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In honor of Suzuken's 50th birthday, a celebration is in order. Here's to many more years of rewarding works and good health! ☀️😇

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•°Sorry if this sounds rude, but when are you going to update 'Missing You'? Because it has one more chapter left°•

Somehow I just came across this ask in my inbox, I'm so sorry!!! Yes, it's always been on my mind for like 5 years now, and I'll try to complete it! But you know, since it's the last chapter to the biggest story that I've ever written, I set a lot of expectations for myself... that's why it's taken this long GDI.

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Maji Love 1000% is really bad. I love it with all my heart but it truly sucks because they're trying to cram every route of an otome game into one.

The rest of the anime is really just up to personal preference but it's not an absolute mess like 1000%.

Yeah, I agree that Maji Love 1000% is really a mess as a story... precisely because that was the only season in which there was an attempt at plot in the franchise. The rest of the show was like, screw this, we don't need plot anymore, we'll just go with the fan service, and decided to leave the idol vocational school setting behind. They still had to make the characters stay at the glorified company dorm though, otherwise no way in hell would all these top idols be living together on their own accord.

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You can get away with anything as long as you're pretty: The Ultimate Utapri 2024 Review That Nobody Asked For.

This is my lengthy, anachronic review of the multi-million yen fandom of, yes, you guessed it, Utapri, a.k.a. Uta no Prince-sama.

Let me start by saying that I got into this simply because I was watching all the anime where Suzumura Kenichi had a main role. Yes, I’m a Suzu fan.

Suzu's impression of Masato in one of his Prebanlab broadcasts (feat. Kishou).

About a year back, I came across Utapri and watched the latest movie (Uta no Prince-sama: Maji Love STARISH Tours). I saw what there was to see and left it at that because I felt absolutely no desire to watch him in his Hijirikawa Masato role. The reason I’ve decided to give the fandom another go was because I’ve been watching videos and shorts of him all over Youtube. Of course Utapri and STARISH events came up a lot, and I enjoyed them immensely, even if I had no passion for Utapri as a franchise. So, I decided to pull up Maji Love 1000% again, saw the first few episodes, then Ren and Masato slid so fast into Odagiri my head was spinning, and here I am, writing the Utapri review of my life.

Before I get to the plot, let me go through each of the characters first since I have a lot to say about them. I won’t cover Quartet Night or HEAVENS though, because I don’t know much about the voice actors, and this review is already very long as it is. And I don’t know anything about the game (which has already closed down), since I have never tried it, nor do I speak Japanese.

Let's all appreciate a close look at the heels of Masato's feet in this Moonshine promotional art

Masato

The reason I couldn’t get into Utapri the first time was because of the voice acting Suzu did for Masato. I thought and still maintain that he was setting himself up for failure with the unnaturally deep and low voice he opted for this role. Unlike FukuJun or Sakurai who had really large vocal ranges, Suzu’s was very limited, which means that he couldn’t really go too high or too low without it sounding forced and unnatural. Or at least it sounded forced to me, a close follower of his works. In the same way I couldn’t stand Suzu’s voice in Dog Signal, Masato's stuck me wrong every time he spoke. I think Suzu could have gone with his normal voice here, the one he did for his other ML roles, like in Gridman or Macross Zero. It wouldn’t have made Masato’s character that much ‘softer’, per se, if he was going for the cool and collected impression for Masato.

That said, I asked myself if he could have taken any other of the STARISH roles? Not Ren or Syo or Tokiya for sure. Maybe Otoya or Natsuki? If I have to choose, I’d say Natsuki would be a good second choice. Then again, I don’t think Suzu could have pulled off Satsuki’s persona as perfectly as Kishou did.

In terms of character, Masato is really out of Suzu’s usual casting choices. I get the cold-with-a-tsundere-side type of character he was going for. Tsundere was at the top of Suzu’s typecast after all. And I find that Masato really shared a lot of traits with Iguro Obanai in Demon Slayer, especially the design (which was probably the reason why Suzu got the role for Iguro, imo) — but this comment was irrelevant, since DS came out way after Utapri. 

To me, the only saving grace about Suzu’s Masa role was that he really paired well with Suwabe-san in Utapri. And this was mostly thanks to Be-san, in my opinion. I’ve seen Suzu against Be-san in other roles (including STAMEN stages), but none of them really left an impression.

I like Masato as a character, but to be honest, I really hate the voice. Every time he came on screen, I just wish he would stop talking. 

The singing was another reason I think Suzu was setting himself up for failure. Ballades, really, Suzu? The way he rolled his tongue when he sang any song never failed to put me off. His Masato songs are not the worst among STARISH, but not the best either. But again, I can’t really judge because I’m quite biased towards Suzu anyways. My expectations were way over off the charts.

Despite the complaints, Masato remained my most favourite character in Utapri.

