Starmyu 2nd Season

After recently completing the first season of Starmyu (and loved it to the point of watching it twice my first time), I was so happy to learn about it's second upcoming season. However, I think in comparison, perhaps Starmyu tried to do a little too much in the same 12 episode format. Which makes it feel a little underdeveloped in most areas and characters. STORY: 6 As we continue with interjections of musical numbers, the storyline this time is perhaps a little weaker in comparison to the first season, and I already considered the first storyline pretty standard. The focus does not revolve around just TeamOotori anymore but in fact an expanded cast of all the star teams and the previous Kao Council. For the first half most of the focus lies on introducing a lot of interactions between everyone for us to familiarize. Especially a new character called Ageha who serves as a "antagonist" for Hoshitani. Which really felt like an unnecessary amount to dedicate and makes the story drag on week by week only for a little spice of drama. Some interesting parts come after exploring the wide cast in how they train for their roles and some of their personal struggles. Particularly Nayuki and Ugawa and especially Kaito. Sadly the amount of time to explore everyone is quite limited (maybe if we didn't have so many training montages). For the most part the journey intensely focuses on Hoshitani, which I think explored some wonderful thoughts on how to act and his "shine". Alot of people dislike this, but Hoshitani is supposed to represent the viewers in a way because he's a total newbie, so to understand anything we have to understand through him. I think the show does a wonderful job of showcasing some inherent qualities of the musical acting world but sadly just didn't pace everything they wanted to accomplish successfully. ART: 8 There were some more varied character designs this season surprisingly. I noticed however a lot more dips in quality though. But I have to say that the production for some of the song scenes/sets were definitely more elaborate and beautiful. There was more artistic expression in costuming and set design and choreography. And again, this series continues it's fabulous choreos with no CGI. Also because we have some "action scenes" these are very well directed and enticing. SOUND: 8 Arai Ken's techno/piano/upbeat music works again quite wonderfully for the series, with some beautiful new themes. The new voice actors are also quite another impressive addition to an already impressive vocal cast. One song that notes this is the Kao Council song sung by the Ancients, and you can really see the experience in their vocals. Starmyu continues to explore a wide range of musical genres, but the songs were about half and half for me sometimes. Particularly we get a lot of crossunits between teams and I think it was a bit difficult tailoring songs for these wide range of characters. It's one thing to just sing a song, but a lot of the songs for Starmyu just make me think that these songs were made for someone to sing. It was great for them to again take these chances and wonderful to hear new characters and combinations. CHARACTER: 8 The expanded cast is actually quite a gem, though overwhelming. It's really a disappointment that it was quite hard to focus and devote enough time to even half of them. Again, most of the focus is on Hoshitani's personal journey with how to become a role and what does that mean for him. We get tidbits of others that are a part of this journey and represent other sides that aren't just the main newbie with charisma working hard to the top. We get Kaito who is someone is trying hard to find his own pace in trying to fill big expectations. We get Nayuki and Ugawa that have skills but have to find the confidence to deliver. We get Ageha who's been expected to come out on top. And really, we only get so little of so many others that I would love to know. ENJOYMENT: 9 Of course I enjoyed it! Inumine is quite precious this season and should be appreciated lol For the most part I was a trudging along, finishing the episodes never feeling satisfied. But the ending really wrapped it up spectacularly and basically killed me. So. Beautiful. If you might be a little saddened that perhaps it didn't turn out like the first season, believe me that Starmyu especially brings back its magic from then for the last episode. OVERALL: 7 After thinking back on it, nothing quite made me feel a little love for music like the first season than it's last episode. However, it's still a well done series that was at least consistent in its approach.

Reason for Watching: Season 1 wasn't so bad, and this is quite a lighthearted story. TL;DR: This season is better than season 1, in terms of... almost everything actually. Story is much more interesting with characters that are not cardboard flat as Season 1. Story-wise, is a continuation of season 1, but with a better plot. There is more focus on the story aspect of the show, which is a plus for me. Season 1 was too focused on the MC alone and the musical breakouts that it seems almost like an anime autobiography of sort. The execution of the anime also brings out the storybetter, there's more plots with broader perspectives that shows how each character and how various storylines connect with each other. The climaxes were also paced rather well, with appropriate timing for the musical breakouts along with some dose of the drama. There's more screen time for the supporting characters which helps build the story up more naturally. The build-up to the musical breakouts improved from season 1, definitely. The follow up scenes after the musical scenes could have been better. Overall, the story-telling is smoother and more natural. Art is good, the characters and backgrounds are beautifully presented, much like season 1. The animation though could be better, but there's no major fault in it, just that, for a show with a lot of performances in its story, it would be more dynamic if the animation were to improve to bring across the "big scenes". The musicals were also designed really well that could bring out the drama/ fantasy element, but the way too average animation fail to bring across those elements to the audience on a much wholesome level. Generally, Sound is pretty well done. The songs and music were good for a Music genre anime, the VAs also did a good job. But the sound effects are a little lacking. There are several scenes with sound effects that actually interrupted the story-telling as it doesn't fit into the scene. But is not so bad that it will affect the story, so overall, still good. Characters are also way more wholesome. Maybe (or most probably) is because of the improved story plot and execution, the characters in this season have more "meaning " to them. Other than the main characters' design which have already debuted in the first season, the increased screen time for the supporting characters also allow us to know more about them, since they were barely introduced in season 1, is great to know the personas of the supporting characters in this season. Every character designs are quite unqiue from each other, and they are also fun to get to know more about. Other than presenting a much complete character design of the supporting and new characters, the story also went further and managed to put in some pretty good character developments for both the main cast and the supporting cast. This goes hand in hand with how the story plots are designed, and they complement each other well.

Idol or musical anime usually isn't really my cup of tea, but while I won't describe it as spectacular or anything, I enjoyed this one enough, surprisingly. I recently began re-watching it since Season 3 is coming this year. This 2nd season is better than the 1st season, so I have some expectation for the next season. Hopefully it won't be disappointing! [STORY] 7/10 The plot is quite good. There's some entertaining dramatic conflicts that kept me entertained thorough the whole episodes. [ART] 5/0 The art itself isn't that bad, but unfortunately I can't say the same for the way it's animated. The animation is really choppy and themovements are rather awkward. The colorful background arts and pretty character designs make up for it though. [SOUND] 8/10 Overall, music isn't anything spectacular. But it's not disappointing. .....Though it probably could be due to the fact that I didn't really had any much expectation beforehand. But well, there are some rather good songs that stuck in my head for a while. My favorite is probably the duet song between Ootori and Hositani in their play at the end. [CHARACTER] 3/10 The most disappointing thing in this show--aside from the animation--is probably the characterization. The characters are pretty and all, but they're so one-dimensional. Thankfully the plot is good enough to make up for it. [OVERALL] 6.5/10 I personally won't rate this as 7/10. But since we can't give out rating in decimal numbers in this site, I decided to give out 7/10 instead 6/10, since this season is quite better than the previous season (in my opinion) and I rated the previous season 6/10.

i found season 1 very enjoyable even though it has a very generic story so i was looking forward to watch season 2. i don't mind a generic story as long as it's enjoyable since i know how hard it is to find an enjoyable anime when you've watched most of the good anime already. but season 2 kinda disappoints me. this anime has 5 main characters which is hoshitani, nayuki, kuga, tsukigami and tengenji. for a 12 episodes anime i think they shouldn't introduce too many characters. it's fine to introduce more characters but don't focus on them too much. i was looking forward toknow more about nayuki, kuga, tsukigami and tengenji but they barely show up in season 2. especially tengenji, he had the least screen time among the main characters. for a 12 episodes anime, they should've focus more on the main characters instead of focusing on unnecessary characters