Lapis Re:LiGHTs

Tiara, a princess from the kingdom of Waleland, travels to the city of Mamkestell to attend a prestigious academy for those who practice magic like herself. After passing a test to prove her eligibility, Tiara reunites with her childhood friend Rosetta, who is also a student there. She then joins and meets Rosetta's group: the athletic Lavie, the reliable Ashley, and the bookish Lynette—all of whom Tiara quickly befriends.

In this institution, students are placed into one of three ranks based on their test score: group Noir being the highest, followed by Rouge and Lapis. Tiara's group is ranked Lapis, and if that was not enough, those who fail while ranked Lapis face expulsion. Realizing their dire situation, Tiara urges everyone to start taking their activities more seriously.

On top of this, Tiara has one more purpose for excelling at the academy: to become more like her elder sister, who is a very skilled singer. However, to reach the stage that she desires, she will have to overcome many challenges, along with her companions, as she continues her magical journey.

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Mineuchi, Tomomi
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Cook, Justin

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Oogami, Yuuma

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Nakatani, Satoshi

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Kaminaga, Keisuke

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Opening Theme

"Watashitachi no STARTRAIL (私たちのSTARTRAIL)" by Lapis Re:LiGHTs Stars

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Ending Theme

"Planetarium (プラネタリウム)" by LiGHTs

Reviews

Sep 19, 2020

dlxuniuniu

Recommended

Enjoy a wonderful light show with glamorous idol music! Experience the great adventures of cute girls in a completely new idol direction! Idols who are witches as well, doing a magic show, a combination the world has not seen in this form before!

STORY:
Our journey starts with Tiara, a young and beautiful witch apprentice, who travels from her hometown Bristol to the metropolis Mamkestell, the home of Flora Girls’ Academy. She always had the dream to become a student there and quickly finds that she truly has the latent ability to become a proper Witch, with a bright future ahead of her: a future that will ... include finding new friends and forming an idol unit together.
After reuniting with her best friend Rosetta, their dynamic duo relationship is particularly emphasized as well, Tiara decides to join her and her friends group to form the idol group "LiGHTs" together. Each of the five girls is unique in its own way and has a different magical ability. Together they fight for their survival in the Academy due to the rather poor grades. They go through difficulties together, even if something does not go according to plan, they do not give up.
Lapis Re: LiGHTs consists of seven different idol groups. Although the focus is on LiGHTs, we get to know the group members of "IV KLORE", "Konohana wa Otome", "Sugar Pockets", "Sadistic ★ Candy", "supernova" and "Ray". They understand and support each other very well; they are friends and even go for adventures together.

CHARACTER:
Tiara, also the leader of LiGHTs, is a bright and cheerful mood maker. Because she was prone to sickness as a child, she has a strong desire to cheer people up by singing. She is the 2nd princess of Waleland but wants to be treated like a normal girl. She wants to help everyone and make people happy. With her beautiful voice, she gives people hope and joy.
With Rosetta, her childhood friends, they often compose music together. Rosetta is smart and a hardworking girl, she is quite popular amongst her juniors. Before the reunite with Tiara, Rosetta tried to do everything on her own, putting herself under pressure and in a position of high risk. She never asked for help, she does not want to burden anyone with her own problems.
The most serious member of the group is Ashley, she can be a little bit sharp sometimes as well. As the costume designer for the group, you can't tell by looking at her, but deep in her heart she aims to become a knight, like her father. With these words "You can't be a good knight with strength alone", she was recommended to study as a witch.
Lavie, the exact opposite of Ashley and her roommate as well, is the sportiest girl. She has a lot of self-confidence with a naïve personality but is horrendously bad at studying, making her always at the bottom of the class in tests. She really admires the leader of the legendary unit "Ray": Eliza (Tiara’s older sister).
Last but not least, we have the group bookworm: Lynette. She aspires to be a witch who can shine in public and is a witch otaku who has an abundant knowledge on witches. With her shy personality you cannot tell, but she is an avid daydreamer, even occasionally fantasizing about "her other classmates making out with each other”.
We do not only learn the history and past from these five cute and beautiful girls, we also learn many exciting and emotional things from their friends in other groups: What their dreams are. Why they want to be witches. How they will captivate us all with their wonderful songs.

