What’s it about ?
Male harem romance in an academy grooming pop idols and composers.
Characters
Haruka, our generic female lead. The kind that arrives late because she was busy helping a random little girl. She joined the Academy because she dreams of composing music for her favourite idol. Voiced by Miyuki Sawashiro, whom I didn’t know could sound so boring and unsexy.
As per the rules of the genre, there are half a dozen prettyboy stereotypes just tripping over Haruka. There’s the boy-next-door, the rich-but-charismatic guy, the brooding dark dude, the childish one… and the mysterious guy who’s a dead ringer for Haruka’s favourite idol, but displays a completely different personality (angry loner instead of clown).
Rounding up the cast are Tomo, Haruka’s roommate (the female equivalent of the “perverted best friend who handily provides exposition about everyone” cliché), their homeroom teacher (an androgynous senior idol voiced by Yuuichi Nakamura)… and the FABULOUS principal, a retired idol who funded the creation of the academy with his royalties, and voiced gleefully by Norio Wakamoto – his entrance ceremony speech just has to be seen to be believed.
Production Values
This looks pretty good, if you don’t mind technicolor day-glo. The character designs for the dudes look beyond generic, though, and Haruka’s dead eyes are just plain creepy.
I quite like the opening sequence with all the guys doing a boys’ band routine : sure, it looks stupid and awkward, but there’s a certain charm to it, and the tune is annoyingly catchy (“Let’s song !”).
Overall Impression
Well, that’s certainly better than I anticipated. Not that it’s actually any good, mind you ; the harem romance is as cliché as possible, and neither the female lead nor any of the dudes look like they’ve got any potential to rise above their genericness. But there’s some decent entertainment to be had out of the setting, as both the homeroom teacher and the principal are FABULOUSLY camp and nearly make the episode worth watching from their few minutes of screentime alone.
I expect myself to get bored of it very quickly (especially if the harem plot gets too much screentime), but I’m surprising myself by giving it a tentative second episode.
