The iDOLM@STER Episode 23: HARUKA! HOW COULD YOU?

Summary

Haruka continues to go back and forth between her work appointments and the 765 Pro office, only to find almost no-one there for rehearsals as they have other jobs or are running late. Everyone’s time together is further cut away by the cancellation of Are We Live? Sunday! due to the show taking up a lot of Sunday air time. When Haruka is up against Miki for a lead role in a play, Producer comes to visit and saves Haruka from falling into a lift shaft, at the cost of falling in himself.

Impression

HARUKA! You bad, bad girl! It’s all very nice and well being angsty and all that, but how could you push Producer down a lift shaft? Okay maybe that was a bit of an exaggeration, and was probably more an accident than intended. BUT STILL! It was almost like there was some evil foreshadowing back at the Are We Live! episode where movie Haruka was the antagonist O_O

I wouldn’t think that Producer would need that much momentum to save Haruka, but that made the actual impact of his fall really unexpected o.O I was like: wait, am I watching iDOLM@STER? Haruka looked extremely depressed though, and I did feel really bad every time she walked into the 765 Pro office and it was just Kotori or President Takagi there. While it’s good that everyone has more jobs, I do miss the early episodes where the office was all lively and cheery.

We saw signs of everyone at 765 Pro drifting apart last episode, where everyone had a lot of trouble getting to the Christmas party but managed to make it in the end. I wonder why Haruka doesn’t have more work herself – she seems to be the only idol that can afford to sit around in the office, while many other idols have other appointments (and Chihaya even got an overseas offer!) Even Yukiho managed to get a lead role in a concert, and performed amazingly too. It’s clear that out of all of them, Miki is probably the most successful, being both talented as well as keen to impress her Honey. That was an outright rejection to Haruka’s good nature by openly declaring a rivalry for the play’s lead role there xD

Whooo, just a few episodes after the Chihaya incident and already iDOLM@STER is spiralling down into more depression. I wonder how Haruka will react once she realizes that indirectly, it was because of her that the Producer is now in surgery.