Aikatsu Stars 93

I can’t believe a character development episode for Rei actually rushed through one round of the Aikatsu tournament. The way Rei lost against Yume was just so anticlimatic. Looking back, I do dislike character development episodes combined with losing episodes. It makes you really want to root for them, but finishing the episode itself punishes you by giving you so much disappointment. This episode is one of them being that and also the previous Rola episode against Elza.

Everything that Rei is working for this episode, suggested that she is not Subete Elza no tame ni anymore, she even spoke “Minna no tame ni” in this episode, but the cursed catchphrase before her performance still had to be “Subete Elza no tame ni”. Why couldn’t they have changed that to something more sensible now?

The impact of Yume winning is very much lessened in this episode as it feels too much as a plot device.

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Once again, I am not writing much on this episode because this was mostly a plot device for Michiru’s Night Dress.

Galala and Falala also just switched their wake up time again.

It was a hectic day today due to the presence of two big events which took up both half of my day.

Firstly, it was the airing day of the first episode Hugtto Precure. I was hyped too much by this in the previous days and in fact this was the first time I actually open the livestream and try watching it. The first episode is good enough for me, Hana and Hug-tan are just too kawaii for me to handle. First episode usually can’t reveal the quality of the whole season though, so I’ll make my verdict on this after watching much more episodes.

Next was the latest infodump on Aikatsu Friends. To be honest, it was too much for to process right now. I can’t put down most of my thoughts clearly in words for this for now. STARANIS/AIKATSU STARS disbanding, new season having Seiyuus as singers, I currently still feel very neutral to this. Even the new songs/videos that were revealed was not really helpful to me in deciding if this is good or not. I’ll just wait until the actual anime to happen to make my feelings clear probably.

Aikatsu Stars 92

So the final 4 that get into the Aikatsu Tournament was Elza, Yume, Rei, Mahiru. It was kinda expected but I feel bad for Kirara really. She was the one that stayed on 2nd position for most of the season and somehow dropping out of it abruptly near the end, even after winning an event. It reinforces people’s opinion that poor Pop idols are meant to be shafted, just like how Ako was treated for the entire of this season.

As Aikatsu Stars is coming to an end, I feel like Elza has grown a lot on me, so much that I actually ranked her above Koharu now. She used to the be last in my personal rankings. These few episodes really make me feel that she has a heart, and she does really care a lot about her idols in Venus Ark. I wonder if the last few episodes will reveal the actual reason of her closing down Venus Ark for now.

Finally, Episode Solo!!! It was surprising that Yume, Mahiru, Ako never knew about the tradition of Episode Solo being sung by every generation of S4. I wonder how though. They should have been taught of that by someone at least. 26th S4 variation of Episode Solo really has a totally different feel than the previous one. The song is now too much skewed toward Pop/Cute feel mostly due to presence of Yume/Ako. The original version is still a better one imo.

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I am not writing any much for this episode, because this episode is pretty much just a plot device for Nino to get the morning dress. It was pretty innovative to have Nino perform to stealing of Shion’s crown during the performance making drama though.

Aikatsu Stars 91

Mahiru and Aria episode really feels like a filler at this point. Aria is definitely cute and all but this is essentially intruding on Mahiru’s episode. It’s pretty sad that Mahiru’s personal episodes are always burdened with Venus Ark students for now. Aria is working hard trying to copy/learn from other idols, but copying Mahiru is pretty much impossible, as she is too much of a monster. Dat boulder break was just too much for probably anyone else in the Aikatsu verse.And somehow we got a Aria performance with some slight changes and a cut Mahiru performance. Weird choice, but I am not going to complain too much at this point.

Also, Aikatsu Friends just got announced on last week as a sequel to Aikatsu Stars in April. Hopefully we will get a trailer up soon as I am usually not getting fired up by just character designs.

It’s just sad to see current cast gone just after 2 years. My precious Yume aww. They will live on in photokatsu hopefully.

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It’s all nostalgic when Mia starts performing, with both the song Dear My Future and the making drama (prism jump) Kirameki Future. I replayed that performance 10+ times because it was such a nice song and it was very motivating. Galala in this episode also got fallen by the minna tomodachi curse so it’s a bit anticlimatic, but it’s Pripara anyways. It’s always all friendships and miracles.

Btw, Kiratto Prichan also got announced on the last week as a sequel to Pripara in April. This means Pripara is going to be over soon finally. Laala finally gets to retire now. Otsukare Laala all these time. I am pretty sure I am going to watch Prichan too.

Aikatsu Stars 87

It’s the obligatory Aikatsu Christmas episode again. Some things are just tradition and never really changed much, but it’s always nice to see them back even with some small changes.

Elza basically stopped caring about anyone else, even her Venus Ark students, so let’s ignore her in the meantime, while Kirara, Rei, Aria get to have fun with the Yotsuboshi cast. They including Rei are actually better off without Elza imo.

Then we get to the Aikatsu tradition – Christmas Treecutting. It’s Rei and Mahiru time to shine. Although using katana and karate for tree cutting is kinda ridiculous, it’s tradition and it’s meant to happen. Come to think of it though, Yume has never participated in the christmas tree cutting unlike Ichigo and Akari. She is lacking in Aikatsu MC power and tradition.