Ren

Everybody knows Suwabe-san at this point in time, because we’re living in the JJK era. Every one out of two people my age has something to say about JJK, which made me really happy for Be-san. But even back in the days, he was already rising in popularity. I’ve seen a lot of Be-san in STAMEN videos, and saw no chemistry whatsoever between him and Suzu. However, his Ren role really brought out everything that was good and pure in his voice acting. I really enjoyed this Ren-Masa relationship. They landslid into Odagiri so fast it left me breathless. (On the other hand, I honestly didn’t see any ship-worthy elements between Tokiya and Otoya or Natsuki and Syo, for that matter. I know the franchise was trying to sell these ships and I LOOKED for it, I swear. But no, there was just not enough in it to ship the rest of the cast.) Be-san’s smooth baritone voice was perfect for Ren. He never failed to deliver with these dominant, playboy types with a bit of insecurity. 

That said, he’s probably one of the worst singers in STARISH (sorry, don’t hate me, Ren fans. I admire Be-san, I do.) I’ve watched him sing in multiple different contexts, but he never managed to impress me. I think he sounded too flat when he sang. It was exactly the same as his speaking voice. I really enjoyed Be-san in any seiyuu event, though. He added to the event with his own quirky personality, and I like that about him.

My favourite among backstage photos, cue the mirror.

Otoya

He is probably my least favourite character out of STARISH members. Because Terashima. That’s it. Don’t make me say any more. Also, at live concerts, I think his singing got drowned out by the background music. It’s such a waste of opportunity because he got the most catchy songs out of all of STARISH, being the main character.

Tokiya

Mamo really deserved all the praise and popularity he has gained to date. He’s really a true idol. Tokiya’s living Mamo’s life in the show. He has the look and the charisma. I really enjoyed Mamo’s skits and have watched them over and over again. His performances are those of a true idol’s, and even as a Suzu fan wishing for more screentime for Suzu, I still wholeheartedly agree that Mamo really shines in Utapri. However, I couldn’t help but notice that the Tokiya role really didn’t bring out Mamo’s best. Yes, he did great voice acting and singing, but Tokiya as a character is too solemn and serious (okay, so was Reinhard in Legend of the Galactic Heroes, but that’s neither here nor there) and that was all there was to it. I just think the best role for Mamo would be some character with both a cool and a comical side, like Suou Tamaki in Ouran Host Club, for example. Or some batshit crazy villain like Light or Chrollo, for alternatives. Those are really the roles for Mamo. Plus, he really shone on stage. His live concerts are great. If anyone’s a pro idol, it’s Mamo.

If I said I didn’t see any chemistry between Tokiya and Otoya, I saw less between him and other characters that some fans actually ship him with, like Ren or Masa. He’s the only character I wish would get together with the female lead in this reverse-harem purgatory, though. It just makes sense. Girl had been pining for him for ages, and he even returned her feelings!

Removing my Suzu-fan lenses, I can objectively say that Mamo is probably the best thing to happen to Utapri.

Syo

Just like Be-san, in this day and age everybody also knows Shimono Hiro. But back in Utapri era, I don’t think he was really that well-known, because Dabi and Zenitsu were barely in the process of making. Shimono fit the role for Syo, but I can also name half a dozen other male voice actors who could have done as great a job as him. I do enjoy him at seiyuu events though. He’s a crowd-pleaser. Without him as the butt of the joke, several events would have turned out less fun, that much is certain.

His vocals are ok. Not the worst but not the best either. I really enjoyed the fun he brought to any event, though I wish Suzu could have been less mean to him.

Natsuki

Utapri is where I discover Taniyama Kishou, honestly. I mean, I watched Attack on Titan, but Jean didn’t stand out to me in terms of voice acting. Kishou in concerts IS so precious. He’s a singer (and I didn’t think he would be able to pull off the rock music for Satsuki, but man he really did). Utapri is probably Kishou’s best voice acting role (not that I’ve seen much else). And he really captured both the Natsuki/Satsuki personas equally perfectly. How naturally he switched from cute little puppy to dark sadistic voice was truly impressive. I really have to give it to Kishou, he really did nail this Natsuki role. Which was exactly why I hesitated when I tried to cast Suzu for an alternative Natsuki. I don’t think Suzu would have done a better job than Kishou. It’s just that the cheerful side of Natsuki would have been more up Suzu’s alley, but then again.

Kishou was also such a joy at any given event, be it live concerts, fan events or just variety shows. He’s such a dork and is really loveable. I wonder why he didn’t get any more voice acting roles, though.

