AKB0048 Season 1 - Anime Review

AKB0048 Season 1 - Anime Review

Duration: 13 Episodes
Supplied: Blurays purchased via Rightstuf
Publisher: Sentai Filmworks
Released: September 3, 2013 locally

AKB0048(00 from here) is about an interplanetary musical idol super-group. They also moonlight as guerilla combatants on the side because some planets have entertainment bans of varying levels. 00 does not despair at this, though, as they want to bring joy and excitement to people all over the galaxy, regardless of conditions. Getting into trouble is just part of the job!

We mainly follow a group of young girls who see a 00 concert when they were super-young and all made a pact to one day becomes members of the group. Fast forward a few years and we find them working towards that very goal. As they slowly uncover the truth about what it means to be a member of this prestigious group they discover it is a much harder journey than any of them expected.

The group responsible for dealing with 00 is called the DES. They show up wielding military-grade weaponry and seriously seem like they are trying to seriously hurt or kill anyone trying to disturb the entertainment bans on various worlds. They love to brandish their "No Idol" tipped warheads too. Fortunately 00 has their own high level of advanced technology and is able to defend themselves, non-lethally, against the DES. Although, this does become very challenging when they are doing one of their guerilla concerts!

The aesthetic of this entire series is extremely girly. From the heart-shaped accents/highlights in all the girls' hair, to the hearts in their very eyes, this series does not care that it is pandering.

The music in the series is pretty excellent. Being a series about a music group, I understand the need for the music to be up to par, and fortunately for us, it is. Although, there is not as much music as one would think, what's there is good.

There was a thing that did, unfortunately, bug me, and it was not even related to the bizarre nature of our plot(which was not even really that bad). There is a fairly common practice of using 3D models here and there in recent anime, but it's especially noticeable in this one. Given the nature of several characters dancing around, I can understand the desire to go that route since it would be much less labor intensive on the animators. However, the transition between 2D and 3D happens often, and it's back-to-back, and is very jarring at times.

Conclusion
Despite the absurd plot, extremely girly aesthetic, and transitions between 2D and 3D models, I actually ended up liking this series. After all, it seems kind of hard to hate something where people are just trying their hardest to bring happiness to people everywhere. Especially to places where entertainment is banned(for whatever unexplained reasons). The concerts were extremely flashy and fun and the songs were great too.

There are bits of plot that are left unexplained. I just hope some of them are clarified in the follow-up season.

Recommendation
If you like music-based series then you might want to look into this one. Just be warned of the super-girly characters. If this kind of stuff does not excite you then you might want to dodge it!