Uta no Prince-Sama

CHECK☆IT☆OUT!

I guess my weakness of bishounen-type characters in anime is stronger than I thought it was, because it only took a few posts of fan art of these characters on Tumblr for my interest to be piqued and I looked into this Uta no Prince-Sama series! And wouldn’tcha know it, it turned out to be something that I think is kinda pretty cool!

So Uta no Prince-Sama (means “Prince of Song” and is often shortened to just “Utapri”) began its existence as an otome game – a dating sim visual novel, a genre I’ve grown fond of recently. (I don’t really actively go out and find new otome games to get into, as I think many of them have less-than-interesting plots and if the artwork is overly-shoujo, I just get turned off entirely. So this series stood out to me because I like the designs of the guys kind of a lot!) The game isn’t available in English (I don’t think??) but it’s been out on PSP since 2010. The anime I’ve been watching is relatively new, as it aired in Summer 2011 and has a second season on its way in Summer or Fall 2012. 😀

I just dove right into it and loaded up the first episode, and the opening dance number pretty much had me sold, as it was immediately clear that this anime is all about shameless eye candy. ARE☆YOU☆READY?

[edit: the video I used to have here was removed from Youtube,
just go check out my post featuring UtaPri episodes here
and click Play on the first one for the same thing!]

When the first word in the opening song is “dokidoki,” that’s kind of your hint as to what kind of anime you’re watching and what to expect from it. It was pretty obvious to me that this was going to become my newest guilty pleasure.

SO JUST WHAT is Uta no Prince-sama all about? Well, I’m still learning the characters myself, but basically, all of the characters are enrolled in an extremely high-profile vocational school for the performing arts. All of the male leads are singing idols or musicians of varying degrees of fame, while the heroine has just enrolled in the school to achieve her dream of composing music, especially for one idol in particular…

Oh, and there’s one special rule that all students absolutely must follow:

DOUSHIO?!?!

What’s a poor otome game heroine to do?! Her dreams of achieving the harem ending have been blown to smithereens!

Erm, I mean, her dream of composing for her favorite idol, the famous Hayato!

This is Nanami Haruka, by the way. I always did like characters named Haruka…

Ittoki Otoya is one of the first fellows that we see, as he’s arriving to take the entrance exam at the same time Haruka does, and helps her out a bit.

He’s the super-genki one – energetic and cheerful. Which is in stark contrast to his roommate…

…Ichinose Tokiya. When Haruka first met him, she mistook him for her all-time favorite idol, Hayato. But despite looking similar enough to be his twin, he acts completely differently (kind of a jerk, actually) and doesn’t want to be associated with Hayato at all.

HOW VERY ~MYSTERIOUS~

Jinguji Ren, another of the guys Haruka met upon arriving at the school for the first time.

Ren flirts with ~allllll the giirls~ and is super rich – the heir to a corporation of some sort owned by his family.

This makes him a rival to another character that happens to be an heir, and unfortunately, they’re roommates.

Hijirikawa Masato thinks he can rock argyle sweaters, but that in conjunction with his nerdy haircut* just isn’t quite working out.

He is very much the quiet type, possesses crazy smarts, and has a vitriolic relationship with Ren.

*Later edit: I want to take back that remark about his hair being nerdy. It is beautiful hair.

Shinomiya Natsuki might be my favorite character so far, but that could be because he looks like Nanaki Kazuaki, right down to being incredibly spacey ~~and secretly possessing a psychotic alter-ego~~.

He is, however, extremely silly, and gets worked up over things that are cute, which includes Haruka and his unfortunate roommate…

…the adorable Kurusu Syo. He’s vying with Natsuki for my “favorite character” slot, and coincidentally they happen to interact a lot… and also have blond hair… I was worried I’d get them confused, but they look different enough that that doesn’t happen (the major height difference is a big indicator). Plus, Syo gets subjective bonus points because I thought he had pink hair at first (check the video above and you might make the same mistake), but it turned out to be mostly blond when he took off the hat. Still, he’s represented by the color pink everywhere else in the show and I can’t complain about that at all.

Also he crossdresses at one point

okay maybe he’s my favorite character and there’s not even any contest with Natsuki

I DON’T EVEN KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT HIS PERSONALITY

So those are the princes of Uta no Prince-Sama – at least that I know of so far! There maybe a couple more that will be revealed later.

I’m going to keep watching this – the little daily adventures Haruka has with each of the fellows are cute. ♥

And heck, it’s easy on the eyes.

Oh, and the reason we keep seeing this “1000% Love” phrase all over everything is because it’s the name of the song in the video up there, and it’s kind of a recurring theme.

The songs are worth mentioning. I’m only three episodes into this show, and I already want the soundtrack. The JPop songs are nice, if you like the genre, but it’s not just those – the tunes that play in the background during every scene are GORGEOUS. There was a part at the beginning of the school day (actually, the part where I grabbed that “ROMANCE IS ABSOLUTELY FORBIDDEN” screencap up there) and I went back and watched it again just to pay more attention to the pretty music that was playing in the background. ♥