Crystal Time

Key Events

Uta Pri award people do a live broadcast for Heavens and Starish to introduce both groups, get some reactions and some words from everyone.

Shining sets a condition on their concert battle, which will determine who will win the award. He wants both groups to sing songs from the same composer, i.e. Haruka. This will show each other’s qualities over the other.

An extra condition is set down as well by both groups’ managers Shining and Raging, that the group that loses will be disbanded. Seems they were fierce rivals in the past and that hasn’t changed.

At a practice studio Starish meet Heavens who say they will take Haruka when they win.

Thoughts

Well I like what they did with the name Starish to include everyone’s names’ first letter. Oddly enough I only just noticed that. Almost as if this was planned from the beginning… Which I guess if I caught on early enough I could’ve said with certain that Cecil would join as the letter A that was the only one left out and Aijima is a perfect fit. But unfortunately I wasn’t paying that much attention to the names as I believe I’ve said many times before, I suck with remembering names. Maybe it’s to do with me watching too many series every season and memorizing everyone’s names is too much of a hassle. But I try.

After seeing Raging I’m starting to wonder if all group managers are this eccentric. Though Raging looks more like a pimp than a normal eccentric person and I guess he only looks eccentric because of his dress sense, so far anyway.

Not sure about the other group, the anime’s purposely trying to make them seem stronger and people who we want to see be beaten up. I mean that kid’s 13 and he’s already a prick, something’s seriously wrong with that. I was naive that when I heard the loser would disband I thought perhaps they could both win it, but yeah after that showing at the end from Heavens I think anyone would want them to be crushed. And that was also because the anime was making Starish out to be the underdogs. But from Quartet Night’s expert judgment it’s actually an even 50/50. Which is pretty good odds I think, you’re saying they’re both on the same level basically.

Whilst the disbanding thing seems harsh, it does reflect the ruthlessness of the current music industry. Anyone going into the industry must be prepared to fail, so that you will work the very hardest to avoid that, but they must also learn that a lot of the time your very hardest still isn’t enough. Ah, the harsh realities of life, perhaps they’re a bit too young to experience it, but you gotta learn eventually. Especially that 13 year old prick, if anyone needs to be dragged back down to earth he does.

One last thing, I don’t get what Shining’s planning by only using Haruka’s songs. I trust there must be an ulterior motive. The obvious one I can think of is that Haruka wrote the songs for Starish so theoretically they’ll sound better when sung by Starish. But as Raging quite rightly said, a song can change drastically with its arrangements. Another reason I was thinking is that Shining won’t play ‘fair’, i.e. out of the songs he gave to Heavens from Haruka  none of them are actual hits, and when the concert battle comes Starish will sing Maji Love 2000% which as Shining had already heard for himself know it’s a definite hit. Again that ties in with Haruka’s songs being written for a group of a seven as Heavens wouldn’t be able to copy Maji Love 2000% even if they get it as they’d have to change it a fair bit for three people. But hey, that’s Raging’s fault for being arrogant and accepting unfavorable terms, I have to say well done to Shining for using Raging’s arrogance against him. Now we just wait and see how it plays out.