Selection Project

Part I Overall

This series has horrible story telling. It has a lot of plot holes that can be extremely confusing in the series. This plot of the series does not really tell its own story but rather a mix of Idoly Pride(75%), Lovelive!(10%) and Zombieland Saga(15%). In my opinion, Selection Project is the worst TV Show that I have ever seen.
However, not all parts are considered bad at all. In Zombieland Saga Rip Off Part, they did really well, such as an interesting idea like "Idol that start from zero and be growing"
For Music
I don't like almost song in this series, especially the OP theme ... song. It doesn't create an Idol op vibe. They also reuse multiple songs at the end. In my opinion, Idol series shouldn't reuse their song strongly because the main selling point of the series are their songs and it doesn't look like they have put in the enough effort to create new songs. On the bright side, it has a few song that I like, B.B. and Only One yell. Only One Yell will be my most favorite ed in Fall2021.
For Studio
Doga Kobo did very well in this position, this series was carried by Doga Kobo a lot. Animation and sound effects are very good. Also, the character design from Hirayama, Kanna, are the character design of series "
Kanojo, Okarishimasu". They are very cute and memorable. Nevertheless, the story isn't given, so in the character part, I can't give much more score.

Part II add some detailed from part (maybe spoiled)

[1] This series has a main moral of "Repay all votes that voted on us", but before that a winner of the zone qualifiers withdraws because the 1st runner sang better than her. W H A T, how about votes that were voted on you. How would they feel?

[2] The competitors in this series all spend most of their summer in camps, but the competitors are only middle school with the youngest being 11 years old. Aren't their parents worried? Your children are going to camp for 3 months. There are also dances in swimsuits which aren't appropriate for middle schoolers if you ask me. At the end, the kids became idols and leave their hometowns to perform in the big cities. Aren't their parents worried at all?

[3] "Selection Project is the most realistic TV competition show". Is that really true? In the story, they do not allow viewers to vote on children's programs as they are working to follow their dream. In the real world, they have to face realities of haters and criticism.

Another reason is that the TV competition show had all the competitors pass, so to be fair, they gave a choice that competitors have to vote and kick out 2 competitors. W H A T, this is contradicts with [1]. After that, the votes are equal and they can't find a competitor to kick out so they are all eliminated. Yes, they are all eliminated. Are you kidding me? How can a show like this can survive for 7 seasons and have viewers all over Japan?

Spoiler Warning.
This show takes the concept of idol shows and gives an interesting take judging by the first episode. It's in the realm of something akin to American idol or Xfactor or well it would be if it decided to continue in an interesting direction. Unfortunately the show does not do this as because these girls develop a sisterly bond with each other whilst knowing each other for almost no amount of time. Not to mention the ENTIRE point is they compete against each other in this cutthroat industry. In episode 10 they give us hope with a plot twist where the girls refuse to ... vote anyone off and they leave to go alone. This idea goes nowhere because by episode 12 they're back in selection project gaming the system. The characters are nothing special each girl has their one unique trait and they only talk about those things and they have no depth. e.g. the food girl is always eating/talking about food. None of the emotional moments are really that impactful because some of the problems are just outrageous overreactions or so obvious that you just want them to get to the point so you can move on. The main issue is that it gave the viewer expectations that it would/could be something different to general idol shows but then completely ignored its most interesting prospect. Finally the last episode in particular felt insulting as the main girl has to be rushed to hospital before the group perform live. As the viewer we know she will return because that's how these things work in stories. But when a girl who had a heart transplant has to be rushed to hospital and has some kind issue relating to her heart that lead to her being in hospital in the first place suddenly wakes up, eats a strawberry sweet and then rushes back to the stage and is able to perform back to back songs like nothing even happened and no doctors clearance was the final straw for me it's such an unfathomable situation that if I wasn't so insulted that I would respect them playing it off as if nothing happened. Anyway at least the adults actually look like adults good work there.

A blatant, lazy rip off of Idoly Pride with worse twists and a horrifying looking mascot. The art, like everything else, isn't as good as the show it's copying and that's really the only bit I can potentially compliment. I skip through the rest and spoil the ending and some songs so I wouldn't have to suffer through a repeat of Idoly Pride, which I didn't adore to begin with, and it doesn't do anything unique enough there either to redeem itself despite the very slight variation.

This show is stupid for the sake of drama quite often. My favorite example is how there's an ... entire episode about the protagonist being self conscious involving her chest on the beach, a problem only resolved by a custom made swimsuit, only to later reveal that SIX of the girls actually wear swimsuits that visibly hide their chests and would have resolved the problem entirely. But no, we need to make fake drama and emotional stakes, so custom swimsuit at the last second because they claim nothing else was available. The writers either didn't bother pointing out the obvious problem to the artists, or thought the audience would be too stupid to notice.

This show lacks every hint of the heart and mystery Idoly Pride had. The originality of the ghost and the cute relationship with the manager are gone entirely, replaced by an obnoxious alcoholic narrator/host in a creepy mascot suit. The characters are worse, shallow regurgitations of the same tropes and what few new elements they add are forgettable or detrimental to the show, making it feel even more shallow and copy-paste than it already is. The shallow "twist" at the end is a 15 year old fakeout no one with a single brain cell would fall for, with an otherwise generic conclusion. Idoly Pride wasn't my favorite idol show of the year, but it was decent, whereas this one felt like an aggravating waste of time. If you've seen Idoly Pride, there's no reason to watch this, and if you haven't, go watch that instead.

