After all the girls rediscover the importance of unity from Haruka’s emotional leave, everyone is now excited for the live performance.
Before we get to the live performance, it’s a good thing that Kotori checked on the Producer and accepted his request to leave the hospital so he can see the girls’ performance. It was a very good choice since it cheered everyone up and considering that he is the main guy, he can’t possibly miss it. Thankfully, he apologizes for not being around and said that he looks forward for their performance.
As for the performance that happens in the first half, it was simply amazing. The girls simply looked cute while they sang and danced. Aside from that, the mash-up of Ready and Change was rather symbolic since they accomplished and changed a lot while working as a team within a year. Despite the difficulties Chihaya and Haruka faced, everyone came together to help each other, which essentially enforces the theme of Unity. In comparison, their second song, ”Itsumademo, Dokomademo” (いつまでも、どこまでも、 However Long, However Far) is a bit subdued with the animation, but still a great song to end the live concert. Underneath it all, it’s nice to see Ritsuko take part of it and seeing Chihaya’s mother in the crowd to watch her daughter perform.
Few months later, there were some surprising developments. First off, it seems that Kuroi conned 765Pro of its money for a new office as his unknown company goes bankrupted. On the brighter note, we get to see a glance of 876Pro’s idols and of course, Producer holding up his wallet that Haruka got him as a “get well” present. The reactions Miki gives after were hilarious. She simply clings on to his shoulders, making it look like a harem ending for the Producer. Nevertheless, it was a great way to end off such a great show.
Final Thoughts
For a while now, I had a small interest in the Idolmaster games since it looked fun. The only main problem is that it was only in Japan, on the Xbox 360 (a console I did not want to get) and that I don’t know any Japanese. Needless to say, the Anime surprisingly became one of the best show of this year as I liked how the girls united and the hard effort they put into to become popular. While the girls were the main features of the show, you have to appreciate the amount of work the Producer put into bringing them to popularity. As you will see in my Let’s Play of the game, I have to plan the schedules, the costumes, events, CD releases and etc. Many of these activities affects how successful the girls will become and nobody should really take it for granted. Not only that, the show motivated me to import the PS3 version of the game and of course, learning Japanese formally. Throughout the two months of study, I start to understand the language more. Still, there is a lot I need to learn. Hopefully, the game will make some of the Kanji commonly used in Japanese a bit easier to understand.
Although the show had a few weak points like the beginning episodes and episode 16, it became one of my favorite shows of this year. Perhaps, the strongest aspect of the show was the music as it simply fits the mood every time and the performances of these songs are great. In particular, Imai Asami’s (Chihaya) singing is perhaps the best out of the idols as shown with her performance of “Promise” (約束) and “Sleeping Princess” (眠り姫). It almost feels like Namco worked harder on this adaptation after the harsh backlash they received from the botched up adaptation they had in 2007 and it paid off. From the goodness I have seen, this proves that nobody should make an adaptation unrelated to the original source material, slap the name on the cover and expect it to become successful because it won’t. It’s just like making a game and calling it Street Fighter 2010 when it has nothing to do with the actual series. Instead of doing that, just make a faithful adaptation the first time and the fans will like it.
So, is this the end? Not really since in the actual game, you start over from the beginning from scratch. The only things you keep are the money and costumes.
Overall Rating: 9.5/10, Masterpiece, A
The review will come early next year.
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