Hindsight is 20/20. At first, I was left disappointed at the ending. The first half of this anime brought my hopes up, you see. I thought this would turn out to be a serious story, not unlike the likes of its predecessor "Idolish7" or even "A3". Instead of diving deep into a single Idol group's story, then tying that up with a neat bow and moving on to the next, we ended up jumping from group to group, in a rushed attempt to develop all characters at the expense of the continuity of our original group's story. "Wasted potential."... was the only way I could sum it up.
But something didn't feel quite right to me, even after the season. The songs were too good, to be some hastily patched up song written to fill airtime. That said, I couldn't find a game this could be based on, either. The art, too, seemed too good (even the cgi seemed more fluid than others, complimented by insane cinematography especially for the last episode) for the normal funding of an Idol anime. And why are so many of the voice actors new faces, yet have such insanely good singing voices? Special training???
Turns out, this anime was based on the youtube account, "UniteUp!". According to their account description, '“UniteUp!” is the character-based music channel that unite talents and introduces a wide variety of vocalists and singer-songwriters pursuing their dreams, including those more obscure ones.' In other words, this is an anime pulled together using actual hit songs from a youtube channel (not unlike Kagerou Days or Honeyworks), using totally green VA's that are mostly obscure Youtubers, and the few VA that are more experienced to guide them.
Now, I shall begin judging each of the individual components of this anime:
Sound (Voice-acting): All that background above really puts into perspective everything I heard here. There were new voices, unique and never heard before in my 15 years of watching anime. He (who I shall not name. You will know once you hear him) is refreshing, both speaking and singing. The bubbles of joy in his voice really tickle my sides. Even the guitarists here have beautiful voices when hitting high notes. Everyone here did such an unbelievably good job, I wouldn’t have imagined any of them to be so new at this.
Sound (Music): Excellent, in short. Beats out most of its predecessors most times, even, spanning many musical genres. Try listening to Legit’s “Fire”, Anela’s “Break Border”, Kikunoyo’s “iino”, Daiki Takao’s “Call”, or Haruka’s “Super Star” on Youtube, if music is a win-all, break-all in anime for you.
Art: Smooth and beautifully animated, easily amongst the best within the Idol (male) genre. Their lives were not just music to my ears, they were a treat for the eyes too.
Characters: Passable, without context. Exciting, with context.
With the design of the 4 groups and the 12-episode screentime, it was unavoidable that we end up with an uneven development across the board to begin with. The pair from Anela who retired as top idols and went on to become our producers naturally had a deep past that breathed realism and charm into them with their story. Our main trio from Protostar learnt and grew, both as individuals and as a team, through the ups and downs and with the unwavering support of the agency as a whole. The progression of Legit’s centre, however, felt a bit too stilted with that deux ex machina in the end (though some may argue how else were they supposed to resolve it without running into overtime?), and Jaxx-Jaxx was practically designed so the non-vocals will fall into the background whenever the limelight is not on them. All had the limelight on them at some point of time so even those new to this fandom will be mildly endeared to them in the end. Still, towards the end, it felt like the agency was more a collective beehive than their own individuals, everyone sharing exactly the same opinion in order to push the plot along. There was Akira’s Naruto-no-jutsu, too. It required a lot of suspension of disbelief from me, as someone from outside the fandom coming in expecting a serious drama.
As a present fan of their Youtube account though, had I gone into this as a fan, I do think I would have been super-hyped just to be able to see the characters behind the songs I so love, take in their previously unknown backstory, and savoured every group and their dynamics so much more. Hence my current need to write this review for possible fans-to-be like me. (I am soo rewatching this anime to properly savour it after this.) A lot would have been more forgivable had I went in with the expectation of “cute anime featuring cute boys (only)”.
Story: In short, go in without expectation of a drama. This isn’t Idolish7, A3, or even Ensemble Stars. The purpose of this anime is not really to show a lengthy, serious story. It is to lay the guidepost for the Youtube Channel to direct future fans to, so as to “show rather than tell” their ‘singers’ backstories, and hopefully endearing their ‘singers’ to them along the way. For the most part, with everything now in perspective, I think they did a brilliant job not segregating episodes into completely jolting “arcs” by groups like their predecessors (ie. TsukiPro) did. There was a nice flow to everything and an actual story coming along, despite how we hopped group to group, before they pulled in the “Scandal”. Had they been given a longer runtime, the producers certainly could have done a better job of presenting said scandal – but this anime is not meant to be Idolish7, or to be a rhetoric of the Idol industry.
TLDR: Overall, this anime was created just so we have a place to chill, relax, and enjoy the growth of cute boys. Listen to the songs of their Youtube songs before jumping in, to get a feel for the characters first. Don’t expect a serious story. You’ll definitely be rewarded for this.
