Review of Ya Boy Kongming!
Paripi Koumei was a show I was not expecting to get heavily invested in, originally I gave it the 3 episode taste to see if I would enjoy this show that seemed gimmicky, but after watching, I realized the show goes a lot more deeper into the music industry as a whole, while also managing to always tie it back to Kongming. Story: 10 Zhuge Liang aka Kongming, a genius tactician from The Three Kingdoms Period in China, dies and wishes to live in a peaceful world in his next life and gets transported to modern day Tokyo (Not the most peaceful place I could think of,but better than most lol) and meets a singer named Eiko, the whole plot revolves around those two and Kongming helping Eiko succeed in her music career with various other characters being added as the show goes on. Overall the plot is great with various tactics that Kongming comes up with to blow up attention around Eiko and doesn't dip or fall off towards the end. Don't want to say anything else for spoilers sake but the story is S+ tier.
Art: 8
Only part of the whole show I wasn't fully on board with, but for a show like this it did everything it needed to. No noticeable CGI, no lack of animation funding. The visuals weren't amazing but for a music show, what you really need is the:
Sound: 10
Original songs and they're all bangers. They incorporated rap into the show and there was great flow and bars. Kabetaijin, another main character in the show, doesn't really have a voice for rap but it makes sense given his character and since he's spitting bars, it doesn't matter. Often times when anime tries to put in rap in their shows it's usually a bit.... cringe. But Paripi Koumei is not one of those shows whatsoever and I enjoyed every bit of the music.
Characters: 9
All the characters were interesting, with most of the relevant characters getting a proper deep dive into their pasts leading up to their situation today. Some of the characters were slightly one dimensional, but the main characters had good chemistry and were definitely not boring to watch.
Enjoyment: 10
As a musician, everyone haves doubts and fears about their success, or believe that they can't make it with dedication to their music alone, and this shows really does a great job exploring those insecurities and doubts, showing off the darker and more vicious side of the music industry.
Overall: 9
Paripi Koumei isn't just about Zhuge Liang and his stratagems being implemented in modern day society. It's about the fear of failure, the hard work that musicians go through to gain relevance, and the euphoria and depression of being able to succeed through whatever means possible. A great show about the music industry and can't wait for season 2!
side note: haven't read the manga, but the most disappointing part of the show was that there was not a big focus on the side of music creation, the main characters makes a song throughout the whole season but never really touched upon other than (your singing sucks, improve it) when I make songs, there's always a perfectionist side of me saying that whatever I make isn't adequate or up to par and I know a lot of musicians in the same boat as me. It would've been nice to see some struggles involving scrapping ideas for songs or something along those lines, although I can definitely see why they chose not to focus on that side since there's not really a way to connect it to Kongming, much less be interesting in general lol.