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

Last year, I watched a Korean horror movie titled White: Melody of Death. It wasn’t great, but I liked how it was different than what you’d normally expect from something featuring idols/pop stars. I mention this because, at this rate, I’m kind of over idol anime. Almost all of them seem really similar, and the whole process feels like it’s just about selling some real-life CDs and merch (who still even uses CDs?!). Anyway, early on in 22/7, “The Wall” was pretty intriguing, and this show seemed different enough to make me hopeful that this wouldn’t be just another idol anime, but while it wasn’t as unique as an idol horror movie, 22/7 still wasn’t your typical idol anime.

The focus here isn’t so much on the music as much as it is on the individual girls themselves. Most of the girls had their own episode (there were eight girls in the group), so we get to see their backstory, learn their motivations, and get to know them much better. It’s a far more effective approach than what you typically see in other idol anime, so I was a lot more emotionally invested in these girls than those of other similar shows. Some of the episodes were better than others, and while some of the drama was kinda predictable, I still enjoyed it more than your typical song and dance. This anime was recommended in the comments, so I was hopeful it would have some yuri, and early on, things were looking promising. Miu and Sakura seemed to have a really close relationship (Miu x Nicole as well), but the show gets away from that, so yuri wasn’t as big as a factor as I was hoping for. Still, I found this a little more enjoyable than something like Love Live!, although I’m not sure that fans of that series or “traditional” idol anime would like this as much as I did.

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