Name: Trapezium, an idol movie where its main character and her actions are both the movie's biggest strength and weakness.
Item: Trapezium
Rating: 51
Author: Juliko25

Waifra

Trapezium, an idol movie where its main character and her actions are both the movie's biggest strength and weakness. · Waifora

Oh, Trapezium, you could have been a much better movie. Trapezium is based on a 2018 novel by former Nogizaka46 member Kazumi Takayama, about a young girl, Yu Azuma, who wants to become an idol so much that she decides to manipulate three girls from different schools into being her friends and making an idol group. Now, the fact that the original story was penned by a former idol does give the movie a lot of necessary context for its background, premise, and overall approach, with her experiences influencing the story quite a bit, especially in regards to how Yu, the main character, drives the entire plot. It also raises the question of what kind of behind-the-scenes behavior Takayama may have witnessed during her idol tenure. On the whole, Trapezium as a movie is really compelling in that it doesn't go for the tried and true method of selling you on how great idols are and going for an uplifting story. Instead, Trapezium explores both the good and bad of the idol industry and how it can both positively and negatively affect the people in and out of it. It even takes a huge risk by having its protagonist be unlikeable and even a manipulative little brat, which you don't often see in most anime. On one hand, this is a ballsy movie, and I respect the movie for going against the grain.

Unfortunately, on the other hand, its whole scaffolding completely falls apart at the end, completely ruining what it had established, reducing it into just yet another idol movie that plays it safe. But before I go into detail on this, I'm going to talk about the positives first, as I don't want to be a purely Negative Nancy. Being a movie, the animation budget is put to good use here, and is beautifully grounded. Characters move like real human beings, CGI is used sparingly, the backgrounds are detailed but not cluttered, and the character designs are a nice mix of realistic and the moe art style without leaning too hard on the latter. The music is nice too, though I really have to question why the movie needed a whole-ass anime opening sequence. Like, was that even necessary? Furthermore, out of the four girls, I liked Kurumi the most, because not only was she the most relatable and interesting, the movie does a great job at selling you on her plight, though that's not to say the other girls are poorly characterized.

Plus, for 90% of the movie, Trapezium's exploration of the idol industry and how it metaphorically uses and abuses idols is interesting and compelling. A large portion of it focuses more on the journey to getting there, such as how most idols get exposure through comedic variety shows. Unlike most idol anime, Trapezium doesn't put as much focus on music and dancing, but the snippets of it we do get do their job and don't overstay their welcome. I actually think it does a better job at exploring the perils of the idol/entertainment industry than Oshi no Ko, if only because the latter's take on it feels more performative and tactless in that it's more interested in shock value and easy solutions than actually doing anything meaningful. Yeah, I said it, I don't like Oshi no Ko. Sadly, this is all the praise I have for Trapezium as a movie, because like I mentioned earlier, its ending completely ruins it. What do I mean? Yu, the story's main character, is both Trapezium's greatest asset and biggest weakness. From here on, I'm going to go into a ton of spoilers because I can't adequately explain my thoughts on the movie without doing so, as the context is really important.

Spoiler, click to view

The story is about her recruiting three girls into forming an idol group with her through extremely underhanded, manipulative tactics, made apparent during Mika's segment. Mika is a girl who loves doing volunteer work because she loves helping people, not doing it to boost her ego or for ulterior motives. Yu only sees doing volunteer work as a tool to get the girls on TV, seeing it as performative and a stepping stone to success. In that same scene, Yu balks at the idea of being in a separate group from two of the other girls, and spends the whole sequence being a spoiled brat about it, which, on one hand, is a great set-up for the drama that comes later because it establishes her self-centered nature, and her selfishness and hubris ultimately proves to be the group's undoing. In one scene, when Mika is revealed to have a boyfriend, Yu acts like a total bitch to her, showing a disturbing lack of empathy for her situation, which the other girls are similarly appalled by. Yu loves being in the spotlight, whereas Kurumi doesn't, and at one point, Kurumi has a full-on meltdown because she can't handle both being on TV and the stringent expectations idols are expected to uphold, which results in the girls falling out and disbanding.

Normally, drama like this is great, because the movie shows how Yu's manipulative nature, lack of empathy, and using people for her own ends causes problems for everyone, and the scenes where she's made to face the consequences of her actions are a great culmination to her arc. Her drive to become an idol resulted in her exploiting the other girls and giving them a big helping of psychological trauma. However, the thing that completely ruins the movie for me is how it decides to wrap things up. Even after all that Yu has done to them, the movie decides to have them all suddenly become friends again, with them even praising Yu for bringing them together in the first place. Sure, let's completely ignore the fact that Yu basically used them and gave Kurumi psychological trauma, she feels bad about it, so it's okay! I'm sorry, but no, Yu should not have been forgiven. The ramifications of her actions should have been far bigger than the movie actually showed. Kurumi wouldn't have had her breakdown if Yu hadn't dragged her into idolatry in the first place and forced her into a position that she wasn't comfortable with, and the damage this could do in real life would probably be irreparable. The other girls have every right to not want anything to do with Yu after all the shit she pulled on them, Kurumi especially, because Yu is responsible for all of their suffering...and yet the movie wants to sweep all that under the rug in favor of wrapping things up in an overly saccharine, cheesy, mealymouthed ending where everything is all hunky-dory and the girls are still friends? Fuck that! If I was in Kurumi, Ranko, and Mika's positions, I'd completely drop Yu as a friend because I would not want to be anywhere near the person who caused the level of suffering that she put them through! I feel like a better ending for the movie would have been if the girls stopped being friends, just went their own ways in life, and Yu would have to live with the fact that she made the girls suffer because of her selfishness. It would have not only accentuated the movie's themes of how exploitative and stringent the idol industry can be, it would have added another layer in that not everyone comes out of the idol industry unscathed. The logic behind this movie's decisions at the end just baffle me.

But not committing to its premise isn't the only problem it has. For one thing, how the hell is Yu able to get away with getting into different schools, while in uniform, without getting kicked out? Shouldn't a staff member or security guard have spotted her and made her leave? Plus, Trapezium's pacing is rather rushed, especially in the beginning. Yu tracks down the girls she wants to manipulate/recruit, talks to them for a bit, and then boom, suddenly they're buddy-buddy, which totally isn't inorganic and suspicious in any way whatsoever. Not to mention a lot of plot beats are just summarized by voice over narration rather than actually being shown, because fuck meaningful character development and showing over telling, am I right? Also, who the hell thought it was a good idea to have two elderly men be voiced by women?! I'm not even exaggerating, there's two old men who are VERY CLEARLY voiced by women who are trying to make their voices sound elderly and failing miserably at it, because not only is it completely obvious that their voices are female, they can't even manage to sound convincingly elderly, especially since they're trying to play men. Like, how hard was it to get more than one elderly male voice actor to voice an elderly man? I mean, Kazuhiko Inoue, Akio Ohtsuka, Kazuhiro Yamaji, and Yoku Shioya are still working! Why not hire them to do it?! It's better than forcing two women to play a role that they're clearly unable to pull off!

Bottom line, Trapezium had an interesting premise but completely botched it by choosing to suddenly play it safe at the very end, ruining what came before. It could have been a great movie had it gone all in on what it wanted to do, but instead tripped over itself for the sake of wanting a sloppy happy ending. I wouldn't recommend this one, even for fans of idol anime. If you do plan on watching it though, don't watch it on Crunchyroll. For some reason, the audio mixing on that version is atrocious. Like, the volume level is so low, I have to turn up the volume to the highest level and it's still hard to hear anything, whether it be a PC or a TV! Just wait for the Japanese blu-ray to come out or something.