22/7

DESCRIPTION

CAST

ONA Slice of LifeAno Hi no Kanojotachi
MUSICBoku wa Sonzai Shiteinakatta
MUSICRikaisya
MUSICShampoo no Nioi ga Shita
MUSICNani mo Shite Agerarenai
OVA Music22/7: 8+3=?
MANGA Music22/7+α
MUSICKaze wa Fuiteru ka?
MUSIC Sci-FiKumorizora no Mukou wa Hareteiru
MUSICBoku wa Konya, Deteiku
MUSICYES to NO no Aida ni

REVIEWS

• 

  planetJane

  34/100
  "I can't see a thing in this world and I have no clue what to do."

  *All of my reviews contain __spoilers __for the reviewed material. This is your only warning.*

  ---

  

  22/7 is not really an anime so much as it is a 12-episode shrug. It would be unfair to call the show bottom-of-the-barrel, but rarely does an anime start with so much potential and not just squander it, but fail to deliver on every conceivable level. To its limited credit, 22/7’s failings are not simple ones. This is a series whose shortcomings are borderline artful. It is, if nothing else, interesting to dissect how it went wrong.

  To be fair as possible; from day one, there were always going to be two kinds of 22/7 watchers. The show is in large part a promotional vehicle for the real idol group of the same name. Its most famous member stateside, Sally Amaki, is something of an internet sensation for her fluent bilingualism and interaction with overseas idol fans, something the demographic only very rarely gets. For the people watching to see Amaki and her fellow idols work their way around a script for the first time and simply interact while in-character, the series is perfectly competent at, specifically, that thing. If still unremarkable.

  

  Were it that boops alone could make an anime good, we might live in a better world.

  ---

  22/7’s core premise, however, feels more of a part with some of the group’s actual music. 22/7 are eclectic, as is expected from a J-Idol group. But their most distinct works are odd, baroque, string-heavy, and often tense pop songs. The series’ premise, that eight girls have been selected by shadowy government agency The GI Project to join a pop group, at the behest of a mysterious statue called The Wall, seems to set 22/7 up as a sort of Madoka for the idol girl group anime genre.

  It’s an admittedly unfair comparison, but it’s one 22/7 invites, and indeed the show’s opening few episodes hint that we might at some point learn more about the nature of The Wall. We do not, and aside from its first episode--wonderfully tense, with a dusky energy the show never manages to summon again--22/7 seems fairly content to color safely within genre lines for much of its run time. 9 of the series’ 12 episodes cover most of the same ground that anything cribbing notes from The Idolmaster does.

  

  We get character backstories, the cast interacting with each other as they feel each other out during their rise to fame, jokes, a couple actual performances, et cetera. Frustratingly, playing it safe is arguably where the show is at its best. While only about a third of the character focus episodes presented are particularly good, they’re at least well-put-together on a production level. Jun’s episode, in particular, has some of the season’s better directing even as its writing is fundamentally cliche and wrongheaded. Enough so that unless you are exceptionally good at overlooking this kind of thing, it will suck most of the fun out of the room.

  So those are the show’s ups and downs for most of its runtime. In its tenth episode, the series finally pulls the trigger on what it attempts to sell as its big reveal. 22/7 are forced to disband, leaving their lives as idols and their happy memories behind. In a better show, this would have emotional impact. Here, it mostly serves to jerk the viewers around for another two episodes before the finale. There, 22/7 re-convene at GI Project headquarters. The Wall begins speaking to them, they confront it about ordering them to break up, affirming their (from any outside perspective, dubious) independent existence as idols and desire to be such. They break into the thing and end up outside, where they perform an impromptu concert for their fans. It turns out to have been orchestrated by GIP the whole time, at the behest of the Wall itself. Roll credits, cue postscript promoting the upcoming OVA.

  

  To clear up any possible misconception, it’s okay for a series to exist as a way to sell something. Many anime manage to have solid emotional cores, well-considered themes, and interesting things to say despite also pulling double duty as a way to get You, Dear Otaku, to buy toys or CDs or whathaveyou.

