Action Heroine Cheer Fruits

Well I can't say that I thought this anime would have me writing my very first review, but here we go. Action Heroine Cheer Fruits was by far the biggest surprise to me this season. I started watching this show on a complete whim and I wasn't expecting much from it at all, but to my surprise as it went on I started to actually really enjoy it. Story: When I started watching this it seemed like it was going to be a classic cute girls doing cute things anime, which I mean it still kinda was but it was different than most I have seen before.The story is about a group of girls trying to make it big by becoming their hometown's heroine group while having fun at the same time, and it develops quite well. We start off with just two of the eventual nine girls in total and they decide to try and put on a show for a few kids with nothing but a cardboard costume, then eventually progressing into something I doubt they even expected. I loved the progression of the story and watching them become a better team as a whole. Art: The art style is nothing new nor is it that good but it was quite fitting of the theme in my opinion, it has a very colorful and lively feeling to it which keep me captivated the whole time. Sound: The voice acting for the show was decent, some characters had more fitting voices than others but overall it was decent. The background music was very fitting as well and a couple of the OSTs were very memorable and catchy. Finally the opening song was good and really set the mood for the rest of the show and the ending song was decent with cute visuals. Characters: Another very strong aspect of this show was it's characters. It's not like the characters personalities were entirely unique but that wasn't a huge problem for me. Nearly every character was developed fairy well which is something I don't see all that often with this type of anime. Each episode brought a new character and most had solid development, ranging from sad to heartwarming. As the characters joined the group they each found their place and every single one of them became an essential part of their productions ahead. From the cheerful and bouncy personality of Akagi to the sincere leader of the group Misaki, every character felt unique and important. Enjoyment: This was a very fun, cute, and heartwarming anime to watch that brought unique elements to a common genre. Overall: At the end of the day it was an enjoyable experience that was a complete surprise to me. I highly suggest giving this underrated anime a shot.

Sooo have Sakura Quest's quest to give a town recognition with Love Live's idol ranking just substitute idols with sentai action heroines...strangely it works. To be honest here though, LA's first impressions on Action Heroine Cheer Fruits was not a great one, from Action Heroine Cheer Fruits' sentai element being amateur-ish (which WAS the point) and cringeworthy by that matter for such a simple matter of pleasing Mikan Kise's little sister. However Action Heroine Cheer Fruits is one of those animes where you need to take a step back and wait for it to get better and it does. Action Heroine Cheer Fruits kickstarts with that incidentwith the amateur show of pleasing Mikan Kise's little sister bringing in the sights of Misaki Shirogane voiced by M.A.O wanting to bring recognition to her hometown (as well as the main cast) of Hinano City. From there and after a copyright tongue and cheek moment, they form the sentai action heroine group of Hina-Nectar. Action Heroine Cheer Fruits's characters are pretty diverse all things considering though they have shades of personality from the original Love Live. We have An Akagi (Hina-Red) voiced by Miku Ito who is essentially Honoka from Love Live but having a durable body and able to do many stunts on her own, she also has an unknown rivalry with Kanon Shimura (Hina-Black) voiced by Haruka Shirashi, Kanon herself is the regal ojou character who always wanted to beat An at everything, after she joins Hina-Nectar, she becomes the villain for the Hina-Nectar series because of her regal vocals working well for the bad guy role. Next is Mana Midorikawa (Hina-Green) voiced by Yuuki Hirose who is money hungry and goes for the MERCHANDISE MERCHANDISE for Hina-Nectar. Roko Kuroki voiced by Rie Murakawa is best friends with Misaki and is in the villain role for Hina-Nectar as it just suited her demeanor, also yeah Roko and Misaki got some slight yuri vibes here and there LA isn't gonna lie, another admirer of Misaki is Hatsuri Momoi (Hina-Pink) voiced by Moe Toyota who kinda takes things too far at times considering she's from a construction family and is the pyrotechnic expert of Hina-Nectar, ohh and she adores Misaki to the point of calling her Lady Gozen. Second to last are the Aoyama twin sisters both voiced by Haruka Ishida, Yuuki (Hina-Blue) does have character development as at first she's extremely paranoid by society thinking she's a failure and the Hina-Nectar group conforms and rids of her paranoia, however only after this she just become the supporting character to her sister Genki who is the mission control of the whole operation of Hina-Nectar shows as well as the strict trainer from hell during practice. Mikan (Hina-Yellow) who was the catalyst in the first place, she plays the role of scriptwriter in order to get rid of her shyness and is generally the heart of the show and able to rally the Hina-Nectar, yes she falls under the cliche that shy girls have but HOW she does it is quite different to say the least. Finally we have Misaki Shirogane (Platinum) who is the leader of Hina-Nectar behind the scenes and always thinking up ways to evolve Hina-Nectar, she has hints of character development in the form of her extremely bad luck and this becomes a plotpoint both in the Hina-Nectar show AND her own character resolution, if anything she gets the most character development from the Hina-Nectar group. Action Heroine Cheer Fruits' characters are diverse, distinct and memorable which it itself is a huge strength for this anime. You want Hina-Nectar to succeed and by extension Misaki's true goal by the end of it, essentially rooting for the underdog to do their best, like Love Live did with idols and before LA starts, Action Heroine Cheer Fruits already has their own distinct personality of it's own with it's sentai element and characters themselves with their own quirks and mannerisms (though yeah genkiness is universal here, LA can't fault Action Heroine Cheer Fruits that) and to say that it's greatly deviating from Love Live to be it's own thing. LA's favourite character would be either Kanon Shimura because of her nice chemistry with An as well as Genki due to her personality and funny quirk of strict trainer from hell. The animation by diomedea is once again expected moe, from the character designs and the such, the sentai shows shown are pretty well done from the somewhat fluid battle motions the characters pull off though in the latter half of the anime, it tends to go with one-shot shots of character doing their motion and not much else, sometimes it's meant to show time passing but sometimes not-so as yeah diomedea isn't exactly the masters of animating fluid battles ALL the time like Bones but still the animated fight scenes are done well for the most part, LA won't fault diomedea on what they could do nonetheless. From that the special effects elements from the flashy flairs they pull off to the sentai shows are reminiscent of the old sentai shows only it's "live". diomedea did what diomedea did well, from the moe atmosphere and character designs to some flair done with it's sentai shows, typical but still well done. The voice acting, LA would say that there are some slight squeakers in this anime cast (eg. Miku Ito as An, Erii Yamazaki as Mikan and Moe Toyota as Hatsuri), thankfully they aren't too annoying and rarely annoyed LA anyways. LA's favourite voice actor is the same as LA's favourite characters, Haruka Ishida and Haruka Shiriashi. Action Heroine Cheer Fruits for LA is what happens when you are given a terrible first impression but it got better over time and surprisingly it did better than LA expected by the end of it, as the cast grew, their personalities clashed and interacted with each other all the more better for the characters, the Hina-Nectar show simultaneously having their own plotline in which LA being honest here, LA wanted to know what would happen next, like LA became 10 years old again, the sentai shows maybe campy and childish (the in-universe audience are targeted towards kids) yes but again due to knowing the cast members of Hina-Nectars and their struggles and developments as characters, we want to root for them and get into their creation of Hina-Nectar. Action Heroine Cheer Fruits is a valiant effort from diomedea in making an anime original about action heroines in the sentai genre, from the great character development, nice and uniquely different premise, good animation and a great voice cast. Action Heroine Cheer Fruits is one of LA's surprising animes from the Summer of 2017 right next to and below Tsurezure Children. LA will say something LA had been saying about Action Heroine Cheer Fruits once LA started to get into it... "Sakura Quest with Love Live but Sentai.....weird combination sure...but it strangely works!"

