Yumenosaki Academy has been home to the best boy idols of different generations. Holding immense influence over the school, its student council maintains the status quo by enforcing old traditions with an iron fist. Transfer student Anzu winds up attending as the very first member in the production course, making her the sole female student in the entire school. There, she meets Subaru Akehoshi, Hokuto Hidaka, Mao Isara, and Makoto Yuuki—her classmates and members of the idol unit "Trickstar."
The academy holds Dream Idol Festivals—stage battles that put its students' singing and dancing skills against each other, with the audience voting on the winner. Winning these "DreFes" guarantees the members of the idol unit various privileges and prestige. However, with the student council intervening and punishing everyone involved in an unsanctioned DreFes, the members of Trickstar find that they can no longer sit around and let it continue. Alongside Anzu as their producer, they plot to become the revolutionaries of the academy.
[Written by MAL Rewrite]
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Comentários
Keadow
I honestly loved Ensemble Stars. I loved all the characters and ALL of the songs in the show. I never knew it came from a game until finishing the anime and looking more into it. I'll be honest the ending was completely rushed but I'm hoping for there to be more in another season (hopefully) if there is more story in the game. The show left you with some questions of like Who? What? Where? When? and Why? and they are possibly answered in the game but the game is only available in Japan so it is hard to translate without a guide that doesn'thave all of the stories from the game up.
I'm honestly shocked it has such a low rating for the show because I always dive into shows not knowing anything and I hate predicting stuff.
Predicting everything ruins the show (imo) and that's why everyone says this wasn't that good or rated it what they rated it. I enjoyed the show. The soundtrack for it is amazing. Even if you hate the show, the songs in it are great.
TL;DR the show is great. The songs are phenomenal even if you don't like the show. It could be pretty generic if you know your facts and what to expect in anime but who cares, frickin enjoy it.
thelibero
The difficult part about reviewing this anime? Depending on whether or not you're already a fan of the games and are familiar with the story and characters, your enjoyment of this anime is likely going to be extremely skewed. This is already a huge red flag; the anime struggles to stand on its own two feet and functions better as a supplement to the game experience. For people who aren't into mobage, I think the series is going to be pretty forgettable and, unfortunately, fails as a gateway into the franchise. (To be fair, the anime had 24 episodes to convey what the game hadover 2 years to flesh out).
As a long time player and fan myself, I can attest: I had a much better experience with this anime than my boyfriend, who knew nothing about the series and came out of the first season confused, unsatisfied, and largely unimpressed.
The story in a nutshell is that the main character, Anzu, is the only female student in an all boy's idol program at Yumenosaki Academy, acting as a producer in training. The school is known for churning out talented idols who later become very successful in the business, but we soon learn that there is some sort of corruption behind the scenes involving the school council, and the main cast of boys, a band called Trickstar, decides to start a revolt.
I've always liked the overarching story of Ensemble Stars, because tackling the subject of corrupt practices behind showbiz is something most series in the idol genre don't do. And knowing how the story goes from my experience playing the games, I think that the roadmap for a successful anime was definitely there.
However, the story and development of the cast suffers so much from poor pacing, that the entire anime feels like "and-then-this-happened" story telling, and it doesn't ever come together in a way that makes sense or is ultimately satisfying. The main plot of "Viva La Idol Revolution" often gets completely ignored at times because the focus gets shifted to trying to develop a massive and convoluted cast of characters, which seems counterproductive because in an effort to steer the story back on track, most of them get lost in the fray, anyways.
Speaking of characters, I do have to give credit where it's due and applaud the studio for at least trying to make every character somewhat relevant. We're introduced to a huge roster of idols-in-training, each with their own motivations, sounds, and tiny little quirks.
Unfortunately, many of them end up being a distraction to the main story, and feel forcibly shoved in and out of the show for the sake of trying to diversify the cast and giving each boy screentime. There's a heavy implication that we'll be getting a season 2, so I question why the studio insisted on cramming all of this extra character development into a season where the main arc was very meaty to begin with. Many of the idol units that we're introduced to have little to no relevance to the main conflict, anyways, and it feels like a disservice not only to the revolution arc but to each idol unit as well. The games go to great lengths to give each of the boys and their groups interesting back stories that all connect in a "New Year's Eve" way, but most of that just ends up getting lost in translation because none of them are given the proper amount of focus necessary to tell those stories properly. As someone who is already familiar with these characters and their arcs, it was a pleasure to see them referenced, but for the average person who is meeting these characters for the first time, it can be a lot to digest.
(Anzu also fell really flat in my opinion, but as a stand in for the "player" in the games, I can let that slide since she's essentially just a self-insert for the viewer.)
