(This review was originally written on March 15th, 2018, right before the TV adaptation of Ongaku Shoujo came out)

So I heard that an anime called Ongaku Shoujo was going to be made this year. Then I saw it was a 25-minute OVA before that, and I sat down to watch it. But I won't lie, this OVA is really bad.

I mean, seriously. I've never seen something so absolutely insipid, vapid, and downright annoying. It's basically about two girls, a shy blue-haired girl and a perky blonde haired girl, who run into each other thanks to singing, decide to become idols, and a lot of drama happens. That's it. There's absolutely nothing about its storyline that makes any effort to stand out, it doesn't even try to make use of its potential or be interesting in any way. It's just a cookie cutter cutesy idol drama anime with no substance to it at all. Many anime I've seen that were similar to this one happened to pull off the premise much better, and the ham-fisted drama near the end really didn't endear me to it at all. It doesn't help that the characters are bland, empty, and have no substance to them at all, and their voice actresses overact to hell and back, and every single line that comes out of their mouth is hammy, screechy, high pitched, and downright grating on the ears, which is a shame because I know these actresses can put on MUCH better performances.

Honestly, the only good thing about this OVA is the animation. It's bright and colorful, very stimulating to the eyes, and the character movement is very fluid, almost KyoAni-like in its smoothness. Unfortunately, that's where the OVA's good qualities end.

But all of its flaws absolutely cannot compare to what I feel is the biggest detriment of this OVA: Haru.

She alone basically ruined the entire OVA. Simply put, she is annoying as hell! Not only is her design really stupid-looking (Why does she have that big bow in her hair, along with all those other hair clips?! They're not necessary, and it looks way too tacky!), the show tries to present her as a fun, perky, enthusiastic, cheerful girl who wants to be friends with Eri, the blue haired girl, but the way the anime executes her overall character makes her come off as unrelentingly bratty, self-entitled, selfish, and almost creepily parasitic in her persistence in attaching herself to Eri in some of the worst, most dangerous ways possible. She's also a complete idiot who not only does stupid things, but never gets punished for them. For example, when she goes to school, she brings a cat with her, and the teacher doesn't even call her out on the fact that she brought a cat with her. Aren't cats not allowed on school property? She also has absolutely NO respect for privacy and boundaries whatsoever. She goes through Eri's belongings, goes after her in the hot springs, and worst of all, when Eri is struggling with reading a book out loud in class, what's Haru's solution? Why mess with her body without her consent via physically UNDOING HER BRA RIGHT IN FRONT OF EVERYONE!!! Oh, and at the end of the OVA, her solution to making Eri come up on stage is to put every embarrassing photo she took of her on display, on a big LCD screen, IN FRONT OF A MASSIVE AUDIENCE, EVEN NUDE PHOTOS, THEREBY HUMILIATING HER IN FRONT OF EVERYONE!!!

You see what I'm getting at here? If someone did that to me, I'd report them for sexual harassment! But does Haru get in trouble for it? Nope! Well, to be fair, Eri does call out Haru on everything she's done, but it doesn't stick because it's all played for comedy, and Eri is meant to be seen as just a prude who won't accept Haru's so-called "friendship." Sakura, Eri's friend, is even worse in this regard because not only does she completely ignore Eri's discomfort and never makes any attempt to help, but outright encourages Haru's dangerous behavior! Seriously, if this were a horror or a Lifetime-drama movie, I'm pretty sure Haru's behavior would be presented in a much more dark and serious light, as it should be. But the anime doesn't realize the ramifications of Haru's actions and tries to make the audience see it as nothing but cute and endearing!...which it seriously isn't. At all. Honestly, I wanted to jump in there and save Eri from that parasitic little brat. She deserves better than to be their target. Also not helping matters is that Haru is extremely egotistical and self-entitled, convinced that she's hot stuff and is a great singer...when she actually sucks really bad at singing. Eri even tells her such.

So...yeah. This OVA really could have been something good. Unfortunately, it's just not good. At all. This, my friends, is the prime example of how a really, really bad and badly written main character can completely ruin a show in its entirety. Thankfully, it seems like the creators realized this as well, since from what little they revealed recently, the upcoming TV series features a completely different storyline with a plethora of new characters, with Eri and Haru being just side characters now. I hope to God that the TV series doesn't make the same mistakes that this OVA did. Then again, Birdy The Mighty Decode turned a flawed OVA into a great TV series from what I've heard, so it can happen.

But in the end, though, Ongaku Shoujo is utter crap, all because Haru's a little shit.