The Fall 2023 Anime Preview Guide

Paradox Live The Animation

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In the near future, rappers wear accessories that contain a metallic substance called Phantom Metal. Through Phantom Metal's chemical reaction with the rappers' own DNA, the rappers can create illusions linked to their emotions during their performance. The result is a new type of spectacular concert.

Paradox Live The Animation is part of a multimedia project by Avex and GCREST. The anime series is streaming on Crunchyroll on Tuesdays.

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Richard Eisenbeis
Rating:

My first question when it comes to any idol anime (or any other anime where music is one of the key focal points) is “Are the songs any good?” This is important because, how are we supposed to believe the characters on screen are not only professional singers but also capable of becoming superstars if their music sounds like C-tier trash? In the case of Paradox Live the Animation, I feel it's a bit hit-or-miss.

Now, I urge people to take my opinion with a grain of salt—rap and R&B are my least favorite genres aside from hardcore death metal. However, I found the first song quite enjoyable. I could see why BAE could have a following (even if the English parts of their song often ignored the very idea of a rhyming scheme)—not to mention that I am of the personal opinion that using female vocals for your hook elevates nearly every rap/R&B song. Their second song, used as the climax of the episode, however, was a huge letdown. After hyping it up throughout most of the episode I expected to have my socks knocked off—yet, they are still firmly attached to my feet.

The thing I liked most about this first episode is that we were introduced to all of BAE's rivals. Each of them has a motivation that rivals BAE's—be that saving their cafe, improving the standing of their family, or simply escaping the slums. This makes them all sympathetic and not mustache-twirling villains for our heroes to defeat.

But when it comes down to it, I feel like I'm missing something when it comes to this anime—like there's something fundamental I don't understand. Now, that's not to say I don't get what's going on in general. This is a world where this magic metal can create a visual component to your music based on your DNA and the passion and emotion you're putting into it.

What I don't get is how an entire concert hall can be destroyed—along with the leading act, apparently—and then reappear years later like nothing happened. Where are the police? Where are the insurance investigators? Where are the families of Buraikan—and why aren't they breaking down the door to see their long-thought-dead loved ones? I guess this is all part of the suspension of disbelief needed to even engage with the show and I'm not sure I'm willing to do that—even with the good things it has going for it.

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James Beckett
Rating:

I'll start with the bad news first (or, at least, news that will be bad specifically for people like me): Paradox Live THE ANIMATION is one of those pop-idol anime that spends a good portion of its running time setting up a highfalutin competition—complete with a Monokuma-esque CGI mascot—and then proceeds to introduce so many pretty anime boys (and Anne, who I believe is nonbinary?). I know that a cast comprised of dozens of impossibly beautiful stage performers is the entire appeal of these shows for a lot of folks, but I start to get genuinely anxious when I can't keep track of the number of characters with just my ten fingers alone.

The good news is that Paradox Live's premiere is one of the better examples of this specific type of anime I've seen recently. It's got highly polished visuals and production values, for one. It is written and edited well enough that it is easy to make it through the requisite roll call of the rap groups competing in the titular tournament, including our leading trio of performers, who call themselves BAE (don't worry, it's okay to laugh). Allen, Yeon, and Anne make for a likable trio, too, which is critical for me since I need to be able to whittle down the number of people I have to give a crap about to as small a number as possible, and having three main characters that I can easily root for makes the obscene number of competitors it so much more bearable. It's a fun, breezy first episode that will almost certainly appeal to folks looking for a new musical anime to catch this fall. Plus, there's this utterly unnecessary bit of science-fantasy world-building involving the magical psychic-drug-liquid-metal thing that has become ubiquitous worldwide. It's stupid as hell, and I love it.

With all that praise out of the way, though, I have to address my biggest caveat, the proverbial pebble-in-the-shoe that caused me to bump my grade for this premiere from a 4 to a 3.5: The music sucks. Now, far be it from me to pretend that the songs of BAE and Co. are even aspiring to be anything greater than silly party rock anthems (Some sample lyrics: “Badass Beats & my Rhyme and Flow is Airplane” and “Ooo woah, no matter where you go, Shake it BAE Sounds Gonna Rock the World”). Unfortunately, I find this strain of junk-food pop to be more irritating than infectious, most of the time, at least when it isn't being filtered through a layer of Lonely Island-style jokes. Also, speaking of parody bands—and this is going to be a problem for, like, .000001% of the people watching this show—one of the guys in BAE sounds distractingly like Dan from Ninja Sex Party.

