It’s that time of the year again, so enjoy our Final Thoughts of the 2020 summer anime season that just came to an end~

As you can tell by the number of anime on this season’s list, it was a REALLY disappointing season. Probably the most disappointing season we’ve ever covered, and the one full-length anime we watched wasn’t all that great either. At first glance, Lapis Re:LiGHTs seemed like an interesting mix of magic and idol anime, but at the end of the day, I thought that it failed to capture the magic (pun intended) of either of those genres. Because it was used so rarely, there were times that I almost forgot that these girls can actually use magic, and the musical performances were few and far between, so I feel like this anime could’ve been a lot more entertaining than it turned out to be.

Too often this felt like just another slice of life anime, and although I thought the main cast was decent, they weren’t enough to right the ship and get me to become invested in this show. There were other girls at the academy that I simply didn’t care about and didn’t enjoy watching, and if you’re hoping that yuri would come in and save the day, you’re going to be disappointed as well. The first episode made it seem like Tiara and Rosetta were going to have this really strong connection that would result in, at least, a lot of yuri subtext between them, but it didn’t quite work out like that. The situation kind of reminded me of Koisuru Asteroid, and after Tiara and Rose get acclimated at the academy and join the other Lapis girls, that connection mostly disappears. There were a couple of other bit characters that seemed kinda gay, but their roles were tiny and they made practically no impact on me.

Overall, I didn’t expect Lapis Re:LiGHTs to just be so bland and forgettable. It’s kind of what might happen if you were to take Love Live!, strip away 80% of the singing and dancing, allow the girls to use magic, then not give them any worthwhile reason to use that magic. At least the final episode was a bit better, but it was too little, too late. I’ll forget all about this show in a month, so good riddance, 2020 summer anime season, you won’t be missed. 😛

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