Anime Review: Opera Girl!! Episode 1

Opera Girl!!

Studio: Pine Jam

Genre: School, Shoujo, Drama

Streaming: Crunchyroll

The first anime of the summer season have started airing now and I decided to begin with one of the more obscure shows coming out. It’s worth noting straight from the get-go that this anime is somewhat misleadingly named – Opera Girl!! is not actually about opera but about the theatre in general, specifically revue-style theatre akin to Japan’s Takarazuka all-female theatre companies. It’s easy to make comparisons to other theatre-themed anime such as Revue Starlight, which I previously reviewed back when it aired in 2018, but tonally these two shows are actually very different. Opera Girl!! takes a much more realistic approach to the world of all-female theatre, though both take place at schools where upcoming stars learn about the world of theatre.

In the anime, we follow Ai Narata, a former idol who is entering the prestigious academy of Kouka. Despite her previous experience in performance, however, Ai struggles with socialising, in particular the overly intrusive attentions of her male fans. For her, she sees Kouka as a way to remove herself from this and stay away from men for a few years altogether. She’s not the most immediately likable of protagonists, coming off as quite cold and standoffish, but her character arc feels rather timely given that she was essentially “canceled” and forced to graduate as an idol due to her calling a fan of hers ‘creepy’ after his comments to her online. The controversy around idols in Japan has always been there, but there’s been more publicising of late of the extreme restrictions idols must endure, and having Ai come from that world offers an interesting commentary on it. It isn’t long before she meets Sarasa, who is in every way, the complete opposite of the emotionally distant Ai – she’s loud, confident, enthusiastic, and finds it easy to socialise and talk to everyone she meets. She’s also incredibly tall, which despite her lack of experience in acting, draws attention to her immediately leading the teachers of the school to take a chance on enrolling her.

Sarasa and Ai then make up an odd couple of sorts – and whilst Ai in the first episode is very resistant towards getting to know Sarasa, it’s clear that the two will end up forming a bond eventually. For the regimented Ai who has been in harsh idol training for many years now, Sarasa’s easy-going nature is like a bucket of cold water to the face. She expects Sarasa to do badly, purposely not helping her out when she could do so but is surprised when Sarasa actually draws praise from one of the teachers. Of the two, Sarasa is easily the more likable but it’s an interesting choice to have us see things through Ai’s perspective instead. From this point instead, we see Sarasa as this crazy enigma who Ai just can’t understand. The rest of the cast are briefly shown and it’s fairly obvious to tell straight away who the other key cast members will be – most come across as quite tropey but we have seen too little thus far to make any solid opinions on anyway.

Gender is obviously a key topic in the series, given its focus on all-female actresses – for those familiar with Takarazuka they would know that the actresses tend to be split between those who play the male or female roles, with those playing the male roles often garnering huge popularity from their fans. Sarasa herself states that she aims to play Lady Oscar one day – the gender-bending protagonist of historical shoujo manga, Rose of Versailles.  The other students seem shocked at this declaration, and it’s explained almost instantly that aiming for such a role, is to aim to be the top actress of a theatre troupe.  The series despite its fairly light tone doesn’t look to shy away from darker subject matter too, especially the hints seen about Ai’s toxic fanbase.  Rivalry is clearly a theme that will be explored throughout the series between the students, from the uneasy relationship between Ai and Sarasa to the other students who already seem to be forming duos at odds.

So far actually, Opera Girl!! reminds me more of the Maria sama anime series, rather than Starlight Revue. The first episode feels quite slow-paced and based around the setup of the world rather than really getting into the emotional aspect of the characters. Overall, however, that meant that it also came across as quite info-dumpy, particularly in scenes where the teachers just describe various things about the school and what the new students will go through. The animation too looks rather sloppy at times, and I suspect the series didn’t get a very large budget. The sound design is one of the better aspects of the series so far, with the background music, feeling suitably taken right from the stage, and the opening being very cute and bouncy in tone.

For me, however, it was the narrative that was something of a let-down so far – it’s a real shame because I love the subject matter of the series as a big fan of theatre and Takarazuka. The cast certainly has potential, despite them being rather tropey in this first episode but overall, I never really warmed to any of the characters other than Sarasa herself. I really wanted more emotion and drama from this series to really hook me in, but without either of those, the anime just came across as rather bland. I’m hoping that the series is just taking its time to set up the pieces and that it’s more of a slow burn instead, but from this first episode, it’s hard to recommend to anyone unless they have a real interest in theatre in the first place.