The point is, for as much as I admire the production values of Paradox Live, I do not vibe with the kind of music that will be front and center for the majority of the time, so I honestly don't think I'll have much fun watching it from week to week. Maybe it's a matter of mood, and I'll find myself coming back to the show a few months from now and eating my words, but until then, I'll leave it on the list of “Maybe Someday” anime that keep piling up in my backlog all year round.

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Rebecca Silverman
Rating:

I hope fans of the game this is based on enjoy it because I was a little lost as someone who hasn't played them. Maybe that's deliberate because the main characters seem a little confused too, and who can blame them – a club (or CLUB, for some reason) that vanished ten years ago has suddenly not only sent out invitations to a musical battle but also reappeared in its same form. It is name-dropping a band that hasn't been heard from in a decade. Even with what the episode tells us is the discovery of “phantometal,” a metallic compound that can generate mass hallucinations, that's pretty darn weird. Tack onto all of this a billion (yen? dollar?) cash prize for winning, and the result is an offer that's both hard to refuse and hard to accept at face value.

That may turn out to be for a good reason. I can't help but wonder what side effects using phantometal might produce, and not just because of the chunky necklace floating in a mysterious liquid we see toward the beginning. At the end of the episode, Allen, one-third of the group BAE, seems to be convinced that he's vomiting fire, or at least sees flames instead of bathroom sink water and feels nauseous, and since we've seen him kiss his chunky necklace before performing, the two things may be related. It doesn't seem like phantometal is safe to ingest, and that should worry everyone and could indicate nefarious motivations behind the entire competition.

Or this could be an excuse to draw nighttime CLUB scenes, indulge in a host of attractive characters with traits rather than personalities, and merrily write word salad English lyrics, like “flow is an airplane.” If that's the case, it's fine because this episode just oozes style. Allen's bandmates Hajun and Anne always look sleek and stylish, even when asleep on the living room table after an all-nighter, and each group has its oroprietary look designed to appeal to a different set of viewers. They've even got your hot older men fans covered with The Cat's Whiskers and preternaturally pretty boys in Cozmez. (Anne does appear to be the only woman, though.) It's hard to speak to the music right now because only BAE has performed (twice), but I imagine that'll be a draw as well.

The long and the short of it is that I don't feel particularly welcomed by this episode. It feels very much like it's for preexisting franchise fans. It's interesting to look at, but that's not quite enough to make me go any further.

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Nicholas Dupree
Rating:

Paradox Live throws a ton of lights and colors in your face up front, and it's pretty disorienting. First, we're in a nightclub! But then there's a dead body outside! Then some anime science is happening in a lab! There's a necklace in a giant glowing vat! Now, back to the nightclub, where we've got characters performing on stage with magic(?) imagery and illusions! That constitutes the first two minutes or so of the premiere, and it's altogether too much and too disparate, starting the episode off on shaky footing that it never recovers from.

It calms down after that, introducing the sci-fi nonsense of “Phantometal” and the actual plot and characters. However, by the time you properly orient yourself from that sensory overload, it's hard to get too attached. I can appreciate the parts of the premiere that miss a lot of the pitfalls these mixed media promo anime often fall into. The rap trio, BAE, takes most of the focus, which helps prevent the character overload that shows like these often suffer from. That makes for a fairly smooth introduction to the world and the whole setup for what's set to be a series of rap battles, and it looks pretty nice to boot. There are wonky moments involving CG environments where characters are moving at a different frame rate, but everything looks slick and stylish in design and animation. The CG performances take a bit of getting used to, but they use the fully 3D characters and environments well.

Of course, a show about battling rap groups with a sci-fi twist that creates holographic imagery based on their songs can't help but draw comparisons to Hypnosis Mic. Paradox Live is nominally more grounded in its setting – there's no tyrannical government stomping out violence through government-administered microphones – so it may lose some who are looking for a similar camp factor. However, the one area where this series doubtlessly wins is the music. While not every line delivered by BAE is excellent, they are significantly less wack than any of the bars from HypMic, and the production is eons better. I'm most interested in the non-insert portions of the soundtrack, courtesy of Taku Iwasaki, but the two performances we see here are leagues more listenable than its spiritual predecessor.

Though Paradox Live is loud and flashy, it didn't leave a huge impression on me. Perhaps it needed to be a little more outlandish with its premise, or maybe the character needed a stronger hook than “cool design” and “decent rhymes” to really grab me. If nothing else, I respect it for not making me cringe through its songs, but I probably won't be watching more.