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(Watch+) (All episodes watched): The one thing which jumps out and grabs your attention about Idolls (even more than the source of their advice) is the CG animation this short employs; it plays such a large part that it's hard to imagine what the show would be like without it. I wouldn't say that it makes facial expressions more realistic than conventional animation (actually, it may have the opposite effect), but it definitely makes something seem very different about this show. Even the voice acting seemed like it was being done in a different style than usual, unless I was imagining things. Apparently the first names of the four previously unknown VAs in this show were used for their characters as well. We get a brief, written introduction for each: Shiori (pink hair) is 'cute with a venomous tongue', which is OK because 'cute makes right'. Roka (blond) is 'cool and mysterious'. Aina (red hair) is 'the serious leader'. And Ami (purple hair) is an 'act first, think later' sort of person. What makes the show funny (I'm guessing) is the absurdity of the premise, as four girls of an undistinguished group find themselves committed to a rapidly approaching deadline to transform themselves into a truly popular outfit. The implication is that the entire story will take place in the space of ten days, which might be good news if it keeps the plot rolling. If I'm not reading too much into this show, it sort of makes fun of the idol industry, which should be entertaining. Although it didn't strike me as being unqualified brilliant, I was curious where this would go. It's noteworthy that my initial review of this eight minute short is longer than those of some 23-minute new shows. Maybe the difference between this show and conventional anime is that there's little or no 'prompt' to laugh at certain times, even though anime in general thankfully does not employ piped-in, pre-recorded laughter. The way the jokes were written and timed sometimes made me wonder if the VAs here really are idols, and were chosen for this role not because they are good at voice acting but because they are already fairly well known. Sometimes jokes would just seem to peter out without any appreciable punchline--I'd be expecting the next line to draw a laugh, but instead the VAs would seemingly give up on it and move on to the next joke. I noticed that at the time all four of them were new 'Notables' with no other roles to their names here at Mikomi. They aren't terrible, though; the show remains amusing. The big joke at the climax of episode six was about someone named Salvatore Tamai who I had never heard of, so I didn't get it at all. In episode seven the Idolls get a bizarre offer (I wondered if it was actually a joke) which could serve as their gateway into the big-time Idol industry, but it comes at a cost. It dawned on me during episode ten that this show has virtually no characters other than the four girls and the carving. Episode ten surprised me because as far as I could remember, they still had a long way to go to fill the Hoi Hoi auditorium, and I assumed there would be at least twelve episodes to this show, but here they were making their final performance. It turns out that this show has only ten episodes. We get an explanation of what has happened, but it all seemed kind of anti-climactic to me. I never really got the sense that a climax was upon us, then we were past it before I realized what had happened. But this was a comedy, after all, and the ending was sort of clever. I don't regret watching Idolls and sort of wish it actually had an eleventh- and twelfth episode. Last updated Wednesday, March 24 2021. Created Tuesday, January 12 2021. | ||||||||
