Cue!

"Cue!" is a series that I will defend until my dying breath. What an absolute gem of an anime.

"Cue!" pulls one of the greatest bait and switches of all time. It was immediately made known that the anime was going to run for two seasons, and while following Haruna and her unit was enough to hold my attention for the first few episodes, it made me wonder how quickly it would become repetitive with about 18 episodes left to go.

Then without warning, the show starts branching out into the lives of the other characters. 16 total characters, to be exact.

And 16 characters means 16 stories.

"Cue!" ... is a series without side characters. Each of the 16 voice actresses is given ample time for the viewer to learn their personality, struggles, and inspiration for pursuing voice acting. While certain character traits can bleed into each other at times, every unit of 4 is given a unique dynamic that makes their interactions meaningful, and even emotional at times. I had an amazing time with this one through its entire run, and it's a shame it's not available on any Western streaming platforms because I believe this is a series that any slice of life fan can dive right into.

This "behind the scenes" kind of slice of life anime always get me hooked. It happened with Shirobako and New Game too. You get the MC vibes from the first couple of characters you meet, but each of the girls in the agency has something to show. The story has a really nice and organic way of presenting a huge roster of characters in digestible portions.
Some scenes might turn some people off like some parts feel very generic and the humour is a hit or miss. You have to forgive some things since they won't produce a full anime within an anime or throw ... resources on musical performances in a seiyu anime.

If there is one entertainment label that tries its damn hardest to market its IPs, it's gotta be Liber Entertainment and the company's never-ending constant streams of games that are like finished, half-finished, and shutting down. It's such an irony that it's almost as if there are execs knowing that the anime adaptations of their IPs would help boost their brand, so they purposely rushed their mobage games to be the less stellar versions even before the anime medium was even considered, only suddenly to realize that they too serve a very niche audience that people aren't buying into their mobile games, and then announcing ... that the games would officially be discontinued.

A3! had some decent success that ranged from mediums like stage plays to the 2020 Studio 3Hz × P.A. Works collab anime that ultimately resulted in the closing down of the global versions of the mobage just recently and the Japanese game still going as good. i★Chu, while being the very first game in the company's line-up, was horribly bad and overstretched, and never got any attention in the West, not like Lay-duce's Winter 2021 produced anime could ever hope to win over new fans to the mobage in an oversaturated Idol Otome Game franchise market to inevitably shut the doors to its game after the anime ended.

The reason why I am saying of A3! and i★Chu, is because that this show, titled Cue!, is Liber Entertainment's latest mobile game that's released in 2019, and simultaneously the company's 3rd attempt into the anime market, only this time being all about the female CV (Seiyuu a.k.a voice-acting) training stimulation game. And you wanna know why this is significant? Because once again, the mobage company decided to "temporarily end service" on April 30, 2021 so that the staff can "put forth every effort to improve the game" and cannot state when it will be active again! Yeah right, more like pre-empting to stop and then deciding either to restart or fully stop game service because of the anime adaptation this year! If you know the adage phrase of "a leopard never changes its spots", it's a sign that a wishy-washy and stagnating company like Liber Entertainment is "trying hard" to segment the now BOTH oversaturated male and female idol mobage scene, and IMO, it has failed once again with Cue!. Also, I'm just gonna say this first: the Yumeta Company × Graphinica collab produced anime stands in-between A3! and i★Chu, because it's between the good and bad to be average at best.

So, as I was saying, Cue! is Liber Entertainment's 3rd cash-cow that is a simulation game where players can train up-and-coming voice actors, and this is a change in the target market towards the Seinen a.k.a young adult men audience compared to the usual fangirls of A3! and i★Chu. And the characters are based off of the various teams that they are in, doing their own thing that is still within the confines of voice-acting in general:

Team Flower: Focusing on primarily anime VOs (voiceovers)...maybe TOO MUCH of this aspect
- Haruna Mutsuishi (team leader), voiced by Yurina Uchiyama (member of girl group DIALOGUE+, newbie Seiyuu)
- Maika Takatori, voiced by Nene Hieda (member of girl group DIALOGUE+, this season's Gaikotsu Kishi-sama's Ponta)
- Shiho Kano, voiced by Kyoka Moriya (member of girl group DIALOGUE+, Ochikobore Fruit Tart's Hemo Midori)
- Honoka Tsukii, voiced by Yuna Ogata (member of girl group DIALOGUE+, newbie Seiyuu)

