Hanako Yamadaki encounters the obscure, low-selling 11-member “C-list” idol unit Ongaku Shōjo. Their producer Ikehashi thinks the unit needs a new member. Together, Ongaku Shōjo and Hanako strive for the top of the music world. – ANN
Streaming: Crunchyroll
Episodes: 12
Source: Original (re-telling of a film version)
Episode 1 Summary: Hanako travels to Japan with her family, visions of idols on the brain. She arrives in japan just in time to accidentally wander into a contest to find a new member for a languishing idol group, Ongaku Shoujo. Hanako’s idea of what an idol is differs somewhat from the group of singing and dancing girls she’s just met, but once they put on a performance Hanako quickly falls in love. Hanako seems to have the skills needed to be a great idol, which she proves by copying a complicated dance routine having only seen it once. She’s also very kind and enthusiastic, complimenting the others on their performance skills. The girls and their producer beg her to enter their contest, which she finally does. But for all her good looks and great dance moves, Hanako is missing one very important piece of the idol puzzle – she can’t sing!
Impressions: When you’ve got a large cast of characters and a short time in which to introduce them, it can be difficult to distinguish them from one-another; that’s one of the fundamental problems with entries in the singing idol genre, especially those which are in the business of building massive groups in a short span of time. Anime has provided its share of character tropes to make the job much easier and there are a lot of series out there that use visual and vocal shorthand to help do the same job that exposition and organic character growth-through-experience might have been necessary for previously. Shorthand isn’t necessarily bad, but it does have to be used wisely and with consideration for the overall balance of the different types of characters represented. I’m not really a fan of idol anime, but I’d expect that to create a successful one would mean taking care to differentiate the characters enough for them to appeal to the different audience members who enjoy certain character types, while also not picking and choosing so haphazardly that the overall chemistry was ruined. I would also expect that to be necessary in real life, too; how many musical groups have imploded due to their members’ inability to get along with one another? Too many to count.
Music Girls chooses an interesting tactic; each character is irritating in their own very special way, and it doesn’t seem realistic that their group would actually exist considering the fundamental differences between them all. I won’t rattle off all of the archetypes here because besides the typical “genki girl,” “sullen tomboy,” “loli,” and other standby characters, what’s really most noteworthy are the combinations of grating voices, same-face character designs, and lack-of-will in most of the girls. That last point is difficult to explain and confounding to experience, but what I can say is that, as annoying as all the characters are, they’re also way too accommodating and universally unruffled by Hanako’s sudden appearance. It’s as if the writers decided to create some conflict, but then shied away from following-through at the last minute. Besides the fact that Hanako clearly can’t sing, I feel the like show doesn’t otherwise have enough bite to create tension.
That may be an unfair criticism, because there’s something to be said for low-stakes stories that are about people interacting normally (I like a few of those). Characters don’t need to fight with each-other or disagree about something major for an anime series to be enjoyable to watch. What’s important for those stories, though, is that they cultivate a sense of humanity or some insight into how people interact with their world, whether on a large or small scale. Music Girls feels like a blunt object which just jabs inarticulately in a vaguely human-like way; it’s like Edgar the Bug thrashing around in a human skin-suit. These girls are people-shaped but they behave like 6th gen VHS re-recordings of humans. Hanako herself is what I sometimes call a “nothing person” – a character whose personality is based on one thing, in this case it’s boundless enthusiasm without nuance. It feels like interacting with a robot.
As unsettling as the people populating the world of this series are, there are a couple of things I found interesting about this episode. I enjoyed the character animation during the dance routines at the airport, especially watching Hanako mimic the other lead singer. I’m a fan of animators using their specific tools to imitate things like smears and such, and the dance routines portray those well. There’s an opening scene of the group dancing on a stage which is produced using 3D animation, which is pretty typical for idol anime and gives those scenes a nice clean look, but I do think it lacks the charm of the hand-drawn routines.
I am admittedly not a big fan of pop idols or idol anime, so I probably don’t have all the tools to give a fair assessment of how this fits on the relative quality scale as compared to some of the others. But I do think I have a pretty good grasp on what makes a compelling character or cast, and Music Girls seems hell-bent on making poor decisions in that regard. I will now refrain from making a joke about the idol group self-labeling themselves as “C-rate,” and hope that I’ve made my opinion known otherwise.
Pros: The songs are pleasant and a little catchy. There’s some cool dance animation, especially for Hanako.
Cons: The characters are universally irritating and don’t mesh well with one-another.
Grade: D+