i finished 4 of the anime series i was keeping up with for spring! these series are Oshi no Ko, The iDOLM@STER Cinderella Girls: U149, Mahou Shoujo Magical Destroyers, and World Dai Star. let's talk about them!

and by the way, Oshi no Ko isn't anime of the season for me...

Oshi no Ko

i went into this blind! i wish i had read the manga, and maybe i'd be attached to more characters if i did. my favorite character... probably Ruby? despite this show having such a strong emotional impact on everyone, i can't find myself caring about anyone. but Ruby's pure passion really speaks to me.

i thought the first episode was excellent, even if i knew what would happen at the end. the worst part of it was going on social media and seeing everyone's AWFUL takes about "idol culture." this story is hardly about idol culture! it's about the entertainment industry as a whole! being so heavily invested in idols really is exhausting when once a month there's some event that makes everyone feel compelled to say their two cents...

the kaigai idol topic a month or two ago... god.

my favorite arc so far was the beginning arc with the web drama that Aqua acted in. i don't really have anything to say other than it was a good introduction to his character, and it made me excited to get invested in the mystery behind what happened...

spoilers below for the ending of episode 1

Ai's death was so oversensationalized online that i really thought it was ridiculous how much people instantly fell in love with her and became attracted to her, drawing fanart and saying they're her #1 fan. i can't think of another word other than ridiculous LMAO i think Ruby and Aqua are much better characters, and that was literally just the plot exposition...

overall it was really good at keeping my attention span and i liked it. the art and animation is amazing, and the first episode left me yearning for more series to get the same love that this one has. and, uh... my least favorite character right now is Kana... why is she so popular??? she just makes me so mad LOL sorry to all the Arima Kana likers in the world.

The iDOLM@STER Cinderella Girls: U149

PEEEEEAKKKKKKK

don't let this show fool you into believing it's meaningless and simple and cute and a boring slice of life that doesn't matter. this is my formal warning to you all, it's IDOLMASTER, it KNOWS its audience and it WILL fuck you up if it wants you to. it is episodic in necessity, with its large cast and perfect amount of episodes, but don't let it deter you from getting invested in it.

god, the amount of little references to the games, the cameos of all the more "veteran" idols, it was fanservice at its purest if you love imas as much as i do, ESPECIALLY deresute. i've wanted some of these characters to get the spotlight for who knows how long, and i'm so happy that their fanbases are probably a little stronger now because of how touching and stunning and carefully placed the artwork and story throughout is.

my favorite is Nina! i love her! one of my favorite songs of all time is Onee-chan Disco! if that specific genre of Japanese electronic "disco" mixed with pure denpa appeals to you, please love this song, and please love her, she's the cutest. she's stupid and she needs it so bad... no matter your gender, maybe we can all be her onee-chan!

i, too, was blind and thought this was just a silly cute anime about kids. and then episode 11 happened.

light spoilers below for episodes 11 and 12

the anime doesn't try to hide how much it cares about Arisu. it keeps your expectations high, and it knows how not to let you down. half the episodes leading up to her own show her anxiety and self-doubt, and is letting you know that they're going to go all out when it's her time to shine. Arisu and Momoka have always been the more prominent kids in the stories in the mobile game. Momoka having such a simple episode about her going outside of her comfort zone made me falsely feel that U149 wasn't going to reach any emotional heights, and this was just a simple appreciation project for the younger main cast. boy, was i fucking wrong, and i'm so glad i was.

when i heard the first notes of in fact play, i felt my heart squeeze and my throat close up. the animation for this episode cannot be overstated, the way that it goes into a completely different style just to express her inner feelings of conflict, her dreams, her yearning to feel allowed to be included with everyone else. seeing how well they handled her struggles, her feeling like her own dreams aren't worth anything because her parents gave more attention to their work than her. i've heard this song so many times, and yet this scene made me start BAWLING. the sheer difference in the previous 10 episodes compared to this one. i'm so glad they did this. everything about her feelings and her story is beautiful.

i gained a new 10/10 anime that day. i don't have very many. the way episode 11 was handled was very reminiscent emotionally to how Chihaya's arc was handled in the original anime. AND I CRY THINKING ABOUT THAT ANIME OVER TEN YEARS LATER! TEN!!!

