I will admit, I walked into this show with a certain set of ''expectations'' mainly that part of me (around 75%) thought that this was going to be an insane experiment of newly touched grounds that Kawamori's abstract mind had breathed into life with Okada's ambition to showcase kust how ''creative'' she was and make a huge splash. There was also a part of me, 15% to be exact, that thought this show was going to be awful, in the sense that the script was going to be a huge mess, the story nonsensical and the entire concept a bust, or at the very least it would hold together like Frankenstein's monster, but I would end up enjoying it ironically, sort of like
how duckroll had ended up. The 10% left was more a feeling of anticipation like I was about to face a dragon coming out of it's cave, still thinking of a way to tackle it without getting eaten (which, to be perfectly fair, how I felt about any idol based anime I go into, since I'm really not a fan of the idol concept with very few exception)
So needless to say, reading a bit through this thread and seeing the impressions posted on twitter sort of made me think that this show would end up exactly how I thought it was going to be. So I sit down, it's SHOWTIME and ... ... ... ... it's better than what I thought?
Oh, for sure, the idea itself is still pretty absurd, with an amalgamation of several famous anime tropes into a single entity, and the thing coming off with a feeling of being ''manufactured'' for success, but for some reason, I actually ended up not only liking what I seen, but also thinking it was, on some level ... good?
It's curious, but out of all the shows that premiered this season, the one anime that gave me a similar feeling to this show was
Eureka Seven AO, even if there is nothing outside of the surface level compressions between the two, I couldn't help but think ''Anime! Hellz yeah!'' after finishing with both shows.
I see that
SeijiSensei compared the premise for
AKB0048 to
Oh! Edo Rocket, and now that I think about, I agree. In a lot of ways, this anime does give me vibes of
Oh! Edo Rocket meet
Macross , which might have been part of the reason why I liked it so much. But more than that, I think it was how the premise held on to look plausible for these characters to act in that really sold it it to me. Not introducing everyone straight on helped I suspect, since it's pretty clear that Okada-san clearly placed a lot of thought on how to balance this cast, and it shows that she's going for the best route to help put every member of the cast in the spotlight and have their moment to shine.
The musical for the show is really impressive, if not really my cup of tea. I didn't find myself thinking it was obnoxious like I expected, but rather emphasizing the more fan aspect that the show is clearly aiming to go for. The vocal talent is really good as well, with the AKB girls first venture into the Seiyuu world being done quite well. overall, I thought the vocal aspect was well done, even better than I had already imagined.
The art was faithful to the original designs, a tough task and one I wonder how long will Starlight be able to maintain, even if it will take a while for me to really warm up (if ever) to the alien designs of there moeblobs
The animation on the hand was ... competent, to say the least where the 2D aspect was concerned, at times good, but the CG segment scared me. Sorry, but I have to say that the designs of this Universe AKB band was terrifying more than cute, and the hearts in their eyes didn't help much lol.
But even then, I couldn't help but feel like this was a very good episode. I didn't enjoy it ironically at all, but genuinely, even it's pretty insane. But past that there was a bit of sincere quality to it all, past the artificial layer of idol glamor and merchandising that I thought the show would wear from the start.
Overall, I give the premier a 7.5/10. I will check it out again for a few more episodes, but I don't know if I can actually watch it since I already have a full plate this season ...