Uta no Prince-Sama Episode 13
What They Say:
The six members of ST☆RISH, who have made their shocking idol debut, and Nanami Haruka, who has just begun her career as a composer, have advanced to Saotome Academy’s master course. As they continue their lessons in earnest to learn how to be top idols and composers, they join Shining Agency and begin to work as entertainers. But before that, some senpai idols and strange foreign idols with a few odd habits stand before them, and they end up getting dragged into the race for a mysterious “Newcomer Award.”
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
With the performance by HEAVENS’ out there and powerful, knocking people off their feet seemingly literally for some of those in the audience, the stakes are certainly raised for STARISH and what they have to do. The confidence that exudes from HEAVENS’ as they finish off their performance is powerful if understated in some ways, but there’s also the way they’re simply basking in the adoration that they’re getting from the audience. And also the knowledge that their win will give them Haruka and will bring STARISH down permanently, which is their larger goal at the moment. It’s a moment that shows their ages and mentalities when they continually challenge STARISH after their performance, which certainly gets the crowd riled up.
Of course, no matter the confidence that they have, Haruka is positive that things will work out in the end, but a lot of it comes from the fact that she knows her songs are designed for STARISJH themselves, and that there’s no way that HEAVENS’ could actually perform them properly. That gets to be pretty insulting to them, but it also factors into the way that Haruka feels well because she does write her material for those that she’s close to. And with how she is at the moment and her past, it’s hard to imagine her being able to write proper new songs for HEAVENS’ that would give them the kind of material they want. The relationship between STARISH members and Haruka is pretty symbiotic and not something that can be easily transplanted elsewhere.
Though it’s familiar, the performance that STARISH puts in is top notch and it obviously goes towards the magical with how it plays out because of what the group is able to evoke from Haruka’s lyrics. The way the competition certainly isn’t a surprise and while they try to raise the tensions at the start, you just know it’s all going to work out in the end, especially with the way STARISH will end up saving the career of HEAVENS’ and their fans as well. It’s pretty in character since the STARISH guys have been played as the real good guys all along, so it would have been bad for them to be in favor of the groups dissolution at the end of things. Between that and the end concert sequence, complete with the expected moment with the Principal, the series ends about as you’d expect from way, way back and especially once the Uta Pri Award came into play.
In Summary:
Uta no Prince Sama has definitely been a big guilty pleasure as the show does simple things but with a big amount of style and fun. It’s not a show where I think you really know the characters, it all feels superficial, but it’s done with such polish that you can’t help to get caught up in it. The final couple of episodes shifted away from the individual character stories and tied things together well with a challenge to the group as a whole and that helped to highlight the bonds that they do have, and to wrap it all up with a big dueling battle of the bands kind of thing. Both sides put their wares out as best as they could, but it was a given where it was going to go. But the journey is often more fun than the end and that’s true here as the show delivered throughout, even if it’s not exactly my cup of tea. Definitely a solid ending for the fans of the show and plenty of room open for more should they want to go that route.
Grade: B-
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Sony KDS-R70XBR2 70″ LCoS 1080P HDTV, Dell 10.1 Netbook via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.