More than just a music anime, it’s a whole fever dream
When I first noticed ACTORS: Songs Connection floating around out on the internet, I liked the cute character designs, and thought "Oh my god, they do vocaloid covers?!" so, I decided to keep it on my radar. I have plenty of experience with semi–obscure multimedia projects, so when my friend and I decided to pick it up one day and go in blind, I thought I knew what to expect.
I was… so wrong.
With music anime, you come to expect certain tropes. The first minute or two of the episode already started to stray from these, taking its classic transfer student and giving him a connection to someone who already attends the school, as well as telling us he lives with his sister who, currently in the hospital, has about half a year to live.
Say hello to Saku Otonomiya, a regular somewhat gloomy guy with the voice of an angel and a fascination for the White Shadows.
...Oh, yeah, the White Shadows.
"In this world, there are "white shadows" who hide in the shadows of white walls, trees, plants and buildings to watch over us and protect us."
The Shadows are the first thing about this anime that really makes you go HUH??? As obviously, music anime never quite tends to stray into supernatural territory. Saku describes these in the words of his sister, entities that have the ability to heal and care for others. Interesting. On his way to school, his childhood friend Hinata tries to convince him to join the titular singing club, as they need people for the upcoming schoolwide tournament. Saku refuses, another prime example of the classic music protagonist turning down the usual formula. Instead, he makes friends with Sosuke Kagura, a VOCALOID producer who only trusts Saku to sing his music, and Uta Outa, Kagura's eccentric lyricist.
The story picks up from here. The usual school life shenanigans occur here and there, like curry contests and searching for lost cats, but are frequently intervened with both serious events, and casual hints to strange, unexplainable things within the world. There’s the Shadows we all know and love, but there’s also a huge barricade known as The White Wall surrounding the city Attack–On–Titan style, portals that only certain people seem to know about, a weirdly large population of cats following around our characters at all times, time–period–hopping body–switching possession, and so much more!
Each episode feels like an entirely new show, just featuring the same characters doing their daily activities, like you dropped a cast of slice–of–life bishounen into a surrealist sci–fi anime, left them to do their own thing and decided not to tell any of them what genre they were a part of, except for the handful that seem to know more than they let on. This could easily become a bad thing, and leave the plot feeling unfinished and unpolished, but ACTORS makes sure to give you room to connect the dots. What helps is the just–as–frequent cutting back to a hikikomori in a desk chair (who may or may not be able to turn into a cat) with the most insane gaming setup I’ve ever seen watching over the events of the cast from some strange base.
What’s he doing there? How’s he keeping watch over Saku and his pals? That’s for ACTORS to know, and you to FIND OUT. And find out we do, as at the last few episodes center around explaining the mysteries you start to wonder so badly about.
Ultimately, ACTORS isn’t the best thing I’ve ever seen from a writing standpoint. While it’s fascinating to find out and attempt to uncover the mysteries of the show, I can see why someone would get confused or bored and give up on watching, it’s probably not something for everyone, and it’s definitely something that needs a second season. The main draw of the show seems to come from the worldbuilding, the characters' interactions with each other, and the vocal performances from a STACKED voice cast that overlay the most insane twists and turns you could expect from an idol type anime, reminding you that this is in fact a music project, with thankfully, high–quality songs thanks to actual VOCALOID publishers EXIT TUNES. But, no matter how lost I felt, as soon as the final episode ended, I already wished I could watch it again for the first time. I laughed, I cried, and I got WAY less actual acting than I was expecting (Don’t let that 20% tag fool you).
At the end of the day, ED is a banger, Mike and Kai re–invented romance and Hinata is best boy, so watch ACTORS next time you want to feel something, even if that something is “What the hell am I watching?”.
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