10. Idolmaster XENOGLOSSIA
No anime series is perfect. Sometimes, a series will come damn close, but it would be foolish to assume that even the most carefully crafted show won’t stumble some point along the way. Frustrating as they may be, such stumbles don’t have to be the defining feature of an otherwise enjoyable show. However, when they occur near the end, they tend to color your memories nonetheless.
And that’s why it feels strange to be writing about Idolmaster XENOGLOSSIA right now. At some point during its broadcast run, I wrote, “the final episodes will decide its legacy.” If I were to stand by that statement, I would have to describe the legacy of Idolmaster XENGLOSSIA as uncertain. I’m still not entirely sure what to think of the show’s final act. It was typical Sunrise fare, I suppose: throw a bunch of stuff at the wall and see what sticks. And it definitely didn’t do the show any favors. But, as stumbles go, it didn’t make me come to dislike the show in any particular way, nor did it make me forget why I came to enjoy the show so much in the first place.
In an era when high production values and competent direction have become increasingly common in anime, Idolmaster XENOGLOSSIA stands out from the crowd like most every Sunrise series. Somewhere along the line, Sunrise learned how to make anime look and feel not so much like cartoons, but like live action without limitations. The thoughtful camera work, consistent animation, polished score, and talented voice acting typical of most Sunrise productions is clearly present in the show. The concept may be silly, but the package is professional.
If you think about it, Mai-HiME and Mai-Otome were similar: silly stories presented in such a competent manner that you couldn’t help but find them engaging and fun to watch. We’d make jokes about, “Stuff happened and then there were boobs,” but we were still glued to our seats, anxiously awaiting each new episode. Idolmaster XENOGLOSSIA didn’t have nearly as many followers, of course; it was always haunted by its origins, fans of the original game crying “bastard!” and the rest groaning “give me a break!” And to say the conventional wisdom sorted the show into the burnable garbage pile early on would be an understatement.
Which is probably why I write about Idolmaster XENOGLOSSIA today. It was a show that was far from perfect in many ways and suffered no shortage of abuse for those imperfections, real and imagined. And, yet, when the final credits of the final episode rolled, I looked back on everything that had come before and thought, “all things considered, that was some good anime.” And for that, it deserves recognition.