Honorary mention : Cecil

Another STAMEN member. Tori-san had his quirks, but he always stuck me as a more subdued individual at any given event. I don’t have a lot to comment on his voice acting roles, since he wasn’t really on my radar, but he sounded kind of forced and unnatural with Cecil the same way Suzu did with Masato. I think Tori-san tried to pitch for the upbeat, cheerful kind of impression for Cecil, but since his natural voice was way deeper, I found Cecil’s voice very artificially nasal. It didn’t bother me as much as Suzu’s Masa voice though, maybe because I had higher expectations for Suzu…

As for singing voice, he didn’t really leave much of an impression on me, so I’d say he was average among STARISH. Tori-san was one of the less noticeable members of the cast at events, so he kind of blended into the background to me. Since I don’t know much about him, I can’t really give an insightful comment on his Cecil’s role, to be honest. My best guess would be that they cast him because he really did a good job with Cecil’s imperfect Japanese. The way he acted like a foreigner struggling to speak the local language was really fun and I truly enjoyed that.

***

Utapri as a story really embodies the saying ‘you’d get away with anything as long as you’re pretty’ …Pretty, or shiny (kira kira), in the case of idols. This was something the show has been preaching non-stop it was really in your face. I find this to be the only truth to the whole shenanigans, though. As idols (and as seiyuus and celebrities in real-life), the only thing that counts is to be shiny… to emit light halos you blind your fans at live concerts… To me, Mamo was shiny alright. Kishou as well, when he sang on stage. This anime had a total disregard for plot. They just did whatever and hope the shiny quality of the idols (seiyuus) work their magic. And it did. But mostly I stayed on because of RenMasa. It was delicious.

I just realized recently that Utapri and Osomatsu-san are just two sides of the same coin : they’re both idol animes. Not in the sense that the characters in Osomatsu were aiming to be idols, but that the franchise was riding on the popularity of these male seiyuus themselves. Until not long before, I had always thought that Osomatsu was a gag anime. Looking back, I realized that Osomatsu had always boasted this about itself. In the first episode, when discussing the direction they would take for this remake, the sextuplets eventually agreed to go with the ‘idol route’, becoming idols themselves in order to gain popularity. Even if this turned out to be just a gag, it was truer than any truth spoken on screen, and it wasn’t hard for me to picture the production company brainstorming and coming up with the exact idea (i.e. to cast these idols as the main six roles). The show had always hinted at this idol culture, parodying the Japanese showbiz all the time. The characters were even color-coded, just like in your average idol anime. The difference was that instead of having real-life idols (seiyuus) portraying idol characters as in Utapri, Osomatsu went for subversion. It showed a flip side of an idol. The show had Japan’s top seiyuus did all these dirty jokes and didn’t hesitate to throw in plenty of nasty gags. 

One thing I noticed about Osomatsu was that all of the cast for sextuplets HAD never had a main role in an idol anime (to my knowledge). I think that was one of the requirements. I like how Suzu and Nakamura Yuuichi somehow ended up switching adjuvant roles. Suzu was Iyami in Osomatsu, whereas Nakamura was Ringo-sensei in Utapri. I really enjoyed Suzu in his Iyami role, though, and I wouldn’t have cast him in any of the main six. He was the perfect remake-Iyami, handsdown.

Masa and Ren figures I brought with me to where I'm currently living for emotional support.

One of my short term goals right now is to try to go to one of Utapri events in the near future (the seiyuus are getting old, they won’t keep giving live stages for long, in my opinion). I’ve read about how difficult it was to obtain a ticket, so I’ll have to plan carefully. I still can’t wrap my mind around the fact that the franchise was still very very popular (especially among millennials) following the recent STARISH STAR TREASURE -Moonshine- concert. I know I’m late getting into this, but Utapri is such a strong franchise with such a large fanbase. I believe they still have at least a couple of years of juice in them to go on.

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70% of him is LEG

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I am genuinely So obsessed with the idea of zoro and sanji having a separate shared bounty, like a bounty thats twice of their normal amount combined because theyre That much More of a threat to the government when theyre together

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Never would I have thought they'd animate it like this, but it makes so much sense...

oda: i think sanji using one arm is enough to stop zoro

toei: *drew sanji basically hugging zoro* lemme give something for the fujoshis out there

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sad reality of the fanfic-to-published work economy is that the weirdest people are willing to do it. that's why there's now hundreds of shitty no plot cishet hate-to-love enemies-to-lovers books that are ex reylo fanfic. and it's not even good. that's because the people who wrote book-quality steve/bucky and kirk/spock fic are too normal to think to themselves "i should get this porn published". they're too busy working in local government offices

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i present to you, the roronoas

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Start drafting an apology letter!

ONE PIECE ep.1107 spoiler

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Burger King France is giving out special print t-shirts. Also Luffy and Sanji burgers 😂😂.

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No I didn't, thanks for letting me know!!! I just went out and got them. They're seriously awesome.

Did you guys know that as of today burger King France is selling exclusive one piece themed burgers

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Thinking abt Sanji and Zoro's kinda complicated relationship.

