Adrienne Nov 19, 2015
Honest, intelligent news and reviews for manga romantics
StarMyu, subtitled High School Star Musical, is the 2015 fall shoujo anime about high school boys becoming musical idols.
The Gist: The series tells the story of five students, Yuta Hoshitani, Toru Nayuki, Kaito Tsukigami, Kakeru Tengenji, and Shu Kuga as they struggle to enter the musical department of Ayanagi Academy, a school focusing on music. They want to be accepted to the Star Frame Class, which is directly taught by the members of the Kao Council, the most talented students from the musical department who stand at the top within the academy. Luckily, they are spotted by Itsuki Ōtori, one of the Kao Council members who puts them on his Star Team.
The Review: Okay, this is not my first time watching a show about a group of teens trying to become idols at a music high school. It’s very much reminiscent of Uta no Prince-sama, HOWEVER there is no girl here for the guys to fawn over and make passes at. It’s all about the boys, and in that sense it reminds me more of Free! It could be a haven for yaoi fans to fantasize about these singing and dancing guys. Or you can just enjoy the wonderful friendships.
So how is it? I’m getting to that. The plot focuses on Yuta Hoshitani starting out at Ayanagi Academy because he sees an older boy dancing in a courtyard during middle school and decides he wants to dance like that. From Yuta we are introduced to the other four members of the group, by focusing on each of them one per episode. I initially formed impressions of the boys from the first episode and the next three episodes either changed my mind about them or confirmed what I already thought. The boys all end up on one performing team together, and additionally they are a STAR team, which is suppose to be a good thing. However, their council member happens to be the black sheep of the group. They are considered to be the reject STAR team. This causes issues for the boys who happen to be really talented already. The plot turns into a team building exercise so everyone will get along, and then an exaggerated determination of making the next cut of the music department trials.
So far, those plot elements of the anime are the better ones in my opinion. See, this is suppose to be a musical, right? So we have music and dancing choreographed into the story. Only, that’s where I think StarMyu totally failed. The musical numbers are abrupt to the point that the plot stops and the boys sing out of context. Only twice did I feel that the musical insert actually worked – in the first episode with the introduction of the Kao council, and then during the fourth episode about Tsukigami there was a decent transition from walking in the rain to the beginning of a song. If it’s a musical then the song should also move along the plot, but in the first few episodes it’s more of character exposition, and I think there was a lot lost in translation. Songs are like poetry, and that can be hard to translate from Japanese to English.
The Art: The character designs are pretty with complementing color combinations of eyes and hair on all the bishies. The five boys in a group tend to go together color-themed as well. For the medium, I think the dances are animated fairly well, with smooth movement. Especially when they have to animate the boys not in synch. Although I complain about the musical sequences, one of them actually impressed me as it had Klimt style imagery. Someone may not recognize it, though, unless they are familiar with the artist.
The Music: Um, uh, yeah. Not really too impressed with this aspect of the series. The only song I like so far has been the ED of the anime called “Seishun Countdown” by the five main seiyuu – Natsuki Hanae, Kensho Ono, Arthur Lounsbery, Yoshimasa Hosoya, and Tomoaki Maeno. The seiyuu are very talented and have wonderful voices, but I’m just not digging the internal episode songs. They aren’t very catchy to me, and I even forwarded through a few after listening to about 30 seconds of them.
I’m not giving up yet, because I still like the story. But the execution of the musical aspect of this series is really a let down.
My favorite bits are the two brothers… especially the one with glasses. I’m so predictable! I like the character interactions, but yeah the music side is a let down.