PARADOX LIVE THE ANIMATION

DESCRIPTION

CAST

REVIEWS

• 

  Rinko

  60/100
  Maybe I should stop watching shows *just* because a vocalist from my second favourite show is in it...

  Hm, all the reviews I've written so far have been for music anime, except one show I mostly watched for the fact my absolute favourite male VA was in a main role.
  Here's a review on a show that is both of those~
  It also feels like a really good show to be my 150th completed entry too... such a music anime.

  Music:
  Eheh... yeah this beats out D4DJ in terms of crap music, no question...~ I can hardly tolerate listening to it.

  I thought it was just rap in general that was the problem, but I ended up realising, with the two improv songs in ep6, it's just the music I don't like, not the singing.
  Problem is, every song in this has music I don't like. Either being very slow or being kinda techno-y... or something. I dunno I just don't like the music style.
  Thinking on it... the reason BAE's songs are the least objectionable ones to me might not actually be 'cause of my favourite male VA, but the music's... still bad but not atrocious.

  Oh and uh...
  The opening and ending are not exceptions to the crap music.

  I've gone over the quality and genre of the songs... so, insert quantity is the only thing left to discuss here.
  I think it averages to just under one an episode. Make of that what you will.

  Story:
  It has a lot of unique concepts, for sure. Music anime with competitions surprisingly seem to be actually kinda rare, most competitions just being one-off battle of the bands-type showdowns, and the only other music anime I can think of where the entire plot of a season was a competition, it was not a tournament competition.
  Add the unique setting, which only truly becomes unique with that twist at the end of ep1... it has some very unique and interesting concepts.
  But obviously, having a good concept doesn't necessarily make a good story.

  For one thing, the competition is far from the main point, that being the character drama. So in truth that unique aspect is not that relevant...
  It also takes a bit longer than most music anime for the overarching drama to finally kick up. Most take 6-7 episodes, but here... while ep7 does set up a good mystery for the overarching plot... the next episode's drama does not tie into the overarching plot, besides one off-handed comment.
  And then ep9 contains a couple further plot setups... but most of the rest of the episode has nothing of relevance, nor gives much more depth to the cast.

  Thus, only the final quarter is where the overarching plot actually hits the climax... if ep10 even counts towards it, which I don't feel it does with lacking in relevance it is. I probably would've taken the relevant bits from episodes 9 and 10 and put them elsewhere while giving more time for the climax drama... probably best altered through a bit more explanation...~

  It doesn't have a particularly conclusive ending, either, nor does it have end in a way that gives much to go off in the way of a sequel, except maybe one unanswered question...

  Characters:
  Introducing all the groups at base level in the first episode then dedicating an episode afterwards to developing each of the groups... naturally that is a good strategy, and... while they didn't pull it off perfectly, as some characters do still have very little personality, most of the cast do indeed have at least something memorable about them, besides appearance.

  First up, I'll go over the members of the main group... starting with of course, the main character. He's very passionate and loves music and performing... though he doesn't seem to have much personality besides that passion. His backstory is good and quite emotional, even so... but still...

  Hajun... an ice cold, ruthlessly blunt guy who even comes off as arrogant at times, yet also can put up a facade of being... whatever the traits are of the stock princely archetype, I guess, which many fellow students and/or fans, I would assume, believe is his true personality. If it weren't for how truly icy he is most of the time, his backstory would probably make him one of my favourites, but as it is, I don't care for him much, one way or the other. I mean the second part where they talk about his backstory is pretty emotional but ehh...

  And then Anne, who... yeah sorry I don't know what their personality is at all. I cannot grasp any concrete traits. And their backstory is the least explored of the main group's members too... like sheesh I wanted to like them but they're just boring.

  Then, forming the group known as cozmez, there are the twins, who I do not like mentioning by name as both of them share their name with a character from a series I love, one of whom even sharing his name with a twin from that series, too, though their names are written with different kanji.
  ahem Tangent aside, they're fairly good characters, moreso the older one for having a clearer personality, with an interesting relationship, I'd say. The only issue I have them is how quickly the drama of their focus episode was dealt with... at least it was a petty matter, but even so.

