Aikatsu!

5-6. Did Seira approve of Akari taking her sister on a date? Akari sure lorded her status over Noelle. Elza just can't help but look evil even when she's just MC. Nice new song at least. Of course Akari wins since it would be absurd for Noelle to win, and the other 3 aren't main characters. Rei should've won since she'd get all the cool votes whereas cute fans are divided 4-way. Oh no, Elza and Kaede are collaborating. I'm scared. Too bad for Noelle this will all be retconned out of existence.

So, that was a cute Noelle story, but not much else. At least it properly focused on her and her growing rivalry with Akari. Raki being a co-main character was pointless. Since Parade is finally done, guess it's time to look forward to the August announcement and hope the new series is interesting.

So about that new series. Aikatsu Planet has been announced, and the characters don't look bad. The twist? It's not really an anime. The details are unclear right now, but it looks to be a mostly live action show with the usual CG performances and maybe a little 2D animation. Definitely not the kind of shakeup I was hoping for.

I haven't kept my opinion secret but honestly I'm excited for it. Yes it's unexpected but honestly I don't think it can be worse than the post Diamond Friends Cup episodes of Friends! I thought On Parade! was a step up from the last portion of Friends! and I'm hoping Planet! will be good too.

Planet is out, and I do not know what to think. This is literally just Pripara except the real world stuff is live action. I could question the mechanics of idols traveling between two worlds and what the audience actually sees, but I'll worry about that stuff later. What's intriguing is that this is all about idols taking on virtual appearances while in Aikatsu Planet, meaning that it's possible for idols to hide their actual identities. Or for the personas to be switched behind the scenes. It's all like Vtubers. So main character Mao gets to take over the character of Hana, the top idol. Which seems like it should cause a massive scandal that will sink Hana's company the moment the disguise is discovered. While I do not believe they will explore the repercussions of this, if they actually deal with the issues of replacing virtual talent behind the scenes I might actually be interested in this.

I have to say I'd like this a lot more if this was just all anime. The live action stuff isn't bad sure, but it loses the charm of the anime and leads to weaker voice acting. Plus the live action/anime transition feels jarring. Maybe I'll just get used to this. Mao turned an apparently sentient unicorn into her dress, which only probably sounds worse than what it is. Meanwhile in her first competition Mao, a fake with a week of actual training, beat Q-pit, the number two idol in the industry. Sure Mao/Hana had an unexpected type advantage (more questions), but when Q-pit learns what happened with Hana there is going to be some sort of reaction I want to see. Finally, while I'm still unsure about all this, the actual performances remain top-notch. Didn't realize how much I'd missed them these past few months. For now, I'll give this a chance.

The short from last year and the 10th anniversary movie from this year recently got subbed. Say what you will about later entries, the original anime still holds up. Most of the focus is on Soliel though we do get some nice bits from Akari and Tristar. It's a shame the franchise is dead, but this was a solid sendoff.