AKB0048: "For Their Smiles"

It is 22 July 2012, and time for the final episode of AKB0048.

After retreating from the DES forces, the understudies make the choice to return to Lancastar and perform their first concert after all. Will Nagisa's voice return, and will AKB successfully deflect the DES assault in order to perform?

The first season of AKB0048 comes to a close with a climactic music concert, and some huge plot developments to power the story over into its second year. Over and above anything else it re-emphasises the overall themes of the series: that love and hope will conquer all, that the way to that love is through pop music and idol groups, and that nothing makes that pop music better than the addition of glowing alien spirits, lightsabers, giant robots and soap opera histrionics. This has overall been a wonderfully silly series, throwing as many elements as it can reach into a blender and then throwing it into the air like a pop culture rainbow explosion.

AKB0048: "The Idol Who Sings of Love"

It is 15 July 2012 and time for episode 12 of AKB0048.

As the DES intensifies its attacks against AKB and the rebels of Lancastar, Nagisa convinces a team to help her enter a detention centre and rescue her imprisoned father. When he refuses to leave with her, she suffers a crisis of confidence right on the eve of the understudies' first public performance.

AKB0048 dives straight into the action with episode, not even bothering to include the usual opening title sequence. That momentum pretty much continues throughout. There is a sense of coming full circle with the series returning to the planet where it began, and the relevant characters recalling their origins. While there are occasional flashes of humour, this episode is wall-to-wall overwrought melodrama - whether for good or bad depends on the viewer's taste.

AKB0048: "Return to Lancastar"

It's 8 July 2012, and time for more AKB0048.

Following the latest AKB concert, an unexpected announcement is made: both the trainees and the successors will perform concerts on the planet Lancastar. It is Nagisa, Yuka and Orine's home planet, and the first time they have returned there since their adventure began. Nagisa is assigned a solo song - usually only assigned to someone receiving a promotion. Yuka gets a message from a friend begging her not to return.

I haven't reviewed an episode of this series in almost 10 months after the last one, "Miracle of the Waves", indulged in exactly the sort of leering creepy exploitation of teenage girls that previous episodes had largely avoided. Thankfully this episode seems as if the ship has righted itself: it's colourful, weird, and extremely emotional.

AKB0048: "Miracle of the Waves"

Well thanks to this pop starlet science fiction mash-up I have learned that the Japanese phrase for "sexy poses" is "sexy poses". A Japanese-accented pronunciation obviously, but nonetheless a borrowed bit of language - like "anime", come to think of it. It makes me wonder: what did the Japanese strike before they struck sexy poses? Was no one living before the Meiji Restoration sexy? I find it hard to believe that the Japanese independently invented every aspect of human sexuality and sexual practice, including some the rest of the world had to learn from them, but never got around to inventing the sexy photo shoot.

So there's this pop idol thing, a genre I suppose, called "gravure". It's basically provocative photo shoots of young woman in bikinis or lingerie, overtly sexualised but generally non-nude. It seems to be an industry requirement: if you're a teenage pop vocalist, no matter how great your talent, sooner or later you're going to have to strip down and get sexy for promotional calendars, DVDs and glossy collectors magazines and books. Gravure is also a borrowed word, in this case derived from the printing term 'rotogravure'.

Why all this talk of half-naked pop starlets? This, the 10th episode of AKB0048, is the episode where our heroes are sent to the planet Atamistar for their own gravure photo shoot.

AKB0048: "Emotion Relation"

AKB0048 prepare to hold a concert on the snow planet of Thundristar. With Minami still injured, Kanata is appointed to take her place - much to Minami's dismay. Before the concert begins Nagisa and her friends sneak out of AKB's spaceship to explore a nearby town. They find a group of small girls - all fans of the band - who remind them of their old childhood.

This is pretty much exactly the kind of episode I want from AKB0048: a little bit of pop star soap opera, but mainly a bizarre combination of cheesy pop concert and sci-fi guerilla warfare. It also ties things back to the series' first episode with a strong focus on the four main leads. I think this is a good thing: I feel like between this episode and the last I'm finally getting the show that was initially promised.

AKB0048: "To Whom Does the Name Belong?"

Takamina's crisis of confidence continues: is she destined to be replaced by Kanata, and if so should she do anything to stand in her way. AKB0048 head off to perform a concert on a planet suffering a total entertainment band; while the concert begins the 77th generation understudies are dispatched inside giant robots to fight off the DES.

This episode has angst, character conflict, Japanese pop music and - most important - giant robot dogfights. I think most things can be improved by a giant robot dogfight, certainly this episode benefits enormously. It's no surprise that, when forming a creative team to adapt AKB48 into an anime, the producers settled on Shoji Kawamori as director. He created Super Dimension Fortress Macross, which pretty much kickstarted Japan's mecha anime genre and (perhaps more pertinently) fused giant robots together indelibly with pop starlets. It's a very short line you can draw from Macross and Lynn Minmay to AKB0048 and their various ancilliary sci-fi trappings: it's basically the same kind of show, it's just that the emphasis has changed. Less robots, more pop starlets.

AKB0048: "Kirara of Succession"

With rising demand for AKB concerts the decision is made to re-instate an understudy program, launching Chieri forward and far beyond her comfort zone. When her fellow trainees discover that she is actually the daughter of the man whose corporate build anti-AKB munitions for the DES, she feels compelled to abandon her dream and leave. Meanwhile, Minami and Yuko secretly follow Tsubasa to a meeting with Sensei Sensei - with unexpected and, for Minami, unwanted results.