Mahou Shoujo Magical Destroyers

aodofugh... the haters... they were right... they don't deserve to be... but they are...

i think the icing on the cake is, the day i finished watching magides, the mobile game announced EoS within about 4 months of it being live.

the animation in the last two episodes was awesome. and the OP is one of the best OPs i've ever heard in the anime, measuring very close to songs like metanoia, a song i had on repeat long before even watching symphogear XV.

i have so many complicated feelings about this show. i loved how silly it was, and i loved seeing the characters bond with each other. my favorite was definitely Blue. i wanted to keep my expectations low, but it kept speaking so highly about itself, claiming to be this revival of an older otaku culture. every episode had me thinking about what it was trying to be, instead of what it actually was, and it felt like self-sabotage.

i got really invested a few episodes in, but everything in between felt like padding before being allowed to continue the plot to the climax. it cared little about actually investing in the characters, and instead used the time given to itself to fall on tropes, as if it was saying "hey guys, this is just a homage! it's not ACTUALLY a lazily used trope! we care!"

i think after i rewatch this, i'll have more cohesive thoughts, but for now, i just feel so... disappointed that it wasn't what it constantly said it was. maybe i missed something? but people around me have similar opinions, and i feel validated in my feelings, so i don't know if i can be that optimistic.

seriko needs to voice more crazy psychotic fucked up characters man

World Dai Star

ooouuuuu my expectations were through the floor because i thought this was going to be a repeat of Teppen!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (that's 15 exclamation marks for 15 characters, wow) except for theater kids, but it took itself so seriously that i feel bad for even thinking that.

this was made by the guy who wrote Yuuki Yuuna wa Yuusha de Aru, among other series i never got into like MajiKoi and Akame ga Kill. apparently people had high expectations for it because of that, thinking it'd be some over the top mindfuck with soulful comedy or something like that, but i'm glad i'm not acquainted with his works and hardly remember YuYuYu, so i didn't have any feelings of being let down. the original designs were by Mika Pikazo, who has amazing artwork with vibrant colors and strong face shapes, but their character designs almost always seem out of place if they're not in some psuedo-techno VTuber-esque setting. yes, i'm talking about that fire emblem game. but thankfully here, the designs are way more subdued and are fitting for an animation about idol-adjacent girls.

is anyone else just kind of a little too sick of yuribait like i saw two girls kiss and it was one of the least gay things i've ever seen. bitch make them like fall in love n shit...

(don't compare it to Revue Starlight, don't compare it to Revue Starlight, don't compare it to Revue Starlight...)

i don't really have anything to say about it. it's good. it's not amazing, but it's a good experience. the... schizo? yuri? whatever that was? it was very...??? ?????????????? the way that it was just accepted as a thing by everyone? i really appreciated the main cast, knowing that the protagonist, Kokona, was always in the shadow of yae, the most talented girl at the theater agency, felt good. it kind of sucks when protagonists get everything handed to them, and this show was aware of that. so at least that was good. knowing Kokona couldn't do nearly as much on her own, without Shizuka, was interesting too.

in the performance of The Phantom of the Opera i was so mad that Kathrina didn't get the main role, that scene of her practicing was literally the best part of the whole anime idc what anyone else thinks, that shit was awesome. they need to stop making bilingual girls speak a third language they don't even know though, holy shit, the scenes where Kathrina speaks German to her mom...

my favorite character was Kathrina, easily. she deserved to win. she felt like she had the most stakes out of anyone in the show.

i plugged in my fan today, so that means the summer anime season is here! i don't know what i'm keeping up with yet. i have to finish the stuff i started from spring, too. all i know is i'm keeping up with Mushoku Tensei... i barely skimmed the list for this summer and i hardly saw anything that interested me. i probably won't be writing about any new anime for a while, but look forward to me writing about other stuff!

thanks for reading!

- creacher