WAKE UP, GIRLS!

ANIME

STATUS
COMPLETE
EPISODES
12
RELEASE
March 29, 2014
LENGTH
24 min

DESCRIPTION

The gateway to Idol stardom might have opened for the newly formed singing group Wake Up, Girls, but the path to fame is full of perils and pitfalls. And for Mayu, Airi, Minami, Yoshino, Nanami, Kaya and Miyu, it's going to be especially difficult knowing who to trust, as their manager Matsuda's lack of experience could give other, less scrupulous, individuals a chance to take advantage.

That's a situation that quickly comes to a head when Green Leaves' president suddenly disappears with most of the money, and things only get worse when the replacement producer seems more interested in getting the girls into revealing swimsuits than promoting their music.

As malicious gossip begins to surface regarding Mayu's past membership in a rival group, and internal tensions begin to tear the team apart, they'll need more than just ambition to survive. Singing may be a business, but friendship and a love of music is what will keep everything together.

(Source: Sentai Filmworks)

CAST

Miyu Okamoto
Miyu Takagi
Minami Katayama
Minami Tanaka
Yoshino Nanase
Yoshino Aoyama
Mayu Shimada
Mayu Yoshioka
Nanami Hisami
Nanami Yamashita
Airi Hayashida
Airi Eino
Kaya Kikuma
Kaya Okuno
Shiho Iwasaki
Yuka Ootsubo
Megumi Yoshikawa
Minami Tsuda
Moka Suzuki
Nozomi Yamamoto
Karina
Haruka Tomatsu
Nanoka Aizawa
Kaori Fukuhara
Tina Kobayakawa
Kiyono Yasuno
Mai Kondou
Emiri Katou
Kouhei Matsuda
Shintarou Asanuma
Reina Suzuki
Satomi Akesaka
Junko Tange
Noriko Hidaka
Anna
Kana Hanazawa
Airi no Haha
Miki Itou
Kuniyoshi Oota
Hiro Shimono
Mari Shimada
Sumi Shimamoto
Tasuku Hayasaka
Kenichi Suzumura
Airi no Otouto
Hiro Nakajima
Airi no Chichi
Hiroyuki Shibamoto
Isokawa
Noriko Suzuki

Episodes are being prepared. Check back soon.

RELATED TO WAKE UP, GIRLS!

MOVIE MusicWake Up, Girls! The Movie

ONA ComedyWake Up, Girl ZOO!

Cover Art for Wake Up, Girls! Seishun no Kage

MOVIE MusicWake Up, Girls! Seishun no Kage

MANGA DramaWake Up, Girls!

Cover Art for Wake Up, Girls! no Miyagi PR Yarasete Kudasai!

ONA MusicWake Up, Girls! no Miyagi PR Yarasete Kudasai!

REVIEWS

Scooter
80/100
I'd say jump in, but its a bit shallow for that...
REVIEW/REVIEWER CONTEXT:
Normally, I don't do reviews on this site but I feel the need to write something for people who stumble upon this series page and see no community feedback. I'll give a bit of context on me to start and then will go into the actual series itself. I will avoid any major spoilers even though there aren't many, but for context on me pretty much just know that I have less knowledge than someone who's watched as much as I have, should. And thats pretty much all you need to know. Moving on.

THE BAD PARTS:
Around the time I started WUG I had just finished Love Live and was very much in the middle of an idol show kick. I'd heard people talk about Idolmaster but saw this and was interested in the more realistic design and art style. I thought a fresh more serious take on the idol industry would be a good change when compared to Love Live, unfortunately this show turned out to be less realistic..... with more realistic design.

Let me also just interject here and say that I did really enjoy the first few installments of the show, but it starts to take a dive during Beyond the Bottom! to the point Shin Shou became the season that should never be spoken of. That aside though I really did enjoy it, I say that because it might seem like I don't based on the next few paragraphs. An FYI - if you will. I like this shit.

The show is exactly as its presented, it's about a talent agency that creates their own idol group in hopes of competing with the best. What IS different is the fact that from beginning to end you really learn absolutely nothing about the personal backgrounds of the girls in the group. That's not to say I didn't like the group it's more just saying at no point do they ever really develop the motives or dreams of the girls, they instead just sorta pop up and create WUG. The girls themselves do get the interpersonal relationships between each other developed which is.... okay... but it gives you enough that you can see how they are molding around each other when the group forms.

The management aspect of the show almost ruins it. Anytime the CEO lady and her pathetic assistant are around the show is dramatically worse. See episode 2 of this series for an example. I still have no idea why that sequence of events was ever necessary, nothing came of it, nothing was explained during the entire situation... it's one of those things you looks back on just confused as to why it was ever included. And there are not many things more frustrating than watching girls who are trying to achieve dreams get screwed by some adults who are for lack of better words, absolutely pathetic characters. I1s CEO is a chill dude, I can respect the vibe and Hayasaka is a hilariously solid character who has some funny scenes that most likely should have been serious, but the rest of the managers in the show can get kept. Wish they were never included.

I swear I like the show.

THE GOOD PARTS:
Let's say some nice things. I loved the soundtrack and performances. They only throw about 5 songs at you across the entire series but 4/5 are BANGERS. They do a great job building the anticipation to the big concerts and I fucking loved the little pre-show stomp of the groups before they go on stage. For whatever reason it makes it all a lot more intense, they're going out there to battle. Savages out there I love it. Love Live had big CGI concerts which I have no issue with, but it was also nice to have a pretty decently animated idol show with no major CGI. The performances are absolutely on point in the start of the series, later on not so much but we'll get to that.

