Ensemble Dark Horse: Sakura Fujima became wildly popular in the Western fanbase when her actress, Sally Amaki, revealed herself to be not just a native English speaker, but also a regular purveyor of Internet memes, Idol Singer culture (both Japanese Pop Music and Korean Pop Music), anime, and fan fiction. Her One of Us nature resonated with a lot of Western fans, which endeared her to them. Out of all the members, she has the most Twitter followers and had at least 7,500 followers within the first week of creating her official account (whereas the other members had less than 1,000 around the same time).
Fan Nickname: Mizuha's nickname is Mizuhan, as she is a Kansai girl from Shiga Prefecture right next to Kyoto, but Western fans call her Mizzy, of which she approves.
Heartwarming Moments: Many of the first generation members are still close to each other, even after graduation. In-character, Sakura Fujima tweeted that she would be going to Osaka to visit Miyako Kono the summer after Miyako graduated.
Les Yay: The alternate cover and music video for "Shampoo no Nioi ga Shita" puts a lot of focus on the relationship between Miu and Ayaka, and their actresses were featured in a photoshoot together.
Jun and Sakura are also teased only because their actresses, Ruri and Sally, get along very well.
Sally once claimed that the only thing straight about her were her eyebrows.
Miu and Sakura developed their relationship ever since they met at Amusement Park in Episode 1.
Miu and Nicole gets this over the course of anime, but later episodes revealed that Miu was Nicole's childhood classmate.
They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: The concept of characters graduating together with their respective voice actresses, introduced after the 2021 graduations, did not fly well with a sizable chunk of the fandom.
Tropes related to the anime
Nightmare Fuel: Episode 6 ends with nearly everyone fainted due to food poisoning off from coffee jelly the staffs bought for them. Even more terrifying when Reika, Sakura and Kono passed out and their bodies were littered in front of Jun who was the only left standing.
Tear Jerker: Episode 7. While the main plot of Jun filling in for all the other girls is lighthearted and funny, her backstory certainly isn't. She was born with a respiratory illness and was sent to the hospital frequently as a child. During her stay in the hospital, she met another girl named Yuu, who helped her open up and become more positive, and the two became very close. Some time passes, and Jun's condition improves thanks to Yuu's influence on her. One day, she's happily walking to Yuu's room and opens the door...only to find that Yuu has just died from her illness. Poor Jun runs to the rooftop and bawls her eyes out, crying that she should have been the one to die because of how negative she had been, feeling that Yuu deserved to live more than her. Jun makes a full recovery from her illness, and feels as though Yuu gave Jun her life to her, and resolves to be a happier person.Damn.
The final episode of the anime finally reveals what the Wall is! A gigantic dark room filled with computers, monitors, and photos of the girls going as far back as their childhood,note Which raises a whole lot of new questions that never get answered which reveals that they've been completely duped and used the entire time. Unfortunately, the episode still doesn't resolve everything. Whoever operates in the dark room or took pictures of the girls behind their backs is never revealed, and the episode ends with them having their one year anniversary concert. The OVA released after the series brings the question of who or what the Wall is up again, but still remains unresolved by the end, focusing instead on the three new girls who join the group.
The Wall also reveals to the girls that they were just the first step in its plan to change society permanently. Exactly what that plan was, or what it entailed, was never revealed.
Values Dissonance: Episode 6 is a major point of contention among Western fans of the show. The girls have to do a photo shoot in their swimsuits, and Reika is adamantly opposed to doing it because she doesn't like the idea of showing so much skin and reducing herself to some sex object for fans to ogle over. Everyone else, including the girls and the manager, urge her to do the photo shoot anyway, to the point where some actually point out that she's not being serious about her job and she's burdening the rest of the group. Putting aside how rigid and exploitative the Idol Singer industry can be, from a Japanese perspective, Reika is seen as selfish for holding the group back from their job, as they can't complete the photo shoot without her. From a Western point of view, Reika's concerns would be viewed as perfectly valid, as she's a teenager being expected to let herself, an underage girl, be sexually exploited at the expense of her comfort, dignity, and personal boundaries. Many Western fans really don't like this episode, to the point where one person wrote a Fix Fic centered on said episode.
Wangst: Miu's monologuing in the first three episodes of the anime quickly go from the lack of self-confidence of a shy girl to just plain whining. It's even more noticeable compared to Jun's Character Focus episode, where the main moral is explicitly that Wangst serves no purpose because life is too precious to waste it moping.
Her character, Sakura Fujima, even has a YouTube channel, and she explicitly states in her first video that she was there only to bring in more international fans.