Dancing onto the scene recently is the cheerful idol series Shine Post to blu-ray courtesy of the folks at Sentai Filmworks. Give your heart to these idols and let’s move forward into a bright future!

Haru, Kyoka and Rio are members of the J-idol group TiNgS, and the president of the talent agency they work for, Brightest Productions, has given them an ultimatum that if they can’t sell out the Nakano Sunplaza, which holds several thousand people, then they will be disbanded. Since they’ve barely managed to scrape together a couple dozen people for an audience so far, this task seems impossible. However, they are assigned a new manager who claims to have no interest in managing idols anymore. Can this new manager ignite a spark in these girls that will send reverberations through the world, creating a guidepost that will provide a shining light on a path to everyone loving idols?

Yes, here we have yet another idol series. There are a lot of these. Most of them are ok but nothing special. On the surface Shine Post doesn’t really stand out much either. It has the bright and colorful visuals and the bouncy soundtrack one would expect of this kind of show. Also like many of these idol series, the characters also seem to be fairly one dimensional (the sweet and relatable lead, the reliable one that cracks dumb jokes, the clutzy and arrogant one) on a first glance. But if you give Shine Post a chance, the series put a lot of focus on character growth, and you really start to care for these girls and want them to not just succeed but overcome their personal flaws and insecurities that are holding them back. Another thing I liked about Shine Post is that it isn’t an over-glamorized portrayal of the idol life. We see the girls sweating and breathing hard after a dance number. We see them during mundane practices, working out problems in their routines. We see them just going to a fast food place and eating a burger every now and then. This series has an element of grounded realism to it that I don’t often see outside slice-of-life anime, and it is certainly much appreciated. Honestly my biggest complaint with the series is that as the characters become better idols through the series, other characters comment on their skills. But particularly with the dancing, I just didn’t see much of a difference in how they were dancing at the beginning to how they were at the end. Of course, maybe this is more on me as someone who doesn’t really pay a lot of attention to the nuances of dance routines.

This is a 2022 series and Sentai delivers a predictably crisp and clean image that really lets those bright colors pop. On the audio front, we’re given a DTS-HD 2.0 audio track which sounds nice and clean. But this is another one of those series that could’ve benefited from a 5.1 mix to show off the dynamism of the songs. The extras are pretty standard for a Sentai release, just the OP and ED animations. I know some of these idols shows have promotional music videos and behind-the-scenes type stuff produced showing the live action actresses recording the songs, that sort of thing. I can’t help but wonder if that sort of thing might’ve been available for Shine Post.

I can’t say that I wait with baited breath for the next idol series but honestly Shine Post’s sense of realism couple with its charm sets it apart and makes it worth checking out if you are into more character-driven anime.