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Sora Naegino is an enthusiastic and acrobatically talented girl with the dream of performing on the Kaleido Stage. She had traveled from Japan to Los Angeles for the opportunity. In search of her chance, she inadvertently and unknowingly meets the head of the Kaleido Stage, Kalos Eido (a.k.a. the boss). Soon afterwards, a thief runs off with her luggage; and she uses her acrobatic skills to catch up and retrieve the luggage. Combined with time lost at the police station, she ends up missing the audition. Though Sora asks Layla Hamilton for an audition, she declines. Sora persuades stage manager, Ken Robbins to grant her access backstage, where she ends up with an opportunity to perform as commanded by Kalos. In the dressing room, Sora meets Fool, a mysterious spirit of the stage only seen by her. Sora's efforts fail and she is depressed, but Kalos accepts her into the Kaleido Stage.
Sub
Prime
Soft
Dub
Prime
Soft
Kaleido Star
Format:
Anime
Status:
Finished
Episodes:
51
Rating:
75
Studios:
GONZO, G&G Entertainment
Country:
JP
Duration:
23 min
Season:
SPRING 2003
Disqus
Sora deals with Fool, who indicates her as a future star performer. However, the other performers view Sora with jealousy, because she qualified without an audition. Motivated, she cleans the stage early in the morning. After the cleaning work, she ends up late to ballet lessons. At practice, she stumbles and draws further disrespect from the other performers. In addition, she blurts out her prospect of performing Layla's special trapeze trick, the "Golden Phoenix". Overhearing Sora's boast, Layla is adamant that she will practice and perform the trick in one week's time. Motivated to earn respect, she learns the trick with the help of Ken, even without prior experience handling the swings. As she trained, Sora shares her determination with Mia Guillem and Anna Heart, whom she gains support and friendship. Sora persistence earns Layla's approval.
Sora Naegino is an enthusiastic and acrobatically talented girl with the dream of performing on the Kaleido Stage. She had traveled from Japan to Los Angeles for the opportunity. In search of her chance, she inadvertently and unknowingly meets the head of the Kaleido Stage, Kalos Eido (a.k.a. the boss). Soon afterwards, a thief runs off with her luggage; and she uses her acrobatic skills to catch up and retrieve the luggage. Combined with time lost at the police station, she ends up missing the audition. Though Sora asks Layla Hamilton for an audition, she declines. Sora persuades stage manager, Ken Robbins to grant her access backstage, where she ends up with an opportunity to perform as commanded by Kalos. In the dressing room, Sora meets Fool, a mysterious spirit of the stage only seen by her. Sora's efforts fail and she is depressed, but Kalos accepts her into the Kaleido Stage.
Sora deals with Fool, who indicates her as a future star performer. However, the other performers view Sora with jealousy, because she qualified without an audition. Motivated, she cleans the stage early in the morning. After the cleaning work, she ends up late to ballet lessons. At practice, she stumbles and draws further disrespect from the other performers. In addition, she blurts out her prospect of performing Layla's special trapeze trick, the "Golden Phoenix". Overhearing Sora's boast, Layla is adamant that she will practice and perform the trick in one week's time. Motivated to earn respect, she learns the trick with the help of Ken, even without prior experience handling the swings. As she trained, Sora shares her determination with Mia Guillem and Anna Heart, whom she gains support and friendship. Sora persistence earns Layla's approval.
Fool reiterates his claim of Sora as the stage's "chosen one". For the next stage production, Cinderella, everyone is given a role, except for Sora. Disappointed, she complains but is assigned the task of distributing toys to the audience children. She feels doubtful and demotivated as a toy distributor and makes mistakes early. After one day, Fool advises her to create her own path. So, she takes up a clown outfit and treats her job as a performance. However, she makes the mistake of delaying a show, which makes her reflect upon her job. Yuri Killian tells her objective: to make other people happy. So, on the third day, she does her job well and learns the true meaning of performance.
