Summary
President Kuroi makes a last-ditch attempt to sabotage 765 Pro by bribing the technicians and the makeup artists, forcing Chihaya to sing at the Idol Jam concert a capella. However the technician changes his mind and starts up the music again, resulting in an amazing performance. Finally fed up, Jupiter quits 961 Pro and apologizes to the Producer for all the trouble Kuroi has caused. To celebrate the performance, 765 Pro are all taken to a restaurant where to their surprise, Kotori is singing on stage.
Impression
Chihaya still sings just as beautifully a capella as she does with the music, and she is easily apart from Miki of course one of my favourite idols in 765 Pro. Given her tragic past and all, it was really dread of President Kuroi to just expose everything and crush her completely, so I was really happy to see her given the support of her fans back, after some closure with her brother from last ep. On a side note, that insert song Yakusoku is simply stunning. Can’t wait for it to come out in full xD
We also had closure on the 765 Pro vs 961 Pro front, where Kuroi’s last-ditch attempt was foiled once again! I was cheering when the sound technician went: “fuck it, I’m putting the music track back on” even after being bribed by Kuroi to sabotage Chihaya’s performance. In terms of Jupiter, I would really have liked to see Touma beat the shit out of Kuroi, but I guess his career would have been ruined or something.
Either way he did the next best thing and quit 961 Pro, so it’s okay, you’re less of an ass now xD Oh and he was a man and apologized out straight to Producer, so I can forgive him a bit at least. It would have been awesome if Jupiter had ended up joining 765 Pro, but that would break the whole girl idol motif, and I’m not too into man fanservice. Eva you might be though?
Everyone’s pasts turned out to be more connected than expected – while I didn’t rule out completely the idea in the back of my mind that Kotori might have been an idol, the fact that she was being produced by the two presidents (when they were still BFFs) was surprising. President Kuroi was hinted to be not so evil after all, just a bit “awkward with his feelings” apparently. Yeah, that would solve a lot of good-turned-bad characters in anime if that’s how they write all their evil deeds off. Looking at you Sasuke. Anyway, after all that tension and underhanded tactics that Kuroi used against 765 Pro, I think Takagi was a bit too easily forgiving.
If we look at this arc as being the climax of the series, then I’m not too sure where iDOLM@STER will go from here, but it had better be something that does this series justice xD