ART:
The art style in Lapis Re: LiGHTs is definitely one of the points that caught my eye and captivated me. The girls are presented very cute in a classic CGDCT style. Nevertheless, the environment is also full of beautiful colors. Everything is displayed very dynamically. The beautiful lights that can be seen during their orchestra performance and the perfect coordination of the choreography are all elements that magically attract everybody.

SOUND:
The music is always extremely important for an idol anime. After only the first two episodes, their songs already thrilled me. I really love the OP and ED; they are both suitable for the idol genre. The very last episode is full of music from all the different group which are really great. Besides that, we can even hear a solo from time to time by Tiara or another girl. Although there are not many songs released by the different Lapis Re: LiGHTs groups in general right now, all the songs are very nice to listen. Idol music gives you strength and a good mood; this is definitely the case here.
In addition to the music, the background noises are also well represented; every sound is in harmony with each other.

ENJOYMENT:
After the first episode, I was already extremely enthusiastic about this anime. I really love every aspect of Lapis. All elements harmonize perfectly with each other in my opinion. I enjoyed every episode. Although I have never heard of the game or this franchise before, I am already fascinated by it.
For every CGDCT and idol fan, I can really recommend to watch this anime. You will certainly not be disappointed with this. Let yourself be enchanted by the wonderful magic and music!
They are our LIGHTs!

In the end, I definitely wish for a second season and more songs that are beautiful! The story and idol adventures of our girls will surely go on!

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Sep 19, 2020

philipham

Mixed Feelings

-SPOILERS-

I really loved this show but I felt the need to make this review for a few reasons. After watching the second half of the show as it aired this season, I got a lot more invested once they finally started talking about becoming idles. For some reason, they decided to make the first 5 or 6 episodes purely filler. Sure we get a little bit of world building and some very minor character development, but that's half of the entire show. If they dedicated that time to the story or some deeper development for the main characters, this show could've been so much more.

Story ... - 4/10
Like I said, the first half of the show is purely filler. The story takes place in a magic school where you must accumulate enough points through doing various tasks to avoid getting expelled from the school. The main 5 girls do whatever they can to get enough points to do so for 5 episodes. With only around 6 episodes to develop the actual story, you can obviously tell that there would be some flaws. Some might argue that the first half of the show brought some necessary worldbuilding, but that worldbuilding is completely insignificant. Instead of building up the threat of the magic beasts' invasion, they decide to play dodge ball and walk around a haunted house. It's almost insulting that they just wasted all this time for nothing. They could've at least put the idea in the minds of the main characters of becoming idols, but they had to save that for later for some reason.
Once the second half of the show rolls around, Tiara and the gang decide to become idols so they can get the final remaining points they need to avoid expulsion. Some more stuff is revealed in the last episode about her relationship with her sister, and the series leaves off an unfinished note as all the idol groups declare to help recover Tiara's sister's voice. The story wasn't anything special but it wasn't anything too offensive besides the 5 episodes of filler. There were some heartwarming scenes and some hype moments. Honestly pretty solid since they decided to dedicate half of the show to filler. The filler was pretty entertaining but it barely added anything significant.

Art - 7/10
The art in the first episode is great, but gets a little worse for a few episodes after that. Eventually, we're getting an idol performance at least once every episode. The animation in the performances are pretty solid as well. There were some janky sequences as well as some extra nice ones. Nothing much else to say.

Sound - 7/10
The voice acting and the sound effects were nothing special nor terrible, but I personally loved most of the music. I was really hoping they would sing the opening in the show, but I'm not too angry. The songs that the girls sung during the performances were great. That's all I have to say.

