A Magical, Musical Anime Column – This Week in Anime

We do our best work here when we work in concert, after all.

Yes, after an aside mention of the Pretty Rhythm series last week, we were reminded of the broader genre of magical idol anime. And with the currently airing SI-VIS: The Sound of Heroes occupying a similar space, that makes for a fair reason to sing our hearts out about it for an evening.

Also, because we are us and the bosses know we’ll take any excuse we get to bring up Symphogear.

Love Live! itself even crossed the line into true magic before, with Yohane the Parhelion, which reimagined the Sunshine crew as being able to make actual magic, as in a fantasy setting, happen through song.

It feels like a natural progression for anime to take. Diagetic songs in musicals are, as you said, already a kind of magic. Might as well turn that dial up to eleven by getting actual superpowers involved.

It is worth clarifying that this is the approach of Symphogear, as taken by its stewards, Akifumi Kaneko and Noriyasu Agematsu. Even when the musical numbers aren’t being deployed in fight scenes and are instead just accompanying “normal” idol performances, they’re the most outlandish, impossibly futuristic musical show arrangements possibly conceived. You see something like this, and it’s like “Well, of course these performers also transform and fight monsters regularly.”

In their case, the “magical” element is more of playing up the supernatural spin, but this, too, highlights variety.

Regardless, having just barely sampled Dance with Devils myself on recommendation for this column, I’ll have to make time to come back to it myself, given how much this sort of Elements-Garden-fueled musical absurdity is exactly my shit.

It’s one of the reasons I tend to keep an eye out for this genre, in how much I’m still chasing the dragon of experiencing something with the glorious absurdity of Symphogear again.

It even bites Symphogear‘s mentor-figure sacrifice and smash-cut to credits scroll in the premiere. It was terrifically exciting for me to see at the start and…I don’t know that it’s quite lived up to those hopes I built up for it by association.

Although in terms of parallels, it shares some similarities with Siren, like Tsubasa’s slobby tendencies.

I should stress that SI-VIS is fine so far! The direct integration of idol performances with the combat has allowed it to delve deeper into the musical creation process than Symphogear ever did. I appreciate that we can have a magical idol show where the music requires hard work to happen, rather than being created by magic itself. Plus, it’s neat to have a co-ed idol group. But that just means there’s been a bit more downtime focus rather than the ongoing hype I came to associate with Symphogear. Which is probably unfair; even Symphogear took a minute to get there. The best musical performances know how to rise and build with their sound.

I’ll probably also keep up with SI-VIS, same as you, and same as you did with Maebashi Witches. And the latter’s a fair comparison anyway, since there is a pretty solid amount of crossover with magical idols and magical girls. Kinda obvious when I spell it out like that.

Like I mentioned last week, the Pretty Rhythm series has been chugging along for like a solid decade on the premise of “What if idols were Pretty Cures?”

It’s neat how it presents a different kind of fantasy for the target demographic. Even if, in Kiratto Pri☆Chan‘s case, the performing power of the idols is measured by the oh-so-modern method of likes given to a livestream. It swings just a bit cynical for me, alongside the expected naked commercialization.

I mean, we’ve had Cures who were idols before, but the specter of Glitter Force means I still can’t officially load up episodes of Doki Doki Pretty Cure and showcase Cure Sword. So the gay cat idols will have to do.

Alongside the aforementioned butt-kicking, Idol Precure explores the ideas of performers, the effects they have on their audience, and how the power of music facilitates that. So it is utilizing the setup for more than just cribbing aesthetics.

Fairly full-circle too, given that one of the reasons for my interest was that Princession Orchestra was originally the brainchild of Symphogear‘s Kaneko and Agematsu. See, we told you it always comes back to Elements Garden.

I don’t mean that reductively or as a bad thing, either. As we’ve covered thus far, communicating this kind of magical musical fantasy is great for the target audience, and seeing it executed with the level of cool factor I’ve gushed about in Symphogear is impressive. And annoying that I can’t point people somewhere to easily stream it.

Then again, I guess that too is a lot like Symphogear in its heyday. At least Princession Orchestra fans probably aren’t having to wait two months for subs.

Also, how much we’re willing to do free promotion for them just out of enthusiasm. You heard us, go watch Dance with Devils, and Maebashi Witches! And I want someone streaming Princession Orchestra with non-AI subtitles on my desk by morning! This is the busy season I was talking about!