  The next group to talk about, is The Cat's Whiskers... lead by a university professor who rambles a lot. I think that's like his only personality trait.
  Yohei has a sarcastic streak and uhhh... I feel like I should be able to point out more concrete traits he has but I'm drawing a blank.
  Ryu is an enigma and his wild antics... teeter close to what I would consider annoying, but he can be pretty funny with his... very offbeat and wild nature.
  Then my favourite character, Shiki, who is a precious, socially awkward bean lacking in self-confidence... and with an interesting connection to the overarching plot.

  Then Akanyatsura... is where the fact they failed at pulling of that strategy I mentioned as well as they could have. Even with their focus episode, only one of the five has any clear personality, being a goes-at-his-own-pace animal lover, and two of them don't have... anything standout about them at all, while the other three, including the animal-lover, at least have interesting backstory tidbits.

  And uhhh... there are four other characters but none of them get any focus until literally the final two episodes.

  Overall:
  It's fun, sure, with interesting worldbuilding, great concepts and some emotional moments, but they didn't develop the cast as well as they could have, leading to only a few being memorable, and the overall plot... while solid, was not especially good, coming to a head far too late and with a fairly meh ending.
  It's not something I'd outright dissuade people from watching, as it is entertaining (probably more so if you actually like the music), but it's far from being good.
  It definitely could've been a lot better, though. So I kinda want there to be a s2, as well... music anime sequels tend to improve on the first season a lot...~

  Also the animation quality, at least in the later episodes, is pathetic at times. Like one scene a guy turns around and there are literally no in between frames. I think that's the single worst animated scene in the show, at least. But even so...

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• 

  JaguarJack

  45/100
  The Paradox Live adaptation disappoints with unconvincing drama and might have been better off as a parody.

  To be frank, even though I have started to warm up to the music genre, idol generally isn’t for me. Hypnosis Mic was a big exception to that, and Paradox Live has a very similar premise. I have been aware of the franchise for some time, but I never really bothered to dig deeper, partially because of the prospects of the anime adaptation.

  At first glance, the anime looked promising. It has great character design which translates well enough to the screen, and the art generally looks great – at times I found myself getting lost looking at these pretty characters. It promised another rap battle setup and the first glimpses of music were good.

  

  The animation however is wonky and sloppy, and occasionally weird enough to break emersion. At one point I was puzzled about characters staring which their mouths wide open like in some cartoon, suggesting surprise over the situation, but it failed to convey believable emotions.

  ParaLive uses CGI, which is common for idol shows, but the quality varies a lot. Sometimes it really stands out, sometimes it is used in unassuming scenes where it has no business, and later it is missing during a performance where it would otherwise be used. That particular performance looked better than any other, leaving me with a bad overall impression of the CGI quality.

  The anime sets up an intricate world build which is eerily similar to the one in Hypnosis Mic, which frankly means it does not make any sense. From what I gathered, there is a substance called Phantometal which enhances musical skills, but in return lets the user relive the moments of their most traumatic memories over and over again. The side effects of this metal are basically identical to drug abuse which gets more and more apparent later on. At worst, the user starts to rust… which is the point it had lost me. In comparison: Despite all its flaws, I find Fire Force found a better solution. I can see how the overuse of fire abilities might transform your body into charcoal, but I can’t see how overusing a metal pendant makes you corrode like you were made of metal yourself. It might make for great metaphor depicting depression, but it got a bit too literal for my taste.

  

  Whatever, somehow this arena spawns out of thin air and a tournament starts, so at least we get some straightforward tournament showdown, right? Actually, no. The tournament gets sidelined. The focus of this anime is showing the personal drama of the characters, and only occasionally you get to see the results of a match on a billboard for half a second every other episode or so. This is a bummer, but I at least we got some juicy drama, right?

