Hm all the reviews Ive written so far have been for music anime except one show I mostly watched for the fact my absolute favourite male VA was in a main role. Heres a review on a show that is both of those It also feels like a really good show to be my 150th completed entry too... such a music anime. Music: Eheh... yeah this beats out D4DJ in terms of crap music no question... I can hardly tolerate listening to it. I thought it was just rap in general that was the problem but I ended up realising with the two improv songs in ep6 its just the music I dont like not the singing. Problem is every song in this has music I dont like. Either being very slow or being kinda technoy... or something. I dunno I just dont like the music style. Thinking on it... the reason BAEs songs are the least objectionable ones to me might not actually be cause of my favourite male VAhttps://anilist.co/staff/123286 but the musics... still bad but not atrocious. Oh and uh... The opening and ending are not exceptions to the crap music. Ive gone over the quality and genre of the songs... so insert quantity is the only thing left to discuss here. I think it averages to just under one an episode. Make of that what you will. Story: It has a lot of unique concepts for sure. Music anime with competitions surprisingly seem to be actually kinda rare most competitions just being oneoff battle of the bandstype showdowns and the only other music anime I can think of where the entire plot of a season was a competition it was not a tournament competition. Add the unique setting which only truly becomes unique with that twist at the end of ep1... it has some very unique and interesting concepts. But obviously having a good concept doesnt necessarily make a good story. For one thing the competition is far from the main point that being the character drama. So in truth that unique aspect is not that relevant... It also takes a bit longer than most music anime for the overarching drama to finally kick up. Most take 67 episodes but here... while ep7 does set up a good mystery for the overarching plot...the next episodes drama does not tie into the overarching plot besides one offhanded comment. And then ep9 contains a couple further plot setups... but most of the rest of the episode has nothing of relevance nor gives much more depth to the cast. Thus only the final quarter is where the overarching plot actually hits the climax... if ep10 even counts towards it which I dont feel it does with lacking in relevance it is. I probably wouldve taken the relevant bits from episodes 9 and 10 and put them elsewhere while giving more time for the climax drama... probably best altered through a bit more explanation... It doesnt have a particularly conclusive ending either nor does it have end in a way that gives much to go off in the way of a sequel except maybe one unanswered question... Characters: Introducing all the groups at base level in the first episode then dedicating an episode afterwards to developing each of the groups... naturally that is a good strategy and... while they didnt pull it off perfectly as some characters do still have very little personality most of the cast do indeed have at least something memorable about them besides appearance. First up Ill go over the members of the main group... starting with of course the main character. Hes very passionate and loves music and performing... though he doesnt seem to have much personality besides that passion. His backstory is good and quite emotional even so... but still... Hajun... an ice cold ruthlessly blunt guy who even comes off as arrogant at times yet also can put up a facade of being... whatever the traits are of the stock princely archetype I guess which many fellow students and/or fans I would assume believe is his true personality. If it werent for how truly icy he is most of the time his backstory would probably make him one of my favourites but as it is I dont care for him much one way or the other. I mean the second part where they talk about his backstory is pretty emotional but ehh... And then Anne who... yeah sorry I dont know what their personality is at all. I cannot grasp any concrete traits. And their backstory is the least explored of the main groups members too... like sheesh I wanted to like them but theyre just boring. Then forming the group known as cozmez there are the twins who I do not like mentioning by name as both of them share their name with a character from a series I love one of whom even sharing his name with a twin from that series too though their names are written with different kanji. ahem Tangent aside theyre fairly good characters moreso the older one for having a clearer personality with an interesting relationship Id say. The only issue I have them is how quickly the drama of their focus episode was dealt with... at least it was a petty matter but even so. The next group to talk about is The Cats Whiskers... lead by a university professor who rambles a lot. I think thats like his only personality trait. Yohei has a sarcastic streak and uhhh... I feel like I should be able to point out more concrete traits he has but Im drawing a blank. Ryu is an enigma and his wild antics... teeter close to what I would consider annoying but he can be pretty funny with his... very offbeat and wild nature. Then my favourite character Shiki who is a precious socially awkward bean lacking in selfconfidence... and with an interesting connection to the overarching plot. Then Akanyatsura... is where the fact they failed at pulling of that strategy I mentioned as well as they could have. Even with their focus episode only one of the five has any clear personality being a goesathisownpace animal lover and two of them dont have... anything standout about them at all while the other three including the animallover at least have interesting backstory tidbits. And uhhh... there are four other characters but none of them get any focus until literally the final two episodes. Overall: Its fun sure with interesting worldbuilding great concepts and some emotional moments but they didnt develop the cast as well as they could have leading to only a few being memorable and the overall plot... while solid was not especially good coming to a head far too late and with a fairly meh ending. Its not something Id outright dissuade people from watching as it is entertaining probably more so if you actually like the music but its far from being good. It definitely couldve been a lot better though. So I kinda want there to be a s2 as well... music anime sequels tend to improve on the first season a lot... Also the animation quality at least in the later episodes is pathetic at times. Like one scene a guy turns around and there are literally no in between frames. I think thats the single worst animated scene in the show at least. But even so...