Uta No Prince-Sama

Against my better judgement, I watched all 13 episodes of Uta No Prince Sama, a reverse harem anime that was released in 2011 by A-1 Studio.  The anime is based on a series of hentai games.

My opinion of this show could be summed up with one sentence:This show is ridiculous.


The Music:
Since this anime is music themed, one would expect that it has spectacular music. Well, let's see.

From the get go viewers are introduced with the song that would change each character's life: 1000% Love. Oh where do I even begin with this song? I guess it's best start with the  title, 1000% Love. For some reason whenever someone exaggerate by claiming they are sure about something for more than 100% I think of Maury's paternity tests.

The lyrics is your typical boy band lyrics-I will love you forever whoever you are who is listening to this song.

Perhaps it's because this song is so horrible that the producers of the show chose to repeat this song over and over again in the series making the audience forget the fact that it is a bad song and just have fun with it.

And boy did the fangirls have fun with it. Fan performances of this song are in abundance, including the cheesy boy band dance moves. Quite frankly it is a shame because in my opinion this is the worst song in the entire series. Pick any other song in the series and I guarantee that it is a better song than 1000% Love.

I digress, I know most of my hate of the song comes from its lyrics. It does have a pretty good beat and that is the only good thing I could say about the song.

The other music in the series are all love songs that have a slower tempo.

 My personal favorite is Mirai no Chizu because I love the slow beat and the overlapping voices. I'm just not crazy about the video that comes along with it. If I was a thirteen year old who gets excited every time a guy shows interest in me I would be giddy about the video but I'm not.

The Boys: At its essence, this show is a reverse harem show. Reverse harem shows usually give us a wide variety of males to choose from. So, what do we suppose to think of the six men who are vying for the heroine's attention. Simple, we only the bare minimum about these characters.

It seemed that these characters are embodiment of a stereotype and are given little to no character development throughout the series. Like any anime, there's the lolita type, the prince type, the boy-next-door type. and on and on and on. All the boys' job in the series is to fall in love with the main character who herself has little memorable characteristics other than her caring personality. I guess you could say that she's the mother type. 

There are six boys that the main could character pick but I would only focus on two: Misato Hijirikawa and Natsuki Shinomiya.

Misato is the character that cements my opinion that this is purely a reverse harem anime. Let's face it, Misato is not boy band material nor is he pop star material. He merely exist in the franchise to cater to the traditional Japanese guy fangirls.

Ever since I saw him the first time while watching 1000% Love I thought to myself that this guy does not belong there. From his haircut to his bedroom, he just screams traditional hardworking Japanese who would choose either business or government as a career choice. Even his personality does not scream to me as the type of person who would aspire to be a pop star.

Now, before anyone gets up and arms about catering to stereotypes there are some scenarios where I could see him in the entertainment business.

One, if someone like Misato does enter the entertaiment business, I imagine him to be playing a traditional Japanese musical instrument along with the Yoshida brothers. (see left)

If he is not playing a traditional Japanese instrument, I imagine him to play either a flute, violin or the piano playing classical music.

Another scenario is that I imagine him to be a composer playing on the piano like the heroine.

Of the many things he could do in the music industry, he chose to become a popstar, a move that is totally out of left field for his personality.


Natsuki (shown in the right) is one of the more interesting characters in the series. He has a split personality, plays the violin and is bad at cooking despite his love for it.

I swear an entire episode could be dedicated on this guy alone but for some reason the developers chose not to. It's as if the directors choose to portray him as a ditz and that is exactly how he acted throughout the series. The only reason I even know that he plays the violin is because of the intro where he is seen calmly playing the violin.

My problem with this character is that so many things we could learn about this character but we are left to think that he is only a ditz. Here's a list of questions about this character:

• Why does he have an alter ego in the first place?
• When did he learn the violin? 
• Does he realize that he has horrible cooking?
• What happened to his dog Elizabeth? How close are they? 

The other four suitors are simply embodiments of their stereotype as mentioned above. If you want to know anything about them, just imagine a playboy, a friendly classmate, a short guy with height issues and a standoffish guy and chances are your imagination is pretty accurate.

A part of me thinks that the second season, which will come out this year, would answer all these questions but I do not see myself watching until I have absolutely nothing to do.

Final Verdict: If you are in love with music by Taylor Swift and have little to zero romantic experience, you might actually like this anime.The songs are cheesy, the main character is a generic shy girl and unfortunately so are her suitors.

As I said above, I would not recommend this anime to anyone as it is what I would call "Watch if you have absolutely nothing to do" kind of anime.

If you want a reverse harem anime, let me refer you to Ouran High School Host Club. The main character is different from the rest. The "suitors" have outrageous personalities, they know it and they own it. Even my younger brother likes this show and could not go three months without re-reading the manga.

I guarantee you will have a good time watching the series. 

If you want a music themed reverse harem anime, I suggest La Corda d'Oro. There is some character development in part of the main character. If you're not big on that, at the very least it has better music. After fishing the series you could impress your friends with your knowledge on classical music.






 Disclaimer: all media used on this post is purely for review purposes. Also,  this review may contain spoilers.