The best way to describe watching this show is like eating a piece of stale white bread. Yeah it’s technically food, yeah it won’t make you sick, but it’s bland, flavorless, and hard to chew. That is the best comparison I can think of for this series. And thank god the loaf of bread it finally over.
Every single minute of this show pissed me off. From beginning to end. Everything made me frustrated, bored, or mad. Plot threads were introduced, then forgotten about, endings were thrown in, and characters were introduced when they shouldn’t have existed in the first place. I just….fuck it. fuck it. let’s just review these final two episodes so I can stop talking about this shitty show.
So episode 11 opens with up a young girl being sad that she’s alone all the time. That’s pretty much all you need to know.
It turns out that this girl’s name is Leilei. (at least i think it is. I really don’t fucking care) And she’s an insanely popular idol from America.
(Sigh)
I hate when they do this. Yes. Yes we have popular singers in America. Yes they hold concerts. But we do not have what Japan considers “idols” in the states. There’s a culture that goes along with the concept of idols and America doesn’t do that. Especially with the whole “little girl with a stuffed animal” look. That is a cultural thing. That would not be considered cute in America, that would be considered creepy if you were a fan. If you were to ask any American about idols they’d be like “um..you mean like ‘American Idol’?” Because it’s not a thing we have. Argh. I’m one minute in and this concept already pisses me off.
So she comes to Japan and her company starts stealing all of the airtime and jobs from the other models including cancelling the announcement of an anime. (sigh) (puts face in hands) I just….THIS is the conflict of your magical girl show? THIS is what you deem important enough to make into a series when this isn’t your main focus? Remember that whole Fan card thing? Is…is that still important? Or are we caring about missed gigs?
You know, speaking of bullshit, I actually just started watching Idolm@ster and I realized something very interesting. First of all, this show came out over 3 years ago, and, guess what, there’s an idol character who’s girly but her idol persona is being a tomboy. GEE? SOUND FUCKING FAMILIAR?!
I’ve only seen 2 episodes of that series, and i’m already more invested in this stupid motherfucking piece of 12 episode crap. Ugh. i’m going to give myself a brain aneurysm. Where was I?
Oh yeah, so the three, having a day off go to the amusement park, where they run into the American idol, who, for no reason at all, speaks perfectly fluent Japanese. BECAUSE WHY THE FUCK NOT. This is a trope that really pisses me off. When Americans just straight up speak fluent Japanese for no other reason that “we’re too fucking lazy to have her speak English and put Japanese subtitles or come up with a reason of why she would speak Japanese”.
So her and the three become friends. Yay! Friendship!
After they separate, they find out that she’s going to sing at the Tokyo Dome. You know, that thing that they’ve been trying to do for the whole series. Because you know, having this giant lofty goal set up by the characters, it’s totally cool to have a random character that we’ve never heard from before just come in and do the thing the three main characters have been vying for their whole lives. No, no, that’s fine. Really. Just belittle the point of the series. Really, it’s fine. I don’t give a shit anymore.
So I bet you’re wondering where those mascot animals have been this episode. Well, they have literally been on vacation. No, that’s the actual reason they gave for their absence. They were visiting their homeworld. WHICH APPARENTLY YOU CAN TAKE A BUS TO.
However, they then sense a monster and get off the bus. And the monster then proceeds to kick the shit out of them. And that’s where episode 11 ends.
Fuck I have one more of these? Goddamn it. Fine.
Episode 12 picks up with the three girls finding their mascots having been beaten up. Oh yeah. and I forgot to mention the monster stole all their Fan – C cards. Because of course it did. All three of the mascots recognize LeiLei as the monster, so the girls go to investigate at her concert.
They sense a monster so they all excuse themselves to transform. They do, and they find out that the doll she always carries around was the monster that possessed her and she is using the power of all the Fan-C cards to make everyone love her.
Then, with the power of the three of them combined, they defeat the evil and she turns good again. Huzzah.
Okay, I may have just made this climax seem incredibly rushed, boring, and uninteresting. But that’s only because it was. There are several reasons that this was uninteresting and didn’t work.
- This leilei chick was just introduced last episode. She came straight out of the writer’s ass so we had no desire to see her be saved, we had no point of reference for her, and her motivation seemed weak at best, and her origin was rushed and fucking stupid.
- The only thing these girls ever do is use their special move. And the special move never fails. For an example that I have used in the past, let’s go back to Sailor moon. There were times when her special move didn’t fucking work. And that made it interesting. Without fail EVERY SINGLE TIME their special move has worked. You have no reason to think it WON’T work, and it’s boring.