The Cinderella production is presented, and Sora meets Marion Benigni back stage. During practice, Mia struggles her role's trampoline portion, and Layla threatens to cancel the performance. The next day, Mia's proposes to share the fairy godmother role with her two friends. Given three days, the three friends practice their own specially designed acrobatic routine, The Triple Illusion. During practice, Marion struggles with the idea of other trampoliners replacing her dead mother. Furthermore, Layla is adamant to replace Sora and Anna with more qualified trampoliners. After talking with Marion's father, Sora practices on her own to Marion's satisfaction. Mia and Anna join the practice to perfect their routine; after the demonstration, Kalos grants them their proposal.
Sora's adopted father makes a surprise visit to Kaleido Stage. For the debut of the Triple Illusion, the team performs poorly and receives a negative review the next day. The review spread to her worried father and among the performers. In another performance, the three continue to struggle, and Sora's father sees the negative atmosphere back stage. Worried, he suggests for her to return with him back to Japan. Soon afterwards, her father has a heart attack, and with an hour till another performance, Sora runs off to her hospitalized father. Missing a performance, she decides to return home, but before boarding the flight, she becomes depressed once again, expressing her childhood dream of performing. In turn, her father lets her return to Kaleido Stage; Sora apologizes to the stage crew and follows up with a better performance.
Prancing happily on the beach, Sora trips over an unconscious baby seal, whom she names Jonathan. With pity, she sneaks the seal back to the dormitory, with the intent upon keeping and taking care of him. In addition to her Kaleido Stage work, she fills up her daily schedule with part-time work, over Layla's objections. Eventually, the doubled workload renders Sora exhausted, and her concerned friends look to pick up some of the burden. However, Sarah Dupont shows a flyer of a juggling contest, where first prize can feed Jonathan for a month. Having never juggled before, Sora and company work on a routine. Having been gone for six days, Kalos returns and sees the juggling act. After some convincing, he allows Sora to keep Jonathan as a company mascot, under the care of Marion and her father.
At Jonathan's new pool, Marion notices the arrival of a new performer, Rosetta Passel, a diabolo expert. As a fan of her, Sora tries to befriend her, but she displays a perfectionist attitude. Despite one perfectly executed performance, she failed to gain the interest of the audience, and Kalos declines her offer to perform again. Emphasizing her own perfection, she doesn't understand the importance of the audience and runs off. After Sora pleads for another chance, Kalos assigns her as Rosetta's partner and allows six days for Sora to improve Rosetta's performance. Having never performed with a diabolo, Sora learns the skill and ends up teaching Rosetta about enjoyment on stage. After an entertaining diabolo battle performance together, Rosetta changes her attitude and returns home.
Before a performance, Layla receives some roses from her father, who owns a large hotel chain. As much as Layla wants his audience presence, he often has a busy reason not to attend. After the performance, Kalos, Sora, and her friends are invited to Layla's father's party. Sora makes numerous interactions with Layla and her father, and she notices the distant relationship between the two, especially when guests are paid to attend Layla's birthday and her annual cancellation of the party. After speaking with Layla, Sora makes plans and actions to bring the father-daughter pair closer together. After a public birthday wish at a performance, Layla receives a note from her father, and she receives it heartfully, despite expressing feelings of humiliation to Sora.
Kaleido Stage is presenting a new stage production, The Little Mermaid. Kaleido Stage featured this theme before, and a sponsor, Mr. Kenneth, wants someone other than Layla featured for the lead role. At the audition, Sora becomes the only candidate. On the same day, Sora makes an attempt at the featured trick: a trapeze triple somersault jump through flowing water. Her attempt fails, and she is rendered injured and fearful of falling. Consulting Fool, Sora must conquer this fear, or she will lose her ability to see Fool. So with the help of Ken and a martial arts specialist, she gradually works to restore her confidence. Still fearful, she makes one more attempt at the stunt per Kalos's remarks. For her attempt, she uses a blindfold and executes it successfully, despite almost falling again.
While in cloud nine, Sora goes through her schedule as the leading role, including photo shoots, practices, etc. Via video-tape, Sora looks to mimic Layla's previous performance. After some performances, audience opinions on the Little Mermaid have been lackluster, and attendance decreases. Fearing poor reviews, this prompted Sora to study her role and experiment in order to "make the performance her own" by incorporating her personality. After upsetting the stage crew over changes, she figures out the role of a mermaid and shares her ideas. With some script adjustments, the production crew finally pleases the audience.