Review of Lapis Re:LiGHTs

Talk about surprise of the season. Without any prior knowledge coming into this series I was fully expecting a low budget soulless mobage adaptation not unlike Nanabun. And not especially Milky Holmes Lite. To be perfectly honest going in into the first episode initially had me fearing the show would be your typical idol show with school saving, rivals, angst and protagonist powers. Then the second episode completely and utterly shattered those expectations to become something special. I mean, this is a show with a goddamned lesbian cabaret club. It’s wacky and insane and thankfully the idol stuff is kept to a minimum and the justificationsfor idol activities in a fantasy setting are done well enough.

It's clear a lot of thought and effort has been put into what is essentially a mobage ad. The setting and backgrounds are beautiful and the faux-mediterranean setting is a welcome change for a fantasy setting that doesn't reuse the same medieval europe isekai template. Even minor background characters have interesting developments like that one couple who appears in backgrounds and breaks up by the end of the show. It's great and proof that nothing is taken for granted or regarded as some throwaway prop. Even the final plot twist had been telegraphed since the beginning of the show.

Of course, that's not why I enjoyed the show so much. And it's not because of the mediocre songs as well (some are decent though). It's largely the cast and characters and how damedame they all are. Seriously. An early episode for instance has them chasing a duck to a pier. Now the standard expected gag would be for the gang and the duck to fall into the river only for the duck to swim away, but in Lapis Relights the duck instead vaults over them and into a separate trap laid by members of the group who didn't jump into the river. It's great seeing how incompetent everyone (apart from Alpha) is, and the inter/intra group dynamics shine brightly because of this interplay. For lack of a better description, it really is Milky Holmes lite but in a fantastical setting.

I did wish supernova got more exposure and screentime than what we got in the anime, to better establish them as a more antagonistic group, maybe have Yue develop more of a rivalry with Tia, but spreading out the focus to everyone else is good too. The 19 or so other cast members all receive sufficient characterization and are all uniquely distinctive enough in personalities and character relationships, and it is genuinely fun to see each new episode to see how everyone interacts with everyone else. The show really establishes good chemistry between each character no matter how unlikely the groupings are, and it's a real shame the show is only 12 episodes long. I know they wouldn't do this, but I really wanna see a sequel to this to further flesh everyone out.

So, while the idol performances were more of a distraction that anything, the show still succeeds with strong character relationships and great humour. It has been a long while since a Damedame show has graced the post-Milky Holmes era, but Lapis Relights shows the spirit of Damedame is still strong.

7/10