(From left: Erika, Milu, Tomo, Miki, Fuyumi, Saya)
Produced by Radix
13 episodes
Aired January 2006 - March 2006
Themes: creating a pop band, the hard & dark side of the music industry (not too hard & dark though), competition of music industry, mean girls, relentless training, courage, embracing the unknown, friendships made and broken, family secrets, relentless enemy, occasional Teen themes which makes me want to put this in an older category, lots of humour, a tissue or two will be needed
Summary from Anime Planet.com (I don't benefit by mentioning them)
Lemon Angel used to be a popular band in Japan, until a year ago; at
that time, all of the members of the band, except for Miki Suwa,
mysteriously disappeared. In the present, Tomo Minaguchi is a first year
high school student who was friends with Lemon Angel’s song writer, Yui
Kono, before she passed away. When music producer Ryuuta Kogure
approaches her to audition for a new Lemon Angel group, Tomo agrees in
order to fulfill Yui’s wish. The competition is fierce – will Tomo have
what it takes to become the newest member of Lemon Angel?
(Milu becomes besotted with a slightly creepy teddy bear)
Nayuleska's thoughts (a few minor spoilers)
I've watched the entire 13 episodes, and I'm still not sure why the project was 'Lemon Angel'. That's just the name of the original group (no fruit involved). It's an insightful anime into how much work breaking to the industry is. The coaches are relentless in their training - yet the girls still rebel for very good causes. The candidates during the auditions vary from prima donnas to wallflowers. The silver haired prima donna is a Mean Girl - worse than just name calling she puts others in danger. There is no need for that and it's pretty unforgivable.
Tomo (above) is rather funny. She reminds me of Aika in the anime Aria the Animation (see the imilarity in style of hair & expression)
- she's a little ditzy, she has her grown up moments, she has to work hard to get good at both dancing and singing. I'm still not quite sure how she improved her singing, but she makes it into the group. There is less on the group performing, and more on their training and their individual personal crisis moments which are pivotal to the story. The songs are fun and catchy, the costumes are a little on the bare side when they are rehearsing. The reason this gets 9/10 is that English words get used quite a lot. Occasional use is fine, but it felt intrusive when characters kept using them without keeping in character (if that makes sense).
Suggested watch
If you like this check out Tari Tari, another 13 episode anime which is about a small group of students who form a choir club, how they get to know each other and the problems they each face in life.
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