I have to admit that I have a soft spot for idol anime. It’s nice to see cute girls singing and dancing on stage. Re:Stage Dream Days is another one of those shows that have a very similar premise to Love Live. Instead of saving a school, they are saving a club.
A girl named Shikimiya Mana transferred schools shortly after school started. Mana is from a famous family of musicians. She ultimately transferred from the main campus mostly because she is afraid of performing in front of people. While Hasegawa Minori shows Mana around the school, it’s quite obvious that Minori doesn’t want Mana to join the Lyrical Traditional Dance Club as she doesn’t mention it.
In reality, it’s just a strange name for an idol club. Apparently, it’s at risk of being disbanded due to a lack of members and accomplishments. This can explain why Ichikishima Mizuha tried to deceive Mana to join by having her form out a club enrollment form. Thankfully Mana stopped and Shikimiya Sayu catches Mizuha in the act.
After Sayu show off her dancing and singing, Mizuha pushes Mana to give it a try with Sayu. Mizuha becomes surprised how skilled Mana is at singing and dancing. Sayu shares her intentions of winning Prism Stage, which is a competition to become the top middle-school idol. In other words, this show is starting to sound like Love Live again. The only difference is that they are saving a club and not a school. Also, there are only 6 members compared to 9.
That said, Mana seems hesitant to join since she is afraid to perform on stage. Sayu tries to seek Mana out after finding out that Mana’s older sister won the competition last year. It’s quite obvious that she wants to become idols with her to win Prism Stage. Sadly, Mana doesn’t think she can do it.
While Sayu doesn’t give up after she tries to chase after the bus calling out Mana’s name. Meanwhile, Mana’s chest tightens for some reason and she doesn’t know why. In the end, Mana decides to join. This makes me wonder if Sayu and Mana is becoming a reality? Most likely.
In the second episode, Minori tells Lyrical Traditional Dance Club that they need five members to prevent the club from disbanding. Of course, that alone is not enough. The club needs an accomplishment. It’s obvious that winning the Prism Stage is enough, but Minori doesn’t think that they will make it.
In short, Mizuha comes up with a plan to attract members through a live mini performance. However, Minori tries to sabotage their efforts by saying that they only have approval to use the stage. Obviously, Minori is dead set in sabotaging them so they can’t meet the goal. After all, she doesn’t want the Lyrical Traditional Dance Club to exist for some reason.
From here, we learn more about Hiiragi Kae, which is a girl in their class that spend a lot of time in the nurse’s office. Sayu and Mana eventually visits her apartment. As expected, Kae is an idol enthusiast and believes that idols are serious business. After all, idols was the thing that help her overcome her stage flight from watching their performances.
Eventually, Kae eventually changed her mind after Mana shared her experiences. In fact, Kae helps Mana and her friends out. She hacked the student council computer to approve the application on the day of the mini live performance. Not only that, she also took over the school’s speakers to announce the performance while doing the sound mixing. Believe it or not, she accomplished this by just using her smart phone. From this, it’s obvious that Kae is a leet hacker. It’s not too surprising since her bedroom, her computer has 8 computer screens connected. Even so, she seems moved by Sayu’s and Mana’s performance that she decides to join.
Overall, while Re:Stage Dream Days is enjoyable, it’s somewhat generic with the premise. Nevertheless, there are still enjoyable moments and the Sayu and Mana moments are strong. Sure, Minori seems upset that her plans of sabotaging Lyrical Traditional Dance Club. Don’t worry, when she can’t beat them, she will join them. After all, there are very strong indications that she will join. ¶
