The difficult part about reviewing this anime? Depending on whether or not you're already a fan of the games and are familiar with the story and characters, your enjoyment of this anime is likely going to be extremely skewed. This is already a huge red flag; the anime struggles to stand on its own two feet and functions better as a supplement to the game experience. For people who aren't into mobage, I think the series is going to be pretty forgettable and, unfortunately, fails as a gateway into the franchise. (To be fair, the anime had 24 episodes to convey what the game hadover 2 years to flesh out).
As a long time player and fan myself, I can attest: I had a much better experience with this anime than my boyfriend, who knew nothing about the series and came out of the first season confused, unsatisfied, and largely unimpressed.
The story in a nutshell is that the main character, Anzu, is the only female student in an all boy's idol program at Yumenosaki Academy, acting as a producer in training. The school is known for churning out talented idols who later become very successful in the business, but we soon learn that there is some sort of corruption behind the scenes involving the school council, and the main cast of boys, a band called Trickstar, decides to start a revolt.
I've always liked the overarching story of Ensemble Stars, because tackling the subject of corrupt practices behind showbiz is something most series in the idol genre don't do. And knowing how the story goes from my experience playing the games, I think that the roadmap for a successful anime was definitely there.
However, the story and development of the cast suffers so much from poor pacing, that the entire anime feels like "and-then-this-happened" story telling, and it doesn't ever come together in a way that makes sense or is ultimately satisfying. The main plot of "Viva La Idol Revolution" often gets completely ignored at times because the focus gets shifted to trying to develop a massive and convoluted cast of characters, which seems counterproductive because in an effort to steer the story back on track, most of them get lost in the fray, anyways.
Speaking of characters, I do have to give credit where it's due and applaud the studio for at least trying to make every character somewhat relevant. We're introduced to a huge roster of idols-in-training, each with their own motivations, sounds, and tiny little quirks.
Unfortunately, many of them end up being a distraction to the main story, and feel forcibly shoved in and out of the show for the sake of trying to diversify the cast and giving each boy screentime. There's a heavy implication that we'll be getting a season 2, so I question why the studio insisted on cramming all of this extra character development into a season where the main arc was very meaty to begin with. Many of the idol units that we're introduced to have little to no relevance to the main conflict, anyways, and it feels like a disservice not only to the revolution arc but to each idol unit as well. The games go to great lengths to give each of the boys and their groups interesting back stories that all connect in a "New Year's Eve" way, but most of that just ends up getting lost in translation because none of them are given the proper amount of focus necessary to tell those stories properly. As someone who is already familiar with these characters and their arcs, it was a pleasure to see them referenced, but for the average person who is meeting these characters for the first time, it can be a lot to digest.
(Anzu also fell really flat in my opinion, but as a stand in for the "player" in the games, I can let that slide since she's essentially just a self-insert for the viewer.)
As far as the design and animation, I'm mixed on this one. Each unit has its own theme and distinct sound direction, which I think is a great touch. Trickstar has a really bright pop-rock sound, befitting of the optimistic protagonist trope. Ra*bits gets a softer and twinklier pop sound that falls in line with their innocent and cute aesthetic. Valkyrie has a heavy baroque influence with lots of strings and darker instrumentation that falls in line with their gothic inspired outfits, and so on. While not all of the songs were bangers for me, the overall quality of the sound production was impressive.
The costume design is also really great; while idol animes are always chock full of creative outfits, the stage costumes do a great job of reflecting each unit's sound. As a result, almost every unit is able to establish a memorable identity, which is a miracle considering my last point about how messy the character development gets.
The animation itself is easy on the eyes. There are beautiful and vibrant colors abound, and the art style for the series has always been that perfect balance of "cute enough that it's endearing", but "mature enough that we can admire the attractive 2D men".
On the flip side of that, the Enstars art style is infamous for suffering from same-face-syndrome. Despite every character having a personality loud enough to stand out from the crowd, everyone looks pretty much the same. Every character shares the same 2-3 styles of eyes, everyone has the same facial structure, and everyone has the same generic build of "lean male - not too broad, could be a twink". Without the amazing costumes and the pretty crazy hairstyles, none of the characters are really distinguishable. This is a problem that persists in the games as is, but it's definitely amplified in the anime.
Then there's the issue of how the performances are handled using 3D models. Don't get me wrong, I understand why this practice is done (3D models are a lighter load because the assets can be reused, the animators don't have to worry about drawing so many characters in so many dynamic and often synchronized movements with even more dynamic camerawork, etc), but the transition was often jarring to me. I think the only idol anime that really does a great job at blending 3D models into 2D cuts during performance sequences is the Idolmaster franchise, but that's a conversation for another time. It could be a budget thing - I know these models and some of the motions were reused from the development of the rhythm game. But with so many other idol animes that go through the same pitfalls of 3D sequences looking out of place, the disconnect between the 3D rendering and the 2D animation felt like such an easy problem to sidestep, so I was disappointed.
Overall, the anime isn't bad by any means, but it's not remarkable in any way, either. If you're already familiar with the series, the experience of being able to finally see the characters you've come to know and love can be almost surreal and that alone makes it worth it. But if this is your first foray into Enstars, or even just the idol genre in general, I imagine you're going to have to drag yourself through a good chunk of this season. There are plenty of far better idol animes out there that also have game counterparts and are still able to sustain themselves without using their source material as crutches (see: Idolish7, Idolmaster, Love Live, etc).
My verdict? A perfectly average anime. Take that however positively or negatively you like.