  Where this becomes less okay is when something tries to present itself as a rebellion against a system it is not just participating in but perpetuating. 22/7 are a real idol group, the fictional characters in 22/7 are written (at least, allegedly) quite close to their real-world counterparts. 22/7 as a multimedia project is the brainchild of Yasushi Akimoto, the man behind massive idol pop projects like Onyanko Club and AKB48. Even this is not entirely damning in of itself, the duplicity of music being presented as rebellious but also bankrolled by major labels has deep roots in a wide range of genres including punk and hip-hop, but the sheer flatness of the entire affair undercuts any spirit of affirmation or solidarity it might try to instill.

  

  To admittedly simplify; when your show includes, say, a plot wherein an idol is uncomfortable posing for a swimsuit shoot and resolves that plot by having other characters essentially tell her to get over herself, you can no longer claim to be standing against the system in even symbolic fashion. (Distressingly enough, weird, out-of-place swimsuit fanservice was also a strike against AKB0048, another numerically-titled, idol-related anime property that Akimoto had a hand in. Albeit, a much better one overall).

  All of this adds up to quite possibly the most disappointing anime of the year thusfar. The show is certainly not meritless. As mentioned, it’s competent-to-good on the production end of things, and some of the individual character arcs are compelling. Particularly that of Miu, the show’s ostensible protagonist and one of its few genuinely daring choices in how simply un-idol-y she is. (That, too, of course, is sanded away over the course of the show’s run.)

  

  A-1 in general continue to prove themselves as a surprisingly relaible studio in a post-CloverWorks world, and the actual music is quite good if you’re into the particular vibe it’s putting down. The high drama of the show’s opening theme “It’s Difficult”, a cheery number about how life is hard and confusing, feels like it was written for a series with ten times the writing chops of this one.

  Still, these relatively meager positives can’t save a fundamentally broken series. It’s a shame, 22/7 seem like a genuinely interesting group, and they deserved a genuinely interesting show to showcase them. This, however, is not that show.

  ---

  Continue on AniList
• 

  Juliko25

  64/100
  Inconsistent and messy in its attempts to stand out in an oversaturated genre and failed after its strong start.

  Real time: I've never been a fan of idols, both the Western kind or Japan's versions of them. The same goes for idol-based anime, mostly because many of them tend to be formulaic or of poor quality. There have been some good ones, but I've seen very few of them. Honestly, the only idol anime I can say that I really love is Fancy Lala, and even that's stretching it, as Fancy Lala's focus isn't really on being an idol. I haven't seen either The IdolM@ster nor Wake Up Girls (I do plan to see the former later on), AKB0048 was fun and ambitious though kind of stupid at times, I've heard great things about Skip Beat and ZombieLand Saga, but again, haven't seen them. I like Aikatsu well enough, though it is a show aimed at children and is much more on the silly, idealistic side of things, and anyone who's talked to me at all knows I'm not touching Love Live with a ten foot pole, mostly because of the fact that it plays sexual harassment for comedy, and that absolutely does not sit right with me. I wasn't intending on watching the newest idol anime, 22/7, but reading someone's review of the first episode had me intrigued, because it had a main character who was very cynical and bitter, far from your typical idol anime protagonist, and it had an interesting, if stupid premise. I know nothing of the actual real life idol group 22/7, so the review will solely focus on the anime. To be honest, the first episode did win me over, and I was really hoping this would be good. And it tried. It really tried...but it fell flat on its face. Big time.

  So what's the story? It begins with a girl named Miu who finds a mysterious letter in her mail. She and seven other girls are made to gather at a zoo, and a man named Gouda takes them down to an underground facility. There, they find out that they've all been recruited to start an idol group called 22/7, and everything they do is going to be dictated by a magical, sentient wall that spits orders on brass plates. In order to be successful, they have to follow the wall's orders to the letter. Understandably, many of the girls don't know what's going on and are opposed to it, Miu especially, as she's not too keen on the idea of being used to fulfill someone else's whims, wall or no. But then she gets fired from her job, and has no source of income. Reluctantly, she and the other girls return to the facility and decide to become the idol group 22/7, though they still have no idea what the wall even is or why they have to do everything it tells them to do.

