I'll keep it a buck on the sound and art: I love both now, but I didn't always. I will say I saw a lot more to love this season as far as the art style was concerned, but I came to love it initially since it wasn't entirely eye-catching. The sound--talking about the OSTs here rather than the idol groups' music--has its moments, but for the most part, it's pretty average.
This anime still deserves a ten, though, because it baffles me how well IDOLISH7 can tell a story. Even though this anime is the best in the genre, it *is* still an idol anime, and yet the story feels as high stakes as a Shounen. That's insane, to me. The story in this season was really damn good, and that's because it took the parameters of an idol anime and did the absolute most with them.
Not to mention the character work, holy hell. This anime can get *dark,* y'all. I mean this honestly: I've seen anime with cult followings do character development worse than this anime, and especially this season in particular (FMAB, I'm lookin' at you). It isn't like every character has a storyline that's deep and meaningful this season, but there were key characters that were focused on that allowed every character to develop in some way through the struggles the focal characters were going through. And when I say this anime can get dark, I mean that it's not afraid to go to the dark corners of these characters' minds to retrieve a realistic representation of what they're feeling in the context of the story. I mean, the touchy-feely moments/speeches were usually cringy with a few exceptions, but everything else was done so well. I felt so connected to these characters the entire time.
More people need to watch this anime because, for real, it's something special. I don't feel that way about a lot of things, but IDOLISH7 has convinced me. I'm pumped for the next stage.
