SPOILER ALERT. THIS ENTIRE COMMENT CONTAINS SPOILERS.
The dancing animation has gotten so much better, as they've finally gotten the shading more like traditional animation, so it doesn't feel so out of place.
RIVER was fucking awesome, and RIVER's lyrics are always great, and the way they set up the relevance of the lyrics to every subplot (TundraStar's situation, the little girls and 77th's growth, Takamina) was great. I can foresee a ton of anime fans falling in love with that song.
I know I've said this every episode, but the writer has some serious character biases. And right now it's ALL about the YukoTakaminaKanata. It's a well-written subplot for sure, but Nagisa's becoming less and less of a main character to the Chieri and Kanata show, who are in turn being overshadowed by the very real portrayals of senbatsu, which of course would overshadow and be more interesting than the trope personalities that the original characters are. Sure, we still get our "77th is SPECIAL!" moments, but they feel so obligatory, with no sense of care having been put into them compared to the angst.
The way that the character focus has shifted makes me wonder how much the writer was writing episode-to-episode and letting the characters direct her inspiration, instead of working from a complete plot outline and structure from the start. Maybe they'll start developing Nagisa's protagonist side more in the second half. I don't know.
Loved the Mariko/Tsubasa moment with the wota. Both her and Sae/Youko's subplots are marvelous, looking at the issues associated with balancing yourself against the overlay of expectations your succession name brought. While in the Takamina subplot, becoming the position is the ultimate goal, obviously Tsubasa is treating it differently as a graduate, while Megumi is also struggling with the fact that Sae is both still and not Youko. (And as I pondered last episode, are successors beholden to upholding the same dynamics with the other successors? Is Saeyaka obligatory?)
Yukirin's little moment was pretty intriguing. It fit so well with her "passive sisterly captaincy" style. Unfortunately, with the way the writing is going, I can probably expect zero development for her, Sayaka, Haruna, and any further development for Tomochin. Then again, I never expected the Sae subplot, so who knows?
Huh, we know for a fact that Megumi is not one of the Chosen Ones, so I really do wonder where her subplot is going. Will she become a successor of another AKB girl not named in the series yet, a la the Miichan Yui, and Sasshi references? Is she gonna die? Quit AKB? Maybe even join DES in a fit of rage and disillusionment, for Nagisa to work her Therapy no Jutsu powers on? It says something, though, that Megumi is getting so much development that 77th isn't getting. Man, the writer gives so little fucks for the supposed main characters.
LOL cry tally is tentative for this episode. We got tears in the corner of eyes, but not actual crying. So cry tally at 7.5 episodes in a row?
In the end, this episode was kind of treading the same ground as last episode, with Takamina doing a development circle of trying to be selfish about her dreams, as Yuko advised last ep, only to find that she still felt the same way about Kanata being right for the job. So I wasn't as engrossed in that part of the episode, which, again, clearly showed that it was the part that the writer cares about.
The moments with the Lancastar (
these planet names) four were nice, as was the mini-concert, but it was just lacking in tension or a sense of real development on the character's parts, because we haven't really seen the growth of character that they've supposedly undergone. It was all shallowly shown in the montages each episode has done, but it means that we have no strong emotional connection with that growth, so it rings false.
When it comes to the KKS, this show is kind of suffering from the Glee syndrome, where the characters develop, but off-camera, which means that I hated their bratty past selves, but also scoff at the suddenly-better new selves because it's so out of character with their past selves and we don't "live through" the circumstances of their change. Suddenly the Lancastar four are all buddy-buddy and equals? Give me a break. The Sasae perf at the end felt completely tacked on, with the character dynamics completely out of whack.
Ah well, I'll stop expecting proper character development for the KKS and just enjoy them covering beloved AKB songs. I mean, thus far AKB0048 has still been a million times better than MG2, other than AKB0048 not having Gekikara whacking someone in the face with a boot.
Topic: [TV] AKB48 1st Anime + Manga "AKB0048" (Read 133958 times)