The iDOLM@STER Shiny Colors

In my attempts to stave off sleep while watching the final episode to this wretched blandness Scamco calls an "anime", my attention is suddenly piqued by a strange man, who looks to be twice as old as the girls he is stalking. Who could this mysterious man be, and why is he eyeing our heroines with such interest? The idols are in danger! Someone call the police! Oh... ... It's some guy they call "Producer"... .. Oh....... Scamco has made Imas shows for over a decade now. They vary wildly in quality, but they were characters starring in an anime. I don't know what the fuck Shiny Colors was. Perhaps it'ssome borderline experimental approach to make a series of moving pictures with the blandest cardboard cutouts I've ever seen, and I've watched some shitty Isekai in my lifetime. Everyone is overly nice in the "corporate approved" sort of way. No one has any personality, any conflicts, any story, or any motivation to begin with. They are merely 3D models who exist, ostensibly part of the Idolmaster franchise, though frankly they could be some knock-off Best Value brand idols for all I care. I can't tell you who's who at the very end of the show. Maybe Houkago School Girls has some semblance of a personality, but even then it's not much. There is a man they call "Producer" who creeps around like a stalker but does nothing at all. And after not being in the spotlight for however many episodes, Mana or Mano or whatever her name is, suddenly is the center of their idol production and everyone's going to the main stage and I stopped caring at this point. If Scamco isn't putting in any effort in making this entertaining, I'm not putting in any effort trying to piece whatever semblance of narrative is in this garbage. I'm not even watching this for any plot or arcs, I just want to see Cute Girls being Cute, and they can't even succeed at even that. And the music? Imas' bread and butter? Shockingly generic and forgettable. Gone are the days of CG and even Milimas, Shinymas' songs are as boring as they come.It is what you'd get if you'd ask an AI to generate music. It is aggressively bland. Normally I wouldn't have cared so much if this was any other show, or if this was Scamco's very first attempt. But it's 2024. Imas has been around for almost 20 years at this point. And it's not like there isn't any competition from this season. Girls Band Cry is doing a demonstrably better job at every single aspect. I can't even call Imas "One of the Anime of All Time", because it even fails at being an anime. The biggest sin any piece of media can commit is to be bland. Bad shows have a good talking point, but blandness is a special kind of experience. It involves sucking out your soul until you could no longer feel anything. For all its faults, I'd rather see AIDORU YAMERU a million times over this. The only good thing about this is that it is a cheaper alternative to Ambien. 3/10

Despite my undying love for THE iDOLM@STER, I don't know if I can sugar coat this one.... this show was rough. Its been very disappointing to see the iDOLM@STER anime series become progressively lower and lower in quality. The 765Pro anime is near perfection and I'll always stand by that. But as time went on, the shows became shorter and more rushed and the other branches are just too big to get any actual screen time or character development. And this one was by far the worst offender of that. I was a bit hopeful since this branch is rather small in comparison to theothers, but it was honestly SO unbelievably rushed. So much time just felt wasted. I felt like I was watching the same episode 4 different times, 12 times in a row, because they'd just have everyone in their own respective units having the same conversations on the exact same topic, only in different locations. They spent almost no time together or with characters outside of their units and that was incredibly disappointing. The song choices were very underwhelming, as every single one of them was one that was used for the debut of Song For Prism. Which, I know, this show is meant to be a big advertisement for that game. But iM@S anime series used to be MORE than that and could stand on their own, so its frustrating to see them backpedal so badly, all for the sake of saving money. I wasn't crazy about the Million Live anime using 3D animation, and somehow this show looks even worse than that. The art cards of Shiny Colors have some of the most unbelievably breathtaking illustrations I've ever seen in my life. Which only makes it that much more apparent how bad this show looks, in comparison. This branch deserved SO much better. Everything about this show just screams "cheap". From the constant montage shots of every single character for the sake of filling the time slot, to the fact that the credits of every episode have no new songs or illustrations like all the other shows did. It was just... rough... They did announce a second season for this one, which is shocking. And odd, considering how it doesn't seem like it'll be adding ALL of the missing idols from this branch. Will there be a third season, afterwards!? Why would they spend so much time on this anime when they very clearly didn't care about putting any effort into the first season? I don't have much hope for it, but of course I'll be tuning in. I love these characters and liked getting to spend time with them, as I always do. But Shiny Colors is one of the richest branches in terms of story and visuals. And this show just absolutely failed in both of those departments. I absolutely can't recommend it as your gateway to Shiny Colors or to iM@S as a whole. 5/10, and thats being incredibly generous.

