This series is weird. Really weird. This episode again: it’s one of these episodes that’s not supposed to be good… and yet it is.
To give a quick summary: this episode had a hot spring sequence, including the girls comparing each other’ breast sizes. The three idols turn out to be able to play basketball. They challenge Team Basquash for a match. Then one of the idols accidentally bumps into Dan and the two fall in love, while one of the other idols falls in love with Iceman. Later this episode, our little princess (still pretending to be a guy) professes herself as one of the idol group’s top fans and starts singing while the rest plays basketball. I have truly lost count of the amount of fanservice clichés that this episode used.
I’m still not exactly sure why I didn’t hate this episode. Perhaps it was the fact that at this point you’d really expect crazy things like this from this series, Perhaps it was that point at which Pink Idol (I’m too lazy right now to look up their names) got hit by one of Iceman’s crazy Destroys, started crying like a little girl, and Dan completely forgot about his embarrassments and the game because it reminded him of Coco’s accident.
But yeah, I should have seen it coming that Dan would end up as a couple with Pink Idol, with Shoji Kawamori as the chief director and all. Still, in this case it’s a pretty fresh concept, since for once we don’t have a shounen lead falling in love with one of the lead females. But yeah, on the other side the inclusion of idols of course pretty much fits with the themes of this series: this is a series about fandom, and of course idols have their completely different fandom when compared to the basketball players like Dan.
Rating: (Enjoyable)
Fanservice, fanservice and more fanservice… and surprisingly fresh romance.
My thoughts on the entire series, really.
Having just watched and enjoyed Macross Frontier, the episode was appealing to me with all of the frantic action set to pop music. Kawamori is a master choreographer, and I’m surprised none of the idols yelled “LISTEN TO MY SONG!!” ^_^
I don’t think that Dan and Rouge will actually end up together, though… they’re just building his harem. You have the childhood friend (Miyuki), the tomboy rival (Sela), and now the pop idol. Kawamori seems to enjoy constructing love n-gons that occasionally go somewhere.