Ako x Kanata romance is the only one realized in Aikatsu Stars til new. Ako is so adorable being tsundere to Kanata, and she pretty much half-confessed to Kanata and got accepted. Other pairs are too much of a pipe dream for now though.

It feels so justified to see Rola being acknowledged by someone after that depressing episode last week. Now it is left for her to decide whether she’ll accept and go on to world debut. For her character’s sake, I hope that happens though. It’s too unfair seeing her trying to compete with MC powers directly. She’ll be better off and come back even stronger.

Finally we get the first ever 5 people performance in Aikatsu Stars, though We Wish You a Merry Christmas is quite bland and actually not much different from last year’s performance. Well I am not expecting much from Bamco Pictures 3D CG nowadays. 

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It’s a christmas episode for Pripara but it does not feel very christmasy. The cast just spent almost the whole episode trying find a resolution of Falala and Galala to co-exist but runs out of time as Falala falls asleep again. The implication seems to be the last arc being darker than usual as Galala is sure to go all out making sure Falala will never awaken again. And finally FINALLY FINAAALLY, Laala’s twintail form is back completely. I have been waiting for this for so long. Now Laala can use her bullshit powers to help the cast more successfully now.

Aikatsu Stars 86

To summarize this review in a few words: POOR Rola.

This was the episode that Rola was supposed to redeem herself. All the insecurity, motivation build up, training, support from friends especially Yume were supposed to make us root for her, it had done so very successfully. Rola really had extreme bad luck to be facing a final boss character Elza at this time, but the build up had actually given us some hope until THAT happened.

We all know that Rola still might lose even if Elza had given her normal performance, but the lost to Elza this time was really hammered into our mind. It’s all game over when we see Elza started with a new song and performance “The only Sun Light”  and literally exploded into her Sun Dress. It’s really that unfair to Rola. There’s just simply no chance. Everyone is totally surprised and I am really sad to see Rola being devastated. From now, I really want Aikatsu Stars to just give Rola some deserved wins against her opponents if possible in the rest of this season.

As for Elza, I won’t focus too much on her performance. The transformation effects into Sun Dress was really cool and I feel the flame effects was really fitting, but otherwise there were some weird camera angles which I don’t really understand. I feel like Elza really had descended to craziness in this episode though. She was depressed enough to be such an asshole towards Rei at the start of the episode, that she was actually losing reputation as a headmistress in Venus Ark. She was simply not doing her job. Would have expected her to return to her ordinary smug self after the Sun Dress, but apparently she had went into an evil kind of above all others craziness instead. This really makes me feel some disgust towards her character and want someone (probably Yume) to just beat up her up in her own thing.

I would say it is a very well written episode, really one of those that triggers a lot of emotions and feels unlike most episodes in Stars. It’ll be good if there’re more episodes like this.

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Feels like it is a pointless team-building episode for the new unit this week as we already known they will go through that pretty easily. At least the process itself is pretty boring. My Dream (MyDre) itself sounds bland but is actually catchy enough. As expected, MyDre won over Shuuka and Falala finally has awakened for long enough (not sure if permanently though). Hope Falala will have actually enough time to do something though. Looks like the final arc will be a full-on conflict between Falala and Galala, and the idols trying to help both of them though. I am actually looking forward towards how they execute this.

Aikatsu Stars 85

Apparently the audition that Yume is joining is with a group of greenhorns. They are just like free exp points to her and she would probably win by a handy margin without doing anything.

This episode’s title “Passing on the Radiance” is what Yume did for the whole episode. Yume being already an experienced S4 senpai is being responsible and inspiring to all the kouhais while shining even more brightly herself. Yume is so precious and I really want more Yume-focused episodes.

As for the Music of Dream performance, the 3DCG was quite OK, but there are always some questionable bad camera angles that makes me scream why this is not Samurai Pictures. Guess I would have to wait until the Sun Dress performance to see if they would have better angles for this.

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It’s the obligatory unit episode and unfortunately they do need time to get up the speed. I was waiting for the whole episode to wait for them to reveal their unit name, but apparently they have forgotten about unit name though. The new unit song was not really good though. Almost everyone else’s unit song is catchier than that.

Aikatsu Stars 84

This episode finally we gets an “explanation” of why Ako being so nonchalant about not getting Star wings. She was not participating in the Aikatsu ranking and was supposed to focus her work as an actress. To be honest, I think it’s just a bullshit reason as it does not even explain why Ako is not at least getting a normal PR as a S4. I swear Bamco just made up the random reason recently because of the backlash of Ako not getting SPRs.

The idols in Venus Ark really have issues in independence, being all too dependant on Elza, first Rei, now even Kirara. There must be something wrong in the Venus Ark education system after all. In the end, I feel like Kirara just switches her dependance from Elza to Ako.

Other than the above issues, overall this is a really cute episode. Kirara and Ako together are just too cute and also fun. Elza looks like she is still deep in depression though.

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Finally, Michiru’s dream awakened. She has to the most professional out of all the other girls, managing to suppress her dream inside her shoulder, before Paku attempts to eat away that. So Idol MICHIRU is just a manifestation of her dream all the time. Now all the personal development threads have been cleared. Next on: trio unit.