Catch the other episode reviews here

Last episode was a trip. There was royalty, helicopters, it all felt like a fever dream, and maybe it actually was.

First Impressions

We begin with Maika recording one of her lines, and the directors, or whoever the people watching over the voice stuff are, aren’t too happy with how she’s doing, so they make her repeat the line. She does this many more times, fumbling it a bunch until she gets a decent one.

Ah, so I haven’t explained this yet because I didn’t fully grasp it, but the VAs have split into teams, and they all hang out outside of work and stuff. I think they do it based on who they voice in Bloom Ball. Anyway, Maika is working with a bunch of professionals now, and they’re giving her the cold shoulder and don’t want to be friends. She’s not happy about that.

She’s also not happy about getting too into her own head. The climax of the show is coming up, and she’s having a hard time trying to be perfect, which is impossible. Meanwhile, Vogel is busy with their jazz, and the leftovers are cosplaying the Wizard of Oz cast for some kids. So clearly, they’re more successful than an accomplished VA at this point, I guess.

Maika is feeling the pressure from actually succeeding at her dream, probably a bit too quickly. That’s kind of why I had a few months of downtime before anyone really knew about the blog. I wanted some time. She didn’t get that.

To be fair, I get Maika. She has little experience and is asked to be a main character alongside pro VAs. They might be asses that sigh every time she doesn’t get something right, but they still have skill, though they clearly need to remember where they came from bit. It does make the VA world seem cutthroat. I will say that.

I’m assuming everything, but it does feel realistic. I feel like it would be pretty easy for a pro to look down on others in a field like this, but I guess that’s anything, right? A lot of people just lose their humility along the way. I mean, people like that are failures in my mind regardless of their success, but what do I know? Wait, what was I talking about? Oh, yeah.

So Maika keeps sucking hard at the line, but with the power of friendship and realizing she’s not alone, she learns what she’s doing and gets it done. Happy ending, yay.

My Thoughts

Good episode. I liked it. I like the VA stuff the most, and I like that we’re starting to add a bit of everything in instead of just focusing on one group. It’s nice.

I’ve said before that what Cue is best at is showing all of the different problems and situations that stem from being a VA, as well as all the opportunities you can have. This episode, once again, did that. I can’t help but think there were actually some fairly competent people behind this anime. They seem to know what they’re doing.

We’ve seen some VA struggles before, but this whole idea was pretty interesting to me. I know they often record together, but I never thought about how one bad VA could screw things for everyone in the scene. That’s exactly what Maika did, and I feel really bad for her. I wouldn’t want to do that, but she’s inexperienced. It’s not her fault.

That’s what has been interesting about Cue. Not only am I learning a lot about VAs and the work they do, but it’s also actually showing me some of the problems those in that profession face. It really is a surprisingly solid series. It does what you expect a little better than I thought it would. It’s nice.

And big props to not only the VAs in the show, but the VAs doing them. I mentioned before a lot of the characters are also first-time VAs in anime, and the fact that they’re being asked to voice act a voice actor voicing a character incorrectly is fascinating and anyone who can do that is very talented. It’s pretty damn cool.

Thank you very much for reading

VAs are cool.