May 30, 2010
This is a fun show.
The main character, Mogami Kyouko, is one of the best shoujo heroines to pop up in a long time. I adored her dual personality--she swings between being an innocent, sweet, caring girl to a vindictive, bitter one at the drop of a hat! Her facial expressions are a riot, too, especially her chibi ones.
Unlike so many heroines of this genre, Kyouko's motivation for seeking greatness in showbiz is revenge, not love. Of course, revenge is never a good motivation, and a fair portion of Kyouko's character development involves her learning to love and trust people again, or at least to learn
...
to enjoy acting for its own sake.
The rest of the main characters are equally enjoyable. Japanese voice actor Miyano Mamoru (Light from Death Note, Tamaki from Ouran HSHC) is absolutely perfect as as Shoutaro--the character's arrogance, massive ego, and adolescent attitudes are fully on display whenever he speaks. Kyouko's eventual love interest, Tsuruga Ren, voiced by the always-fantastic Konishi Katsuyuki (Kamina from Gurren Lagann, Soubi from Loveless, Hisagi from Bleach), is frankly one of the hottest bishounen to appear on screen in recent memory. He's a fully developed character too, with his own flaws and foibles. Interestingly enough, the viewer sees a good quantity of the action from his point of view, which makes him a refreshing change from the mysterious, aloof bishie that one often sees in shoujo anime. Kyouko's friend, "Mouko" and Ren's manager, Yashiro, are fine additions to the anime's cast as well.
That is not to say this anime is without flaws. The animation is rather poor, and the frame rate is embarrassingly low. Of course, there really isn't enough action in this show to really merit a high animation budget, but at least they could have used fewer still-frame shots and included a little more detail in the sparse character designs. It also seems like that the animators, every time they could, replaced the backgrounds with pink shoujo sparkles and reduced the characters to chibi forms just to save drawing effort.
The anime suffers from major pacing problems as well. The show progresses at a crawl, lingering much too long on unimportant events (like the mini-arc involving the little bratty girl) instead of progressing the plot or Kyouko's relationship with Ren. The ending (don't worry, no spoilers here) leaves something to be desired, too, as it cuts out in the middle of one of the manga arcs. It makes me wish they'd hurried up more in the beginning so they could have at least finished the storyline (perhaps they were hoping for a second season...?).
Anyway, overall this anime is worth watching. The characters, plot, and over-the-top humor simply make up for whatever compositional flaws there are.
And for those of you who've finished the anime and are looking for more, definitely pick up the manga. It eats the anime for lunch.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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