What’s this?
Hiyori Suzumi is a high school girl who becomes a manager-in-training for the LIP×LIP high school idol unit. Hiyori left her hometown to pursue her passion, athletics, by enrolling in Tokyo’s Sakuragaoka High School. Looking for a part-time job in Tokyo, she ended up working as a manager trainee for her classmates (and LIP × LIP members) Yūjirō Someya and Aizō Shibasaki.
The heroines run the show: the unpopular girl and the secret task is based on the creative unit of Vocaloid honeyworks‘ song “Heroine Tarumono!” and flows in Crunchyroll Thursdays.
How was the first episode?
Nicholas Dupree
Classification:
I was looking forward to this one. Not because you are familiar with it. honeyworks However, the songs he is inspired by, or because he knew a lot about the premise or the staff. No, what moved me was only the face of our main heroine. One look at those big sausage brows and he was ready to die for this girl. And now that I’ve seen the first episode, I’m also ready to kill for her, should the need for her arise.
Pretty much this entire episode is just about meeting Hiyori as she ventures into the unknown worlds of Tokyo and high school. We eventually hit the hook: Hiyori gets a job as a manager-in-training for a boy idol duo who are also in her class at school, but those are just the closing moments of this premiere. All of the above is about gradually showing us who our titular heroine is: what she loves, what she’s bad at, how she does (or doesn’t) make friends, and how she gets a heavy dose of her lovable personality. She is super sweet, and a good part of that is due to how expressive she is. Between her eyebrows, her high-energy movement and her body language, it’s hard not to be charmed as she makes her way through the ups and downs of high school life. Watching her work through the endless cycle of job applications and interviews is especially difficult, and stating her reason for applying is because “I need it for a living!” He had me ready to put up with this fool at full throttle.
The only downside is that we still don’t have a good idea of the supporting characters, or what the dynamic of the show will be going forward. We know that the main idol boys are much less nice than their public characters, and seem to hate each other behind the scenes, but we have no idea why. We meet several other characters who are presumably part of our extended cast, but most of them never interact with Hiyori, so how they’re connected to anything going on with our core trio is largely a mystery. All those question marks don’t have to be a problem, but on a show as character-centric as this one, it’s a little awkward not knowing what the dynamic of our main characters will be like in the future. Hiyori may be a wonderful bundle of chipmunk energy, but if everyone around her is an idiot, I don’t know how entertaining she’ll be.
But for now, at least, this is a super lovely start. It’s well-paced, features lots of lovely and expressive animation, and more than made me want to see Hiyori clear the obstacles in front of her. That’s a lot of motivation to keep following this one.
Rebecca Silverman
Classification:
I have heard inori Minase in many roles in which I have enjoyed his interpretation. The heroines run the show
is not, so far, one of them. I mention this strictly because Hiyori’s voice, which is somehow louder than everything else on the show, is like nails on a blackboard in my ears. I’m not entirely sure why, but something made me wish I had a mute button just for her.
It’s a shame, because it actually looks like a pretty fun show. Hiyori’s total disinterest in idols doesn’t change noticeably the moment she realizes that LIPxLIP, the most popular male idol duo, are in her class at her new Tokyo high school; in fact, her behavior makes her go straight from “disinterest” to “disdain”, and that’s absolutely deserved, because both Aizo and Yujiro are idiots, especially to her. Also, Hiyori didn’t come to the big city to gawk at cute boys, she’s here to participate in her chosen sport, track, and nothing will stop her from doing what she loves. Her entrepreneurial attitude is another really fun part of the story, because she’s really focused on what she wants to do and what she needs to do to get there. When her dad hurts her back, she decides to look for a job so her parents don’t have to send money, but even this can’t make her give up on her runway aspirations. Yes, this makes the job search more difficult, but it’s also a really nice way to show him how important he is to her without having to talk endlessly about it. It’s no big surprise when the only job she gets from her involves her least favorite idols, but seeing her win them over (or wear them down) while staying true to herself would be a fun direction for this.
I wouldn’t be myself if I didn’t also mention that the opening theme makes use of the ATU432-classified fairy tale, The Bird Lover. The best-known variant of this type of tale is the French The Blue Bird, recorded by Madame d’Aulnoy in 1697. Basically, the stories that fall under this title involve a woman whose noble lover takes the form of a bird and falls in a trap ; in the French version specifically called L’oiseau bleu, there is a prince and two princesses, one kind and one cruel, along with an evil fairy godmother. If I had to guess, Hiyori is destined to be the kind princess Florine, while her classmate Chizuru is the cruel princess Truitonne or the evil fairy, although I could also see that the idols are the princesses of the prince of Hiyori. In any case, it’s a clear break from the usual Beauty and the Beast or Cinderella, and makes me curious as to where this might go. It’s a shame about Hiyori’s voice and the weirdly old-school character designs that look a bit strange, but if you’re looking for romantic male idols, this might be a good choice.