Himitsu no AiPri

AiPri is the first Pretty series I've watched. I had high hopes for it after how much good I've heard about other installments of the franchise, but I'm afraid AiPri was not a very good introduction to the franchise. AiPri is fun but completely devoid of any substance. It's a series I didn't mind watching one episode every week but if I had 51 episodes to watch at my own pace I don't think I would've finished it because there's much better ways to spend the time it takes to watch 51 episodes of AiPri. The best thing about AiPri is its characters, or more specifically itssupporting cast. There are a lot of characters, and though most of them only get one focus episode and are then relegated to just background characters, I think it's great how nearly every background character in AiPri is someone with a name and a face. It makes the academy feel very alive when there are barely any "NPCs" inhabiting it. I especially liked the character Chii, who also initially started as a one-off character but unlike most characters in her role, she ended up becoming a recurring character who brought a lot of comedy to the series, and even had a pretty great character arc throughout the series. The same unfortunately can not be said for the main trio: Himari, Mitsuki and Tsumugi. I don't think they're bad characters by any means, but their character arcs are very weak. They do not develop much until the end of the series, which makes following them for 51 episodes a tad boring, but that makes all the episodes introducing new classmates more interesting because they do have actual stories to them (even if said story is only one episode) Now if that's all AiPri was, I would recommend it, as it would be more or less similar to what Aikatsu was like, but the thing that kills AiPri for me is its story and its absurd number of episodes that are just compilations of old songs. AiPri doesn't have much story, it's mostly just fluff and standalone episodes, which I'd be fine with. But when AiPri eventually does try to have a story, said story is bad. It feels very forced and nonsensical, and it feels like the writers just wanted to have some kind of conflict at the end of the season but they didn't think it through at all. I haven't counted how many recap episodes AiPri has, but I am fairly confident in saying this is the most amount of recap episodes I've ever seen in an anime. There are so many episodes that have no story at all and are just Himari commenting over songs we've already seen. It really feels like either the writers didn't have enough ideas for 51 episodes or there were production issues that forced them to frequently take a break as they prepare the next episode. Whichever is the case, it doesn't make me too hopeful for the second seasons if it's going to be another 50 episodes (but I will be watching that second season either way). As for the music, it's mostly good. The standouts for me are the first ED as well as Chii's and Quartet Star's songs. You're going to be hearing every song several times, but despite ho many times you hear them some songs are simply more forgettable than others. Though there are no songs that I outright dislike. Overall AiPri is not a show I can really recommend. There's enough good here that I enjoyed watching it every week for a whole year, but there isn't enough fun here to warrant watching 51 episodes all the way from the beginning.