Characters - 4/10
Another big issue with this show is the amount of time it takes to introduce a stupid amount of irrelevant characters. They take a few minutes to give some shallow development to the main girls except Tiara and then decide to introduce 10 more girls. That's an exaggeration, but it was honestly stupid that they did this. Tiara and her sister have a complicated relationship that ends up getting resolved in the last episode. It was pretty heartwarming but it was nothing special once again. Yet, the side characters are just plain stereotypical anime cardboard cut-outs. I even had a hard time remembering the characters names even at the halfway point during the show's initial run. If the show just kept LiGHTS, Supernova, and got rid of all the other groups, then it would've had time to sincerely develop our main girls while providing them with rivals. Nevertheless, I still love unconditionally love the girls, hence my unreasonable love for the series.

Enjoyment - 7/10
I like idol anime and slice of life anime. This anime had a lot of solid slice of life and lots of idols, so I liked it. The humor during the slice of life episodes was actually pretty nice. It was also satisfying to see Tiara get better at using her magical power, which she never uses once after episode 5(?).

Overall - 5/10
I really liked this show since it was one of my first idol anime to get into, and I certainly wasn't disappointed. It wasn't as if I didn't notice the flaws as I watched the show either; I just simply chose to ignore them and have a good time. This show is honestly just mindless fun with some heartwarming moments sprinkled in here and there. If you're lookin for a solid story or deep characters, turn away now. If you like idols and you're lookin for an anime to just chill and not think about anything when you're watching it then this is the anime for you. I'm gonna miss this show, but it is a multimedia project. Keep a lookout for the game and the manga adaption.
All in all, its not really an objectively good anime, in fact its probably closer to being bad, but you can still have a good time watching it.

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Sep 19, 2020

Firechick12012

Not Recommended

Good lord. I can't believe I wasted my time on this crapfest of a show. What we have here is an anime that's part of yet another multimedia project to promote a cell phone game involving cute idol girls. Lapis Re:LiGHTs main selling point is that it takes place in a made up fantasy world with made up countries that are much more European-style in nature as opposed to something like Love Live or 22/7. Now, the only reason I watched this was because nothing else really interested me, and since the plague is still going around and putting a bunch of anime on hold, ... I thought it'd be a nice time killer. It was...but now I wish I had every minute I spent watching this crappy show back! Basically, a young girl goes to a fancy magic idol school where she can become a witch, which in this case is basically a magical idol. But she winds up getting stuck with the flunkies who are about to get expelled because they suck at everything. They decide to try and become an idol group and raise enough points so that they don't get expelled.

In the right hands, this premise would have been great. It could have made for an interesting character study and presented a lot of opportunities for storylines that could go just about anywhere. Unfortunately, Lapis Re:Lights has some of the worst writing, direction, and storytelling I've ever seen. And I kind of feel bad about saying that because Lapis Re:LiGHTs has some really interesting ideas and a cool setting! I'll get the positives (or what little of them it has) out of the way so I don't be a complete killjoy. I must admit, the show's setting is really intriguing. Taking place in a European style fantasy land, with magic schools, and "witches" (That's what the idols are called in this show) capable of using all sorts of magic by whistling, using hoverboards to fly around and participate in sports, those are really neat ideas! Had the show actually bothered to capitalize on the ideas it had and flesh out its world a lot more, they really could have brought this setting to life with the ideas they presented. Unfortunately, the show spends more time on cute girls just putzing around and expanding its massive cast than actually caring about things like its setting and, y'know, proper character development.

But more on that in a bit. The setting being really well made also has great animation to back it up. The colors are bright, character motion is smooth, the town the girls live in makes use of both European style architecture and more fantastical, sci-fi elements like hoverboards and castles, and the idol concerts are always a visual treat to watch. Granted, they still use bad, wonky CGI for the actual performances, but at this point it's become the standard, and the character designs...aren't great. Many of the girls don't seem all that distinguishable from one another if you swapped their hair styles, colors, and eye colors, with some exceptions, especially some of the younger, cutesier looking girls like Maryberry (Seriously?! Maryberry?! What the hell kind of dumb name is that?!). Also, I'm not gonna lie, the background music in the show is better than all of the songs the girls sing. Many of the songs feel like they were copy-pasted from other songs over the past 20 or so years, and with a few exceptions, all of them are sung by squeaky voices that just border on grating.

