The iDOLM@STER Shiny Colors

An ambitious producer who works for 283 Production aims to guide his idol units to fame and victory at the Wonder Idol Nova Grand Prix (WING)—a prestigious competition for rookie idols. Although he is already in charge of multiple units, a fateful encounter with the skilled songstress Mano Sakuragi leads him to create a new promising group: illumination STARS.

Now an aspiring idol, Mano pursues her dream with the support of her fellow members Hiori Kazano and Meguru Hachimiya. At the same time, the producer seeks to increase the visibility of his other units, aligning with his true goal of helping them grow as professionals and understand what makes them shine the most. Indeed, only those who know themselves have a chance to become the new rising stars of the industry.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Sakuragi, Mano Main

Sekine, Hitomi Japanese

Producer Main

Natsume, Kyouhei Japanese

Shirase, Sakuya Supporting

Yamaki, Anna Japanese

Kazano, Hiori Supporting

Kondou, Reina Japanese

Morino, Rinze Supporting

Maruoka, Wakana Japanese

Tanaka, Mamimi Supporting

Suganuma, Chisa Japanese

Arisugawa, Natsuha Supporting

Suzumoto, Akiho Japanese

Kuwayama, Chiyuki Supporting

Shibasaki, Noriko Japanese

Osaki, Amana Supporting

Kuroki, Honoka Japanese

Saijo, Juri Supporting

Nagai, Mariko Japanese

Mankyuu Director

Yagihashi, Masazumi Sound Director

Katou, Youichi Script, Series Composition

Codama, Saori Theme Song Performance

Reviews

Jun 23, 2024

Ryxan

Recommended

The iDOLM@STER anime franchise has been improving with each series that has come out and I would say Shiny Colors is the best yet. The past series have struggled to properly introduce characters with enough screen time before jumping around constantly. Shiny Colors improved greatly on this by feeling more like a standalone story that can be started and understood without previous knowledge of the series. Each subunit in Shiny Colors was given dedicated time to understand what they are about and how each of the idols relate to each other. By the end of the season you feel like you really understand each of ... the girls and want to cheer them on.

During the first few minutes of watching I was a bit disappointed with them using a CG animation style, but after some time it grew on me and the quality particularly shines during the live music scenes. I was very impressed with how many live MVs this series had, whereas in the previous iDOLM@STER series they seemed to skip over the actual music performances most of the time. The final episode of this season was very impressive with multiple full songs animated like an actual live idol performance. The quality and variety of songs in Shiny Colors has also been my favorite of any iDOLM@STER series. I am very much looking forward to the 2nd season!

Pros:
- Characters and seiyuus
- Many live song performances
- Good pacing and screen time for characters and subunits
- Amazing songs

Cons:
- The story can be slow if you aren't a fan of slice of life
- If you aren't a big idol fan, or dislike the typical "love, hope, and dreams" plot, you probably won't like it

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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Aug 22, 2024

Ranka-Nyan

Recommended

Shiny colors, probably the least known of idolmaster but actually the best one with the most fleshed out characters.
Developed as a browser idol sim game and released in 2018. Yet thanks to the community it's one of the few iM@S games to be able to play in english via it's fan patched web version.

The series is a stand alone and doesn't need any knowledge of previous iM@S series and can be a good starting point for the franchise. It takes all the aspects of the game and puts them nicely into motion. As an early fan of shiny, I can tell that it's a faithful ... adaptation of the game.
While the previous iM@S entries are more similar to each other and be bright, lively and even dramatic, shiny colors takes quite a different approach and is more laid back, slow and plays like a slice of life series.
The presented agency is smaller and less strict and tries to build newcomer idols. We have a laid back president who basically is kaiba by voice, us as producer and the cute easy-going secretary hazuki.
Unlike million live with 39 idols, we only have 16 idols, which makes it easier to remember the idols by face, voice and personality.
The focus here is more on the units and their interaction between each other and overall more on the daily lives of the idols. This always was the biggest appeal of shiny and combined with the slow progression, the idols are the most fleshed out of the entire franchise.

It may be a 3D CGI animation but the graphics are actually really nice, soft and clean and very faithful to the original design. It still retains a good 2D look. The characters look beautiful and they show unusually lots of small details in their expressions like eye movements, which is nice to see. Environments look good and the lighting often is very beautiful too, especially during sunset scenes or similar ones.
Animation can be sometimes slow with low fps, but with the slow tone, it's fitting and after a while you get used to it. Even with the fps in mind, the concert scenes still look amazing and well done. Here the 3D animation plays out it's pros too with nice close ups, fancy camera movements and good dance mocap, making the entire thing more lively and realistic as watching a real concert.
Overall shiny colors looks even better than million live too, as the film grain in ML was often too heavy, visuals too blurry and it somehow even had visible aliasing around the hair too unlike in shiny.

