[note: there are very mild spoilers for the anime in this review ok pls]
The basics: Miki Hoshitsuki is a girl attending Shinjugamine Girls' School, and she's part of the Hoshimori class. She and her fellow classmates stand as the Earth's only hope against the mysterious Irous invaders, donning their celestial suits via the power of the Holy Tree. One day, as they're all training, a new member joins the class- a strange girl known only as Misaki.
The pacing of the anime's overarching story is odd, since most of the episodes are filler. Other than learning about Misaki's character, seeing the members of the Hoshimori class get used to her, and seeing some strange unnamed woman who seems to control the Irous (if it was in the game I missed it), episodes 1-7 (and part of episode 8) are filler. What story there is, though, gets confusing really fast. Not going to give too much away, but the anime dabbles in the idea of alternate timelines and interdimensional travel. It's ambitious, but overall ends up being a confusing mess until the conclusion where some loose ends are tied up and it's more understandable. I actually had to figure out one of the more important parts of Misaki's character on my own via YouTube because of how poorly explained it was.
The art is in the same style as the mobile game, as expected. At first, it's actually really good. But over time it kinda becomes... broken, I noticed. There really isn't much else to say, by the end there are a lot of issues but it's not unwatchable.
The sound design is varied. f*f (the obligatory idol group)'s music is really well made, but some of the BGM in the anime is fairly generic. What was I expecting, though, based on the BGM in the game? Whatever. If you like idol music (which I do), you'll like f*f's episode, the OP/ED, and their music (there's actually quite a bit). Other than that, other than maybe one track which I remember, it's forgettably passable at best.
I'm gonna admit, I can't name all of the characters by name. They're all distinct, sure, but since there are so many (20?) it's hard as hell to keep track. My favorite was Sadone, based on the game mostly, and I don't really have a least favorite since I couldn't get names down.
If you like the idea of cute girls running around in cute outfits fighting monsters, cute idol girls, girls interacting and becoming friends, or the mobile game, you will probably like this anime. If you fully understand the story of the game and/or wanted to see it animated, you will be very disappointed by this anime. If you don't like any of the things I've mentioned in this paragraph, this'll probably be your least favorite anime of the Summer 2017 season.
