Hiya o/ Quick note: This is my first review so dont expect me to go too deep into stuff but I try my best. Also this review will contain spoilers so read with caution Alright here it goes: Meet Nagase Mana a progidy idol who has an undefeated streak of winning one idol competition after the next. She fought her way all the way up to the Venux Grand Prix finals with nothing but her talent and passion to become a top idol Will she be able to achieve her dream? The answer is shocking. I originally started watching IDOLY PRIDE because I love my idol shows so there was no way for me to not watch a freshly airing idol show. I didnt even need to read the synopsis or look at the genres tags etc. all it took for me was reading the word IDOL in the title. The first episode was a huge letdown for the most people as I can see in the forum discussions about this anime and while it wasnt a huge letdown for me I still thought man this episode could have been better. I didnt know what the show was going for but I was ready to shed some tears but I couldnt... The problem with the first episode was at least for me I didnt know what to expect so I thought hm weird this is quite a fast progress until she died of course. Normally seeing who I thought was going to be the MC die the show becomes an instant tearjerker however I wasnt able to fully empathize with her as Ive only known her for the first episode and this is what kind of dissapointed me. However it turns out that this first episode basically was just a story telling episode of what happened in the past and building the world of IDOLY PRIDE which was having seen all of it now a very important episode if we look at the whole picture. As the show continues on Nagase Mana reappears in the form of a ghost which again was a huge dissapointment for a lot of people Ive seen all the forum discussions and comments about it but it appears that the ghost of Nagase Mana is a key character that led to that kind of end which we have seen just a couple hours ago by the time writing this review I want to go a bit deeper into the ghost part of this show as this seemed to be the main selling point of the show: The ghost of Nagase Mana was the most important character in this whole show because of her the idol groups went the way they went. They wouldnt have made it into the finals if not for her. The fact that only 2 chosen people can see her the very person she loves and one random girl out of nowhere is contributing a lot to the story. It might seem ironic because not even her own sister nor Sakura who got her heart implanted were able to see her but during the interpreter scenes between Nagase Mana and the others I felt like the feelings that came accross have had a much greater impact on me. I finally was able to shed the tears that I was missing in episode 1 as Ive finally got to emphasize with her as a ghost. And as it is with ghosts of a beloved person the dissapearance and the last words of that said ghost are always tearjerkers. Another point that was made against this show was the introduction of new characters over and over again without even really getting to know the already existing characters which is true for some characters however the introduction of a few certain characters were very important for the story Such as Sakura but also not to forget Mei who later on was a interpreter with Makino between Nagase Mana and the others and as a whole they form the perfect group of girls. Another point I want to mention was the point that seemingly after the first half there werent enough songs. This paid off in the long run. Why? Because the more dialogue heavy episodes built up that relationship between the girls the grind of the girls of Hoshimi Productions. In exchange for that during the Venux Grand Prix weve had many insert songs and all of them were good as well So why did this show flop? I think there are 2 reasons why this show flopped: 1. While this show was one of the shows in this season that I really enjoyed it really did flop compared to other bangers in this season. The expectations in this season were too high due to shows like attack on titan which seemed to even exceed the expectations so the bar in this season was really high which leads to the second reason 2. Most people werent ready to give it a try. Many seemed to drop it after the very first episode with arguments like I came for idols not the background story of a dude. And dropping it for this reason isnt really trying come on. But other brave soliders who really tried to give it a shot dropping the show halfway through dropped it basically just before this show turned into the idol show people expected. The result Looking at the whole piece it is another great idol anime with a good and engaging story. Everything that led to the ending we saw was just about the right amount of everything. I didnt feel like anything was missing nor too much. In the end it even made me cry and not even just once but for a whole different reason. In the end I cried because of the very same character that I couldnt shed a tear in the beginning which proves this anime did everything right for me at least. This review turned out to be quite long and I thank you for reading it all through. I hope that I was somewhat able to get my point accross emphasizing the good sides about this show that others criticized and who knows maybe someone will give it another shot after reading this thats my wish at least. Yeah... you can see the rating I gave it. Might as well take that rating with a grain of salt because my ratings are scuffed anyways. I still genuinely enjoyed this show so much in fact that I decided to write this review.