Team Bird: Focusing on primarily idol group events
- Yuki Tendo (team leader), voiced by Ayaka Takamura (member of girl group DIALOGUE+, newbie Seiyuu)
- Chisa Akagawa, voiced by: Satsuki Miyahara (member of girl group DIALOGUE+, newbie Seiyuu)
- Airi Eniwa, voiced by Mayu Iizuka (member of girl group DIALOGUE+, Tamayura's Suzune Maekawa)
- Yuzuha Kujo, voiced by Manatsu Murakami (member of girl group DIALOGUE+, Akebi-chan no Sailor-fuku's Akebi Komichi, Odd Taxi's Sakura Wadagaki)

Team Wind: Focusing on primarily radio shows, and a big break in doing in-game VOs
- Miharu Yomine (team leader), voiced by Yukari Anzai (Release the Spyce's Momo Minamoto, Lapis Re:LiGHTs's Tiara)
- Aya Kamuro, voiced by Saki Matsuda (newbie Seiyuu)
- Mahoro Miyaji, voiced by Megumi Yamaguchi (New Game!'s Hifumi Takimoto)
- Riko Hinakura, voiced by Arisa Tsuruno (newbie Seiyuu)

Team Moon: Mostly a floating group carved out of necessity choosing to perform things of desire (i.e. small stage plays)
- Rie Maruyama (team leader), voiced by Hina Tachibana (Oshi ga Budoukan Ittekuretara Shinu's Maina Ichii)
- Satori Utsugi, voiced by Ami Komine (newbie Seiyuu)
- Rinne Myojin, voiced by Mai Sato (newbie Seiyuu)
- Mei Tomi, voiced by Rio Tsuchiya (newbie Seiyuu)

Together with president Masaki Ootori and manager Rio Isuzu (both VAs Youko Hikasa and Aya Suzaki are very well-known and have a lot of experience under their belt), these 4 teams × 4 girls form the basis for the newly formed voice-acting agency AiRBLUE, which manages all 16 girls in regards to honing their techniques from scratch, making something out from the nothingness with their inexperience. Notice how just like the real world, most of the VAs here are already in the popular girl group band DIALOGUE+, or have either acted main/support roles in anime, as opposed to those whom are entirely new and raw to the anime scene, so it's a fair game chance for everyone to improve their skills using this anime as a stepping stone. And I see no problem with that as everyone must start somewhere.

But sadly, a premise like this I can already foreshadow that it's not gonna work the same to have the recorded impact, much less being a 2-cour, 24 episode series to flesh out each and everyone of the characters. Which again, I have no nitpicks since there's more than enough time and space to allot for all characters to have their own character development. Some of them are decent-to-good, but others can come off as quite shallow and bland, like it's all just for motivational purposes that serve little to nothing to the entirety of the show in general (and this is even with or without the music kind). I understand that everyone needs baby steps to get to the position of their dreams, but this is literally slogging through a total combined near-10 hours series that in all honestly, it's just money spent that went down the drain (if given by the lackluster reputation here shown in MAL). And coming off un-fresh from the more-deserved Summer 2019's Re:Stage! Dream Days♪, director Shin Katagai would try this formula once again in Cue!, only this time to see it almost completely bomb. Even with capable series composer Tatsuhiko Urahata's work on this, nothing could ever salvage work like a director's orders, and Cue! ended up being a haphazard of his directorial by-product.

Yumeta Company and Graphinica's collab production just looks average, I don't have anything else than to say that it just gets the job done. But if there is one thing that Cue! does right, it's literally the music promotion thanks in part to major music label Pony Canyon to promote new songs, and AiRBLUE's songs are well...decent to say the least. The 1st Cour's OP/ED set with "Start Line" and "Hajimari no Kanenone ga Narihibiku Sora" is a relatively great start to the series that sets the mood for the anime to follow thereafter, and this is a set that I'm glad to say that I've enjoyed both songs (I'd prefer the ED more). The 2nd Cour's OP/ED set with "Tomorrow's Diary" and "Yume Dayori" certainly was a lot more mellow, forgiving, and also decent at the same time. I guess when you have music composer Ryousuke Nakanishi who's churned out famous works like the High School DxD series, you expect Cue! to have a better-than-average OST, and it delivered as expected from someone of a great caliber.

Music is the only plus point I can give to this show, everything else...can take it or leave it. Either way, I'd hope that this is the VERY LAST time we'll be seeing of Liber Entertainment and the company's scrubby record of using other mediums to their advantage to bring in new fans, because Cue! very clearly has nothing that really stands out, and this is a tough one to recommend unless the company gets its act together to re-release the mobage. As for the anime, it's not necessarily idol-like, but it's quirks and features would allow your assumption to be. Either way, you're not missing out much.