Wake Up, Girls!
Wake Up, Girls!On Christmas 2013, the band Wake Up, Girls plays their debut song to a small audience without much fanfare. After the concert, the group’s manager takes off with the money, leaving Green Leaves Entertainment on the verge of closure and the band without a future. Despite this tumultuous beginning, the girls get a second chance, thanks to a mysterious benefactor and a shady business proposal. From here it’s a rocky climb to the top, but it’s a climb the girls are ready to make. Wake Up, Girls! follows the internal and external struggles of being a small-time idol girl band, from finding and accepting gigs to competing in popularity against other pop bands. Through the band, the girls come to accept their pasts and become more certain about their futures. Faced with increasing stakes and popularity, each of the band’s seven members must find the strength and courage inside herself to give her all to the band.
Reviews
tdietrich - 2014-05-27 19:00:33
Story: This takes place shortly after the prequel movie (seriously, you need to watch that first so you won't get confused cause they DO bring it up occasionally in the show) where the girls are now resuming activity in the club and try to get more well known and try out for the Red Vs. White Dome and Idol theater concert (at least I think so anyways, the story is surprisingly complicated with so many things happening... not super hard to follow but not easy to get invested in either).
Pros: I really liked how they continued to the realistic portrayl of idols like in the movie which was a nice treat and for the most part it showed. I also really like the main characters in this and how they all get some development over the course of the show:
Mayu used to be the center of I-1, but after seeing her friends get fired for petty reasons, she tries to stand up to the producer which inevidably led to her getting fired too and getting a hasty relationship with her mother. She declines joining WUG at first but then decides that she wants to make others and herself and joins the group.
Airi is a simple girl with no particular abilities, but has a lot of drive and is a hard worker, wishing to be just as good as her best friends.
Minami is a bubbly girl who loves sweets and her senior citizens (she is also very concerned for her grandmothers but not to the point where she's restricting them or anything).
Yoshino is the determined and serious leader who wants to make things right, Nanami is a mature tomboy, Miyu changes her emotions on a dime depending on the scenario, and Kaya joined because she was bored and wanted something nice in her life (especially considering that her parents passed away and her only other friend went missing a while back).
The president is more likeable here and it shows she cares about her workers and not just money and power. The manager is still boring though :P
The music is much better here (the OP song is awesome :D) and the dance choreography is impressive to say the least, and kudos for not using 3D dancing (that's a fact I did not touch upon in the movie, sorry about that).
I also like the ending, but that cliffhanger bugs me.
Cons: The. Side. Chracters. Good god. There are a lot and with the exception of WUG's fans and I-1, NONE of them are likeable, compelling, and are only there to drag the show, make useless drama, and ruin the fun the show had before! I am so sick of males being portrayed as perverted idiots you guys, can't you make them realistic too like with everything else!? Ugh...
Speaking of story, this was really repetitious this time around. It had the girls or prez getting excited to be called over so they can improve their technique, new manager comes in and is a jerk to them, the girls suffer for a bit, manager does nothing due to contract, one of the girls has a breakdown and nearly quits, prez either yells at or beats him up or the girls reprimand him, guy leaves, they get the girl back, everything is back to normal and they're right back to where they started. I wouldn't mind so much except they do this THREE TIMES in the span of 12 episodes! I mean really? 3?(The girls don't have much chemistry either and the ending is super forced)
The drama also wasn't needed for the most part as it could have been solved quicker if they had just talked to them about the problems beforehand (and even after they make a vow to do that they still do not do it! WHY?)
Animation and art have not improved in the slightest, it's still awkward to see just like before.
Overall: Despite some major flaws, I still found this show pretty decent. It could have been better if they toned down the EVERYTHING THAT I MENTIONED IN THE CON SECTION ABOVE... but I still think its good enough for just one look, that is if you're interested in this type of stuff...
Thanks for looking at my 44th review~
felipa67 - 2014-03-29 02:15:18
Idols, eh?
So here's an anime about a group of seven girls who form their own idol group and face the trials and tribulations that come with such a daunting dream. The show identifies itself as being a more realistic portrayal than the norm, though I'm a bit mixed on the execution of that.
The story gets a flat base score for being a completely ordinary underdog story. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that, but it doesn't go in any particularly different or interesting directions. The show played out almost exactly how I thought it would from the get-go. It should also be noted there is a 50-minute movie before the 12 episode series that is required viewing, you can't just jump into the series without seeing it. Just fair warning.
