The Anime I’d Really Like To See: MIDDLE-SCHOOL GIRLS WHO ARE SECRETLY POP STARS

(This post is inspired by ghostlightning’s challenge.)

I would really like to watch an anime based on ClariS. I became a fan of them after watching (and loving) Oreimo, and I found their story to be really interesting: they’re middle-schoolers who made a lot of Nicovideo covers and got signed up to do an anime OP (and the rest is history), while keeping their gig a secret from their family and friends. Hence, no photographs of them exist, and their visual representation is drawn by artists who were tied to the anime projects they worked in.

There is great potential for this setup. What would their daily lives be like? Being a teenager is a huge struggle for attention, and it’s a lot of pressure for someone who has a public face to not show that facet of them to their loved ones. How do our Clara and Alice cope? Do they get along all the time? Well they shouldn’t! I want conflict, occasionally of the relationship-ending magnitude, wherein they’ll reforge their friendship to be even stronger than before. This should be the real meat of the show, juggling personal relationships along with career.

Can our talented duo keep at it? I also want this show to be not moe. I don’t want it to perpetuate The Idol Lie, where idols act as unreasonably perfect as their image outside of their jobs. Instead of The iDOLM@STER, I want my ClariS anime to be more like SDF Macross, with characters who are as flawed as they are awesome. This is not to disparage moe (I loved The iDOLM@STER!). I just want to watch a show that has a deeper emotional depth, and being moe would limit it in that regard. I don’t want it to sugarcoat its main characters. Clara and Alice may be damn good singers and have admirable work ethic, but beneath that veneer of professionalism they’re still middle-schoolers. They have license to act like immature teens, but since they’re awesome, they can rise above it.

I want them to have a cool manager, a mature woman who’s their mother at work, and a big sister outside of it. She should give good advice on career and life, and maybe love?? And maybe help Clara and Alice out when they’re having a fight (but not too much, otherwise it’s just coddling). Family and friends should play an important role, so they have to be properly fleshed out and have realistic relationships with the girls. How would Clara approach her best friend, who’s a fan of their work? Can Alice perform her job well, despite knowing that her father strongly disapproves of pop music?

Looking for a studio to animate this, I think I’d go for AIC Build, since I envision it to have the same art style as Oreimo. Character designs should be the same, since I like Hiro Kanzaki’s rendition of them the most. Goes without saying that ClariS should perform the OP/ED for their own show! 26 episodes for enough meat.

This is just the first out of a bunch of shows I’d really like to see, since I have wide and varied tastes. I’ll write them down as they percolate!