Very good entry into the Aikatsu! franchise for people who want something from tokusatsus other than henshin heroes and kaijus (which I love with all myself, but limiting the tokusatsu medium to those ones makes no sense). In facts, as a person who is pretty sceptical of the meshing of anime and tokusatsus in general (see my review of the Red Baron anime reboot), I must say I'm pretty surprised the meshing actually worked in this show, because the transition between the two mediums is pretty much seamless and you can actually believe that the ladies in the live-action portion of the show end havinganother completely different identity in the virtual world. Identity in the virtual world which in all the cases it's a feast for the eye for the hetero men who watch these shows for the good looking ladies singing good songs. As characters and story goes, as it is custom from any tokusatsu or tokusatsu-adjacent show ever made period (and as it is understandable from a show made to sell virtual idol cards used to battle a là Pokemon style) there's no story or characters proper to speak of but, again, if you're here for the technical aspect of the tokusatsu meshed with the anime part - as intended from the producers themselves, as clearly this wasn't made for the hardcore Aikatsu fandom but for the people who also watch henshin heroes - you don't care one bit for any character or story or whatever to begin with as tokusatsus are not story or character driven anyway. The only real downside I see in this is that some songs (which are all fun anyway) might get a bit repetitive on the longer run, but there are worst cases in that sense I can think of (Mahou No Tenshi Creamy Mami, for example). In facts, I'd rather take this show over the last nonsensically overhyped Kamen Rider show I've watched (the Gavv, which is not the BeZteZt reiwa KR show ever somebody online makes it out to be), the last mind-numbing boring Kamen Rider zeztz episodes, the not-particularly enticing (to be generous) first episodes of Gavan Infinity or hamfisted toku/anime meshings like the terrible Tojima wants to be a Kamen Rider thing (particularly over this one) anyday, anytime.
Highly recommended.
Sincere thanks to the Masterpiece going by the name of Kimi To Idol Precure (they shared the main writer) for getting me to know this franchise to begin with and congratulations to Bandai for finally pulling it off on their own (without the involvment of neither Toei nor Tsuburaya, I mean) after the Girl Gun Lady Fiasco produced in the same year this show was made.