This anime didn’t hold my attention. It’s pretty and shows promise but tells the story too slowly. Earlier fears and motivations from the characters might appeal to a young girl and so its safe to theorise that I’m firmly not the target market.
Weirdly, the thing I liked most about the anime was the clever sponsorship with Subaru. The main character in Wish Upon the Pleiades is also called Subaru.
The story picks up when amateur stargazer Subaru goes to her local observatory to prepare for a meteor shower. She gets more than she bargained for and ends up joining a group of magical girls, riding on cleverly car-styled broomsticks in a mission to recover fragments of an alien spaceship.
The alien missing his spaceship is a super cute and tends to sit on the girls’ shoulders.
So why did I like the Subaru sponsorship? It helped make the anime happen, okay, no, I didn’t like the show but I’m glad this level of corporate deal-making happens. We didn’t get logos slapped everywhere, ala Kingsglave, but went with a boldly named lead character and clever references to motor cars with the teams’ witch-like flying sticks.
My problem with the show was the lack of pace. It was a road movie with the characters simply going through the motions of collecting pretty spacecraft parts. There were attempts at danger but that was safely washed away by rainbow smiles and friendships. There were attempts at conflict and tension within the group but it never raised above ‘talking point’ on the seriousness scale.
Wish Upon the Pleiades is beautifully animated and I’m sure any viewer looking for a gentle ride will appreciate it more than I did. I have to presume the goal was to target mothers looking for a safe car for their children? Or perhaps even to introduce the Subura brand nice and early to young teens.
Overall? Not one I’d recommend but I’m sure there’s mileage there for others.
My copy of Wish Upon the Pleiades was provided for review.