  Yeah. The idea of a sentient wall dictating an entire idol group is pretty hilarious in how stupid it sounds, and it's inspired many a joke since the anime's premiere. But if you ignore that, the anime promised to be a more cynical, realistic look at the idol business, not unlike Wake Up Girls. And for the first four or so episodes, the anime seemed to hit the ground running. It has smooth, stunning animation, though not without the occasional glaring CGI, great music, Miu is a great, refreshing protagonist who actually had flaws she needed to overcome, and the anime seemed to actually care about characterization rather than making the girls into one note moe archetypes. In all honesty, 22/7 could have really been something great, and it promised to try and stand out from the sea of bad idol anime. So what went wrong? Why the low rating? Well...a lot of things.

  First off, for an anime about a group of idol singers, it doesn't really highlight a lot of things that are important to showing the girls becoming idols. We never see them take dance lessons or record songs in a recording booth, other than, like, one single scene and that's it. We rarely, if ever, see them actually putting in effort or learning about the ins and outs of the idol industry, and those things are really important if you want to show these girls growing as both individuals and as a group. Say what you will about Aikatsu, but it at least showed the girls taking the time to practice, train, and go deep into the business practices that make idols what they are. Even Fancy Lala didn't simply gloss over these important details, as it knew they were really important if it wanted to show how the idol industry worked. There's only one scene in episode 3 where the girls are having their first concert and have to deal with bad audio equipment, but it gets resolved right away and leaves no impact whatsoever. For what its worth, the actual soundtrack is good, and the songs are well sung, but I only have one issue with the opening theme: It seems to just cut off at the end, like it didn't have time to really wrap up before the show was set to start.

  The second main problem is the series' overall structure. Every episode has two parts to it, with one half taking place in the present, showing the girls' activities, and the other half consisting of flashbacks to the girls' backstories, showing how they got to be where they are. But this can be a double edged sword, and without the right balance, this can really make or break a show, and not only does 22/7 suffer from this, its way of inserting flashbacks in their episodes results in a weird tonal whiplash. For example, episode 6 begins with Reika, as a baby, nearly dying of some unknown illness, with her mother doing so later, and the next scene? Bam! Girls at the beach in their swimsuits! Can you see how jarring that type of transition can be? 22/7 can be at its best when it actually puts effort into tying the girls' pasts to current events (Sakura's episode being one such example), but at its worst when it's unable to find that balance (Again, Reika's episode). Because of the way the episodes are made, the show tends to gloss over things that are important while putting too much focus on things that don't really mean much in the big picture. For example, various episodes imply that Sakura returning to America is going to be important, but nothing ever comes out of it, and that plot thread is never resolved.

  If I could use one word to describe 22/7 in a nutshell, it'd be...contradictory. The writing for this show is really inconsistent and it's like the writers don't really know what they want to do with their characters most of the time, Nicole being an example in that early on, she's established as a haughty, bitchy character, but she's occasionally nice to the girls, and just seems to flip-flop between the two personalities without a real reason for being either one. Not even her focus episode sheds any light on why she's so needlessly mean to the other girls. Some characters are better than others, with Miu being the standout example. In my opinion, I feel she's the best character. Both her backstory and personality are down to earth, and she's such a refreshing change from the happy, optimistic idol series mains who want to be idols, though I will admit, her low pitched voice really isn't going to win her any Oscars. But again, as the show loses steam halfway through its run, Miu's original personality seems to disappear until the very end. Ayaka is pretty much a non-entity as a character and her reasons for being an idol are...really stupid and dumb, and poor Reika really got the shaft, because her episode was not only poorly written and endorsed a bad message (Reika doesn't want to wear a skimpy swimsuit for a photo shoot because she doesn't want to be a teenage sex object, which would normally be valid and understandable? Too bad! Get in the bikini, Reika!), but was really sexist. Jun's episode wasn't much better: What do you do when all your idols save for one get sick from food poisoning? Instead of postponing their jobs and waiting a day for everyone to be back to normal, let's completely overwork a 15-year-old girl by having her do a crap ton of jobs, even the ones her idol friends were supposed to do, over the course of an entire day!

  Which then leads me to the show's biggest problem: The characters as individuals are fine, though kind of bland, but since we never really get to watch them evolve and grow as a group, any pathos that comes from events such as breaking up doesn't feel earned in spite of the show's attempts to milk as much drama as possible. We never really see them truly come together as a group despite the show's attempts at telling us that they're awesome as a group, because, you know, we never see them doing stuff like dance lessons, practicing their choreography, recording songs, struggling or bonding over their idol work, or actually working together. Basically, the show is paying lip service to the idea of developing them as a group and doesn't think to show them actually struggling. I think the show might have done better had it just focused on Miu and cut down the flashbacks in favor of putting more time into having the girls learn to function as a group, like the show tries to advertise. Finally, we don't learn much about the wall, and even at the end, what the hell it even is is never really resolved, making it yet another plot thread that's been abandoned for the sake of idol flashiness.

