Jul 9, 2014
In order for me to write this review, I have spoilers from Wake Up, Girls! and a few from Love Live!
I think I needed Wake Up, Girls in my life more than I realized. I started watching it shortly after Love Live! School Idol Project Season 2 ended, and I was upset. I love idols, especially the concept and realization of them. To see a group of girls save their school, as well as win the national championship was the feel good story I needed. Love Live! ended on a really depressing, positive note and I wanted more.
Enter Wake Up, Girls! A story not of
...
amazing triumph, but the tribulations that come with it. The opening scene of a nervous group of girls, performing their heart out. Then you realize, there’s only a few people in the audience. Each member carries a heavy backstory, few are marked with privilege like the members of μ’s. Mayu, a washed up idol who caused the decline of her parent’s wealth and relationship, or Kaya, who left home after her childhood friend went missing at sea and her depression was too much to bear. The drama and struggles are so real and relatable it hurts. You want them to be happy and you want them to succeed.
I know I keep comparing it to Love Live! but I can’t help it. There’s no other relative show like it. Idolm@ster wasn’t really that music based, as odd as that sounds. The stories are relatively parallel between WUG and Love Live! but here’s my final thought on Wake Up, Girls!, yes, yes to everything. Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt. On my recent visit to Anime Expo, Yamamoto Yutaka (the director and producer of WUG) gave a quick Q & A and he mentioned that the only real reason that WUG was given a green light was the idea of small town dreamers in a place like Sendai, could work hard enough to get there. And it’s true. You see every step of the music process (sort of) with Wake Up, Girls! From the production company booking jobs, to spending countless hours practicing, even hiring writers to write their songs. Love Live! had, well, Maki, allegedly writing and recording full pop songs and Kotori designing outfits.
As much as I love Love Live!, watching a serious idol show was such a great change of pace and I really wish somewhere in the future, we can get another OVA showing the aftermath, or another season.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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