Forum - View topicWhat Is Idol Anime?
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joeydoa
Posts: 121 |
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Idoly Pride is an Idol standout, definitely better than the Nijigasaki which I thought was the worst of the Love Live franchise. Superstar was a return to form and the best since the original. Sunshine was pretty good but instead on having one Nico clone they chose to have two offbeat characters Yoshiko and Hanamaru that don't necessarily stand on their own.
However, I think the under appreciated currently airing Selection Project is the best Idol anime in years. Yes it has a number of Idol tropes but what sets it apart is the memorable OP/ED as well as a large cast of distinct nuanced characters. Last edited by joeydoa on Sat Dec 25, 2021 8:17 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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Wasureta
Posts: 54 |
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Regarding the Love Live! franchise, I thought (from best to worst):
1. Superstar! 2. Sunshine! 3. Original 4. <future> 5. Nijigasaki Selection Project fits in between #2 and #3. The original's story line was too stilted, but lots of good music. Sunshine! had a better story, but the I don't remember any of the music aside from the OPs and EDs. Superstar! had the best of both (story and music). If Selection Project has another cour, they might rank higher for me. I would see more of them and get more music. Right now, I don't remember their names and I think they ripped off the twist from Idoly Pride. Nijigasaki should've even be counted since they don't have a unit with all of them together. What's the point of working together to reach your goals when everyone is working on their own? |
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Santa Night
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I'm not really a fan of the genre, I started with Idolm@ster when it aired, liked it and afterwards tried a few of them but noone struck a chord with me, after a few years I started hearing about Wake Up, Girls! directed by the infamous Yutaka Yamamoto and surprisingly I enjoyed it, then I tried to find some unconventional idol series and stumbled upon AKB49, the series has it's fault but I still find it one of the best of it's genre.
In the late 2018 Zombieland Saga aired and I got hooked by it, a really good series that gained attention even with non idol fan thanks to it's crazy story, greath comedy and fun characthers. Nowadays I try to give a chance to at least one idol anime per season, this fall aired Selection Project, good songs (I really liked NOiSY MONSTER and Only one Yell) but apart for a few of them the characters were too one-note and the story started with a fight for the glory between idols and then discarded the idea almost immediately in favour of portraying the friendship between the idols, that in itself is not a bad thing, it's a staple of the genre, but the two are not mutually exclusive. |
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sourpatchthekid
Posts: 68 |
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Great article. Bang Dream is also pretty fun tho they're not technically idols. The game is the main thing but you can watch season 2+3 and/or the stories if you don't feel like playing.
Nijigaski is a spin off that's mainly for fans of the game and love live die hards. Despite not really playing the game I still liked it more than most people seemed to though haha. |
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ChrisInMI80
Posts: 4 |
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Nozomi in the Sun (Sasurai no Taiyou) from 1971 is probably one of the first, if not the first, idol anime and probably one of the first, if not the first, non-Tezuka series made by Mushi Production. Yoshiyuki Tomino also worked on it as a storyboarder and episode director. It was an attempt to launch the career of a singer named Junko Fujiyama (who also voiced the title character Nozomi), but the anime wasn't immediately successful (it later became something of a cult classic and also got released in some European countries) and Fujiyama retreated from the music business almost immediately thereafter.
Then there's Sue Cat, a Knack Productions show from 1980 which was simultaneously an idol vehicle for singer/actress Yayoi Tsuruoka (who played the title character) and shout-out to The Candies (the lead characters' names are Sue, Ran and Miki, only they're anthropomorphic cats). In addition the song was inspired by "Sue Cat Song," a 1979 disco hit which sampled the voice of an actual cat, and was used as the anime's ending theme apparently only in the Kanto region according to Japanese Wiki. And then there's Pink Lady Monogatari, an anime tie-in for an existing superstar idol act. |
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Triltaison
 Posts: 791 |
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I merely drift in and out of the Idol anime genre periodically. Every once in a while I feel like watching one, but I tend to prefer the older style when it was usually a single girl and not a mob of characters to help sell a whole lot of sets of merchandise. Creamy Mami, Fancy Lala, and even Sharon Apple of Macross Plus are my preferred style. I haven't noticed any series with solo idols as the featured act in a while, though. Did one sneak by me? I don't think I've noticed any after Love Live first hit.
It's been a few years... I suppose it's about time to dust off a newer idol series anyway and see how I like some of the newer crop. (And yay for the Sue Cat mention, ChrisInMI80) |
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Ggultra2764
 Subscriber Posts: 3958 Location: New York state. |
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Like someone else posted, I'll admit "idol anime" aren't my cup of tea. I'm familiar with the history and trends of idol anime going as far back as the early 1980s with Creamy Mami to recently with the forming of multimedia franchises like Idolmaster and Love Live to promote new fictional idol groups or be some sort of launching platform for a new idol singer or group. These largely exist to glorify the idol industry and with what I know about the less savory side of the industry in Japan in real life, said glorification is far from the actual reality of the current industry. But even setting aside the less savory real-life elements of it, the titles in question are largely pretty standard as far as character types and storytelling go, having their familiar beats with their developments in exploring the tribulations of the main character(s) to become a successful idol singer or group.
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zrdb
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Idol anime has always been-and always will be Love Live to me, period.
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Top Gun
 Posts: 4784 |
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Would it be too cheeky to opine that the best idol anime ever was Perfect Blue? Or much more recently, Odd Taxi? I mean no offense to those who enjoy them, but even if that general genre was my cup of tea, I find the idol industry to be so inherently gross and misogynistic that I couldn't remotely take seriously any series that tries to sugarcoat it.
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robleeds89
Posts: 2 |
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Can't say I've ever been into girl idol animes apart from zombieland saga but that was quite comical. I like some character designs from idolmaster and love-live. I like the outfits and school uniforms from love-live. Other than that that's it
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yuna49
 Posts: 3804 |
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My favorite remains AKB0048, probably because it is so unlike most idol shows. Okada is not my favorite scriptwriter, but she did pretty well on this one. And, of course, Kawamori can make idol anime in his sleep.
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