Lemon Angel Project Review

 Lemon Angel Project

Story: 7.5
It has been a long time since I watched a series where music was a main part of the plot, so when I read the synopsis I decided I would watch it. This story has more to it then meets the eye. The first half concentrates on forming a new formation of the Lemon Angels. It will take the viewer through the auditions and rivalry. When the formation is formed the viewer gets to see what hardships a new band can get especially if there are some people out there to boycott the new formation on purpose. And there are even darker secrets untold.

The anime is sometimes a bit episodic. It focuses on one of the new members of the band and the viewer will learn a bit more about a characters personality or motive. The ending was a bit cliché yet touching after all the girls had been through. There was one filler episode which I find a minor point since the series is only 13 episodes long but the story didn’t feel rushed or really slow passed otherwise. It all perfectly fitted in the chosen number of episodes.

Animation: 7
Colorful is a keyword for this anime. The character designs are all to match the personality of the different band members and this concept works in this case. It’s like they kind of created the Spice girls in anime form, or at least it looks that way. The colors match and the costumes are cute. Further the animation wasn’t that spectacular. It is guilty of using stills and the backgrounds are all very basic. However the thing why it still deserves a 7 in my opinion is because of the dancing scenes. The animation there was fluent and synchronized and those were very fun to watch.

Audio: 7
I always rate a series where the theme is focused on music more critical then I would normally do. I think that when you focus your plot around music in a series, you must be able to back it up with a more then decent soundtrack to make things appealing and realistic. This series has a lot of vocal tracks apart from the opening theme and ending song. The songs are typical J-pop ones which were meaningless to me at first. But the songs did grow on me because they matched the story well. However the soundtrack still isn’t as good as some others from the genre. Mostly the soundtracks of anime with the music theme are great to listen to on its own, but with this series this isn’t the case for me.

The voice acting is of decent quality, but there is one mayor downside: The voice of the main lead Tomo is so annoying. I can’t believe the maker would choose such a voice for a main char. All in all the audio is decent but certainly of lower quality then others within the same genre.

Characters: 7
As stated before the new band members are selected on type. They have different characters that cause them to clash occasionally. The strong point of the series is the fact that each character has an episode that is dedicated to her. It contains things like background or personal issues, insecurities or scandals. It gives the characters more depth and it makes it easier to empathize or relate. Even though the characters are very stereotypical I did enjoy the way they interacted and grew from rivals to a close group of friends.

Next to the six band members there are some side character. I really liked the development of the bands manager who grew from an insecure woman to one with resolve. Each character has a motive to act the way he or she does and this gets explained well, therefore there aren’t any real bad guys in this series even though some characters may come across like one at first. This makes everything very realistic and believable.

Overall: 7
This anime is surely enjoyable. It has a decent story, an ok soundtrack and fun characters. In the whole it is an anime which is easy to get into and it is realistic. However there are better series in this genre therefore this anime with its current quality gets no further then decent.

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April 6, 2008 :: Drama, Music, Reviews ::