Wake Up, Girls! Beyond the Bottom

"Wake Up, Girls!" was a promising series that attempted to break the common tropes of idol anime. With a mix of optimism and realism that is hardly seen in shows of its type, this anime series held great potential to be something great.

However, the latest entry in the series, "Beyond the Bottom" serves as a lackluster conclusion to an otherwise stellar series.

The greatest gripe I had with this show was that it simply lost all the positive aspects that the previous entries had. For instance, "Beyond the Bottom" felt horribly disjointed from the tone and atmosphere that the the TV series and previous movies had.

For ... instance, there is almost no conflict in this story, aside from the upcoming Idol Festival, which by this point in the series, has become a rather stale plot device. Not to mention, there is no buildup to the festival itself, which makes it seem rather lowly compared to the festival depicted in the TV series.

Another complaint I have would be that the music in this movie is lackluster. Although "Wake Up, Girls!" never boasted a massive soundtrack, they always had a relatively strong, albeit small, selection of songs for viewers to appreciate ("7 Girls War" and "Gokukujo Smile") come to mind. The new songs introduced in this entry simply do not compare in the slightest. They are unmemorable and, unfortunately, not very catchy either. This is quite disappointing because I always felt that "Wake Up, Girls!" was quite strong in terms of the musical aspect of things.

The animation quality also took a massive nosedive. While 'Wake Up, Girls!" was never known for its animation quality, as you can probably tell from other reviews, it is quite apparent that the animation is even worse than it was in the previous entries. Faces look odd, the dancing looks stiffer than usual, and there are noticeable shortcuts taken to reduce the amount of animation needed to be produced by the company (which is quite obvious once you see it).

The characters from "Wake Up, Girls!" that many of us have come to know and love suffer from lack of depth. The only characters that really receive any proper characterization would be Nanami, Mayu, President Tange, and Shiho. Everyone else is left in the shadows, merely serving as background noise rather than actual characters. However, I do appreciate how the movie develops I-1 Club member Shiho Iwasaki's character. I found myself appreciating moments in which she appears, as she proved to be, in most cases, more interesting than the Wake Up, Girls! themselves.

To conclude, "Wake Up, Girls! Beyond the Bottom" was disappointing to say the least. In my opinion, it leaves a great big stain on an otherwise fantastic franchise. It is unfortunate that this otherwise good idol anime series ends off tainted with excessive cliches, quality issues, and lack of depth.

If you are a fan of "Wake Up, Girls!" like I am, you'll want to check this movie out. Just be sure to head in with your expectations low.

Anime as whole has had a bad reputation for not being 'realistic' enough. Yes, there's the debate of 'different people, different strokes' and 'you can't please everyone' etc. This is why I appreciate the WUG narrative as a whole. Maybe I'm stretching it to the original series. But the anime & equally this film isn't shy of portraying the rock-bottom and eventual highlights of the idol industry.

Yes the plot is a bit predictable & there's no real 'ump' to the drama. But that's what makes WUG endearing & to an extent, relate-able.

Coincidentally, I can't exactly give praise to the characters. I understand with such ... a large cast, it's easier to give them a trope or defining trait which captures their entire personality. But sometimes even this feels a tad bland. If you were to remove the faces & voices when they're in a group scene together : it somewhats blends in together & you can't quite specify whose line belongs to who.

I will give praise to the production staff. The girls aren't overly cute.Moments such as when they cry or just doing their shenanigans, it's not top-tier animation. But the facial expression are just remarkably real, as if this is you or a friend. The actual songs of the idol groups respectively, it does its work.

In my previous review, I compared this series to "Hibike! Euphonium". Hibike! had a movie that did a speedrun through the second season and crammed what probably should have been one or two seasons into one movie. The comparison to Hibike! is apt, because this did exactly the same thing.

It wasn't awful, but it made for a rushed and unsatisfying movie. It moved way too fast and careened towards a rather obvious ending, that ended up being basically one unanimated scene at the end.

You know, I had originally written a review (and put it on the wrong movie, OOPS) where I said ... that I hated that ending. And it's true, I don't like the last few seconds. But I'm gonna actually give that a pass now, because I realized why they did it. The song "Beyond the Bottom" is *amazing*, and they spent the three minutes of the credits just playing that song. And if you know how I feel about most idol music, you'd understand how much of a compliment that is. I actually ended up transcribing it and spending an hour with my theory/composition teacher to figure out how it all worked, and it's pretty much a case study in good composition/orchestration. Do I like all the dancing and stuff that goes with it? Meh. But. Heck, it's actually inspired me with some ideas for a composition I'm currently working on. I learned a lot from it.

That song pretty much carried the whole movie for me. I love it. It's definitely not just the best song in the WuG discography, but maybe it's in the top two or three for ALL idol anime discography.

So... if you want a movie that carries on the story, well... okay, and introduces you to a great song while you're at it, well, you could do lots worse. But just like the "Hibike" movie, well... it's a transition, not a destination. Don't expect much from it.