Uta no Prince-sama Maji LOVE 2000% -13 [END]

Behold! STARISH’s ultimate shounen powerup!

Aaaaaaand it ends. Again. Maybe this wasn’t the greatest ending, but UtaPri managed to be ridiculous all the way to the final episode, so there’s something~.

So after the explosive last episode, the team quickly put itself back together. Not that STARISH has really had problems with the team falling apart this season, but still. HEAVENS was amazing indeed (and holy crap that crowd changes loyalties fast), but STARISH went on as usual after a pep talk from Haruka. …I was a bit disappointed in Haruka’s lack of screentime this episode to be honest, considering that she’s the heroine, but at least she managed to get a bit of badassery in there with slapping Eichi. If only she had gone for the face. I guess I’ll forgive the lack of Sawashiro insert song too because of that.

Happy Pulse? Is that what kids are calling LSD these days?

Man, I don’t care what kind of crazy scientific music pulse thing Shining has found, HEAVENS won in my opinion. Maji Love 2000% wasn’t nearly as impressive as the Heavens Gate (I think that’s the name of the song?) performance, and without the Happy Pulse or whatever I don’t think they would have won. I guess what they were going for was that having all of them combined is the equation to world happiness, but I kind of translated it to “they have some weird combination magic on their side, so they won.” Or even with their win being based on the aferglow or whatever, I would have liked to have seen it work on the crowd while they were singing as opposed to after. Maybe this is just me though. We saw random special effects all throughout the first performance. Maji Love 2000% just seemed so… normal after that. No, seeing the edge of the universe while you’re floating/glowing pink is not a normal reaction to watching 7 guys sing and dance (as much as I wish it was), but it would have been hilarious more meaningful to see the audience react like that while the song was going on. Though on the whole note of Shining’s shady research, seeing Shining’s intentions behind having Haruka (kind of ) jump through hoops all season was a relief to see. I mean, the man is insane. He’s done this before (though most of my examples come from the games… like showing his concern by planting explosives around the school), but it’s always nice to see how Shining has a whole reason to his madness.

This shit is Ryuuga approved 

But hey, they won and through Shining, HEAVENS managed to hold on to their careers as well. Damn it, I was hoping he’d swoop in and employ HEAVENS from Raging, so there’d be more chance for Haruka to interact with them in any future seasons. OH WELL, fabulousness and friendship won in the end. And hey, the senpai are getting together for real this time as QUARTET NIGHT –insert the same joke I made in the game reviews of being an idol = a name in capital letters here-. Actually, I really liked Poison Kiss from the first episode, so if we can hear all 4 of the senpai singing in the future, that would be awesome. …I’m not entirely sure what the point of them all agreeing to becoming a group is, but I would assume it’s something along the lines of STARISH teaching the senpai something because they’re just that special.

…I both liked Maji Love 1000% at the end, and at the same time, felt it was kind of cheap since that’s how they ended the first season. Yes, it rescued the ending for me (along with of everyone randomly losing their clothing and suddenly being in space), but I still wasn’t 100% satisfied with it. It didn’t even feel like a meaningful callback, but more like the writers didn’t know any other way to end the series and said “Screw it, let’s reuse the last season’s plot ending”. And on that note too, it wasn’t quite the same feeling of everyone finally working together and creating something amazing like the last season. It was more everyone doing what they’ve been doing all season (except this time they’re all preforming together), and things working out for them.

Well, whatever. I’m still LADY for a season 3.

So not the quite ending I was hoping for, but man was this series fun. 2000% had it’s moments, but overall, I loved it even more than I did 1000%. It took the things that were great about 1000% (the fabulousness, the awesome insert songs, Shining’s antics) and then added more greatness in the actual romance. The new characters were fun too (even though the senpai dropped off the face of the earth for a lot of the season). …I actually ended up liking Nagi, Kira and Eichi more than the regular cast actually. They had all of 4 episodes (not even) of introduction and were pulled in to the plot out of nowhere, but they were all really interesting. …Even though all three of them were pretty one dimensional and had nothing unique to their characters. Maybe this could have been sorted out if they had more screen time, but really, I was incredibly happy with what I saw. It’s rare that I’m happy with anime going off the original content, but Debut was horrible 2000% was way better than I expected and despite not having much intellectual content (not that 1000% had any either), this was just so much fun to talk about every week. So that’s it for this otome game adaptation. We’ll have to see how Brothers Conflict turns out (I’m almost done the game~). Oh and I guess I’ll be waiting for UtaPri music 2 in September as well since that seems to be the only other UtaPri related thing coming out right now. …Though I’m still hoping for an UtaPri game with HEAVENS as route options in it. Would I love a 3000%? HELL. YES.

Until next time~ ☆

About Karakuri

University student and the one at Metanorn who's known for wearing glasses. Likes blood, insanity and plot twists, but also plays otome games and adores cute romance anime. It balances out... somehow.