I have to admit, the ending of the first episode of Selection Project had me completely fooled. It seemed to be pointless drama, a cheap way to inject some tension into what seemed a foregone conclusion. As we follow our protagonist Miyama Suzune through the regional finals of the 7th season of the Selection Project, she seems to have it in the bag. We get flashbacks to her as a little girl stuck in hospital, listening to the winner of the first Selection Project, wanting to be an idol as well but knowing it’s impossible. We get to see her say goodbye to her family to go to the regional finals, where she meets up with the other candidates. It’s clear by the focus on her that she’s the best of the four candidates and will win easily. But then when she sang her song, this happens:
I always dislike the sports anime gimmick of having your protagonist lose because of a conveniently timed injury. What’s worse, in the very next episode it was resolved by having the actual winner drop out and Suzune taking her place as the runner up. I did not understand why this was needed, why this plot development was necessary. That’s because I was treating it as a standard idol competition show, rather than what it actually was: an anti-idol industry idol show. A show where everybody wins, everybody is friends and everybody is an idol:
Hang on, that sounds familiar. That sounds a lot like the Hibiki arc in PriPara season 2. In PriPara every girl could be an idol if she wanted to, until super idol Hibiki challenged that by arguing that no, only those with real talents should be idols and the rest should be content just watching it. And that’s exactly the attitude of a idol talent show like the Selection Project: there can only be one winner. And just like PriPara did, so too does Selection Project prove this attitude wrong.
You know how these shows are supposed to work. With every new challenge, every new stage some candidates are supposed to drop out. But here this never happens. Everybody wins, everybody survives. Even when in the final stage the nine girls are forced to vote themselves who needs to drop out, it doesn’t work. They all get disqualified because they all vote for themselves. And not even this is the end: the girls form their own, independent idol group called 9-tie (cutie) and hold street performances until they get big enough for the Selection Project production company to invite them back to hold the finals as a group rather than as rivals. Yes, of course this is all a very idealised view of the industry, but it works.
What gives this series its hear and why I should’ve trusted that Suzune’s convenient fainting was more than just cheap drama, is the relationship between her and Amasawa Akari, the idol who won the very first Selection Project. Akari died in a car crash three years ago and had been Suzune’s inspiration. For one of the fellow contestants though she was more than that, she was her sister. And Suzune has to team up with her, becomes friends and discovers just how much of Akari is in her. Suzune’s medical condition, the reasons why she was in hospital and how it still impacts her now, all are important and that convenient fainting was just the first hint of that. All of it is tied up with Akari and her younger sister and the way how is in hindsight very obvious, but again it worked.
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