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I absolutely love love love idolmaster, but this movie is really bad. I have to give it credit, it is bad in a way where you will be very invested and be yelling at the screen. But yes, this movie is bad to the point that I have no idea that they didn’t realize that it was a bad idea. Basically, the plot revolves around 7 new characters who are introduced as backup dancers for the classic original 13 imas characters. The drama is that, well, the backup dancers can’t dance. So they just sulk around cause they aren’t getting any better and they’re disappointing ... everyone. One of these backup dancers is particularly mean and is always getting onto the others for how bad they are at dancing, even though she can’t dance either. Another of the backup dancers is so affected by the mean one that she quits. (Honestly I don’t know why they don’t all quit or get fired since they can’t do the only thing they were hired to do.) And then everyone has to go and convince her to come back and try again. After that, (when there is 5 minutes left in the movie) the dancers finally get it together apparently and all is well.

So yes, the main conflict has nothing to do with the characters who are actually on the movie poster and who you would assume that it’s about. Now this on its own isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but the characters it does revolve around are just going around being terrible at their jobs and fighting all the time. These backup dancer characters would go on to become Idolmaster Million Live, and I have no clue how the writers of this movie thought that this would be a good introduction to them. The original 13 characters are barely in the movie, Haruka plays mediator between the fighting dancers but doesn’t do much else. And then the others all just have one or two lines throughout the whole thing. Interestingly, Chihaya (who has a very bad relationship with her family) has a line where she says that she’s going to reach out to her mom and invite her to their concert. We see her put the letter in the mail, and then it never gets followed up on. They never show if her mom responded or if she came to the concert or what. I have no idea why they put this in here? Did they just forget they did or what?

Now onto a positive, the music is amazing. And I think it might have something to do with the fact that the music sequences for the most part don’t include the dancer characters. But the soundtrack is great and the little music video type things are fun. NOW HOWEVER, the final musical number, Masterpiece. It’s a great song, no doubt. An iconic idolmaster song that always makes me a little bit emotional. But, in the scene where they are finally performing the big concert and they sing this song, we get to see the backup dancers dance. And….they just clap. Their dance is just clapping to the beat. I was so mad lollllll. The entire drama was how they just could not dance and they just could not improve….and all they had to do was clap on beat??!?! I absolutely cannot fathom why they didn’t give them a complex and impressive dance when it was literally the entire point of the movie. They’re getting outdanced by the original 13 characters (or I guess 12 cause Ritsuko isn’t on stage) and they at no point in the story had any trouble with dancing.

This movie is so bizarre…I can’t even begin to comprehend how none of the people working on it noticed the giant faults.

This show is so fun and cute! I am a big idolmaster fan, but I usually don’t particularly care for the idolmaster shows. U149 is a bit interesting because it’s definitely aimed at a much younger demographic, given that in every episode the characters learn a lesson about friendship, growing up, and learning to love yourself. But however, there are a couple inappropriate jokes that kind of go too far for a kids show so honestly it made me a bit confused. Other than a couple strange jokes though, it is a very kiddy show. Now what I was not expecting, is that it made ... me cry on 2 different occasions. It’s very effective at getting you to relate to the character's struggles and I think it does a much better job at dividing screen time to all the characters than other idolmaster shows.

The visuals are vibrant and colorful, it’s a very pretty show. Particularly episode 11 is full of absolutely beautiful visual sequences. The songs are also nice, although since it’s child characters singing them, it’s gonna sound like kids show music. So, nothing that I would add to my permanent rotation, but there are some great Veggie Tales songs and just the same, I’ll say that the songs from U149 are a lot of fun.

Ultimately, this show isn’t a masterpiece or anything, but it’s a good time with a few surprisingly effective emotional moments. Definitely people who are already idolmaster fans will enjoy this, and I think new fans can benefit from being introduced to this more kiddy version even though it isn’t necessarily representative of the rest of the series.

I will preface by saying that I have not played the game, so maybe that is good. The impression that I get from this movie is that every aspect of it is wildly derivative of other idol series. It is very generic despite having a futuristic setting, which you would think they would do something with. The characters felt like exact copies of other idol series' characters. Obviously I know that there are common tropes between idol series, but the Tokyo 7th Sisters characters are literally exactly the same as individual existing characters. Every time a new character started speaking, I immediately could identify which ... existing character they were created to rip-off. And then the actual plot doesn't make up for any of this. Weirdly it kind of feels like a kids movie, but some parts are too inappropriate for kids I think so I don’t think this could have been rebranded as being for kids either.