Natsuki’s up at bat… or is it Satuski?
What They Say:
The six members of ST☆RISH, who have made their shocking idol debut, and Nanami Haruka, who has just begun her career as a composer, have advanced to Saotome Academy’s master course. As they continue their lessons in earnest to learn how to be top idols and composers, they join Shining Agency and begin to work as entertainers. But before that, some senpai idols and strange foreign idols with a few odd habits stand before them, and they end up getting dragged into the race for a mysterious “Newcomer Award.”
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
While the series focuses on the individual natures of the characters a lot, essentially giving them each their own episode in their pursuit of the Uta Pri, we do have moments where they all come together. The show did just that in the previous episode where everyone came out to help Jinguji with the fashion show as it turned badly due to a power failure. And sometimes things like that can lead to other things, such as Natsuki being scouted from it for a new commercial himself, this time a gravure job. While Satuski has done commercials before, this is obviously a little different, but he’s completely up for doing it simply because it’s work and anything can help a career sometimes.
Of course, he has to get support from others in their own way, but the first half is mostly focused on him spending time with Haruka and expressing his emotions and feelings with her. It’s a pretty nice and heartwarming bit as it goes along and we see them hanging out and being all mellow. But it changes up a bit as the shoot itself gets underway and the photographer keeps trying to draw out something more passionate and animalistic from him, which isn’t exactly his forte. Especially when you look back at his past commercial when he was much younger. The whole thing turns into a struggle for him that he does vocalize a bit with Haruka, since he needs that kind of shoulder to lean on, and she’s the ideal supportive type that knows exactly what to say of course.
Of course, he takes her advice to heart and gets all passionate and intense with her to show that he can do it, which has some great moments of hilarity to it with how he does things. It’s so out of character for him that you have to laugh as he switches from Natsuki to Satsuki. This proves to be very amusing as it turns the show into an action piece for a bit with the guys showing up at the right time and trying to fend him off. A lot of this tries to go to the core of the whole Natsuki/Satsuki problem with how Natsuki feels because of Satuski always being there to protect him, not realizing the changes that Satsuki has gone through since becoming a part of Starish and all those that are a part of it. It’s interesting to see the dynamic between the two personalities, and how Cecil gets involved in it lightly, but mostly just for the kind of simple revelations that are made which helps to nudge things forward a little.
In Summary:
Uta no Prince Sama doesn’t deviate from its course all that much here, but Natuski and his problems do present a different kind of flavor to things in comparison to what we’ve seen with the others. Having him involved in a gravure commercial is fun and seeing him step up to it works nicely, especially with how it pushes him close to Haruka for awhile, something that the other stories haven’t done quite as intensely as it does here. He gets his time to shine in two different ways because of his personality, but we also get the payoff as well that helps to make it easy to see why he is one of the dark horse favorites of the series.
Grade: B-
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Sony KDS-R70XBR2 70″ LCoS 1080P HDTV, Dell 10.1 Netbook via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.