The series is over, but I'll try my best not to spoil it too hard, I still advise you to watch it first. Henceforth you're reading at your own peril. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!
I'm going to start with the visual aspect first. Typical SANZIGEN it's 3D, which I have mixed fillings about (the 3D that is). Usually, the visual quality isn't something I care for. I'm of the belief that a good premise, well written characters, or a strong story direction are more important than visual quality. Of course, there are times that the visuals are a part of the viewing experience and in those cases, it should be taken into consideration. The backgrounds are pretty drab, with heavy digital compositing, but this is a SoL so drab comes with the territory nowadays. The character designs I'm not a fan of, they feel robotic almost mannequinlike, with their plastic movement when dancing. That causes me to cringe pretty hard at times. Might I mention the screen shake during performances too?
Okay let's talk about the sound, as this is a music-based series, this is an important aspect. Let's start with the BGM (outside of performances), nothing remarkable, typical for SoL 'elevator music'. On to the voice talent (VA, Seiyuu whatever you want to call them), VAs outside of the music performances are okay, they fit the characters fine, though it's important to note that I don't care about VAs at all. I accept that baseline voice acting is at least at a 6/10 almost always and is notable only when the character is synonymous with the voice performance. I talked a lot about other stuff but you are probably wondering how are the musical performances. Well, that all depends on your taste and preferences in music. At the time of writing, I've seen a bit over half of the series, the songs so far consist of some heavy auto-tune, electro-dance, techno, and dubstep. I don't like any sort of club style music, meaning I didn't really enjoy the musical performances. Fun fact Maho Akashi's VA Karin Kagami plays in the dub as well... for a jap it's okay I guess, though if I were to judge her in terms of dub performance it's quite terrible.
I'll discuss the story and characters together because there really isn't much to talk about. There isn't any story here, it just has a basic setting, and that is fine in a SoL series such as this. But in that case, one would be led to believe that the characters are good. What do I mean by good you may ask? Well written, well-realized, have fun personalities, have chemistry. Any of this in some sort of combo is what I would like to see, after all, SoL lives and dies by its characters. The characters here surmount to nothing but a paper-thin sack of tropes. They lack backstories, personalities, quirks... We have loud and hyper, cool and mature, shy and narcissistic, rich and stoic. That's all, feels like they took quite a bit of inspiration from K-On. There is very little drama, no conflict, no challenges to be overcome. Everything is always hunky-dory and smooth, by the end of an episode.
Hopefully, by now I've justified my opinion to you, and maybe you might see my side of things. My intentions are only to tell others of a similar mindset to not waste their time here. This is an unoriginal anime, with uninteresting cardboard cutouts, stiff 3D dancing, and bad music. Though I'll admit I'm biased. I love SoL quite a bit and this series fell off a cliff for me. The pace is quite fast which is counterintuitive of SoL. And with that I leave you with a; thank you. Cheers!
