I decide what anime I’m going to watch every season very haphazardly. I don’t really plan things out. Sure there are one or two things I want to watch, and I pick some based on what seems popular or well-received, but for the most part, I pick things based purely on art or looking mildly interesting. Now, you’d think I’d be more thoughtful for episode reviews. Guess what? I’m not.

At this point, I tend to do two a season. One is usually a rom-com of some kind, and the other is a random series that I pick just for the hell of it. I usually try to pick series that seem interesting and aren’t the most popular of the season. So I go for some kind of middle ground in between while also looking for something that’s interesting for me.

Cue was mostly one of those things. I thought the concept of a series about voice actresses was super interesting. I already think that’s a fascinating career path, it’s important to a lot of things I enjoy, and I’m not super informed on all the stuff that entails. It looked fun. I was well aware nobody would actually care about the series, though. It looked horribly mediocre, and it was, really.

That’s what makes Cue interesting. It looks horribly mediocre. Like really bland. Like the type of series that you’ll forget halfway into it. And to some extent, yes, that’s true. Most episodes were pretty mediocre. They were almost always self-contained plots. Many of the stories never really went anywhere, and everything was predictable. It was a very meh, very average series.

But I still liked it and still think it’s an alright series, but that’s largely because of the reason I wanted to watch it in the first place. I was curious about watching and learning about the world of VAs. Seeing what they go through, seeing how things are recorded for anime. I wanted to see all of the behind-the-scenes stuff. And if there’s one thing Cue got right, it was that. It’s a pretty good anime about VAs.

They somehow managed to showcase a lot of interesting facets of this VA world in pretty much every episode, even if the conclusions to them were often bland or predictable. They continued to show things off that I would never have thought about before watching the series and always left me with something fascinating to consider.

I always thought it would just be recording in a studio. Not episodes about becoming virtual idols (even if I don’t get it). Not seeing how stressful a small-town voice actress can have it when she’s idolized by everyone she knows. Not an episode about crazed fans leading VAs on a hunt across town. Cue makes a lot of weird choices with some of its episode plots, but almost all of them are always fascinating and show off the VA world in a different way.

Cue is extremely mediocre overall. I don’t think many people will disagree with that. But it wasn’t written poorly, I don’t think, or at least the writers knew somewhat what they wanted to do. Because even though the series has like 16 main characters, pretty much every single one gets plenty of time to develop. It leads to them being a tad generic and one-dimensional, but you feel like you know each character by the end, which is impressive.

With that being said, I can’t ignore the elephant in the room with the characters. Well, actually maybe I can. Cue certainly did. Haruna started out as the main main character, as I joked about. The series started with her. It set up this whole plot about her, and she was the one we followed at the beginning. And then Cue completely forgot about her. 

Seriously, of all the characters, Haruna is probably the one they gave the least time to and the one that accomplished the least out of everyone, which is kind of remarkable when you really think about it. The only real thing of note she does is getting a role voice acting a side character in an anime. Impressive, but not when there are 15 other people that all started when you did and are in much better places.

Not to be too mean to Haruna. I liked her a lot, but Cue certainly didn’t. I think the whole series was put together in a pretty good way. For as many characters as there were, they did a decent job at making them all feel unique, for the most part, and gave them some personality. It was impressive in the weirdest way to me.

I fully expected Cue to be some trash, or at least be mediocre, and that’s exactly what it was. But it was somehow the most interesting mediocre series I’ve ever seen. They knew what they wanted to do and went out and did it to the best of their abilities. I really feel like this staff could have made something really good. Maybe a better IP, maybe a bigger budget, but I think the talent is definitely there.

I was very surprised by Cue, and I think a lot of people would enjoy it. Just don’t think it will blow your mind or anything. What it does show, is that decent content can come from the most unexpected of places, even if it isn’t some hidden gem or anime of the season. I’ll probably not give this any awards for the Spring, but I still want to recognize it as being shockingly good for what it is.

Thank you very much for reading

Watch some random series every now and then.