- They spend so little time on the “Magical Girl” Aspect of the series that it really leaves you with so many questions you don’t even know where to begin like “Why are there Fan-C cards?” “who made these magical girl powers?” “Why did one of the monster cards want to help Leilei?” “Who made the Fan C-Cards?” Now for anybody who’s saying that they may have answered any of these questions in episode 1, that brings me to the point of, These things should be important to a series. If I don’t know WHY someone’s doing something just saying “oh well they mentioned it offhandedly in episode 1 once” isn’t a good answer.
Oh yeah. And I forgot to mention (because I knew you were biting your nails wondering if this was going to happen) Blonde chick and cross haired dick end up together. ….yayyyyyyyy (twirls finger unenthusiastically)
You know what would have been a twist? If he ended up NOT liking her in that way and they had to continue on with their lives with that knowledge. You know, maybe a sort of realistic twist ending? But nope. NOPE. Gotta go with the stock, uninspired Hollywood ending because this show couldn’t have an original thought in its fucking head. So sure. Pair together the two characters who shouldn’t even exist and were invented for this series and weren’t even IN the original.
Why did they focus so much of the screentime on these two fuckers? If i’m watching a series revamp of an older series I loved, why, dear god why would you invent two new characters that had NOTHING to do with the original and have them take up 1/2 of the entire series? Why? Seriously. Why?
Oh yeah. The epilogue. The rabbit thing comes back and tells Komugi that more bad shit is going down and she has to become a magical girl again.
This series is the most uninspired shit I have seen in a long long time. I feel like simply typing this review isn’t adequate to describe how much of a letdown this series was and everything that is wrong with it. I would write a college thesis on how this series failed to deliver on every single possible level.
A perfect example of wasted potential is Koyori’s changing personality when she hits her head and how she becomes a dominatrix. It was VERY lightly touched upon in this series, almost as a nod to the original, but then it’s completely forgotten about. She was a main villain of the original because of this, but this was completely forgotten about and never used to become anything interesting whatsoever. This is the level of shit they do here.
In the old series the bad guys came from a virus world. Hence why she was a NURSE. See how that works? She was a nurse and therefore had to defeat viruses. HOLY CRAP! SENSE MAKING! In this one they brought in a much more subdued version of Koyori (and…changed her name for some strange reason) and also added Mary Sue Nun girl.
i have already bitched long and hard about the fact that they brought in these new characters for absolutely no reason considering they had a PLETHORA of characters to choose from in the original series, but it’s something that has to be repeated. EVERYTHING was stripped from the original. The comedy, the charm, the wit, EVERYTHING.
This series did not feel like a magical girl show. It felt like someone was trying to rip off IdolM@ster and realized they had to throw some magical girl stuff in there so they didn’t get sued.
I..I can’t keep this up. fuck this show.
Episode 11: 4/10
Episode 12: 2/10
Head: This plot had so much potential. SO MUCH potential. An updated version of Komugi? This should have been fucking hilarious! But it wasn’t. The plot was dull, it was overdone, they tried to play it so straight it hurt. The characters were bland, the story went nowhere, and everything involved in the story was dragged out, until the end where an ending was rushed and felt very forced. With a few rare exceptions like the episode with Komugi and the ninja challenge, I normally couldn’t stand this show. ESPECIALLY the episodes with Blonde fuck. Also, it’s boring and a ripoff.
Head: 3/10
The art….was okay. I’m personally a fan of the original more, but that’s because it was overexaggerated and fun. This time around they toned it down and you could tell from the start it was meant to be more family friendly than the previous series. There are a few art things that bug me though. Like….why the shiny hair balls. The fuck is up with that?
Eye 6.5
Heart:
Oh my god could this series have dropped the ball any harder with this? I don’t think so. There was NO heart in this show. I didn’t feel ANYTHING other than boredom, annoyance, or hatred for the entire series. At least for a series like Vanadis I could FEEL hatred. This….THIS I couldn’t feel a damn thing. It’s like I had a feeling-ectomy. Nearly every single episode I sat here in a dumbstruck stupor. This was by far one of the stripped down, basic, by the numbers, uninspired pieces of trash I have ever seen. THIS is a series that was made by a “by the numbers” corporate board meeting. It has every trope you can think of, but they forgot to include the love. Even shows that are TERRIBLE by my standards, I can at least feel that there was some love involved. But this. THIS really feels like someone fed anime tropes into a machine and it spat out a script. This was so painful to watch. I really wanted to stop. I really did. And trust me. If I wasn’t reviewing it, I would have stopped.
Heart 2/10
Total score: 3.83/10
Seriously. Fuck this show. I do not recommend it. DO NOT WATCH IT. If you want to watch this series, watch the old OVA. it’s far more enjoyable and will actually make you laugh. This isn’t worth being a doorstop or a really expensive coaster.
But man…. Fuck this show. I’m done. I’m just…I’m done.
-Hideki
