First Impressions / Series Introduction / Snapshots

OP Sequence

OP: 「恋、はじめました！」 (Koi, Hajimemashita!) by 野川さくら(Nogawa Sakura)
Watch the OP! Mirror 1 Mirror 2 (11.5MB, XviD)

Summary:
At the Lovedol concert, the two generations of idols take the stage and perform their respective songs. The first generation, consisting of Aya, Chocolat (aka. China and Mina), Yui, Ayumi, and Sayuki, starts off the concert by performing 「シアワセ革命」 (Shiawase Kakumei). The second generation, consisting of Touko, Piccolo (aka. Hibiki and Shizuku), Yukimi, Makoto, and Rei, comes on after and performs 「ココロの矢印は上向き」 (Kokoro no Yajirushi wa Uwamuki). Fujisawa Tomohiro watches the concert from backstage and then goes to the dressing room when Yui starts addressing the audience. Tomohiro is the manager of the third generation, currently consisting of Nekoya Miu, Nonomiya Mai, Houjou Hina, and Kiryuu Kotoha. As he gets the girls ready, Tomohiro is surprised to hear Yui tell the audience that the debut of the third generation is postponed. He tracks down the company president Mariko in the parking deck and confronts her about the cancellation of the third generation’s announcement. However, she corrects him because it’s only postponed, not cancelled. For now, she finds his group to be insufficient and refuses to debut them until they find the answer. The four third generation girls meanwhile start doubting themselves, but Tomohiro comes back and cheers them up, even though he himself is unsure. When they go out to see the auditorium and dream about singing in front of a large crowd, Tomohiro vows that the girls will get on the stage.
The next day, Tomohiro is eating breakfast and thinking about what the president said when his little sister Ruri startles him. She can tell that he’s troubled, so he admits to her how the president called them insufficient. Ruri thinks that it’s a simple issue of numbers since the first and second generations are comprised of six girls each, but the third generation only has four. Tomohiro doesn’t think that’s it, especially since Miu, Mai, Kotoha, and Hina have such wonderful talent. Afterwards, he heads to work and finds the four girls ready to practice in the Lesson Room; they are determined to do their best and make their debut. Unbeknownst to Tomohiro, Ruri goes to visit president Mariko because she has something to say. As the day goes on and the third generation girls continue to practice, Tomohiro goes out to think more about what the girls are insufficient in. By chance, he passes a girl in a pedestrian tunnel right as the train above them roars by. But all Tomohiro hears is the girl’s beautiful singing, and so he follows her to the street corner where she performs with her guitar. He continues after her once she’s finished and eventually stops her. Impressed by her singing skill, he shows her his Sweet Fish Production business card and asks her to debut with his company. She declines and states that she hates singing. Tomohiro is left speechless when the girl explains that she was singing for the sake of revenge.

ED Sequence

ED: 「LoveLoveLoveのせいなのよ！」 (LoveLoveLove no Sei na no yo!) by らぶドル (Lovedol)
Watch the ED! Mirror 1 Mirror 2 (12.1MB, XviD)
Neither the opening or ending song really appeal to me. The OP caught me a little off guard by how simplistic it was, and gave me the wrong impression on the animation quality of this series. Honestly, it feels like it’d be better if the the opening animation and the ending animations switched places.

I’m surprised they started the series off with six and a half straight minutes of song. I guess it’s to be expected of an idol-themed show, but I’d probably be happier if I had actually enjoyed wither of those two songs. In fact, the best one in my opinion was Sakaki Mizuki’s – voiced by Nogawa Sakura – solo guitar song near the end of the episode, and that was fairly short. The overall production quality wasn’t too bad – the animation quality was decent, but the character designs did get a bit repetitive.
The plot here seems really straightforward, with the third generation girls wanting to become idols. Tomohiro’s little sister Ruri and the mysterious Mizuki will of course join the group, and they’ll all make their debut together. The ED also hints at a romantic relationship between Mizuki and Tomohiro. But hey, maybe this series will surprise me and make the plot more complex – Mizuki’s revenge statement was certainly interesting enough. Still, the main reason to watch this show is for all of the seiyuu talent, with Gotou Yuuko, Nakahara Mai, Haruko Momoi, Chihara Minori, Kanako Sakai, and the aforementioned Nogawa Sakura. In that sense, I was pretty pleased with being able to hear them all together. It remains to be seen how long the seiyuu novelty factor lasts, but it’s enough for me to at least watch a few more episodes.