As far as the design and animation, I'm mixed on this one. Each unit has its own theme and distinct sound direction, which I think is a great touch. Trickstar has a really bright pop-rock sound, befitting of the optimistic protagonist trope. Ra*bits gets a softer and twinklier pop sound that falls in line with their innocent and cute aesthetic. Valkyrie has a heavy baroque influence with lots of strings and darker instrumentation that falls in line with their gothic inspired outfits, and so on. While not all of the songs were bangers for me, the overall quality of the sound production was impressive.
The costume design is also really great; while idol animes are always chock full of creative outfits, the stage costumes do a great job of reflecting each unit's sound. As a result, almost every unit is able to establish a memorable identity, which is a miracle considering my last point about how messy the character development gets.
The animation itself is easy on the eyes. There are beautiful and vibrant colors abound, and the art style for the series has always been that perfect balance of "cute enough that it's endearing", but "mature enough that we can admire the attractive 2D men".
On the flip side of that, the Enstars art style is infamous for suffering from same-face-syndrome. Despite every character having a personality loud enough to stand out from the crowd, everyone looks pretty much the same. Every character shares the same 2-3 styles of eyes, everyone has the same facial structure, and everyone has the same generic build of "lean male - not too broad, could be a twink". Without the amazing costumes and the pretty crazy hairstyles, none of the characters are really distinguishable. This is a problem that persists in the games as is, but it's definitely amplified in the anime.
Then there's the issue of how the performances are handled using 3D models. Don't get me wrong, I understand why this practice is done (3D models are a lighter load because the assets can be reused, the animators don't have to worry about drawing so many characters in so many dynamic and often synchronized movements with even more dynamic camerawork, etc), but the transition was often jarring to me. I think the only idol anime that really does a great job at blending 3D models into 2D cuts during performance sequences is the Idolmaster franchise, but that's a conversation for another time. It could be a budget thing - I know these models and some of the motions were reused from the development of the rhythm game. But with so many other idol animes that go through the same pitfalls of 3D sequences looking out of place, the disconnect between the 3D rendering and the 2D animation felt like such an easy problem to sidestep, so I was disappointed.
Overall, the anime isn't bad by any means, but it's not remarkable in any way, either. If you're already familiar with the series, the experience of being able to finally see the characters you've come to know and love can be almost surreal and that alone makes it worth it. But if this is your first foray into Enstars, or even just the idol genre in general, I imagine you're going to have to drag yourself through a good chunk of this season. There are plenty of far better idol animes out there that also have game counterparts and are still able to sustain themselves without using their source material as crutches (see: Idolish7, Idolmaster, Love Live, etc).
My verdict? A perfectly average anime. Take that however positively or negatively you like.
midotetoshino
As a long time fan of the Ensemble Stars franchise, I enjoyed this anime a lot. Simply getting to see the characters I love moving around in anime format was great, and it was very fun sharing in the hype with my fellow fans. HOWEVER. The anime as a whole when looking past my love for the franchise was very poorly done. I understand that they were trying to give every character from the game screen time but considering that they were trying to showcase the main story of the original game- which is extremely meaty- it just didn't work out very well. The mainplotline is nowhere near as compelling as it is in the game- and maybe I only felt that way because I was experiencing it for a second time- but I think it really missed the mark. As for the tiny portion of the giant pool of in-game events that were chosen to be adapted into the anime... Well let's just say it's done worse than the main plot. They literally just shoved bits and pieces of the events in, and although a few got full episodes such as Ryuseitai's Supernova event from the game, they are missing important details and even major plot points. All in all, I wouldn't recommend this anime unless you are already an Enstars fan. If you want to get into the franchise and don't know where to start, the Ensemble Stars Wiki is a great place. From there I suggest looking up translations of the stories and/or downloading the new English version of the game.
Kangsangie
as i long time fan of this franchise i enjoyed this thoroughly, but having read all the story content from the game and manga i know that the anime should have had more episodes, i love the pacing and the adaptation was done well for the episodes but for a game with 5 years of writing behind it 24 episodes was not enough to capture the depth of the true plot, it made it through the main plot and a few of the slightly darker plots, but id love to have seen more time for the event plots that give you a true grasp onwhy everyone acts how they do, the subtle and not so subtle hints at the mental health struggles in the idol community, so many of them have a dark past and id love for more to have been done with the first war arc, so much truly went down, this anime is a perfect start to get people interested but if you feel as though you enjoyed this anime to any degree and want to learn more about the characters the plot and the past, please READ THE GAME TRANSLATIONS ON THE FANDOM WIKIA!!
