Reviewed @ch36.5
First of all: This has one of the best first chapters of any series I've ever read. It's truly impressive how it made me run through the whole gamut of emotions, making me switch emotions sometimes within just a few s. And the art is so good, and those 3 coloured pages were simply perfect.

A big drawback in this series is that we have so many parts where characters sing but obviously we can't hear them. We just get reactions from them and their audience. That's simply something the manga medium can't overcome, but it makes me really wish for an anime some day. Considering this is the mangaka of New Game!, that doesn't seem an out-of-this-world possibility.

One thing that's both a plus and a minus in this series is how it rushes the plot to the training camp. The first two audition stages before this are done within a few chapters. Which I appreciate, because...we're getting to the meat of the series. But I also wonder if we lost anything in the rush? At least we get flashbacks to some of the newer character's earlier stage auditions, so there's that.

Which brings me to another strength of this series: it develops and brings focus to its secondary characters (the other idol trainees) really well, for the most part. At this point in the series there's about 2 that still feel very unknown and a couple others that could be developed more, but I'm sure they will be simply from how well the other more-than-10 have been (apart from one character, the older sister, who I'm not impressed with)

I binged this in one day, the day after I binged Girl Crush. In contrast, this is a lot lighter in tone with a much more positive main character and a more game-like training process (which makes sense, cos it's a tv show). I...was thinking of rating this a 8.5, like I did Girl Crush, but tbh I had a more enjoyable time reading this, probably due to the lighter tone. So I'll probably give it almost a 9.

Also, yes, this is a yuri series. Mostly due to one character. BUT romance is sooooo not a focus. It's like not even a secondary thing, more a quarternary level focus. Because these folks are waaaay too busy for that.