35 Comments

  3. looks like a horrendous anime from that feedback. there had better be some major plot twists on this story like shuffle. better off waiting for the next 10 or so episodes to see how the story goes before i watch this

    bartucs
    Reply

  6. So what is this show all about? I’m here because the art looks dazzling. But now I see the preview, I felt like urrghh… Anyways it’s good to hear Mai Nakahara again. I like her as seiyuu

    Jarod
    Reply

  7. Yeah, whats it all about ? Last few posts in this blog have been quite pointless.
    There’s not much sense in posting lots of shots without any explaining of what the hell is going on.

    Karnot
    Reply

  8. You know, I can’t churn out straight content all the time. I’m pissed as hell enough that I got home so late, and I don’t need people like you criticizing how I blog. Perhaps you’ve forgotten this post where I explicitly stated “the warning here is that as the months progress, entries may or may not become sparse. Basically there are no guarantees for anything like there was before.” In other words, I’ll post what I want and I don’t feel any obligation to summarize everything I post. That’s especially true in the beginning of a season where I watch/screencap/blog a lot more than I intend to completely write up.

    Omni
    Reply

  10. Omni, just ignore clueless idiots like Karnot. If you do multiple shows at the beginning of a season, readers should be lucky to get more than just a bullet summary of first impressions.

    Your hard work is very much appreciated 😉

    Mentar
    Reply

  15. ehehe this shows is nice most of all those cute and nice voices of their seiyuu!
    welll hope you can blog this more until in the end becoz the one who really hook me up is the mizuki’s revenge.

    zaira
    Reply

  17. Screencaps usually do the work for me! 🙂 Thanks Omni! I am not sure about this show yet but I will give it a try! Especially since the first ep is already on youtube! Boy, that was fast! LOL! I wish they done the same for La Corda D’Oro **tears**

    Lalita
    Reply

  20. Whoah, I really couldnt watch it completely after some time and just browsed through, I didn’t really like it x_X
    The songs (apart from the guitar one you mentioned) were just annoying, the opening and ending as well.

    Well, as you said the seiyuu were great, so I’ll watch the rest later..

    Kamion
    Reply

  21. I am watching this cause is so much fun still trying to figure out who’s who, they introduce us like 18 different ppl just the first ten minute of the show, I am like OK that idol name is hmmmmmmmmmmm. 🙂

    mike
    Reply

  23. This show rated higher than Tokimeki Memorial ~Only Love~ in my mind before watching either of the two, and I have to say that Lovedol doesn’t come out as well-executed as TokiMemo. I’ve also blogged the first episode and I’ve decided to stop blogging it, because the art quality isn’t too good and the plot & characters are nothing out of the ordinary.

    Atashi
    Reply

  24. I like the animation quality, maybe I need to see the first two episodes to say if the series would hit my hard or not. I have a bad experience with Lemon Angel Project thanks to the inconsistency of the group and my lack of Japanese. I’ll give it a try

    Syaoran Li
    Reply

  27. The character design looks so pretty. I love animes which includes singing, so it’s guaranteed that i’ll watch this, when subbed. ^^ Even though i’ve never seen SHUFFLE!, i think that Sakaki looks a bit like Primula. XD.

    Ai-Tan
    Reply

  30. I think this is a dating sims game turn anime since the first song in the beginning (Shiawase Kakumei) is the opening for the ps2 games (game developed by princess soft, music by Lantis and anime sponsors by Enterbrain. Never have I seen any shows that have associate with so many dating sims game company 🙂 ). Also the first and second generation of lovely Idol is packed with famous va which I don’t think they name them in the credits. ( Aya Hiwatari is Ayako Kawasumi, Yui Arisugawa is of course Sakura Nogawa, Toko Yuki is Natsuko Kuwatani, Yukimi Naruse is Ryoko Shintani and Shizuku Ohji is Rie Kugimiya) Also Kanako Sakai is there too, I didn’t watch REC because I can’t stand her voice there but in this series she seems tolerable.

    eshchan
    Reply

  31. I’m, not sure about how the populace in Japan reacts, but I do know somewhere in the world people are willing to tolerate hearing the same “singers” (I use this term loosely) week after week after week for a season or two. (American Idol?)

    This looks interesting… I’ll see if I can make time for it, for sure. It’ll be interesting to see.

    cbhl
    Reply

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