AKB0048 and AKB0048: Next Stage Review — A

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AKB0048 has opened me to fabulousness, and ultimately entertainment.

No, seriously. When this show started airing I was an ignorant hater, ready to join DES in eradicating idols and their crappy music from the universe. I still recognize that idols are basically the dumbest things ever, but AKB0048 is an amazing show. It takes the idol concept and makes something sublime, beautiful and enthralling out of it. We explore the commonly discussed existential ideas of identity with more finesse than I’ve ever seen in any other anime. AKB0048 even takes the “try hard” theme that is so common and inane and turns it into something profound and revolutionary. It’s amazing.

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Then there’s the entertainment aspect of the show. Where else are you going to see girls singing and dancing along with a tribe of giant monkeys while fighting an army of enormous robots with lightsabers? Nowhere, that’s right.

Then there’s the characters: I love how some of them act like complete assholes and let their ambitions trample over all of their friends. So many delicious tears. It’s beautiful.

I’ll stop gushing now. If you want to read more about why AKB0048 is the greatest thing ever check out my earlier post. The take home message is, don’t be afraid to try AKB0048, even if you don’t like idols. I initially dismissed it, and it took about six episodes for me to realize the brilliance I had been purposefully ignoring due to my prejudice towards idols. Don’t be a fool like me.

  • Storytelling – A – The greatest story ever told.
  • Voice – A – Who the hell comes up with this crap, it’s genius.
  • Characters – A – Tears and endless yuri shipping.
  • Attention Grab – A – I watched something like 40 episodes of AKB0048 in a single week, it’s that good.
  • Production – A – Excellent use of CG and crappy idol music. They even tricked me into liking some of the crappy idol music. You win anime.
  • Overall – A

RecommendationsSymphogear, Aquarion Evol

25 thoughts on “AKB0048 and AKB0048: Next Stage Review — A

  1. While I don’t like AKB48 for obvious reasons, I probably take another look at this. The reason I dropped is because I couldn’t stand Nagisa’s voice, but then again, she probably improved.

    1. YESSS DO IT BEST ANIME EVER!!! Nagisa is still kind of annoying but that’s part of the charm. Idols ought to be annoying in my humble opinion.

    1. Idolm@ster is just a bunch of idols doing idol things. Nothing wrong with that, but 0048 is a lot more than that. That’s what makes it special among idol shows imo.

  2. AKB0048 to me is a lot like the Macross series (which you either haven’t seen or don’t like considering you didn’t recommend a single piece of that franchise): an anime about idols and the idol industry spiced up with a lot of flash and mecha. It works well as shallow entertainment at first, but eventually you get used to it and the entire thing just comes across as decent because the underlying story is typical.

    Except for Macross: Do You Remember Love?, which is one of my favorite anime movies of all time. You should check it out. And don’t worry if you didn’t like the original Macross, because the movie has to cut out all the annoying bits in order to fit the thing within a 2-hour runtime.

    1. What parts of the Macross franchise are actually worth watching? There’s so many remakes and side stories that it can be kind of intimidating to just jump in. Do I have to start from the beginning or is there a better entry point?

      1. I have no idea unfortunately. 🙁 I guess you can start at DYRL. I watched Macross Frontier first, I missed some references but it was for the most part a standalone series.

    2. I saw Macross Frontier, thought it was okay. Nothing great.

      DYRL has been on my to watch list for years now, I really need to get around to it one of these days.

  3. Enough with the idol anime already. I am getting tired of the whole girly girl singing and fighting at the same time. The only ones who should fight are those who don’t have any other choice. Anyone else who just join the fight for any other reason are just messing around. And that’s just dumb. I never allow those who can’t fight seriously to be on the battlefield.

    1. AKB0048 is awesome you are missing out. The girls fighting don’t kill people but they aren’t that naive, they backstab each other like crazy.

  4. i have a brand new anime or manga featuring the world after a nuclear war that brought the end of human civilization this is set quadrillion years or trillion or billion or million years the world is populated by mutated flora and fauna the land the air the water is different.

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