AKB0048 Next Stage

Anime Review

While it seems like many anime series based on real-life or fictional idol groups are being passed up on by international licensor’s, when you throw in the “action” and “mecha” genres it seems like their appeal to publishers increases considerably. This isn’t always a bad case however, and I was pleasantly surprised when reviewing Hanabee Entertainment’s February 2014 release of AKB0048 (Season 1 / First Stage) which walked away with a B grade upon review. With the second and at this point in time final season now available in the Australian market, it is time to take a look to see if it managed to continue what made it great or fell short of the standard it set for itself.

For those who have not watched the first season and are skipping ahead to see if it is worthwhile watching through both seasons, AKB0048 works on the premise that the human race is now spread out among the stars, some with better qualities of life than others. While some are granted the freedom to enjoy music and other forms of entertainment… other societies are hit with wide-scope entertainment bans, resulting in poor morale of the inhabitants residing within these planets. In order to liberate the residents of these planets from a dull and boring life, the Japanese J-POP group AKB48 was resurrected and every year encourages girls from all over the solar system to register to become trainees.

Several years prior to the events of this series, four young girls – Nagisa Motomiya, Chieri Sono, Orine Aida and Yuuka Ichijou attend an AKB0048 concert on Lancastar which at the time was enduring an entertainment ban. Moved by the performance which consisted of singing, dancing and fighting against the “Destroy Entertainment Soldiers” (DES), the four girls make the decision to audition as members when they are older. The first season details their struggles in becoming trainees and then adapting to their new lifestyle which is considerably different from the typical idol lifestyle today.

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Picking up where the events of the first season left off, the AKB0048 75th and 77th Generation of trainees have grown in popularity after their performance on Lancastar. The first episode starts off with quite a bang, introducing the “General Elections” and the return of the Center Nova position which was the subject of mystery during the first season. The adaptation of general AKB48 events to the space-age was once again creatively handled, and was coupled well with all the “performances” that take place during the events.

This first half of the season was however shadowed by the second half which focused on a more structured series of events and the overarching storyline, including the mystery behind the disappearances of former Center Novas. It wasn’t flawless storytelling and there were still plot holes that could potentially lead to a third season should they desire to produce one, but overall it still made for an enjoyable watch. I will not go into further detail on this given the late-stage of the series.

While some of the secondary characters did receive a bit more character development in this season than the first, the issue with character development carried across. The character cast I felt was far too big for two thirteen episode seasons, with most of the girls feeling like background characters to boost numbers rather than regularly contributing to the overall plot despite attempts to integrate them into the story when possible. While it is easy to understand why they can’t spend too much time individually developing each character, even a few short mini-episodes focusing on the other trainees and their backstory wouldn’t have gone astray.

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Keeping with the “entertainment” vibe that AKB0048 is supposed to represent, the anime-style character designs are all well detailed, bright and vivid, even if the heart-shaped designs ingrained in each idols hair and eyes might be a step too far on the cutesy side. Character animation is pretty good with the standard 2D character models, but for the intricate moves such as when the characters are performing on stage or in a training session, they opt to use 3D CGI character models. These lack the same degree of detail as their 2D counterparts, but at the very least there isn’t too much that differs in respective character designs and granted the animators a lot more versatility in terms of movement.

Given that AKB0048 is based on a real life idol group, you would have to expect that the music in this series is pretty good. While I personally prefer instrumental music over lyrical music, I really enjoyed the wealth of lyrical tracks provided by AKB48 and “NO NAME” that were included in this series. The mixture of on-stage performances, action and singing at the same time continued to work well in this season as it did the first.

AKB0048 Season 2 features brand new opening and ending sequences that offer music that retain the same style as the first season, however lacks in the animation department – with the opening primarily consisting of episode snippets taken from the first season with a few pieces of new animation intertwined between them. The opening sequence is titled Aruji Naki Sono Koe by NO NAME while the dominant ending theme is Kono Namida wo Kimi ni Sasagu which is also performed by NO NAME.

The voice acting hasn’t changed much in quality since the first season, with the English dub provided by Sentai Filmworks being satisfactory however overshadowed by the Japanese dub which makes use of both professional voice actresses and AKB48 members. Subtitle tracks for each of the songs performed in Japanese would once again have not gone amiss.

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AKB0048 Season 2 features only a small compilation of bonus on-disc goodies which consist of Clean Opening / Closing animations and a selection of trailers for Hanabee licensed titles including La Storia Della Arcana Famiglia, Little Busters! and Bodacious Space Pirates. With no physical goodies either, it is a pretty lackluster offering this time around.

Even now I am still left surprised that Hanabee Entertainment chose to license AKB0048 over the many other anime series that have yet to receive an Australian release. While it is still too hard to say if this series will have a lasting impression among Hanabee’s range of big-name titles such as Bakemonogatari and Girls und Panzer, AKB0048 nevertheless turned out to be an entertaining and light-hearted watch that adapted the Japanese idol scene well to a space-age environment.

Sam
Sam
Founder of The Otaku's Study. I have been exploring this labyrinth of fandom these last fifteen years, and still nowhere close to the exit yet. Probably searching for a long time to come.

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