Idol Jihen

The art and animation is absolutely spectacular as is the songs that go along with it. I particularly enjoy the ending with it's cute, crayon animation and simple songs. I would give full marks if the criteria were just the animation and sound quality, but it sadly isn't. ..

The characters are very one tone, even the main characters are not very dynamic. The main character is overly cute and clumsy to the point of it being off putting while her partner is so cold that it's a miracle that she can even be a successful idol and both have backstories that simply fall limp.

I ... was expecting this show to be stupid and light hearted, which it is I guess, but it could be so much better. It tries to be series and show real problems that people around the country may be having but it doesn't take those issues seriously and it doesn't actually solve the problem in productive ways.

I love idols and will watch just about anything with idols in it because of the music, but this is just a laughable attempt at an idol anime.

Hey, LA didn't know Ruby Kurosawa from Love Live Sunshine grew up to be a politician!

This kind of premise of being idol AND a dietwoman is by all means a crazy and to be honest laughably weird premise, especially for the idol genre makes this kind of idol anime a weird outlier. LA doesn't know how to exactly tackle this kind of anime besides the "strengths" and "flaws"...let's start with the strengths first shall we?

For what a weird and crazy premise Idol Jihen has, the only thing LA was immediately worried about was the balance between it's idol elements and political elements, thankfully how straightforward ... and gung-ho they are about the premise making LA just laugh LA ass off sometimes. The next strength LA saw was once it finally got serious in a ways but using typical political slander, yes slightly forced on how serious it gets but it was better than the episodic stereotypical evil politicians of the week stylings from this strength LA really saw in all this is that how they utilized their episodic format to bring things to the forefront once the serious plotline arises allowing the episodic format NOT be just filler. From the idol side is that Shizuka Onimaru voiced by Mai Fuchigami as a character does grow from the standoffish tsundere idol with her "aura" being too strong into becoming a strong idol leader (though how she turns into this has a slightly shaky and rushed development). The final strength LA will put into Idol Jihen is that the "final arc" mainly concerning the current Prime Minister's plans to destroy the Idol Dietwoman actually isn't that bad, as it makes a somewhat cohesive and focused narrative instead of the Saturday Cartoon episodic villiany feel to it as well as makes the huge cast and it's main characters take action and essentially has a conflict of fire vs. fire a la "idol wars" which for a final plan is kinda thought out and interesting for an idol fan, though trying to get to this point is gonna be hassle not to mention it gathered the various idol dietwoman into one cohesive group and made them tackle their situation in a serious manner instead of the kiddy coincidental ways they resolved conflict.

There are lots of problems however LA saw throughout the anime however. Let's start off with how LA said above that the episodic politician villains of the week are just stereotypically evil one way or the other and effectively being even more childish than the idol dietwoman themselves sometimes, not making their point comes across (though the only defense LA will say to this however is that one or two of the evil politician of the week does point out that an idol being a dietwoman is laughable and putting Japan to shame and in reality YES...it would!). Now the major villain of this anime, the current Prime Minister isn't much better allowing his "minions" to do all the dirty work and making them do all the work, his "plans" isn't much better and like his evil minions, his plans are slightly better but still stereotypical political slander with an idol edge to it. (Once again the defence with this one is that the current Prime Minister does use the main cast's popularity and "righteousness" to his own advantage making him a "somewhat" competent main villain). it's kind of a problem with this kind of anime if LA is rooting for the major villain than the idols themselves. on speaking of which, the main idol cast is HUGE, though the main two that are focused on are Natsuki Hoshina voiced by Sarara Yashima and Shizuka Onimaru voiced by Mai Fuchigami. The rest at best are satellite characters to ONE ANOTHER within their own party giving them at best one episode worth of development, individually they have their own quirks sure, but as a group (in which they are usually in) makes them increasingly harder to remember their names. Natsuki as a character however due to her infectiously genki personality can be a plus to the anime sure and her belief that "bringing smiles to Japan is the way to go" is admirable...but for politics...well it's laughable and really can't be taken seriously, she also gets the opposite of Shizuka's character development once the anime gets serious.

In terms of animation, the animation done by MAPPA and Studio VOLN is acceptable especially concerning the character designs, they are bright and colorful to say the least and at least some of the character are distinguishable albeit only because the majority of the characters have a quirk or accessory to them making them distinguishable but again...since the cast is soo big and many characters sticking to one another that it's still hard to remember their names (let alone try to remember their voice actor!). The idol dancing animation done by Chiptune if anything is typical of the idol genre just less effort, as it's blatantly obvious nearly EVERY scene when it becomes 3D CGI -implemented. Heck even Sunrise with Love Live Sunshine put in a bit more effort than this!. The animation overall is slightly above average if only because of the character designs.

