And so... we have a hybrid of school athletic festival with the Japanese game TV. Not the worst setting for an idol anime, really. But don't you think that 756PRO team has a big advantage over typical 3-person teams? Thanks to its large headcount, they can rotate fresh players in, and min-max capabilities.

The best part of the episode was how we met a bunch of fresh faces (mostly rivals). The DS trio made a cameo appearance, too (pictured). For some unfathomable reason, the character designer had trouble handling members of Shinkan Shoujo in particular: one looks exactly like Haruka with a different haircut, another bears weird resemblance to Chinaya, with merely a different eye colour. Only Nozomi looks like herself, and I grabbed a beautiful portrait. Strangely, there was a large number of customized bit characters.

Animation was all over the place, as always. They strained their gut to post the trademark A-1 motion in the scene of Makoto's final dash (between the important money-saving still-and-pans), but there was a whole bunch of weird face shapes elsewhere, and at mid-zoom, no less. It is the contrast between the Ryuguu Komachi dance number and the rest of the episode, redux.

One weird thing was an ad sign that said "UNIPLEX", on an easy to recognize, easy to sue logo. What gives? It is a very clear infringement, but on a company that bankrolls the whole thing. Can't they just make one phone call?