mangotheotaku
i love this anime its really entertaining if you like idol anime and music anime all of the characters are really likeable and cute to watch its pretty wholesome and cute in my opination but the only down side to this is that the end looked like it was really rushed and at the end of the season you still have alot of questions and it makes it seem like there is a season 2 but when i look if there will be one or if there already is one it does not come up but other than that it is a really enjoyable series:D
ZoraAegis
This is the very first idol anime i had ever watch, Until the end of the series i did not notice that this was a game and i did not care. I enjoyed the plot, and watch every detail carefully. The music is insane , the characters are good and overall it has a lot of conflicts and a lot of back stories and they're all good. Honestly i was pretty disappointed how low this anime was, however i do realize that every time they sing the character animation is not like the anime graphic rather, it was the game's graphic. That for me wasthe only down side of the anime and other than that it was very enjoyable and very relaxing. I had fun watching the anime.
ponceypony
This is a pretty generic male idol TV show. It's fine if you enjoy the genre but you can do better. The main problem that I had with it was that it (mainly) felt like a musical without the songs. It would try, and occasionally succeed, to build up to some kind of emotional peak by creating some sort of small drama via dialogue. This would usually coincide with a performance which one of the various boybands is going to put on. Then when you're expecting someone to express their emotions by producing a nice ditty you're instead given a couple of characters having another briefconversation. If you're lucky you get a song played in the background.
When you are given an actual performance it's forgettable. Any large amount of movement is done in 3D that doesn't look much better than a PS2 cutscene. The still art is fine and I think the character designs are good, but there's nothing impressive.
The characters themselves are fine, if a little cartoonish, they're just given nothing to do. If the show was structured like a generic cute boys show where the characters react to a variety of setpieces (eg one day they go to the beach, one day they have a competition, one day they need to study for exams etc) I think it would be somewhat enjoyable, however every single episode that I can remember is just the characters preparing for a talent show, the result of which has absolutely no consequences. (Technically in-universe there are consequences, but as a viewer you know exactly what is going to happen.) At one point there's a bit of backstory that is much more interesting to me than the main plot, but this is forgotten about quickly.
Despite liking most of the characters I also think that there's way too many. If you halved the cast and gave the remaining ones more time then I think the show would be much improved.
A few of the songs were fun, and the voice actors are good. If you like cheesy Japanese pop songs then you will probably find a couple of tunes that you like. However it would probably be a better use of your time to either just listen to the music separately or watch the voice actor concert.
It's not the worst thing that I've seen and is pretty inoffensive, but I wouldn't bother with this one. If you're into the video game (which doesn't have an English translation at the time of writing), then you might get something more out of it.
eairotome
Before I start anything, I will need to warn you that you wouldn't like Ensemble stars if you are not used to watching anime that has so many male characters with few (or no) female characters, like Touken Ranbu or Hakuouki. But if you don't mind it, welcome! This is the right place for you. And I would like to assure you that Ensemble Stars is s not some cheesy reverse harem anime like Diabolik Lovers (I am not criticizing DiaLovers, I have played it and I actually enjoyed it.) I have only known Ensemble Stars (ES) only when the game was released in English ver.And I came running to the anime because I can't catch up anything they were saying in the game. I did not even know who Akehoshi (the main character of ES anime) was.
To be honest, I did not have much expectation for the anime since the ratings were not very good and the poster looks kinda lame. But how wrong I was.
The most notable thing about ES is its characters. All characters are so, so lovable. And I don't mean just their looks. They are all written very well and they stay true to their characters until the end. And their bonds are also something to admire. The anime focus on not only the main unit, Trickstar but also on various other units. And what is mesmerizing is that they all have some reason or intent behind their actions. I really don't like characters who are moving in a certain way only for the sake of the plot, like the villainesses from old shoujo animes or mangas. Since the characters are written so well, the storyline flows naturally and I must say the plot is interesting enough for an Idol anime.
Secondly, their songs are amazing. Well, you might say it is to be expected since it is an idol anime. But really they are s good. And they fit the image of their respective units perfectly( My personal favourite is Valkyrie). Bonus point is that they are sung by the voice actors themselves.
Speaking of voice actors, I already noticed this since the game but the line up in ES is first rate. I can grantee that you will have a good time watching ES if you are a Seiyuu (Voice actors) fan.
I must say I really enjoyed watching it. The story, the characters, the voice actors and the songs. The only thing I have to point out is the 3D for the lives. They are bad and I mean it, they really are. Even the ones in ES game is better. However, the 3D scenes are really rare so it doesn't really affect your enjoyment.
Ensemble stars is a really good anime that potrays youth with a perfect balance between friendship and deception.
Rena1Circulati0n
As a fan of the hit-game Ensemble Stars. I gotta say this anime's story is so rushed, and I feel those who don't know about the game might think Enstars is bad after this anime because the game makes the ensemble cast more than one-dimensional characters, subverting your expectations from the tropes they fall in to. It also has very interesting struggles with each one as well as developing relationships that will surprise you. But the anime is so jam-packed with stories that it hurts the pacing of the story. But it's pretty fun, after all, it's Ensemble Stars. Seeing the boys animated is stillpretty wholesome.
