English Dub Season Review: Heroines Run the Show: The Unpopular Girl and the Secret Task Season One

Overview (Spoilers Below):

After leaving her high school in her hometown to pursue a career in track & field, Hiyori Suzumi (Sarah Wiedenheft) is a high school girl who becomes a manager-in-training for the high school idol unit LIPxLIP by enrolling in Tokyo’s Sakuragaoka High School. Chaos ensues when she looks for a part-time job in Tokyo as she starts working as an apprentice manager as well for her classmates and, to her surprise, the LIPxLIP members.

Our Take:

Heroines Run the Show is an anime series directed by Noriko Hashimoto and written by Yoshimi Narita. It is based on the song “Heroine Tarumono”, which is part of the Kokuhaku Jikko Iinkai: Ren’ai Series Vocaloid song project by HoneyWorks. The series is produced by Lay-duce, the animation studio behind other shows like Magi: Adventure of Sinbad and Fanfare of Adolescence. Kaori Ishii serves as a character designer and chief animation director, while Moe Hyuga composes the music. The opening theme song, “Julietta”, is performed by the in-story group LIPxLIP. The ending theme song “Tokyo Sunny Party” is sung by Inori Minase, Ayane Sakura, and Saori Hayami, who voiced Hiyori, Juri, and Chizuru in the Japanese dub.

Before this show, I was not into idols as much as the next guy. I enjoyed listening to music from other boy bands like One Direction and the Jonas Brothers. However, the idols that reside in a different country are a tough sell for me. So my interest in this drama series was pretty low compared to the others I watched. It wasn’t until after I read the show’s synopsis that I decided to volunteer to cover Heroines Run the Show. It’s safe to say that after watching the first few episodes, I didn’t regret making that decision.

It started being a bit annoying at first, mainly due to Hiyori’s voice and LIPxLIP’s mean-spirited personalities. Fortunately, it gradually grew more charming and heartfelt as the show progressed. The first few episodes cover Hiyori balancing her schoolwork and her career in track and field with her secret manager-in-training job. During the process, she has to deal with the LIPxLIP members, Aizo (Aaron Campbell) and Yujiro (Kyle Igneczi), who constantly fight each other and make her new job unbearable.  

Characters who display rude behaviors can be tricky to pull off sometimes because of the writers’ limitations to make them jerks. If they push their jerkiness too far, they’ll alienate their audience or make them want to tear the characters apart. At the same time, the writers have to inject some charm and development into the characters’ egotistical characteristics to make them likable. I’m glad to say that they handled this balance reasonably well. Sure, Aizo and Yujiro are still assholes when they’re not in public, but they provide some growth in their characters as they gradually warm up to Hiyori amid their rudeness throughout the season.

The same goes for Hiyori, who finds herself on a coming-of-age journey while getting caught in the crossfire. While she maintains her spirit full of motivation, support, and determination, most episodes offer some decent development in Hiyori to provide extra layers to her energetic personality. In “Idols are Amazin’!”, she learns to focus on her own goal to be a track-and-field athlete after injuring her ankle while getting the ribbons. “Producing Hiyori” has her slowly learning to appreciate her appearance while dressing up for a special outing. Sarah Wiedenheft, who recently voiced Martes in Estab Life: Great Escape, was a solid choice in voicing Hiyori due to her dynamic nature. Although, it will depend on how much you tolerate her voice in her previous projects. As mentioned earlier, she was a bit irritating at first, but she grew to be funny and charismatic as the show progressed.

While the first eight episodes were suitable pieces of slice-of-life entertainment, the last four are some of the main reasons why I enjoyed this show. Starting with its ninth episode, “Scandal”, the show focuses on Hiyori and LIPxLIP encountering a scandal that threatens to ruin their careers, resulting in her quitting her job. It was later revealed that one of Hiyori’s friends, Chizuru, was the one who started it due to her jealousy towards Hiyori for hanging out with Aizo and Yujiro more often.  

These episodes represent a light-hearted yet honest depiction of how a scandal affects others physically and mentally, ranging from people gossiping to hateful social media comments. It also shows how a person responsible for starting it can cause harm to one’s self and others when overwhelmed by jealousy. Unfortunately, my only issue with it is that the consequences for Chizuru’s actions weren’t fully realized aside from her guilt, making her character a bit challenging for me to empathize with. Besides that, the scandal arc was a great way to conclude the show’s first season outside of LIPxLIP’s concert performances.

The animation was unsurprisingly lovely regarding its backgrounds and slice-of-life elements. However, the concert moments with LIPxLIP outside of school are where the style truly shines. The concert sequences were illuminating and vivid in their lighting and vibrant colors, and the characters’ dance routines were nicely choreographed in animation form. The best example of this was the season one finale, “Passion is Unbeatable”, where LIPxLIP performs at the New Year Countdown event. The character movements in that performance were attractively fluid, and the background was lively enough to inject some spark into the musical number. It resembles being at an actual boy band concert without paying for the overpriced tickets.

Overall, I find Heroines Run the Show to be a charming surprise. I wasn’t expecting to enjoy it as much as those who like idol-related shows, but the series proved me wrong. From its likable characters to the beautiful animation, the show is an amusing and heartfelt piece of slice-of-life drama that’s as appealing as an actual idol. It’s unclear whether it’ll continue with a second season or if it’s just a one-time thing. If they are moving forward with another season, I hope it’ll be just as charismatic as its delightful first season.