Wake Up, Girls! Beyond the Bottom

Anime as whole has had a bad reputation for not being 'realistic' enough. Yes, there's the debate of 'different people, different strokes' and 'you can't please everyone' etc. This is why I appreciate the WUG narrative as a whole. Maybe I'm stretching it to the original series. But the anime & equally this film isn't shy of portraying the rock-bottom and eventual highlights of the idol industry. Yes the plot is a bit predictable & there's no real 'ump' to the drama. But that's what makes WUG endearing & to an extent, relate-able. Coincidentally, I can't exactly give praise to the characters. I understand with sucha large cast, it's easier to give them a trope or defining trait which captures their entire personality. But sometimes even this feels a tad bland. If you were to remove the faces & voices when they're in a group scene together : it somewhats blends in together & you can't quite specify whose line belongs to who. I will give praise to the production staff. The girls aren't overly cute.Moments such as when they cry or just doing their shenanigans, it's not top-tier animation. But the facial expression are just remarkably real, as if this is you or a friend. The actual songs of the idol groups respectively, it does its work.

In my previous review, I compared this series to "Hibike! Euphonium". Hibike! had a movie that did a speedrun through the second season and crammed what probably should have been one or two seasons into one movie. The comparison to Hibike! is apt, because this did exactly the same thing. It wasn't awful, but it made for a rushed and unsatisfying movie. It moved way too fast and careened towards a rather obvious ending, that ended up being basically one unanimated scene at the end. You know, I had originally written a review (and put it on the wrong movie, OOPS) where I saidthat I hated that ending. And it's true, I don't like the last few seconds. But I'm gonna actually give that a pass now, because I realized why they did it. The song "Beyond the Bottom" is *amazing*, and they spent the three minutes of the credits just playing that song. And if you know how I feel about most idol music, you'd understand how much of a compliment that is. I actually ended up transcribing it and spending an hour with my theory/composition teacher to figure out how it all worked, and it's pretty much a case study in good composition/orchestration. Do I like all the dancing and stuff that goes with it? Meh. But. Heck, it's actually inspired me with some ideas for a composition I'm currently working on. I learned a lot from it. That song pretty much carried the whole movie for me. I love it. It's definitely not just the best song in the WuG discography, but maybe it's in the top two or three for ALL idol anime discography. So... if you want a movie that carries on the story, well... okay, and introduces you to a great song while you're at it, well, you could do lots worse. But just like the "Hibike" movie, well... it's a transition, not a destination. Don't expect much from it.