MithraPride

In a world where entertainment is banned...

One band of idols (see what I did there? ) will take a stand, and fight!

That's the basic plot to this anime, I've wanted to mention it for a while but alas the site was down. This is an anime from last season, it's either nearing the end or will go into a 1/2 year season (or more) and TBH I can't tell which currently. It's definitely an interesting and unique twist on the typical idol-genre and I'd recommend giving it chance, also if you like J-Pop then there's some nice songs in there as well.

I mentioned the basic plot, "entertainment" is banned throughout the universe, especially idols, however this group of idols, called AKB0048, still give concerts and even fight the anti-entertainment organisation whilst performing. Our four main protagonists catch a concert when they were young and all decide they want to join AKB0048. Skip x years into the future, entertainment isn't banned everywhere but is still frowned upon I suppose and that anti-entertainment organisation is still after AKB0048. Three of our protagonists all apply for AKB0048, the 4th as well but it's not known to be her immediately and they're also joined by more hopefuls. They pass the "auditions" (more like a war zone combat exercise) along with 4 new characters to be the 77th generation, get to meet the 76th generation (mainly two in particular) and the current idols AKA "successors". So it's quite obvious the main plot is the journey of these "understudies" trying to become "successors", it's generally a typical feel-good anime in that sense with singing and a bit of action from the anti-entertainment dudes but there's some hidden secret plot thing as well, which keeps things interesting.

The art style is cutesy as you'd imagine but a cute little quirk is that all the idols have heart shaped highlights (eyes and hair) and you'll come across girls with diamond shaped highlights who used to be idols. Also like many of these kinda idol anime there are CG sections when the idols are singing/dancing, which is all pretty cool

Seriously try it, watch a couple of episodes, you might be surprised

One for one of my friends I guess.

Really fearing a moe overload on this one.

Yeah I suppose but I'd say the target audience is probably young girls so they're not going out of their way to please the male audience.

AKB48 is an idol group IRL. I believe the target audience is male otaku. That's who buys most of their CDs.

I won't go into anything about them here, but you can find all kinds of stuff about them on Sankaku complex.

Oh snap! They wear the same outfits as well, the understudies are all voiced by members of AKB48, SKE48 and NBE48 as well. Target audience is definitely anyone who likes their music (or associated groups)

Heh reading some more it seems like everything about what the real idol group does is represented in the anime (understudies, successors, graduation, etc.) only that the anime is set in the future in a backdrop against a world where entertainment is outlawed

http://youtu.be/xBMfLT_3vJY This song is in the anime

I did kinda guess that the anime was presenting the group pretty much as it is, just in an anime setting.

Question, do they go into some of the more (to me at least) weird parts? Like the virginity pledge?

Admittedly my current source for Japanese culture is sankaku complex which does have a certain ... lets say viewpoint on idols, seiyuu, and otaku.

Oh... also as to the quality of the anime, here is an article Tokyo MX: “Our AKB48 Anime Was Shameful” from SKKC about one executive's thoughts on it and the station's groveling apology.

Caution: NSFW sankaku complex never is.

I don't believe they've said anything about the "no boyfriends" rule, they've touched on sexuality briefly saying that "idols aren't about sex appeal and should be pure", which is pretty much the AKB48 line of thinking but they did have "classes" to bring out the sexiness of some characters and decrease it on another one (she has big boobs ergo too much pheromones already ).

I don't know how popular the anime is but the people who download from the same place I do seem to like it

Found the op "kibou ni tsuite", which means "About a Hope". It's my favourite song of the series so far but you gotta love the crying part for dramatic effect

http://youtu.be/IbYJwmgbb3M

Sad news, series is over So much left unanswered, so much left to do but there will be another series in 2013