You'll find out today that not alot has changed since the 90s.
Mimu is an aspiring pop idol hoping to win the audition to join her idol Yuri's Excellent Idols, before she can perform, she and the rest of the idols are dragged to Planet Bali Hawaii for a contest, will Mimu ever get to audition?
The early joke is Mimu struggles to audition, the problem is, she's not that interesting of a character.
The six other idols more than make up for it consisting of.
Layla - Rock Star.
Extra - Pianist.
Corvette - Dancer.
Palpu - Action Actress.
Ruka - Child Actress.
Shion - She says Ninja but I'm going with Japanese Drama.
The Idol Project cast is more than just a group of colourful characters but each one has a big name voice actress attached to them who were all prominent musical talents of the mid 90s, think what Idol anime is now and even VTuber culture as this is where it really started.
Despite the high production values that included games and an extensive soundtrack, Idol Project as an anime is too weird to make any sense of it, with only four episodes and Mimu taking up 70% of the screentime, all these characters never really get to shine and the appeal of big name actresses cannot be used in the dub, it's a fairly decent dub with some recognisable voices you may have heard in Digimon.
Hardly a crowd pleaser.
Final Verdict: It's production and voice talent are really high quality but the plot makes no sense and much of the cast rallies behind Mimu. Story just needed more care.
We have a few reviews coming out, let's see how much we clear.
Hailing from Taiwan, Kocho and her sister along with Kosaku and Kocho's master Professor Kamo form the Astrological club as a front for chasing after spirits who haunt the school, using the powers of the four mystical beasts, Kamo's large wood, (real dub line) and Kocho's sexy body, the restless souls of the samurai may finally be exorcised.
This is a simple cash grab OVA, a very poorly animated one at that, it's pretty shameless in it's delivery of fan service, Kocho's sister making it way too obvious about how easy she is, Kocho herself actually liking the attention she gets from being naked half the time and the only adult Professor Kamo enabling the behaviour to begin with.
Being subtle is not this anime's strong point, but it did surprise me that the dub is several kinds of silly which is the only way to watch trash like this, although I will say that the acting is way too good for this but I guess Mike Pollock a.k.a Dr Robotnik had to start somewhere (First role).
Final Verdict: It's an easy dumpster fire to make fun of and only worth watching in dub form if only for Mike Pollock's performance.
That title is quite the mouthful.
Sistine and Rumia are best friends attending the Magic Academy when they are greeted by an unruly new teacher Glenn Radars. The "Bastard Magic Instructor" is lazy, incompetent and really good at bullying his class especially Sistine of whom he dubs White Cat.
But when Rumia becomes a target for an evil organisation, Glenn reveals that he's way more talented than the students realise as he's a former assassin of the Imperial Court Mage Corps.
Rumia being a lost princess with a forbidden power is the real reason Glenn is teaching at the academy, along with Re=L, a child built mage who uses large swords and the backing of other Mage Corps members, Glenn has his work cut out as a teacher.
The plot is kind of erratic at best and schizophrenic at worst.
It's a magic school anime trying desperately to be Full Metal Alchemist even with some pretty gruesome scenes to try and raise the stakes and play up the drama, yet try and make the typical love hate tsundere banter between Glenn and Sistine work, it feels like it can't be it's own anime, it has to cobble together successful formulas to even function but so much gets missed and so many characters are redundant, you just end up being left with nothing to take you into any future season.
The dub uses a predictable cast that may as well be typecast at this point.
Final Verdict: A frustrating anime to watch as it tries in vain to use formulas from better anime but fails to even properly utilise them leaving you with nothing to chew on for any new season.
While I will try to keep this spoiler free the spoiler warning is in effect.
The world is enraptured by a sensational new pop idol called Uta who has become a symbol of hope for all the regular people caught up in the pirate age, the Strawhats being among the crowd.
Luffy upon seeing Uta, immediately recognises her and jumps up on stage, revealing to the entire world that she is the daughter of Red Haired Shanks.
Pirates want to kidnap her to get to Shanks while the Marines think her influence is way too powerful to be allowed to live.
Uta with her songs are able to turn the tide against any assailant, even Big Mom's pirates and she is able to have some valuable catch up time with Luffy.
But once Luffy brings up that he's a pirate, Uta's demeanour changes as she takes Luffy's crew away and demands Luffy quit being a pirate using ever more violent means, it starts unravelling after Trafalgar Law and Bartolomeo step in to save Luffy that the situation they are in is more dangerous than they originally thought.
You can tell immediately that this was a joy to work on from the animation right down to singer Ado's incredible performances making for an absolute flawless cornucopia of colour and music.
The film isn't as high on the epic set pieces set by the last One Piece movie Stampede but it more than makes up for it with Uta being the most twisted villain One Piece has ever made equal only to Doflamingo and its Uta's ever deteriorating mental state that makes the songstress even more terrifying in context.
I deliberately didn't watch the dub as the song numbers blend so much better in a Japanese dub track than the awkward switch between Japanese songs and English speaking dialogue.
Final Verdict: The lesson here is never bet against One Piece, even if you think they are passed their best, they keep surprising you with more spectacular stories and for what looks like a fan fiction plot is actually the best One Piece movie to date.
The PC engine had some weird stuff.
Used as a promotional anime attached to a PC Engine game, Private Eye Dol is about aspiring idol May Star who along with her holographic doll companion Navi, (yes, long before Ocarina of Time and yes, she is annoying) get frequently dragged into solving mysteries whether it be Scooby Doo like in a haunted mansion or more anime related stopping a hacker from exposing idols' private lives.
The anime takes the latter story but is a bit inconsistent with what the little hologram can do power wise as it pulls the power of love and friendship card and the hope that a TV stunt from the beginning of the episode can work to defeat the bad guy.
You can tell that this was rushed but it surprisingly crams alot of potential in the 45 minute run time, May Star is an endearing idol character and has a decent supporting cast to keep each story fresh, a 13 episode series would be decent even if it has nothing to do with the games plot.
Dub is non existent, in fact there is so little information I had to translate a Japanese wiki to obtain notes on the cast and synopsis just to refer to in order to write this.
Final Verdict: Has more potential than most 90s OVAs, what they produced is not terrible but is clearly rushed.