  It's a shame that 22/7 turned out this way, as I really wanted to like this show. The first three episodes were great, but after that, it loses steam quickly and just ends on a whimper, too caught up in its own hubris to really attempt something meaningful. Then again, this is another commerical for a famous idol group, so I guess it turning out the way it did was inevitable. I mean, I'll still watch this over Love Live (Except episode 6. Screw that episode in the eye), but it's an idol show that tried, and failed, to stand out from the oversaturated genre, and just didn't deliver.

  Continue on AniList
• 

  SenNkA

  80/100
  I might be biased with the cute girls, because I did not mind the stupidity of "The Wall" at all.

  22/7
  Cute girls doing cute things in a music world with a little twist that wasn't that well explained managed to grab my heart and caress it.
  This review concludes the main series, the 22/7: 8+3=? and The Diary of Our Days.

  Story:
  Eight girls were randomly selected to be the idols of a project called 22/7. They're different and most of them didn't know each other when they first met, but together, they make the tastiest okonomiyaki...
  Oh, and there is also a Wall. (But like I mentioned, I might be biased so we will ignore it completely. I haven't read the manga so I have no idea wether it's explained or no. I am just working with the anime.)
  And then three more girls come.The Diary of our Days being sort of a special is just eight short stories showing some more moments between and about the girls. Despite the whole thing lasting less than 10 minutes, I just couldn't stop smiling.

  

  Characters:
  I might be biased since I am a big fan of 'Cute girls doing cute things' type of shows.
  But I loved each of them so much, like my own kids.
  (Cake flour) Miyako, the always cheerful one, that lives in her own world
  (Pork) Sakura, with her annoying habbit of speaking in English and her oh, too good heart
  (Cabbage) Miu, whose voice I enjoyed more than I should
  (Jams) Ayaka, who is a little closed off but her heart goes to the group
  (Deep-fried tempura batter) Jun, my sweet beloved baby
  (Red pickled ginger) Reika, with her oh so weird dad but also oh so strong will
  (Dried) shrimp Akane, your typical white-haired cold godess
  (Egg) Nicole who you might hate at first but then grow to love her so much...
  And all of them are cute, smart, funny... You are in for a ride!

  

  With the addition of OVA, we are introduced to three more characters:
  (Cheese) Yuuki, a simple weirdo with what looks like a tragic backstory
  (Mochi) Mikami, that talks too slow
  (Baby Star) Tsubomi, your typical e-girlCan you tell I am not very excited about that??

  Music:
  I loved the opening, I jammed to it for the first half of the anime :D as for other music, it didn't feel awkward at all, which was a plus.
  Usually I have this experience with songs in anime, that I cringe so hard I have to skip it. But these songs felt really well done and I enjoyed all of their voices.

  Animation:
  I really really liked the art style. The girls were simply beautiful and I loved how their eyes sparkled. Animation I had no problem with most of the time, I felt like it was smooth and well done.
  I had a huge problem with the CGI though. Just like in other (music) animes, the CGI was killing me...
  Also, come the OVA, the quality kind of dropped... but that might have been me seeing things.

  Entertainment value:
  7/10.
  I enjoyed this simple anime to the brim.
  The main series was a great mix of cute idol girls and backstories that made you love and understand them.
  As "an adult" I could relate to them quite some times.
  Not only when it came to childhood memories, or working hard or having family troubles... but also during this:

  

  (I really really hate when they add characters at the end of the series!!!)
  The Diary of our Days didn't really give us much to work with, but seeing the girls interact together was good enough :D You don't have to watch it if you don't want to, you will not miss out on anything important.

  

  Conclusion:
  Go for it. Seriously.
  If you love cute girls, idols and somewhat sad backtories of girls that keep on living and smiling... this is a must watch for you.
  22/7 is not only for those who like idols - I for one hate music anime. But this one... it send shivers down my spine and made me grin like an idiot.
  I think it deserves a chance.

  Continue on AniList

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