Story in shiny progresses slowly and it takes some time for things to develop. It's basically a slice of life series with idol as a theme. But it's cute and relaxing and sets up a nice atmosphere and mood in exchange for being slow, giving time for development. Scenes are often deep and thoughtful by the way it's presented, especially if you already know the idols. It sometimes plays out as a drama series as it focuses on the idols emotion. Yet it has less forced drama than the other entries and less annoying characters too, making it more enjoyable and easier to follow and pick a favorite character.

Sound is also good and has a beautiful calm and relaxing ost with slow tones and many piano sounds, fitting for it's slice of life style. Tracks may not be that recognizable and iconic, but they add much emotion and are a good accompany to the scenes and visuals. As for the idol songs, we have different genre for each unit. Ranging from classic idol pop, to more high energy music and even metal. An overall good range, which the game even expands on more. All the unit songs are actually from the game.
While the series has a sweet original opening, it actually lacks on an ending song and mostly uses the various unit songs as off vocal track or a piano outro. This could be because the series originally got a cinema release and rather has a more cinematic tone too. I personally liked the off vocal and piano outros as it gave more meaning and chance of reflecting to the watched scenes while the credits roll. A unique and nice change from the usual setup.

As a fan of iM@S and slice of life, shiny colors was really enjoyable thanks to it's deviation from the usual idol series formular, making it more unique and fresh. It's more calm and laid back, making it easier to jump in and follow and it has a nice touch of other healing series.
Visuals are beautiful and sound is a nice accompany. The characters are cute, individual, recognizable and there are no annoying characters either. While the game may go more in depth with the characters, the anime still represents them how they are in the game and even had various easter eggs from the game.
Overall it may be more of a treat for the already existing fans, but it's still worth for newcomers too, especially if you like slice of life and idols.

The series ratings honestly are unusually low in comparison to the other iM@S entries. It definitely deserves better than that. It could be because of the different setting and expectations though and especially the very different visuals, namely the 3D CGI. Yet shiny sure is a great example of very good 3D CGI animation. Even with that in mind, shiny deserves a watch and I enjoyed every aspect of it, especially as a fan of idolmaster and slice of life series.

Reviewer’s Rating: 10

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Jun 21, 2024

davidralph

Not Recommended

Watching Shiny Colors is like eating a sandwich you hastily put together, forgetting to put any substance in it. That's not to say there's nothing here - there definitely is, it's just incredibly bland.

The main problem with this show is it tries to deviate from the tried and tested formula of the IDOLM@STER anime series. The magic of the industry: the drama, perils, laughter, and sorrow, is swapped for a slice-of-life story featuring a new cast preparing for an event. There are no stakes here, as this production agency seems to be rather prosperous (much like Bandai Namco after releasing this).

Now, a slice of ... life has the opportunity to be something new and different, but the staff have managed to fumble it. Instead of focusing on a small group of characters; it showcases multiple units of them at once. Being only 12 episodes long, and having far more than 12 characters, they can't flesh the characters out sufficiently. This results in a lot of flat characters and boring interactions. Each episode consists of jumpcuts to various groups, throwing you out of the immersion. No girl is properly introduced, and the constant need to show their name cards in the corner of the screen hints at how forgettable they are.

A mediocre scenario isn't helped by the studio blatantly insulting you for your time by offering a "climax" in the form of 48 minutes of performances. I hope you enjoy "Tsubasa Gravity", as you'll be hearing that almost enough to make you mute it. If you're at all familiar with the music channels, you'll feel right at home with Shiny Colors. You'd be better off using it as background music while you do something else (perhaps making a better sandwich).

On the topic of background music, the actual soundtrack of the anime is forgettable. I can't even remember it as I'm writing this. There's an opening which sounds quite good, but the studio forgot to animate any endings. In later episodes, they completely forgot to put an ending song in, which results in you getting depressing piano tracks accompanied by low-budget default credit effects. It feels incredibly lazy and that a lot of corners were cut in producing it.

In the animation department, not much was cooked up. The majority of character designs are unappealing and the background environments are generic. It looked incredibly disappointing compared to the previous 3DCG IM@S anime with vibrant movements. A lot of scenes in Shiny Colors were replaced with montages consisting of static shots or reused animation.

This may seem all doom and gloom, but if you note my rating there isn't all bad with this show. After all, an idol anime enjoyer is here for the idols and their music, right? Rest assured you will have your fill of IDOLM@STER idolness. The songs are as good as ever, and if you're a fan of the characters (I sadly only recognised 2-3 of them), you'll be more at home with it. However if you're not a fan, I can't possibly recommend this to you. I believe that, much like myself, you'll be bored to tears.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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