The iDOLM@STER anime franchise has been improving with each series that has come out and I would say Shiny Colors is the best yet. The past series have struggled to properly introduce characters with enough screen time before jumping around constantly. Shiny Colors improved greatly on this by feeling more like a standalone story that can be started and understood without previous knowledge of the series. Each subunit in Shiny Colors was given dedicated time to understand what they are about and how each of the idols relate to each other. By the end of the season you feel like you really understand each ofthe girls and want to cheer them on. During the first few minutes of watching I was a bit disappointed with them using a CG animation style, but after some time it grew on me and the quality particularly shines during the live music scenes. I was very impressed with how many live MVs this series had, whereas in the previous iDOLM@STER series they seemed to skip over the actual music performances most of the time. The final episode of this season was very impressive with multiple full songs animated like an actual live idol performance. The quality and variety of songs in Shiny Colors has also been my favorite of any iDOLM@STER series. I am very much looking forward to the 2nd season! Pros: - Characters and seiyuus - Many live song performances - Good pacing and screen time for characters and subunits - Amazing songs Cons: - The story can be slow if you aren't a fan of slice of life - If you aren't a big idol fan, or dislike the typical "love, hope, and dreams" plot, you probably won't like it

The anime adaptation of Shiny Colors is, to put, a glorified advertisement for their rhythm game spinoff Song for Prism. Except, it's pretty much nothing when it comes to story pacing and progression, their choice of music, and so forth. The primary gripe of this anime is how they rely heavily on Song for Prism's NOMAKE commus. For each IDOLM@STER anime there is at least a supplementary nomake commu which can be found in respective games (mainly mobile game ones). They are usually extras, adding additonal (and somehow optional) story elements that enhance each main episode's storyline. Shiny Colors? The audacity to make plotlines confusing andincomplete, yet they put PIVOTAL, IMPORTANT story elements in a REGION-LOCKED rhythm game is baffling; wanna know Mano's motivation to join the production? Go read the commu, Episode 1 doesn't even explain anything about it. They should really have been part of the anime in the first place. The slideshows in each ending? Those became an entire commu in the game. Bamco's decision to pivot im@s anime into 3d takes a further downward spiral, the CGI is somewhat worse than Million Live's. Some cutscenes are also laughable like one in illumination STARS' recording of their song "Hikari no Destination" while L'Antica is watching them; the later's members have this freeze frame with dull facial expressions for uncomfortable seconds LOL Instead of making dedicated new songs for this season (bar its OP), they thought it's a good idea to rehash already released songs before the anime's inception (being BRILLI@NT WING songs). And they have the ball to repeat them all over again across the episodes. It hurts to see that each ending is either instrumental versions of respective BRILLI@NT WING songs, or that one borring ahh piano tune that is so out of place for an anime based on the game that champions good storywriting. In short, even a ShinyP is doubtful about this one. This new era of ANiM@S is a tragedy; we got an amazing retelling of U149, a somehow average Million Live, and then this. Shiny Colors as a brand right now is struggling with Bandai Namco attempting to push them into the number 1 im@s brand (by baiting people to play their badly received Song for Prism game, only to be overthown by gakuen im@s), and this anime is an insult to injury to bamco's nepo baby. Go watch any other im@s anime instead, hell even gundam-laden Xenoglossia too.