Overall Score: 89/100
Release Year: 2013, 2014
Genre: Idol, Comedy, School
Season One
Overall: 86
Story: 69
The story itself is not very good in its own right, nor is it particularly original. Originality does not determine how good something is, but it can be a big factor for deciding what to watch. The story boils down to “The school is closing so let’s become idols to get more people to apply.” I haven’t seen much ‘school/club is shutting down’ shows so I was able to go into this with an open mind, but others who have seen shows like this might not enjoy seeing it again. For what it is, I think the story is told well.
Art: 90
For the most part, this show looks very good. I don’t think the 3D parts were integrated well, and they unfortunately don’t look very good and are pretty common in the dance sequences. Other than that, the 2D animation looks above-average in terms of detail and style. They still look like anime characters, but it doesn’t look generic, regardless of how the picture on MAL looks. I especially liked the close-up shots of characters. The show also has good animated transitions, when it has them.
Sound: 88
In terms of the music (being a music show), this show has above-average for an anime, but I don’t know how it stacks up to other idol shows. Regardless, it’s very important for a show based on “musicians” to have a good soundtrack, and I think this delivers. I didn’t notice anything weird about the voice acting and the background music seemed to fit their respective scenes.
Characters: 58
The characters in this season, are not very developed. Their individual personalities can be unique at times, but they are relatively one-sided. With so many characters, it can be hard to give them remotely deep personalities, or keep up the layers of those personalities through almost if not every episode, especially when you also have to tell a story in a complete way, but this show focuses more on the story than on the characters anyway. The main characters personalities don’t necessarily matter, because they all join forces in the end, but if the characters were lifeless the story would be boring. This show is pretty much in-between. And no, changing your mind doesn’t count as multi-faceted.
Enjoyment: 94
Regardless of anything I didn’t like, I liked this show overall more than I was expecting, not particularly being a fan of idol shows. I’m not surprised this show is as popular as it is, especially considering the popularity of K-ON!, as they are both focussed on high school anime girls who do music (but they are still vastly different). I would recommend only watching this along with its second season.
Season Two
Overall: 92
Story: 78
The story this time much better, better told, and less one-track-minded. It had, as far as I can tell, 3 points to it. μ’s competing, coming to terms with what will happen after the seniors in the group graduate, and an occasional focus on certain characters and expanding them and their personalities. I think this is a much better idea, and allows for a more interesting story that improves on some of the things the first season missed.
Art: Identical to season one
Sound: Identical to season one
Characters: 76
Like I said before, the characters are much more developed than in season one, but unfortunately not all of them. The way this is accomplished is that a few of the episodes don’t develop the story, but instead set a premise to deepen a specific character’s personality.
Enjoyment: 94
I thought this season was much better than the first. The characters are more fleshed out, and the story, to me, was more compelling, and it is essential to watch if you liked the first season, as it gives a proper ending (aside from setting up for the movie, which means it's more of a cliffhanger, but the main plot is still resolved). Honestly, this show moved me more than I was expecting. If you are a person that cries at anime about friendship you will cry to this, and probably the movie. Though they really weren’t together that long, and most of them will still be together at the same school for another year, and there are ways to contact one-another pretty much until they die because of the internet/cell phones, all of that doesn’t matter compared to μ’s, the one thing that is unique to only all of them, in that rather short period of time. That’s why this season is emotional.