For one, 22/7 has a ridiculous premise. I will spoil it right here, so here we go: The reason why all 8 girls were summoned to become an idol group was because a giant Wall (yes, WALL) that an entire secret facility was build around on spit out a golden plate that said so.
I want to inform anyone that might not know this, but 22/7 is a real idol group. Which decided to make a promo anime. With a magic fantasy wall that spit out the absolute order that these girls are the key to form the ideal idol group. If this isn’t a promo that shows you are a little too full of yourself, I don’t know what is.
The wall’s orders are all absolute, truthful and all just work successfully every time. Meaning this series has no stakes. No stakes they might fail or any other emotional stakes because the series doesn’t bother to invest into any other element of a story.
The entire show is the characters doing some idol shit, implying they are struggling, instead grotesquely succeeding because the WALL is just the baddest boss ever and giving every single member an artificially emotional and dramatic backstory for the viewers to feel for them. Because this is how we write anime.
I don’t actually know if every member of this idol group has these backstories in real life, but I honestly doubt it by how anime and predictable they were.
Aspects I liked about the show were the strong production values. Having Yukiko Horiguchi as character designer on your team as well as a director or episode directors that bump out several great layouts is in your favor. Though since this is not Kyoto Animation, most of the effort put into the animation falls relatively flat because this studio isn’t all too well equipped to draw the taxing character designs of Yukiko as well as the script not being tight enough to actually justify any of the creative decisions. I wouldn’t say much is off-model but some scenes look more cleaner and better polished up than others. All the characters are but only pretty character designs of specific-archetype-number X with fake emotional backstories to back them up, that are so artificially crafted most people couldn’t fall for it if they tried. Though the reviews and almost 7.0 average score are telling me that it worked for some folks for sure.
I would be lying in denying that I didn’t enjoy the emotional core of episode 7, which not only striked me with its incredible storyboard layouts and fairly good plot, but I cannot say so for everything else in the show. All backstories, even the one I somewhat enjoyed, were just raw templates ripped out of the book “How to create a mediocre anime” and make no actual sense in context of the interal logic of the series. I will tell you a secret: Giving every character in your show a backstory isn’t going to make them get fleshed out or feel more authentic, especially when all the backstories are badly written and dishonest in their emotional core. The show is of one cour length, you could’ve made a competent idol anime out of what talent they already had on board by having a competent script writer just write idols be idols and fleshing them out with having to handle the struggles of the work and in their interactions with their group, but all of these aspects fall short because half of every episode has to be backstory time.
And if that wasn’t the worst aspect: I don’t think some members can sing. Some sound completely tone-deaf and to that are terrible voice actors, some are a little more authentic. Overall making the idol group voice act their “character” was not a smart idea, as they mostly sound bad. Especially the performances are underwhelming. The melodies are generic and forgettable and the lyrics are self-important and pretentious. Especially the debute song is a pack off ass. Singing about “Life is so hard” – urgh, just makes me sick.
So overall what makes 22/7 not great is the badly written script, artificial and bland characters but having a generally great production even if the team cannot handle it like a KyoAni would. But what made it really bad was the finale. The finale just flat out made the anime say to the viewers that they don’t care in explaining the Wall at all. The last episode was actually hilarious, I recommend watching that one at least.
This anime didn’t give a fuck. For sure some of the production team did, because I consider it a good production, but the actual product is an empty husk and creatively bankrupt piece of “art” that serves exactly one point – promo for an idol group.
They didn’t care to write an authentic, genuine and emotional script, they just wrote some “anime bullshit” premise and then threw in emotional backstories to sway any uneducated viewer easily.
Also let the characters grow to love being an idol seemingly off-screen and make them all emotionally invested in the job right before the last order of the wall is delivered towards the end of the show, then let the plot commence and leave the show end with a “bang” – all to promote an idol group. One of the harshest industries there are. And they glorify this work in this anime as well.
22/7 sucked and was among the most banal and shameless promos I have seen, while wasting some great animation talent in the same process. Truly shameful.
Overview
Story: 1/10 – Absolutely terrible
Art & Animation: 7/10 – Really good with great layouts. Not on a KyoAni level, though it felt like they tried with having Yukiko on the team
Sound: 4/10 – Terrible voice acting and pretentious and artificially emotional lyrics, falls in theme with the show. It did have a decent OST and sounddesign though.
Character: 2/10 – Nothing humane.
Enjoyment: 6/10 – I did have a good time even if some of it was laughing by how dumb it was
Idol: 3/10 – It speaks for itself
Overall: 4.0 (range: 3.5-4.5, strong 3 to light 4)