  I could excuse HypMic’s lack of sensical plot because it does not take itself very seriously and just uses its setup as an excuse to have the characters engage in rap battles to show off their tracks. In Paradox Live however, the Phantometal premise requires every character to have some kind of traumatic experience. The tone of the series consequently is much more serious, which requires a lot more suspension of disbelieve from the viewer, and clearly, I could not keep up with that demand. After only a few episodes, my suspension completely collapsed. I found myself rolling my eyes constantly at the petty drama which might have been good in another context, but I could no longer pretend I cared. To give an example:
  Hajun falls into the rich boy archetype and is very cold and distant to the people around him, which makes him quite unlikeable for me already. His struggle is that despite being rich and spoiled, he did not inherit his family’s corporate empire… which is not a very relatable struggle to me. Later on, this drama gets dialled up by showing his parents telling him that they no longer need Hajun, because now they have a biological heir. Like come on, that’s clearly something you do not say to your child. Instead of developing sympathy over the now logical reason for his trauma, all I got was anger at the blunt presentation and unrealistic dialogue. Hajun went rusty because this trauma went worse or something, so his band mates visited his unconscious to save him… of course the day will be saved by the power of friendship. Moving on.
  Another case where the characters were too disagreeable for me to engage in the drama were Shiki and Ryu, the former being extremely depressed and the latter creepily enthusiastic. Shiki’s attitude was at odds with his positive response to Ryu’s intrusions. It did not feel realistic at all, which had me screaming at the screen at times.

  Ok, but we still got some dope tracks to enjoy, right? Well, due to the drama being the focus of the show, the music gets sidelined. We do get a performance semi-regularly either at the beginning or end of an episode, but even then, they usually get cut short. Since the tournament wasn’t plot relevant in the first place, the performances had no significance. The only exception being the season finale,
  where all bands come together to save another character from rusting and rap him awake from his coma. Which is absurd, but at least it had some kind of impact.

  What really baffles me is the complete inability of the anime to tell believable drama and develop their characters within its runtime. 12 episodes might be a bit tight for its huge cast, that is still plenty enough time to tell a good story, like it has been done by countless one cour anime before. To be fair, Paradox Live does have a huge cast - in principle. It features 4-5 main bands, totalling 14-16 characters. And from what I’ve heard, there are many more bands in the fandom that didn’t make the cut. I can see why they focused on the original ones. It is also understandable that the anime had to pick a few to treat as protagonists, in this case BAE felt like they were intended as main characters, with cozmez also being heavily featured. Those two bands weren’t my favourites, but I see the need to focus on a few characters. And even with this reduced set we only got decent plot from Hajun and Kanata? The drama about the remaining band members was definitely dealt with, but not in a depth that made it feel relevant to the plot. I am baffled how even with that many compromises, the story still does not manage to tell believable drama. We jump around the characters a lot for 8 episodes (making for lots of exhausting one-off traumatic backstories), then we get a filler somehow, and only in the last 3 episodes some actual plot starts to develop? That’s some terrible use of runtime it got going.

  The finale was comparably enjoyable. It managed to build mystery, and had a decent twist:
  
  Apparently Nayuta had been dead for a while and now exists as an illusion created by Kanata. The hints were certainly built up, even if it’s a bit confusing. In addition, while for me completely predictable because I recognized the voice actor straight away, there also was a secret identity for another character.

  It made for a great finale, unless you think too hard about the implications for the franchise if these revelations are treated as canon. I just don’t see any future instalments rolling with the changes in lore (unless that’s canon somehow?). Furthermore, with such a weak foundation regarding character drama, I can’t see a sequel improving the storytelling much, and I certainly don’t see a remake of the first season after this disaster. Maybe that’s just me being pessimistic, but it feels like this adaptation ruined the anime presence for Paradox Live.

  This disaster was only bearable because I was watching with a friend who’s been into the franchise for years, so I had someone to complain to. It was actually kinda fun watching this plane crash and burn so spectacularly, enjoyable in an unintentional way. Like I said, it fails so hard at being a character driven drama that it makes for a good parody. It’s a shame the anime tries to be a drama rather than a comedy.

  In conclusion, the story and character development of Paradox Live is built on a house of cards that collapses as soon as you look at it the wrong way. Which is a shame because some of the plot lines had huge potential. The heavy weight of the drama is not supported by the weak storytelling, completely breaking the emersion necessary to engage with it from my perspective. I’ll leave it at my personal score of 4.5, as I’m heavily torn. Objectively some of my problems with the show might not matter, but the only reason why I could enjoy it was because it was so bad.

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