Catch the other episode reviews here
last episode, I wrote the entire review at four in the morning for some strange reason, leading to a slightly more tired and sarcastic version of myself, two things I already am every day of my life anyway.
First Impressions
We start with really blurry visuals because Crunchyroll is having issues, but when that clears up, I see that there seems to be some type of red balloon floating around. In one of the weirdest sequences I’ve seen in a bit, four of the girls who we don’t really care about yet all chase after the same balloon, dropping it like morons over and over until they all meet up in what must have been an act of fate.
The aforementioned fate was because they were all going to be hosting a radio show together after a very abrupt cut. There was no lead into it, but I think that’s neat. Maybe a little outdated, just call it a podcast, but what do I know? So for the show, uh, Loner Girl, Fashion girl, uh Short Temper Unreasonable (maybe?) Girl and Classy Piano Girl all talk about themselves for their probably nonexistent audience as this is only the first show.
We learn that they apparently took in a cat at some point. Aya, the one I don’t really have a label for, got pissed that the cat had a owner. A whole thing went down, but what I realized is that the whole no pet rule was more of a suggestion. A cat ain’t no turtle. That’s straight-up one of the big pets.
After some childish behavior, Aya agrees to look for the owner and send her new kitty away forever. Long story short, there are a lot of tears (some from me, weirdly enough), and Mahoro (Red Head) gives this whole speech about how good of a person Aya is, really laying into the cat’s owner. This brings them all closer, so, naturally, they do a radio show afterward. Of course.
That’s actually about it. I mean, the freaking cat did some cute stuff, but they end the show and also the episode. Wasn’t a lot happening.
My Thoughts
That was a really slow episode. Pretty much all of it consisted of the four now important girls telling us stories. It makes sense. While there wasn’t much to talk about, this episode needed to exist. It gave us character building and a reason to care about four more of the characters, and it had a few cute moments throughout. Didn’t blow me away, but it was handled alright.
What this did do is confirm a sneaking suspicion I had that I’m pretty happy about. It really does seem like every AiRBLUE girl will get screen time. They really are going the extra mile with that, and that’s a really good thing. Last thing you want is a big cast that’s terribly underdeveloped. So good job, there.
I also see that they’re doubling down on something I said before. Rather than just showing voice acting, they are showing off many different mediums that use your voice as a tool. Idols, radio personalities, a bunch of things. They’re deciding the girls up who are all interested in the same thing and breaking them into groups tackling different parts of similar industries. It’s actually pretty cool.
This is something I wouldn’t have taken notice of a few years ago, but now, having the blog and taking writing very seriously, I see how many different aspects there are to that field. It’s not just writing, and even if it was, there are a lot of different ways to do it, from reviews to blogs, to news articles, to scriptwriting. It’s one field, but a lot of different ways to approach getting into it. That’s what Cue shows surprisingly well, if not a little plainly.
Once again, Cue is managing to somehow be somewhat bland, but actually bringing interesting topics to the table and handling the subject matter pretty well. It makes it really hard to judge the series. I think it has some heart behind it, and I think there’s definitely some talent, it just lacks a little polish, I would say. But there’s definitely some feeling behind it, and I look forward to how that continues now that we’re officially 25% done the series.
Thank you very much for reading
Remember, always follow red balloons unless there happens to be a clown in the area.
