World Dai Star

I gotta stop watching these. Mixed Media Project Slice of Life shows with too many girls based around some niche hobby/industry always end up the same way. Be it Cue, Extreme Hearts, PuraOre, and now this. The fundamental issue is that, even with a main character at hand, it always ends up pretty mediocre around the middle and my interest in the project just completely fades less than halfway through.

World Dai Star has some interesting things going for it initially at least. You got Takahiro, you got a schizophrenic hallucination that is a product of the main character. The problem is that they never really ... do anything interesting with it. The MC's tulpa manifests physically, then she disappears, then reappears at the end again. Not much is done to explore this, or how inexplicably every theatre actress has superpowers (and I mean real superpowers, not chuuni delusions) that only come to life on stage. Revue Starlight this ain't, nor is this even close to the madness that was Gekidol. Instead, World Dai Star is just pretty boring for the most part with overused character archetypes playing off of each other to some nice animation and music. Though it is nice to see the otherwise super-typecasted Iwami Manaka play a character with a completely different voice than she normally does.

And I really do adore the OST too. The insert songs are fun and the melancholic piano really deserve to be in a more exciting show than this. But otherwise World Dai Star is mainly background noise, albeit pleasant background noise, to be played while doing something more fun. Like filing taxes or ironing.

5/10

<Insert Leonardo DiCaprio whistle meme here>
Oh look! It's studio Lerche and director Yuu Kinome back at the helm once again, for another round of Idoly Pride! Except, what's the plan for the ghost story plot this time?

Shows about theatrical tropes are nothing new, if you refer to the chunk of AniManga content about the thematics of performing arts that has come out in the last 5 years. Shows like Summer 2018's Shoujo☆Kageki Revue Starlight (which I still stand by my review that the show is the gold standard, even for its time) and Summer 2021's Kageki Shoujo!!, which focuses heavily on the actual all-female Takarazuka ... Revue references in its own right. World Dai Star on the other hand, created by author Takahiro of Akame ga Kill!, Yuuki Yuuna wa Yuusha de Aru and Mato Seihei no Slave fame, is a mix between both Revue Starlight and Kageki Shoujo!!, embodying the former's extreme attention to detail and everything else about the latter, from the theatrical to the core foundation and presentation aspects.

As is the foundation for all shows, there is a newbie in town to audition for some of the greatest talents there were, and in the case of this show, it's 16-year-old Kokona Otori auditioning for the Sirius theatrical troupe in the hope that she'll become a World Dai Star, representing Japan to reach out to the globe, which has seen countless Dai Star performers burst in popularity and perform wonderous acts to acclaim.

As we all know, auditions for prestigious troupes like Sirius have a high bar to follow from generations past, and the key to becoming a world-famous actress is through this ability called "Sense". In retrospect, "Sense", like a person's DNA, is unique to each and every one of the actresses' abilities, which can range from reading and adjusting the audience's mood, to reeling in others and putting the one using her Sense in control of the play onstage. But in fairness to Kokona, she doesn't have any of that, even though her accompaniment is in the form of Shizuka, a girl whom Kokona met when she was young, and only she can see her. On that note, if you watched Idoly Pride back in Winter 2021, you would immediately know what's up.

Even though Kokona faces a tough road ahead in her acceptance route into Sirius, with Shizuka's backing, she is able to cross that bar, but each and every member and staff team in Sirius are talented and distinguished in their own right: director Shamo Yamabuki, manager-cum-current World Dai Star Noa Hiiragi, and the growing potentials of Yae Niizuma, Chisa Sasuga, and Panda Yanagiba. One look at them, and you can tell that they have experience that gives them an advantage. And along with Kokona, comes foreigner Kathrina Griebel, whose family also stems from the World Dai Star treatment, with Kathrina migrating from Germany to Japan to start her road to stardom in that Sirius branch. It's a competitive world out there, and no less committed is Sirius to fleshing out potential candidates to stand out as the best of the best. Every girl competes for the top position (just like in Revue Starlight) and respects the crafts behind the fictional plays (just like in Kageki Shoujo!!), and it's once again another interesting fiction story for the main girl to stand out and realise her dream to be a top actress, starting from scratch. Other than that, it's akin to the same CGDCT tropes, but in the performing arts aspect.

To be expected, this is Lerche back at it again with the idol themes it once carved from the days of Idoly Pride, and the animation at certain times is stunning. Probably not close to the levels of said show, but when director Yuu Kinome decides to ramp up certain scenes in this show, it really hits you in the feels. The devil is in the details, and World Dai Star has it for the hook and wink of plot twists. Music is rather OK; though grand, I don't find it memorable, sadly. 

If you still have the pension for more Idoly Pride stuff, World Dai Star will fill that gap, until whenever Lerche and director Yuu Kinome want to make more of the same-same-but-different derivative of the one original show that did wonders for them. And I say to them: Let them all try.