The IDOLM@STER Episode 5

YAY! I WUV BEACHES!!!

3.75/5 (Great)

Beach episode ends up being good? WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE!?!

Ganbatte Chihaya-chwan!

This episode was fantastic despite its utter generic premise and predestined sequence of events. We know what's going to happen, we know what this episode is going to be like, yet we loved it... How is that?

Before, there was one focus girl and everyone else ate the sidelines, however this episode was different. We got the see the whole crew in the making. Admittedly, this would, at a glance, inherently destroy any sense of development and character building when so many characters are acting at once, however, this episode did the exact opposite. We saw elusive character growths and interactions along the way and ended being more efficient and more enjoyable than the rest of the series so far.

Miki knows how to make an episode awesome....

Undoubtedly, episodes 2, 3, and 4 were quite boring and tedious. These episodes focused on either one character, or a couple of them, and really made it a formulaic compromise to show each character.

As a result, we find these characters utterly thrashed and boring simply because we KNOW it's their time to grow. When timing is skewed, we get surprises and when we get surprises, we often enjoys things a lot more than usual.

Adding to this is the sincerely weak character growth over the 2-4 episode compilations. These episodes were meant for 6 distinct characters, yet the way that they were executed left little to be desired and really didn't satisfy the audiences in any way.

This episode was straight omnibus controlled format that really surprised us in a good way.

That's what I call character growth...