Rivals? Kind of?? they imply theyre competing for a similar goal but their professions are different outside of being a strawhat. They dont necessarily compete to be THE strongest strawhat, since that's luffy, and Sanji respects zoro's position as first mate (at least thats what i get from their interactions).

Enemies? No. Sanji and Zoro fight alongside each other and Sanji even gets pissed when zoro gets injured and vice versa. They do respect each other and hold a level of camaraderie enough to be willing to die for each other.

Friends???? Kinda???? They do fuck around a lot (mostly pre time skip) and theyre goofy, but like, i dont know something about their relationship seems a little less than friends. But theyre not aquantances at all.

Their relationship reminds me of how you form bonds in the military. Youre stuck with this group of people for probably years and eventually youre all a huge family.

Actually, lets stick with this analogy. Lets say Sanji and Zoro are in a situation like this. They meet, theyre stuck together, and yeah they think "this guys an asshole" but eventually they realize theres more to the other than meets the eye.

You grow closer and eat together, sleep together, fight together. Sometimes you argue and sometimes youre carrying them away from a fucking war. Bonds like that cant just grow organically in civilian life. Theyre special and pretty rare.

Maybe thats why I think theyre both so interesting to me (other than having fun by literally psychoanalyzing them). Because its not just friendship, its a mix of a bunch of other things that make their relationship complicated and interesting.

Okay so its been 2 minutes and i looked it up and its actually a phenomena researched among the US military. Its called Unit Cohesion. Thats what I was looking for lol

its also not rare and it literally happens 99% of the time lmao

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Exactly the ZS content I'm here for!

In the 4th gif, the direction of the ropes each of them was pulling was different. I'll just go ahead and assume that they were pulling on the same rope and not separate ones.

The art style is significantly different from Wano though. I wonder why they went with this candy palette? And these outfits are really nice! Reminds me a bit of pre-fishman when some of the crew whipped out their winter wear. But sadly it will last like, what, one episode?

Zoro and Sanji in episode 1089

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As 21 year old, ZoSan is trying on their old outfit. While Zoro love struck by Sanji in his clothing, Sanji’s shirt was holding on its dear life.

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People hitting on Sanji by offering to light his cigs for him 😂

HOLD ON??? THIS WAS SO...

probably brook:

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I just finished OPLA (skipping the parts I didn't care about, though). I'll make it short (spoilers ahead):

Things I like:

- Some writing choices. I liked that they weren't afraid to tweak the narratives a little to accommodate the storyline. Kudos for Zoro getting his wounds taken care of by Zeff, Luffy's & Sanji's parents bonding etc.

- How bold the production was with Zoro's sexuality ("You're asking the wrong guy." *Grabs own sword out of some naked blond guy's hands composedly* etc.) I think the intention might have been to depict Zoro as asexual, but it just ended up making him openly gay. End of story.

Things I find questionable:

- The casting, but not the cast. The first thing I need to emphasize is that all of the casts delivered their performance beautifully. There's nothing wrong with their acting skills. But the casting choices just didn't suit the characters at all in my opinion. And it's not a problem of chemistry either. Usually, when I have my reservations about the casting, it'd be like, oh, this guy works as Character A, but it was honestly a terrible decision to put him together with this guy as Character B. With OPLA, the chemistry between the crew were great, and I really enjoyed the bickering between Zoro and Sanji, BUT there's just that one thing that made them not Luffy, not Nami, not Zoro and not Sanji. (Not so much Usopp though).

- The production. I've already made my points about sneakers. Luffy cajoling around IN Converses!? What on earth. Flashback!Sanji walking around the kitchen (and subsequently on that rock) in crisp white sneakers!? What WAS that. And I think they totally butchered that Sanji Flashback scene. I'm not an advocate of eating disorders or putting child actors through food restrictions etc, BUT after 75 days of being stranded on a rock with barely anything to eat/drink, young Sanji still looked as fresh and healthy as he was on day one. His lips were not even chapped in the close up shots. I felt like they could have made more efforts on this.

- Adaptation... but to what extent? Does adaptation mean following the original to the T? Even when some elements were not even crucial to the storytelling (and hell, OPLA will go on for what, another 2 seasons max? some easter eggs might not even mean anything)? So some of the props were entirely unnecessary and so badly executed it made the whole show cheap and ridiculous, like that dog hat Garp was wearing AND the mouse ears on Nezumi. Especially the latter. It might have worked in the manga and anime, but we could have totally dispensed with those.

Recently in Japan, there has just been a production of One Piece On Ice (figure skating adaptation of Alabasta arc -- highly recommend to check it out on Youtube). It was a totally different form of storytelling, but the casting was perfect. In my humble opinion, the actors there fit their roles WAY more than than this cast did in OPLA. I'm not saying OPLA was bad, though. I enjoyed some bits of the show. It just doesn't really stick overall.