With the voice acting however is where LA thinks the anime has one of the most lack of, this coming from an anime full of idols and NOT UTLIZING the voice actors properly. It just really feels like the majority fo the voice actors were on autopilot for the majority of the time, the only 3 LA saw give some effort was Sarara Yashima (for her genkiness and later personality change), Reina Ueda as Sachie Kondou, Natsuki and Shizuka's manager and Mai Fuchigami but they only get this spot merely due to screentime...nothing more.

Idol Jihen can be a rather funny and odd ride and sure many of it's flaws actually has a silver lining to it and it's strengths has some detriments to it. It just feels like Idol Jihen is taking the Saturday Morning cartoony feel to it, making the anime somewhat tone-deaf to it's situation especially to such a topic as politics (the only exception LA will say to this statement being once the anime gets serious but even then it still has the lingering feeling of it) and putting a kiddy evil political villains doesn't help. LA wouldn't put Idol Jihen into the horrible anime pile but the anime still has tons of problems. At best it's a soo bad it's good anime, at worst it's situationally tone-deaf anime. Sure LA is taking this kind of premise seriously, but LA only does it as the uniqueness of this anime comes from it's political elements and politics kinda needs to be taken seriously and Idol Jihen just doesn't take itself seriously.

I pretty much only cared that Tsunku being involved in this, but the generic VA-voices dampened the quality some.

___

.:STORY:. (3)

The premise is a lie. This is generic "Cute Idols Doing Cute Things".

Do not bother if your only interest in the show is the possibility of deep and/or legitimate political discourse. Because that doesn't exist. This is a weak, lackluster attempt of standing out amongst the ever-growing idol culture.

... ---

.:ENJOYMENT:. (4)

I was drawn by this show's promise and its OP song hinted at some actually interesting topics. So, at the very least, I expected them to take politics fairly serious as a job... but, instead, it was merely an idol shtick that benefits nothing and downplays the importance of actually doing something in politics that actually helps the masses.

For what little is actual politics, there's next-to-no consequences to be had. It irked me immensely when they mentioned in passing nothing's being done at the very end for the ~climax~, only for that to have not even been the case. Plus, the Party "opposition" is this group of old farts that dislike culture updates that is instantly won over by maybe a few lines of a song... which they've doubtlessly heard or experienced for years. So that led to a huge logic gap that only dampened the story.

BUT, as its true saving grace, it's important to note that this show actually has a LOT of idol performances and idol discussion that oft gets glossed-over in idol anime. So while it's irksome how little of story and effort went into the actual premise, it's at least honest that this is legit about idols.

... tho, nah; I can't ignore that the OP song legit promised tackling pro-facism/etc viewpoints in politics.

--

.:ART:. (9) & .:SOUND:. (10)

The art style is cute and I truly adore everyone's individualistic fashion.

The music (especially stuff produced by Tsunku) is simply perfect and you can tell that he works on less generic styles than the normal anisong quality we tend to get in anime. Not necessarily a diss on anisongs, but dang if they ain't prone to being highly lackluster on their own.

VA do a pretty good job tho, and the sfx were fine. I have no real complaints, beyond personal taste.

--

.:CHARACTER:. (3)

lol

---

.:OVERALL:. (6)

They should've kept to making several super high quality PVs.

It'd saved time and effort on their end, and receive a far higher rating overall from viewers. Then, as it'd take a while for fan support to be enough to bother and some merch could've been sold to help fund it, they might've actually had the chance to make this an actual show worth watching.

Wasted potential.
I expected singing and dancing. Bubbly high pitched airheads. Got that in spades.
I hoped for House of Cards politics, ruthless corrupt villains and maybe a reference or two to real life issues in Japan. Got some fake news political ads, but it was pretty much amateur hour on the villains part and the grossly incompetent heroins were left reeling anyway.
Here's a spoiler. We have age requirements in political office for a reason. These preteen pop-stars are only competent as activists. The one time they actually vote for a bill (for something completely frivolous) they allow the majority leader to talk to them and dismiss ... them like the meaningless idiots they are.
Evil Junichiro Koizumi is the real hero of the show.