This episode spends much of its running coasting along on another story of a trainee (in this case Chieri) suffering a crisis of confidence, and her friends stepping in to reassure her and build her self-esteem up again. It's enjoyable enough stuff, although after a near-identical episode with Orine going through the same emotional process it does feel a little formulaic. Then we suddenly get to the secret magical garden underneath the concert stadium where glowing Pokemon-like creatures project psychic visions of which trainees deserve promotions. After that, the episode returns to the sort of weird every-anime-at-once mashup that attracted me to AKB0048 in the first place.

AKB0048: "Their First Handshake Event"

While the trainees prepare to make their public debut at a handshake event, Orine receives video-recorded hate mail that shatters her confidence. Will the public accept the new performers, and will Orine recover her nerve in time to make a good impression?

Despite that fairly mundane description, there is actually a nice amount of action in "Their First Handshake Event" - assuming lightsaber microphone wielding pop starlets versus interplanetary shock troopers combat is something that interests you. It's a relief to see this kind of ridiculous mash-ups of genres returning to the series, because it's been missing since the second episode and it's exactly what got me enjoying AKB0048 in the first place.

AKB0048: "Their Day Off"

After a month of training, the recruits are granted a day off to relax and explore Akibastar. For some it's a chance to get to know one another better. For another it's an opportunity to meet the Successors of AKB0048. For the production team it's a chance to indulge in a little fan service with naked teenage girls having a bath together.

That's annoying. I get that fan service is a thing, and generally speaking female characters are going to accidentally flash their underwear at the viewer or somesuch, but in this specific episode it irritated me more than it usually would. Part of the problem is that the episode is overall a very lightweight one. It meanders along via a series of character vignettes but overall doesn't add a great deal to the series.

AKB0048 #4: "Your Efforts Aren't in Vain"

It's been quite a while since my last review of this anime, so let's briefly recap: AKB0048 is a Japanese animated series based on the hugely popular and massive commercial pop outfit AKB48. I watched the first episode anticipated (indeed somewhat desiring) an enormous train wreck, and instead discovering a ridiculously silly and charming science fiction drama about pop music, interplanetary rebellions, alien creatures, ancient prophecies, lightsabers, robot suits and dance. Episode #4, "Your Efforts Aren't in Vain", settles down a lot from the crazier first three episodes, but it's still unexpectedly enjoyable stuff.

Now that they have arrived on the planet Akibastar, the new AKB0048 recruits settle into their new accommodation and begin training as singers and dancers. For young Sonata it's a chance to reunite with her older sister Kanata, although her joy at seeing her is not reciprocated.

AKB0048: "Stardust Selection"

It's been a while since I reviewed the first two episodes of this anime, so to quickly recap: AKB0048 is a science fiction animated series from Japan, and is a spin-off for the immensely popular girl band AKB48. It follows a trio of teenage girls who aspire to join the interplanetary pop troupe AKB0048 and perform to colonies across the galaxy - many of whom have banned entertainment.

This third episode, "Stardust Selection", picks up where the second left off: the girls are onboard one of the AKB0048 spaceships and must undergo a rigorous audition process to determine if they're suitable to be the new understudies. In order to prove themselves, the contestants are tasked with defending the band during an upcoming guerilla contest - to the death, if necessary.

AKB0048 #2: "The Chosen Lights"

When we last left Nagisa, Yuka and Orine, the three teenagers had successfully passed the first round of auditions to join the rebel idol group AKB0048. We pick the story up with them boarding an interplanetary cruiser liner to take them from Lancastar to the AKB auditions.

They're not the only girls travelling to the auditions. This episode introduces the stress monkey Makoto, the calm and calculated Suzuko, the constantly hungry stowaway Sonata, and Chieri, who made the original pact to join the band with Nagisa, Yuka and Orine when they were younger, and who has now become a cynical, competitive player indeed.

Episode 1 surprised me with its frantic blend of dystopia, teen melodrama, jet fighter dogfights and J-Pop. Episode 2 adds spaceships, giant robots, lightsabers, cyborgs, Pokemon and religious prophecy. My overwhelming reaction is one of delight. My more measured response is 'what the hell am I watching?'

AKB0048 #1: "Eternal Dreams"

Oh boy - this one's probably going to take a lot of explaining and backstory. If you're already a big fan of Japanese animation, pop music and popular culture you can probably jump past the cut and straight to the review. If you're not, then I'll try and make this as succinct as possible.

AKB48 is a Japanese pop group. It's a highly corporate and artificial invention, even more so than usual girl groups. The idea (by producer Yasushi Akimoto) is simple and to my mind it reveals a diabolical kind of genius. AKB48 is huge. According to Wikipedia, the band currently has 91 members, all young women, all aged between 13 and 25. Maybe 15 or so of them will appear on a CD or music video at any one time. The group has a permanent theatre in Akihabara Tokyo, where fans can go and see daily concerts by some of the 90 members. These concerts are so popular that tickets need to be won by lottery. Regular auditions are held across the country for new members to replace the ones who are getting too old (most of whom segue into independently successful music and film careers). In 2011 the band generated US$200 million in revenue in Japan alone. A string of subsidiary groups have been launched to capitalise on their success: SKE48 in Nagoya, SDN48 (with older members), NMB48 in Osaka and even JKT48 in Jakarta, Indonesia.

Of course, given that animation remains one of Japan's most popular cultural industries, and given that AKB48 is essentially a popular cultural industry in its own right, it was inevitable that the two would collide at some stage. What wasn't so inevitable was that, for the first episode at least, AKB0048 is actually pretty damned good.