcastic wit, and over-the-top absurdity or surrealism (such as the Yu-Gi-Oh! parody in "White Star Fan Club"). The series derives most of its humour, however, from breaking the fourth wall; the characters are fully aware that they are in a work of fiction and make frequent references to the readers, the writer, and the series itself. This is sometimes used for self-deprecation, with characters mocking the writer or complaining that nobody is watching them. Risque moments are often followed up by the characters expressing concern about the series' age rating (except for the SparkaTale version, as that site has no content rating system), while darker moments are often followed by the characters noting that the show is supposed to be a comedy.

StarLight parodies or makes light of numerous tropes present in anime, as well as parodying or making references to a number of specific anime. The Sailor Moon franchise, particularly Sailor Moon Crystal, is a frequent target, and is treated with disdain by several characters including Sanae. References are also made to various films, TV shows, and (to a lesser extent) Internet memes, however the characters sometimes express concern that making direct references will lead to lawsuits.

Publication
On 13 April 2015, Nurse began publishing the first episode of StarLight to FictionPress, in weekly instalments. The full episode is 10,207 words, the longest single episode of any of Nurse's projects. On 24 April 2015, Nurse also began publishing the series to SparkaTale, the first of his projects to be published there. There are some minor differences between the two versions.

In July 2015, StarLight overtook Don't Say A Word as Nurse's longest published work. In June 2017, it became the first to reach 100,000 words; the following month, the release of the final part of "Red Moon Rising" saw StarLight become Nurse's first complete published work.

StarLight was the subject of approximately thirty-five Project 20:15 posts, by far the most of any project. These posts totalled over 35,000 words, which was also a record. In September 2015, Nurse announced his intention to collate the short stories into anthology volumes and publish them; Volume 1, containing the first six episodes, was released on Amazon Kindle on 23 December 2015, making it Nurse's first professionally-published literary work.

Sequel
In October 2015, a second season of StarLight was confirmed. Codenamed "StarLight Q", it will introduce several new characters as well as an overarching storyline. In March 2017, Nurse announced that Season 2 would not begin until 2018, giving him time to focus on other projects.

Reception
StarLight has been well-received by readers, and is considered one of Nurse's most popular projects. As of Series 1's completion on 8 July 2017, it has received nearly 8,000 combined views across FictionPress and SparkaTale. In August 2015, Nurse began a poll asking which of his projects fans would like him to focus on in 2016: StarLight came joint-top with I Watch You Sleeping, with both receiving seven votes.

Appearances in other media
When Worlds Collide will feature White Star and Black Star as playable characters, as well as a stage based on the collapsed bridge seen in "Dawn".

List of episodes
Note: "A Matter of Time" and "Operation Christmas Cake" were swapped in September 2015, as were "But It's For Charity!" and "She Will Be Loved". "But It's For Charity!" was later scrapped and replaced with "Summer Vacation".