Jun 7, 2014
-WATCH THE MOVIE FIRST- It is episode 0, and highly relevant to the series.
Let me be first to tell you that I'm not a huge fan of slice-of-life anime which this falls SQUARELY into.Also, I am not a big idol fan either. But WUG! is a masterpiece of art, idol management and hype. Here are some facts about the WUG!:
1. Every SINGLE one of the 7 main characters are completely new voice talents. For all of them this is their first major role. The one with the most experience is being train announcer in an another anime before this gig.
2. All the main characters
...
shares their name pronunciation with their respective voice actresses (this only makes sense if you know some Japanese), and shares facial features with them too.
3. The "next week's preview" segment shows the voice actresses in real life in the studio.
The above facts translates to a direct attachment between the real life voice actresses and the characters they portray in the anime. As the group grows from a bunch of rag-tags to a solid idol unit you can not help but grow attached to them. The writers/managers clearly made this anime with the fullest intention of launching and promoting the idol group that is Wake Up, Girls!
What is amazing is that they delivered. Whilst AKB0048 tried a fantasy approach to describing what being an idol is like, WUG! takes the full reality approach and lays it all out for all to see. Everything is of course a bit more exaggerated for drama but none so far-fetched that you can convince yourself that it will never happen in real life (though some may argue otherwise).
I find it refreshing that they didn't go the ecchi route either and just turn it into yet another one of "those" animes. This lets the audience find the moe elements in the character's personality and character developments. There was one thing that i didn't like as much, and that was the costume designs, they were pretty ordinary.
The songs from the movie, OP, ED, various other inserts are REALLY good. Watch them on a live performance on youtube if you don't believe me. At the end of the day, they're an idol unit, and idol unit make or breaks with their songs, unless you're AKB48, they can pretty much do anything they want and get away with it.
Oh, and Hanazawa Kana (and lots of other big names also make cameo appearances).
Overall, you can see that they went for a marketing ploy, giving rise to a new idol group through an anime, generating hype, interests, fanboys, and you know what, it worked for me. I thoroughly enjoyed WUG! as an anime and it made me want to pursue them as an idol group.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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