Green Leaves Entertainment is a tiny production company on the verge of going out of business in Sendai, Japan. The agency once managed the careers of magicians, photo idols, fortune-tellers, and other entertainers, but its last remaining client finally quit. Faced with having absolutely no one to represent, agency president Tange thinks up a plan to produce an idol group, forming the seven-girl group known as the "Wake Up, Girls".
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Reviews
Better Late Then Never
The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.
One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.
Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable
As this movie, an introduction to the series 'Wake Up, Girls!' begins things don't appear to be going well for Green Leaves Entertainment. This is a small music production company in Sendai whose singers are departing for the bright lights of Tokyo. Then the company president sees the idol group I-1 Club on television and has a brainwave they will start their own idol group. To this end she sends company manager Kohei Matsuda out to try to recruit young girls inevitable the results aren't good as he comes across as a bit of a creep asking school girls if they want to become idols! Eventually they advertise and six girls audition; they aren't good but it is all they have. There is another girl they really want to recruit though; school girl Mayu Shimada who used to be a member of I-1 Club unfortunately she has decided she has had enough of being an idol; that won't stop Matsuda trying to persuade her though.As this short movie is an introduction to the series we know that the group will ultimately be formed but it was still fun watching Matsuda's attempts to recruit singers and later their attempts to come together as a group and overcome the various problems they encountered. The characters were nicely introduced; in particular Mayu and Matsuda. While this is a drama there were a decent number of laughs; I particularly liked when the girls discovered that their group's name had been taken from a local 'love hotel'! The animation was pretty good and the character designs were fairly cute as one would expect from a not-too-serious drama like this. I liked the fact that the group aren't too good; if they were the story wouldn't have anywhere else to go. On the strength of this introductory film I will certainly be checking out the series.These comments are based on watching the film in Japanese with English subtitles.
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