Microphone Soul Spinners: Kotodama Shoujo

At first glance the story and premise of the series can seem rather simple and generic. Four girls form a musical group and aim for the top of their school. On the surface that is not much and on the beginning of the series I aswell was fooled into the premise.

Rather than the upfront story I'd say that presentation of the story is the point of interest, the narrative is told through a visually engaging stage play type of performance with poetic lines and dramatised acting performance. It is almost as if the characters are acting within the series to portray the surface ... level story on top of another story.

I think this multilayered presentation of the story and characters is a brilliant approach and not something you see often. You can see the focus of the performances and characters deal with issues relating to performance industry and overall struggle that is represented through the characters.

Each episode starts with a curtain rising and the characters take on the "stage" and start their performance the individual performances contain simplistic stories focusing on the issues relating on the characters relationships and their ambitions. The issues are presented in dramatic manner utlisizing a poetic narrative and the characters are very expressive both visually and verbally throughout the performances.

The visual quality and art of the series is crafted using 3D models and a "stage" fitting each performance I think really enforcing the small scale of the "scene" versus "behind the scene" settings. The visuals are focused only on the scene and only actors are the four girls I mentioned earlier. Other characters exist in the surface level story but their visual representation throughout the series enforces the "stage play" narrative further which I think is excellet way of visually presenting the multilayered storytelling perspective. Visually the main "actors" have very engaging design and the visual attractiveness of the characters I'd say represents the overall message of the underlying story.

The voice acting I think is another great part of the series, the dialogue is poetic and each character has audible quirks to their performance. To be able to act a performance within another performance I'd say the voice acotors did brilliant job on pulling something like that off.

The characters themselves come off as ver distinct from each other and each of them possessess an interesting quirk and I'd say that the representation of thos quirks through the multiple performances strenghtens the overall presence of the characters throughout the series. This series couldn't exist without that presence as the characters are presenting the series through the stage play performance. SO you could say that this is the ultimate character driven series in a way.

Overall I'd say it was a really unique audiovisual experience definitely something special.