The reception of this anime is so strange. There's literally nothing here that merits any kind of universal praise as it already does.
What is introduced to us is essentially the Sun Tzu sequel hears an Aimer song for the first time and dedicates his life to making sure that music ends up universal. No hate on Aimer, by the way, I just lacked a better example.
I actually quite like the premise, as it is a good idea, and the first episode kinda sells everything really well. You know, Kongming seemed like an interesting guy, he meets Eiko and they talk about life and all that rubbish. Soon after, however, it seems as if everything is pretty much forgotten as fast as it is introduced. Well, maybe not forgotten, but bastardised beyond belief. I will tell you what I mean.
You see, my main problem with everything in this anime is pretty much the inability to hold anything compelling or sincere for as long as possible. It gets ridiculously stale, ridiculously quickly. As I just said, the first episode is pretty good, flashy lights, Kongming using his brain to get the hang of this new world, Eiko trying to make it big, and all the rest of it. There are moments when the anime does become respectable again, but more on that later. Sadly, from what I remember of this show, about 90% of it was key features in this anime being ruined and watered down to mediocrity. Eiko's passions being half-hearted, more so weak, backtracking to them only when the writing called for it, to Kongming basically being a human equivalent of that genie from Aladdin. Eiko's passions being underhanded are somewhat excusable, she's focusing on actually getting better at the music first, but I'd say the passion and the strive for improvement work hand in hand because all she does, for the most part, is just nothing of her own will until around way later on. To not get into too much detail as possible, she basically meets a new character and they both think of each other as cool and they do nice things together and it is all so wholesome. Then it goes back to subpar status. But those particular moments where characters just do real things without some wish from genie or some other life hack are seldom. It's sad because, as seen, it is able to do this.
There are a lot of other flaws to note like how much Kabe's character is pretty awkward to the whole music industry thing in this anime, but I feel as if I am heading into unknown territory with the reality behind them. I don't know anything about how deals are run in the music industry or if there are rappers like Kabe (the whole wuss personality + Eminem style). I am led to believe Kabe's character is more real, but even then his character isn't the most serious thing I've witnessed, with him jumping in and out of issues with the tiniest push imaginable. The music industry is probably not as easy to mess with as Kongming has been doing, but again, I can't run off too much from it other than real-life complaints about how the whole place is abusive. I mean, it gets into it a little, but that is entirely due to some high-school band and some other online hype factors. But going on about the realism is kinda sidetracking, it is more of the fact that it is not very believable. Some important douche seems to be extremely tolerant to some random band for no particular reason, aren't there more people who are in the exact position as this group of girls? He probably needs them to fulfil some lascivious fantasies he's hiding.
Another annoying thing about these characters is how conveniently forgetful they are at times. These guys have one of the greatest strategists on their team and somehow manage to more often than not be doubtful of anything this guy does. I don't get how that makes sense at all. It's not funny. Hell, one of the guys is literally a Kongming nerd and still somehow gets shocked at anything this guy does. It's crazy if you ask me. These guys really cannot behave to a good standard, rather, they think and feel things whenever the writing calls for it.
The only guy I really like is Kongming. He's cool. He does cool things. Everyone loves him. Expect the creators of this anime. I don't know why but everything he does falls flat, it is not executed to a greater standard. When I say he is that genie from Addlain it is because he can literally do anything despite coming from a very weird place. It's absurd, but not entirely when you think about who he literally is. It causes a fine line to appear, one in which he finds himself jumping in and out of what is an incredible effort and wishes come true. Sometimes the anime abuses this and you get a stunt that has no real effect because it is just silly. Sometimes it works well though. He's a good character for the most part; he's my favourite character actually, just some things are very annoying.
The animation here was nonexistent at times, but it does deliver when it is supposed to. Sometimes you just get still shots playing out for like 2 seconds and other times you get a rap battle with actual cool effects and visuals. As expected of PA Works, they did well for this, I don't think it is the best they could have done but it worked enough to not look irregular consistently. This was just a little lazy at times but that didn't hinder my enjoyment. They spent all the budget on the OP btw. That's like the entire reason why people like this show:
There's also the music in this anime which isn't the best thing in the world either. I can respect the effort though, from Kabe's raps to Eiko altogether, it was nice to listen to. But that doesn't matter, what matters is the comment saying "who else is listening to this in 2026? XD" and then for sure we will know whether this is good or not.
Ok but I want to just quickly add that I actually do listen to Eiko's Be Crazy For Me sometimes. It's actually pretty good, wow. Listen to it again, seriously, I'm surprised I even like this as much as I do:
