The Winter 2019 Anime Preview Guide

B-PROJECT: Zeccho Emotion

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The boys of B-PROJECT are back, trying to endure after the surprise loss of Mr. Yashamaru last season. It's easier for the guys than it is for Tsubasa, their only remaining A&R person. The young woman is running her legs off trying to get from one spin-off group's event to another, barely getting a chance to sit down before she has to be on the move again. The boys are willing to help as much as they can, but she doesn't want to let them – it's her job after all! But things are only going to get busier for Tsubasa when she gets some surprising news: a fourth subgroup is being folded into B-PROJECT, and now she'll have to be in charge of KiLLER KiNGS as well! B-PROJECT: Zecchō Emotion is part of a media mix franchise and streams on Crunchyroll, Fridays at 12:30 PM EST.

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Rebecca Silverman

Rating:

Noooo, B-PROJECT, don't do this to me – don't add four more characters who look vaguely like the other ten characters and expect me to remember their names!! Because right now that's the major diving off point for this second season of the okay-but-not-great B-PROJECT: the eponymous supergroup is folding a fourth smaller one into their midst. KiLLER KiNGS joins Kitakore, MooNs, and THRIVE in the larger boy idol group, which takes everyone by surprise, in part because Tsubasa doesn't have a chance to tell the original cast, but also because no one really saw a need to expand on their line-up.

While this certainly stands to shake things up, especially for the more reserved members of B-Pro like Goshi, the real problems are going to be for Tsubasa. The endgame of season one revealed that Yashamaru, the man who scouted Tsubasa, was not who they thought he was, and he left the production company, which means that when season two opens, Tsubasa is entirely in charge. That's a lot to throw on her plate, not just because she's young (as her coworkers seem to think), but because she's still fairly inexperienced. The poor young woman spends the entire episode running from Kitakore to THRIVE to MooNs with nary a break in between, and when she says she's dizzy at the end of the episode, I'd be willing to bet that's at least in part because she hasn't had anything to eat. If she's not careful, she's going to end up dead and reincarnated in an isekai series.

This is where the show has room to develop, of course. We saw Tomohisa seem to express an interest in her in season one, and if she's not going to collapse, at least one of the guys is going to have to step up and take an interest in her well-being, if only because she's more likely to listen to them than anyone else at this point. Developing Tsubasa as a character and her relationship with some of the members of B-PROJECT could be a good plot thread for the show to follow, although doubtless there will be some drama as KiLLER KiNGS tries to fold into the larger group as well. None of this is particularly poised to make this as successful as IDOLiSH7, although it does have more development potential than UtaPri. If you enjoyed season one, there's no reason why this shouldn't be appealing as well, unless the addition of more characters to sing catchy bubblegum songs is a major turnoff. This episode didn't do much beyond reintroduce the returning characters and give us the premise, but the likelihood that this will still be fluffy fun feels high.