More good things is I really did like the actual group, and some of the direction the show goes. One thing that was interesting is the show gets the girls to do local jobs to get more recognition as they are the up and coming new group. Seeing them slowly build a following was pretty cool, and as all the characters are pretty reasonably written it's easy to support them all as a group as they become better friends with each other. Some characters get more love and screen-time than the others though, which never was a problem for me since there are levels to the characters for sure (Mayu the goat for example). I'm not calling the writing good by any means, but its good enough to tolerate, and for the things that aren't you just need to laugh at them

Lastly I really loved some of the recurring bits that they threw in there, the one that immediately comes to mind is the fan-group in the restaurant bit which didn't get old for the entire series. I thought that shit was great everytime. Hayasaka has some good bits here and there but besides that there's not too much else. Once you keep seeing them though they grow on you big time.

CLARIFICATION:
When I am talking about the good parts I'm pretty much talking about the Original Series and Seishun no Kage, Beyond the Bottom! has SOME good points but for the most part is extremely rushed and you miss out on what should be the best parts. I'll refer to this review to do the talking for Shin-Shou, I think they call it a glorified power point which could not be said any better but it is worth checking out the very last episode because its just one big concert with them throwing down HIT AFTER HIT. LETS GOO... anyway,

CONCLUSION:
Overall, the show is more shallow than what you might be expecting, not great development or writing, it does not follow what the art style has laid in front of it thematically. The art style is person to person but I personally liked it, reminded me of Just Because if anything. The adult characters are insufferable except for the one I1 CEO and main producer. The other idols we never really meet but keep seeing and meeting don't add too much either. Its like they bring up these ideas then never finish them off and the loose end is never tied.

All that being said I loved the groups inter-dynamics, I loved the songs and performances, I loved the fan groups bit, and overall I really enjoyed watching the first half of this total series.

I know I'm a sucker for wholesome, friendship building musicals, but I just need to mention that the ED transitions at the end of Seishun no Kage might be my favorite part of the entire show. IT GOES RIDICULOUSLY HARD.

Either way at least this show has something being said for it now. Though it might not be a good thing in the long run (I swear I like the show).
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CosmicCuune
75/100
Decent idol show for those interested in the genre
Somehow I've never heard of this show until recently, to me it has been completely drowned out by Love Live and Idol Master which I have not watched either. I thought I'd take a dip and this and it has been somewhat mid of an experience, I would praise its character work and writing, but the biggest weakness would have to be production value and some questionable fan service decisions.

The first strange thing about this show, is it basically has an episode 0 which they call a "movie", but it's only 50min long and feels like it's one of those catch-up episodes where it just quickly show you old footage, but no this is not reused footage, most of it only exist in this "movie", however I do suspect that the original plan was to have a longer season, but they removed half of it and turned into a short movie.

Thankfully the remaining 12 episode season 1 is still decent, the characters are done especially well for a show with an ensemble cast. Rather than just having episodes that specifically focus on one character like most other such shows, the stories of the 7 girls are woven together throughout the season. There is setup and payoff, something about a character can be shown in the ep0 movie and explored in ep3, and then still comes back and mentioned when appropriate toward the end of the season, this is good writing in my books. The only bad character I guess would be the manager guy, I'm not sure why he's here, probably just to be the audience avatar, since the remaining cast are all female, which is totally fine but I guess they didn't have confidence in that.

I also like the antagonists in the story, I-1 group which is basically AKB48, is a corporate idol leader of the industry, they remind me of the bad guys from Ready Player One, where the members are referred to by their employee number, they practice constantly and whoever don't make it just gets fired on the spot. That sounds pretty stereotypical and boring but that's just the surface level, the actual members of I-1 group, their manager, and protagonist Mayu, former member of I-1 group, all have interesting back story and motivations for what they do, they're not just boring "corporate bad guy", although you'd have to go beyond season 1 for most of that as this season is mostly focused on the WUG group.

Production issues, this show just doesn't look very fancy, there are many deliberate attempts to not show you dances or live performances because those are expensive to animate. It's not a bad looking show, but I just think an idol show needs some more impressive on-stage moments to truly shine. There is also the issue of the songs themselves, there are only two for this entire season which is... lacking, and they only have one polished studio take of it. So even when in the story they're supposed to be new and inexperienced, the song we hear is performed flawlessly, and just sounds like a studio take rather than what you would get from a video recording of live performance, which breaks immersion. When they enter this idol competition against other groups all around Japan, again we don't see the performances from other groups because again that would be expensive, we just see some freeze frames of them performing, which is again, underwhelming.

Then there's the fan service, for someone with Strike Witches as a favorite show, you would not expect me to complain about fan service but I think the issue is not fan service per-se. Instead it's the fact that unlike your typical bikini episode 7 where the girls enjoy an onsen or beach vacation, here it's framed as the girls being exploited for sex appeal, which is uncomfortable for them and the audience, and still the camera man keeps pointing at their asses, for an entire episode. While I often enjoy fan service in anime, it shouldn't be at the expense of the beloved characters. To be fair the story idea for that episode is fine, it just didn't need to be the whole episode, a couple of scenes would be enough, they just went too far.

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