AKB0048

Wow, I am sooooo behind on blogging.  I should be able to turn that around, now that I’m moved into my new house and back from vacation.  The trick of course is that I haven’t been watching much anime during this time. 

Today I thought I’d talk about one series I did watch, AKB0048.

I liked this series.  I almost didn’t watch it because it’s very cutesy.  As you can see from the picture below of two of the main characters, Nagisa and Chieri, the shine in their hair and the sparkle in their eyes is heart shaped!  I almost couldn’t get past that when I started watching, but the series sucked me in.

Partly that’s because of the music.  I’m partial to anime music and series about music and idols tend to attract me.  This series has good music.  The premise is pretty unique also, and of course, I like a unique premise.

It goes like this:  In the far future, entertainment in any form has been banned from many planets in the galactic human civilization.  A group of idols called AKB0048 exists to combat the entertainment ban by singing and dancing in shows that they hold by arranging them with rebel groups from the planets.  Occasionally the idols also have to fight to protect themselves and their fans from the DES, anti-entertainment forces.  AKB0048 has existed for centuries and at the time of the series is recruiting for the 77th generation of singers.  The plot follows the new group of singer-wanna-be’s as they struggle to become new members of AKB0048, first as understudies, and eventually as “successors”.

Becoming a member of AKB0048 is referred to as becoming a successor because it entails taking the name of one of the original members of the group.  For instance the captain of the current successor group is Takamina the 5th, the fifth person to hold the name of the original AKB0048 member, Takahashi Minami (Takamina).

The plot is interesting in itself and they also go into back story on many of the characters, so despite is cutesy appearance, the story line has enough depth not to be boring.   They deal with the current members’ struggles to maintain their places as successors and not ‘graduate’, as well as the focusing on the understudies’ struggles to come to terms with themselves and their co-recruits as they strive to become AKB0048 successors.  The cast is quite large, including the new group of singers, shown in the first picture, and the entire current group of successors, shown in the second group picture.  There is also a really cool dancing coach named Ushiyama, shown wearing the hat in the picture above, and a manager/producer/priestess who watches over all the girls and struggles with her own demons.

I enjoyed the series a LOT more than I expected to and I recommend it.