Unfortunately, the animation and music alone absolutely cannot save this utter trainwreck of a show. One of the show's biggest problems is the fact that it's 12 episodes long, yet has a grand total of 24 named characters, barring a select few minor ones who only appear in one or two episodes. The thing about a show with a short length is that it doesn't have the luxuries that a show that has 24-26, or even 52 episodes has, and has to set its cards on the table right at the start. It can't afford to take shortcuts with its story and its characters. Most 12-13 episode anime get around this by keeping their main cast small, and having side characters still play important roles when needed. Lapis Re:LiGHTs made the decision to have an impossibly huge cast of characters, and none of them get any sort of development or focus whatsoever, and even when they do, any development they do get is so utterly predictable and cliche, you can pretty much guess how their arcs will progress without even trying. It doesn't help that many of the episodes just consist of the girls just goofing around or doing stuff that has absolutely nothing to do with the main plot. One episode has the girls play a really degrading magical board game, and in said episode, one of the girls is made to wear a skimpy playboy bunny suit and act like a rabbit for shits and giggles. No, I'm not even kidding. Because the show has such a large cast and no interest in giving them anything beyond one basic personality trait, all of them come across as bland and unmemorable in any way, or wind up being memorable for all the wrong reasons, like Lucifer for being a complete bitch for no reason, and the worst of them, Tsubaki, for basically being a creepy siscon who gets off on stealing her younger sisters' panties for some dumbass reason. Did we really need that? Many of the characters are so insignificant that the show would seriously benefit if they had been cut out completely.

And that's not even getting to the utterly piss-poor writing! The show sets up a lot of rules for its setting, like a point system for the magic school that determines whether kids get to stay or get expelled, but often times it contradicts itself when its most convenient. The main group is constantly on the verge of getting expelled, but a good portion of them don't even give a damn and just want to putz around (Lavie is the worst offender)! Plus, one girl is confirmed to be an adult, or at the very least in her late teens, yet is still in the school under a different name and in another unit, for really stupid reasons that already contradict the show's established rules! They try to explain it as her being held back lots of times, but with how strict the school system is in-universe, you'd think the girl would have gotten expelled! Furthermore, many of the conflicts in this show, especially the one near the end, could have been resolved in five minutes if the characters just talked to each other and explained from the start why they did what they did, y'know, like mature adults! But instead of doing that, they needlessly come up with these weirdly elaborate schemes to not only keep Tiara in the dark about it, but actively sabotage her and the main groups' chances at actually succeeding in every way possible in order to guarantee nothing but failure on their end in order to get them to do what they want! I dare anyone to tell me this isn't some form of emotional abuse and manipulation in some way! The character responsible for all of this doesn't even get called out or given any real consequences for her actions! Because of all of this, and the show's utter lack of interest in fleshing out its characters and...well, everything else, any attempt at being genuine is completely overshadowed by its complete and utter stupidity and overreliance on cliches and stock archetypes. All of it comes together to make a really hokey, meely-mouth ending that's just cheesy and dumb and never felt earned in any way whatsoever.

I really wanted to be more generous with my rating for this show, but the more I watched it and thought about it, the more I realized the show itself doesn't have anything redeemable about it, other than its animation and interesting ideas that it never got to use properly. The reason why I consider shows like, say, Zombieland Saga, AKB0048, and 22/7 to be good, even with their flaws, is because they actually cared enough to flesh out their characters, even if their methods of doing so didn't always make the landing (In the latter's case especially), and put in effort to at the very least try to do something different with their premises and be somewhat enjoyable. Lapis Re:LiGHTs is just a soulless cash grab that is just ultimately hollow, shallow, and a complete waste of time.

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Lapis Re:LiGHTs

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