A delightful easy to watch anime, to give you those positive wibes when you need them. Or make you sad with the reassurance that it is all going to work out in the end. This show is all about that feel-good attitude.
If one should be looking to wind down after a hard day, enjoy some comfort or just enjoys cutesy, happy animes, this should be right up your alley. Cue! also sheds light on the carreer path of voice acting and how there is many more ways to make that dream a reality than just voicing a character in an anime/show. A must watch if one is thinking of setting down on that path.
Characters
Cue!'s focus points are definitely the characters, there being 16 main characters. Only at the start one characters seems to rise above the rest for the purposes of starting out the story, but quickly all of them will be hogging the spotlight one after another. This leads to a terrific diversity in episodes as who and what will be covered changes so often, but still managing to hold some sort of overall narrative together as well. Even though 16 characters are a challenge to manage, Cue! rises to it and handles it well, after 24 episodes all of the characters had their arcs, their past, current troubles or future wishes. With such a diverse cast finding a favorite or many to root for should not be hard, but such a big cast has a downside of limiting the screentime of the favorite one might have.
Story
There story lacks a clear overall narrative, but the seeds for such are laid down, but not entirely fully explored yet. Cue! focuses more on the episodic story structure, the past of course mattering, but there not being a clear "final objective" other than everyone aiming to be voice actresses. Opportunities present themselves and doors for opportunities close, for the characters, so slice of life indeed. Overall this was handled nicely, story and episodic story arcs were good and often surprising in how they were solved.
Animation
Given that this is a slice of life animation and not a flashy-effects action show, animation of lower quality would do too, but the animation quality was surprisingly solid. Characters being lively and sprinkling in even some of those action sequences by showing what they were voice acting for in real time. Most of that was sketch stuff, due to those productions being in progress, which was a nice realistic detail to hold on to.
Sound, music and voice acting
Given that this show was about voice acting, it would be beyond ironic if the voice acting was poor, fortunately that was the exact opposite. Every character is equipped with a distinct, fitting voice. Sound effects as well as music was fitting but not exactly memorable, though succeeding in enhancing the scenes and their effect. Though some of the songs the characters performed were pretty great. Second opening was nice as well.
Meta level thoughts
You can really put your brain in a twist when you think of this show on the meta level, voice actors behind the show acting as voice actors acting as voice actors acting out a specific character in the show. So many layers to pay attention when doing the voice acting for this show. Personally that is really interesting, and how many things said in the show apply to itself, voice acting in general and probably to the making of the anime, showing a bit of fun self awareness. I also heard many of the voice actors of the show are also first timers or just starting out citation needed, making the show happen in real life as well as in anime, in a way. If there ever was a "slice of life realism level", this one would go through the roof. While I do not work in voice acting myself, but in an area that uses voice acting, I can easily see this being how it is done in many places, though some aspects of voice actor's work was not intorduced in the show, like recording lines on your own without a studio or working as a freelancer. Though that is to be expected as the Anime is all about being a voice actress in a big agency.
PS:
As this show lacked any public reviews, I jumped into the ring and wrote one, for I felt it was criminal such a show that clearly had a lot of passion go into, was lacking one. This is my first review and I am an anime N00B pls do not hurt me.
Screenshots
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