The thing that really irks me about the series dedication to a "realistic" portrayal is the behavior of the giant corporate rival idol group, I-1. I know it's common to joke about pop stars being "manufactured products" but... really? Rows of hundreds of young girls who get kicked out for the slightest error? I realize the music industry is an unforgiving place but come on... really? The producer is made out to be more like an evil overlord than a cut-throat business man. Those scenes were so over-the-top and ridiculous they kind of broke the realistic portrayal the writers were going for.
The only way he could've been more evil is if we was petting a white cat in his swivel chair whilst twirling his mustache. Maybe I'm exaggerating a bit but if your "realistic" portrayal of the music industry starts reminding me of the cloned boy band in Gravity Falls, you're doing a bad job.
The other thing is that while yes, things don't always go right for the girls and they often are placed in shitty situations, there just always seem to be too many easy solutions. Now yeah, in real life sometimes luck turns around pretty quickly and you find some conveniences but it happens way too often in this show to be plausible. When they make mistakes or have shit luck, WUG never seems to have to deal with the consequences for all that long.
Ordinarily, I wouldn't even bat an eye at such conveniences in writing, but when a series is selling itself as a realistic portrayal... well, you have to take things like that a bit more seriously.
The characters are developed slowly but surely. The show makes sure each of the seven girls gets atleast a little time in the spotlight although some are still focused on more than others. Their personalities are subtle enough that they do feel like real girls, and their interactions fill the whole spectrum of emotions for girls in that age range, so it is well-enough written. That being said, none of it is particularly memorable and although they do bicker on occasion, I still feel there was some missed opportunity for more inner-group conflicts.
The animation... well... I'll just let this image speak for itself.
Yeah, this show's budget started off mediocre and went into "stale rice crackers and pocket lint" territory by the end. The actual art-style is fine, but the animation starts to get cheaper and cheaper the further the camera gets from the faces. Atleast their priorities were in order though, they seemed intent on keeping the dance numbers as well-animated as they could muster.
Speaking of, the songs in the show are pretty good. Nice and catchy, just like good J-Pop should be. The music outside of the songs though is barely worth mentioning. I don't remember any of it.
The main weaknesses of the show are its lackluster production values, its average story and cast, and the fact it doesn't do much of anything bold or new. Some scenes made me feel uncomfortable, particularly in episode 2, so it's definitely a bit darker than most idol shows but there are some holes in its "realistic portrayal".
Despite its flaws, the show is a mellow experience that is fairly easy to watch. Atleast on a week-by-week basis, I don't know if it could hold my attention for a six hour marathon session.
Rewatch Value: No (Based on a Yes/Maybe/No scale)
sipes.lura - 2014-01-12 05:26:11
So while I ended up defending the Wake Up, Girls! – Seven Idols movie, this episode will not get away as much as that did. Because while I didn’t dislike the first episode of Wake Up, Girls!, I really can’t say I liked it too much either.
The episode follow the events of the movie with Matsuda, the manager of WUG, still not sure how to pay back all the money Green Leaves now is indebted. Meanwhile the girls are all waiting to find out if their lives as idols are over.
It’s not a bad premise for an episode, but after the surprisingly happy ending to the movie it feels kind of odd to go back to the whole “Will we even get to do this?” questions again. Thankfully, the show decides to utilize this repeat in mood to let us know more about the girls in WUG that aren’t Mayu. Not enough to where any character feels particularly fleshed out, but all in due time.
The biggest crime of the first episode of Wake Up, Girls! is really that it’s far more boring than the movie was, and it doesn’t help that part of the episode, opening sequence included, is just reused footage from the movie. It’s obvious the show wants to look at a creepy and more depressing side of of being an idol, but simply being different will not be enough here, which I felt was the problem with the episode. It was different from a show like Love Live! School Idol Project, The iDOLM@STER or any other idol show on the market, but unlike the movie it didn’t do a good enough job showing why that different style of show can work.
The art also took a dive here. While the movie had its share of flaws with the off-model art and odd animation, the first episode of the series is filled with far more of them in less than half of the running-time.
Some facial expression looked outright creepy at times and I really hope they step up the quality for future episodes, especially since we’ve seen that they can do good art and animation during the concert scene.
I’m only being hard on the first episode of Wake Up, Girls! because I want it to be good. I liked the movie a lot and I see a potential here for something that can truly shine. Maybe it still will and it just needs time to set in, but as it stands, this first episode barely managed to make its way out of mediocrity for me.
(will update frequently)