Okay, to start off with how this show is as a show. I went in not expecting too much at all, pretty much thinking that this would just be another “Love Live!” style of show, but not as good. My heart sank a bit further when I found out it was a 3D animated series (althought I liked the first season of Beastars, so I had some hope). I wasn’t expecting myself to enjoy it to the extent that I did. To begin, the animation allowed me to breathe a sigh of relief. The 3D animation was actually really charming. Sure, it might have been a little jarring at first, but it grew on me pretty quickly. It helps that a lot of animation techniques for 2D animation were used when animating the 3D models (kind of like how “Into the Spider-Verse” manages to make it work). There were a few assets and characters that were traditional, 2D animated, but they worked nearly seamlessly and didn’t pull me out of the show at all (unlike the second season of Beastars, which had its 2D characters stand out a bit too much, in my opinion). Next, I want to say that the characters were fun. They certainly weren’t the most interesting characters ever conceived, but they played their parts well and did leave an imprint on me. There are many upbeat characters out there like Rinku, and many slightly awkward, posh characters like Rei, but not all of them work together as coherently as they do here. Lastly, the story itself is nothing super noteworthy. It’s just Love Live!, but DJing. That’s pretty much it.
Okay, now to talk about the more personal biases I have. So, I work in the EDM scene professionally, and get to spend a lot of my time with touring DJs. Before I rip into this show a bit, I will say that there are a bunch of things they do get right about the whole thing! It was nice to see some basic explanations to what a DJ (and VJ) does, was cool to see varying subgenres of EDM used, and it was cool to see legitimate controllers being used. That’s kinda where it ends for me though. On the opposite end, I found it really weird to only have this weird concept of “DJ units”. Yes, groups exist, but I have never seen a group function as they do in this show. Typically, the VJ is never on stage, they work from a booth that’s usually somewhere behind the crowd, so that they’re able to actually see the stage. They also aren’t usually apart of the named musical group. You have a few exceptions like “DROELOE” prior to their split, but that’s still incredibly rare. Another thing you don’t really see is vocalists being a main staple of the group. Of course they exist, you have artists like “Koven” and even artists that are primarily/exclusively vocalists like “HALIENE”, but again it’s extremely rare, not to mention that they usually also are DJing alongside their partner(s). The last thing that really bothered me was their concept of a “remix”. They just kinda defined it as a song that uses the same melody but a different rhythm. It’s not exactly wrong, but it’s a far cry from a solid definition. They could have explained more about what a remix actually is, which brings me to what I wish they would’ve done in this show. I really wish they took some more time to explain some stuff a bit deeper, as well as introduce some of the concepts they missed. They barely explain remixes, don’t really touch the concept of music production or DAWs at all (which is like what half the show is, but they never address it), they never once mention any different subgenres by name, and they didn’t even go more into detail about DJing itself! There was a small crash course in the first episode, but it left out SO much. At least give us that, since it’s in the name of the show! Seeing more of these things would’ve been wonderful. Despite all that though, I’m still quite happy with this show! It was so cool for me to see representation of this thing that I love in this medium. It may have been a been uneducated, but it’s showing people that DJs don’t just pull up a playlist and stand there (which an unfortunate amount of people genuinely believe is how it works).
TL;DR - Good show overall. Some inaccuracies and plenty of missed information, but good to see DJing represented in another medium! :)