I have been following Selection Project since it aired but prior to that, have watched some various idol anime including some iM@S anime including the 2011 OG anime and Cinderella Girls, Love Live(Finished Nijigasaki S1 and Superstar) and Idoly Pride.

Now for the review itself after wrapping up yesterday on Christmas Eve, I have been holding up on this for weeks where there were discussions and memes about this being compared to Idoly Pride because of how many similar plot points and the whole plot itself to each other.

So I started on episode 1 where I got introduced to a legendary idol named Amasawa ... Akari and as a Hayamin fan(seen some of her works and heard some of her songs), I want to pay attention to her character but the problem is she only got like around 2 minutes of screentime on that episode then her character is already dead on a car crash similar to Nagase Mana from Idoly Pride. I never have such a feeling like this on an idol anime before why I felt vibes from another idol anime and this is just the beginning.

Later on, 9-Tie(atleast not officially at the early episodes) was introduced where we get introduced to this reality show similar to Big Brother and some other reality shows in idol format where okay this is a bit different. One of the main girls is Miyama Suzune, who is a frail and sickly girl who almost got kicked out of the show but the winner talked to her and decided to withdraw from the competition. The third episode is where things started to get vicious with the Idoly Pride comparisons as we get introduced more to a girl named Rena who guess what, happened to be the sister of the dead idol much like Kotono being the sister of Mana in IP.

So the girls were split into units which okay lets see what they have to offer where SplashSoda and GapsCaps are fine but we will get to other problems later on the review.

Halfway through the anime, the drama started to get really serious with the swimsuit performance where Suzune doesn't want to see her chest scar which Rena saw and covered up for her. This is where people including myself have a feeling that she got a heart transplant from someone and nailed it on episode 8 with a big plot reveal. "Ah shit, here we go again." is my reaction to that scene and even made a meme about it. This is one of the points that escalated the comparisons to Idoly Pride like seriously, why you have to pull out an Idoly Pride plot on who Suzune got an heart transplant from Akari of all people like why go that route instead of another donor that has nothing to do with Akari or a different organ. This gets really worse to the point that I feel like I'm watching a pirated copy of Idoly Pride much like the bootlegs you see around the street markets. I find this really difficult to take the anime seriously because of too much similarities with Idoly Pride and this is absolutely terrible.

Episode 10 and 11 was their chance to redeem itself and breakaway from the Idoly Pride copy label with the girls trying to make name for themselves after an incident in the reality show that disqualified all of them thus the official formation of the group 9-Tie. Unfortunately, this was reversed on episode 12 where we went back to the heart issue drama BS again on Suzune but this time Rena took care of her and the reveal of the staff's true nature including Jun and the Dorm Mother.

Now regarding Akari, she get some appearance like on Rena's dream and later Suzune's when she was fighting for her life but I have to question how she become a legendary idol and to be frank, this a huge plot hole where it's not good enough to say "Amasawa Akari is a legendary idol" after the car crash when we barely know anything about her like what did she achieve as an idol instead of just some story telling from Rena or Dorm Mother especially to Suzune. Its basically impossible at this point to avoid thinking about Mana when it comes to Akari much like Sakura and Kotono to Suzune and Rena which is atrocious writing.

Regarding the other 7 girls, sure they have their own quirks and stuff but they are stuck to their shticks and gimmicks especially Nodoka who mostly put into scenes that have anything to do with food while getting overshadowed by SuzuRena. Speaking of those two, obviously they are so similar to Sakura and Kotono.

On the final episode on the anime, I got lots of "uhh" moments and I was like "what the hell happened to this anime!?" with lots of nonsense going on with Akari talking to Suzune and gives her a hug in the dream then she wakes up and be like "Hurrah! lets go to the stage where everyone's waiting" which doesn't make any sense like what kind of incompetent doctor would clear Suzune that fast unless you sneak her out of the hospital or something? Just after the last performance of other 9-Tie members, Suzune and Rena appeared out of nowhere just like something out of WWE with the hurt wrestler getting back to the fight. 9-Tie so far got half of the votes but how the hell they get the rest of the required votes is way beyond me.

Guess what's the final song for the series? A new song? I wish but nope! Its the OP of the entire anime like seriously why they couldn't make a new song to make the ending special and of course we still get the same ending credits with the same song Only One Yell that's been played since Day 1.

You have the characters that have potential to be unique even Akari only to be overshadowed by Sakura and Kotono 2.0 a.k.a Suzune and Rena and this is really terrible because the other girls didn't have enough room to develop their own characters instead of this whole SuzuRena drama the entire time. I'm going to bring down the hammer on this and I have to give this score. I wish the lessons for other idol anime would be learned from this mistake considering how hard it is to stand out for the genre especially if you are not iM@S or Love Live, even those two giants have to learn the lessons too and I'm looking at you Million Live anime and I have hopes to not commit the same mistakes from Selection Project.