The worry I had last time was pretty much cemented at the end of the episode, along with some new ones. It’s kind of killed my excitement for the show, so let’s get into that.
Honestly I think the only things in this episode that mattered was growing and fixing the relationship between Tiara and Rosetta. They’re childhood friends but they haven’t seen each other in awhile and Rosetta’s gone back to being formal with Tiara and treating her like the princess she literally is, which Tiara doesn’t appreciate. It’s nice that we were able to see them bond and that little flashback with them as kids was pretty cute, but for some reason I’m not really into their friendship, or the characters themselves. For some reason I’m not buying it, and I’m certainly not buying the whole shipping thing they’re trying to do with them. Which leads to a new problem: I’m hate forced yuri bait. Many times in shows with large female casts, I always go into them wary for two reasons: the forced yuri bait and the show possibly devolving into a CGDCT show (which I’ll get to later). Yuri bait (as well as yaoi bait) is one of many things I just can’t stand in anime because it’s pretty much always forced. It doesn’t feel organic at all and it’s obviously only there to reel in a certain demographic, one that I’m not in so it does nothing for me except for annoy me. It also just makes the characters and their bonds feel pretty shallow, which is probably why I feel the way I do towards Tiara and Rosetta’s friendship. It just feels like another typical trope in anime, and it’s boring.
The whole CGDCT aspect was also shown here with the whole duck chase, which was completely pointless unless you like this sort of thing which, again, I’m not the target demographic for. Not all CGDCT shows are terrible but they always have this fake and forced feeling that I just don’t like. Basically, it’s just to pander. And I’m just not here for it.
One thing I did like from this episode was the whole point system in their school. In order to get out of their Lapis group, they need to get more points. But we learn that gaining and losing points is pretty easy, especially the losing part. Literally anything and everything can make you lose points. It’s like the Hogwarts system, but way more harsher (though I guess Dumbledore isn’t there to be biased towards Gryffindor the Noir groups).
We finally got to see the idol aspect of the show and just like I feared, it made no sense to me. Once I saw Yue and her girls start dancing and singing typical idol pop music, I knew this wasn’t going to work. The city they’re in runs on mana and the Orchestra (the performers?) gathers the peoples’ emotions and turns them into mana, which shows up in their performance. I just don’t get it. Why idols? The music style, the lasers and lights, and the outfits don’t match the anime’s setting at all. They definitely could have made this a magic/fantasy show and incorporated music into it, but another style would have suited it more instead of modern J-pop idols. Revue Starlight did the formula well because their style of music was akin to musicals, which was fitting because they were actresses. Here, these girls are training to be witches, and the whole idol aspect is completely forced just because. I know idols are huge, they’re popular, and I like them too but even I know that it doesn’t fit this show at all. They could have incorporated the music aspect in magical incantations (like Lost Song, even tho I haven’t seen that yet. Correct me if I’m wrong). But pop music and modern outfits in a fantasy setting just doesn’t work at all. And that might be the final nail in the coffin for me.
I’ll give this show just one more episode, but there’s too many things going against it for me. It would have been best if they just left Lapis Re:LiGHTs as a magic school anime since that’s the only part of the show I care about, but everyone’s gotta try their hand in the idol market. I do like idols but even I know it’s oversaturated. :/
