Review of Pop Team Epic

Hoshiiro Girldrop is another one of those animes that seems to be a stereotypical shoujo series about a girl and her senpai. Well, you wouldn't be wrong there. Story: HG starts us off with Daichi, and how he must live with Sosogu, his childhood friend. The anime is standard, with Sosogu getting into many different situations, and with those, strengthening her relationship with Daichi. However, what this plot presents us is with multiple tropes, which sometimes work, and sometimes don't. The whole idol thing is reminiscent of Love Live, but with the undercover aspect like Magical Girl animes. In a way, HG is a kind oflovechild between idol and magical girl animes with its theme of trying to mask an identity. However, this masking is eventually interrupted when she must show Daichi who she really is. He then basically becomes her coach, and they strengthen their relationship that way, until they reach the final episode, where Daichi has finally remembered who Sosogu was, and the promise he had made.

Art: The art is fairly standard, maybe being a bit simplistic when compared to animes like it. However, the colours are very vibrant, and stand out, even when compared to the giants like Love Live and Madoka Magica. There isn't much to talk about for the art, but it is pretty standard.

Sound: HG boasts a great opening, amazing songs for the idol portion, and also a kick ass flute song for its episode previews. Also, Daichi's seiyuu really shows his emotion, especially in the first episode when he questions who Sosogu is.

Character: Overall, the development of character with the relationships between Sosogu and Daichi are great. They start as "strangers", and build their way up as lovers. Sosogu's goal is to get the attention of Daichi, and possibly get him to remember who she is, but that only starts to come into play near the end of the first season. By the end, Daichi is willing to sacrifice everything in order to bring her back, which I feel to be a great change from the beginning. Overall, their characters were exactly what was needed, although a bit trope-ish.

Enjoyment: What can I say except that HG was very enjoyable. The script was well executed, and full of tropes for me to poke fun at.

Overall: HG was a solid anime, picking apart tropes and putting them back together in a way that seems trope-ish itself, but ends up becoming just what the series needed. I would recommend this anime.

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Pop Team Epic review:

Story: What story?

Art: Pretty standard art, but animations are really fluid for a joke anime.

Sound: Different seiyuus every episode? Ian Sinclair? I'm sold. Also, the opening is pretty cool.

Character: I can't diss their characters or else they'll come for me.

Enjoyment: Oh? Yeah.

Overall: Watch it, unless you don't like memes.