To be frank even though I have started to warm up to the music genre idol generally isnt for me. Hypnosis Mic was a big exception to that and Paradox Live has a very similar premise. I have been aware of the franchise for some time but I never really bothered to dig deeper partially because of the prospects of the anime adaptation. At first glance the anime looked promising. It has great character design which translates well enough to the screen and the art generally looks great at times I found myself getting lost looking at these pretty characters. It promised another rap battle setup and the first glimpses of music were good. 80https://i.ur.com/DaNBxch.jpeg The animation however is wonky and sloppy and occasionally weird enough to break emersion. At one point I was puzzled about characters staring which their mouths wide open like in some cartoon suggesting surprise over the situation but it failed to convey believable emotions. ParaLive uses CGI which is common for idol shows but the quality varies a lot. Sometimes it really stands out sometimes it is used in unassuming scenes where it has no business and later it is missing during a performance where it would otherwise be used. That particular performance looked better than any other leaving me with a bad overall impression of the CGI quality. The anime sets up an intricate world build which is eerily similar to the one in Hypnosis Mic which frankly means it does not make any sense. From what I gathered there is a substance called Phantometal which enhances musical skills but in return lets the user relive the moments of their most traumatic memories over and over again. The side effects of this metal are basically identical to drug abuse which gets more and more apparent later on. At worst the user starts to rust which is the point it had lost me. In comparison: Despite all its flaws I find Fire Force found a better solution. I can see how the overuse of fire abilities might transform your body into charcoal but I cant see how overusing a metal pendant makes you corrode like you were made of metal yourself. It might make for great metaphor depicting depression but it got a bit too literal for my taste. 80https://i.ur.com/iv1ZDF4.png Whatever somehow this arena spawns out of thin air and a tournament starts so at least we get some straightforward tournament showdown right? Actually no. The tournament gets sidelined. The focus of this anime is showing the personal drama of the characters and only occasionally you get to see the results of a match on a billboard for half a second every other episode or so. This is a bummer but I at least we got some juicy drama right? I could excuse HypMics lack of sensical plot because it does not take itself very seriously and just uses its setup as an excuse to have the characters engage in rap battles to show off their tracks. In Paradox Live however the Phantometal premise requires every character to have some kind of traumatic experience. The tone of the series consequently is much more serious which requires a lot more suspension of disbelieve from the viewer and clearly I could not keep up with that demand. After only a few episodes my suspension completely collapsed. I found myself rolling my eyes constantly at the petty drama which might have been good in another context but I could no longer pretend I cared. To give an example: Another case where the characters were too disagreeable for me to engage in the drama were Shiki and Ryu the former being extremely depressed and the latter creepily enthusiastic. Shikis attitude was at odds with his positive response to Ryus intrusions. It did not feel realistic at all which had me screaming at the screen at times. Ok but we still got some dope tracks to enjoy right? Well due to the drama being the focus of the show the music gets sidelined. We do get a performance semiregularly either at the beginning or end of an episode but even then they usually get cut short. Since the tournament wasnt plot relevant in the first place the performances had no significance. The only exception being the season finale What really baffles me is the complete inability of the anime to tell believable drama and develop their characters within its runtime. 12 episodes might be a bit tight for its huge cast that is still plenty enough time to tell a good story like it has been done by countless one cour anime before. To be fair Paradox Live does have a huge cast in principle. It features 45 main bands totalling 1416 characters. And from what Ive heard there are many more bands in the fandom that didnt make the cut. I can see why they focused on the original ones. It is also understandable that the anime had to pick a few to treat as protagonists in this case BAE felt like they were intended as main characters with cozmez also being heavily featured. Those two bands werent my favourites but I see the need to focus on a few characters. And even with this reduced set we only got decent plot from Hajun and Kanata? The drama about the remaining band members was definitely dealt with but not in a depth that made it feel relevant to the plot. I am baffled how even with that many compromises the story still does not manage to tell believable drama. We jump around the characters a lot for 8 episodes making for lots of exhausting oneoff traumatic backstories then we get a filler somehow and only in the last 3 episodes some actual plot starts to develop? Thats some terrible use of runtime it got going. The finale was comparably enjoyable. It managed to build mystery and had a decent twist: It made for a great finale unless you think too hard about the implications for the franchise if these revelations are treated as canon. I just dont see any future instalments rolling with the changes in lore unless thats canon somehow?. Furthermore with such a weak foundation regarding character drama I cant see a sequel improving the storytelling much and I certainly dont see a remake of the first season after this disaster. Maybe thats just me being pessimistic but it feels like this adaptation ruined the anime presence for Paradox Live. This disaster was only bearable because I was watching with a friend whos been into the franchise for years so I had someone to complain to. It was actually kinda fun watching this plane crash and burn so spectacularly enjoyable in an unintentional way. Like I said it fails so hard at being a character driven drama that it makes for a good parody. Its a shame the anime tries to be a drama rather than a comedy. In conclusion the story and character development of Paradox Live is built on a house of cards that collapses as soon as you look at it the wrong way. Which is a shame because some of the plot lines had huge potential. The heavy weight of the drama is not supported by the weak storytelling completely breaking the emersion necessary to engage with it from my perspective. Ill leave it at my personal score of 4.5 as Im heavily torn. Objectively some of my problems with the show might not matter but the only reason why I could enjoy it was because it was so bad.