Unique in its focus compared to many recent anime titles that focus around pop idols, Action Heroine Cheer Fruits' main focus is on the formation of a local heroine group formed by a group of nine teenage girls to aid in their town's struggling popularity. Anime fans may be be familiar with local hero live-action acts being depicted in a number of anime titles. They basically serve as a stage version of tokusatsu series that are formed by local committees in Japan to entertain children, promote tourism for the town they represent, and support their local economies. As far as the handling of the show goes,it has its ups and downs. The first episode starts things off fairly strong with the introduction of Ann and Mikan's characters in their amateur attempt to do their own show modeled after a local heroine. But they do lose some focus with the introduction of Misaki's character, who gets more prominent focus through the remainder of the series. Other characters are introduced through the anime's first half to add more stage effects and enhance the performances of the heroine group as they form Cheer Fruits. Besides Misaki, some of the other characters do get their developments that aid them in supporting the efforts of the Cheer Fruits group and giving them unique personality quirks to give them some more dimension, including a unique instance of having a wheelchair-bound character in the form of Genki whose disability is subtly shown and contributes to story developments with her and her sister, former idol Yuki. Others, like Kanon and Mamoi, are largely pretty one-note with their characters and don't do much else after their debut episodes beyond serving whatever character type they are meant to depict. Outside exploring the characters, Cheer Fruits does a pretty solid job embracing the action hero premise. Besides nods and references to other tokusatsu shows, the series explores the planning that the girls get into with scripting, costumes, fight choreography, and stage effects for their performances. The typical elements of action hero shows are present in their performances with the color theme of the hero costumes, battling against costumed villains, and having the audience participation element for children to provide the heroes with power-up encouragements through their cheering. The fight choreography during the performances have their moments of being engaging, though often suffers from Diomedea trying to cut corners with animation through frequent use of montage sequences. In short, Action Heroine Cheer Fruits is pretty mixed as far as quality goes. Its premise is a fresh focus on the local hero scene of Japanese communities and a number of the characters do get some fleshing out and development. But not all the characters are fleshed out and for a series with fight choreography as its core element for its premise, the animation is mediocre at best. But for the unique focus alone, I'd at least suggest watching the series at least once to see if you enjoy it or not.

Its fresh blend of action and slice-of-life makes this anime stand out. The plot, featuring high school girls becoming local "heroines", provides entertaining moments. The vibrant action sequences and lively character designs contribute to the series' energetic appeal, but nothing special. Exploring the characters' daily lives adds an extra layer of connection. However, the series could benefit from more development, some characters left you with questions too. While the live performances shine, the central plot can feel somewhat predictable to me. Some secondary characters might have been given more attention to enhance the overall narrative. Despite this, it offers an enjoyable experience, particularly for thoseseeking a unique mix of action and slice-of-life