Music Adaptation by Drive
Streaming on Funimation

Premise

Otonomiya Saku is a transfer student with an apparently amazing vocal range, and who the Singing Club at his new school are excited about for his potential to perform the song they plan on using for an upcoming competition. Meanwhile, some kind of mysterious force or beings known as the “white shadows” are making themselves known, not only to Saku but also to some of the teachers at the school, who seem to want to use its/their power in some way for an as yet unknown purpose.

Artemis’ verdict: Wake Me When It’s Over

I’ve watched (or at least tried to watch) a fair number of idol anime before and enjoyed almost none of them. In comparison, while Actors is far from the worst title out there, it’s about as bland as its possible to be with 10+ characters (I honestly lost count of exactly how many there are, and didn’t even attempt to remember all their names after the first few) and a vaguely-hinted at supernatural element. It’s just really hard for me to like any show, or to take it remotely seriously, when every character has a perfectly coordinated hair and eye colour that probably says all that will ever need to be said about their personality, or when the older sister of one of the main protagonists has Incurable Anime Disease, or when the music sounds like… well, generic anime idol music.

I tried to go into Actors with an open mind, I really did. Unfortunately, it has none of the grounded realism of Shounen Hollywood, out-there weirdness of Sekkou Boys, or crazy energy of Uta no Prince-sama. To be fair, it’s also not attempting to make fanservice its main selling point – for all the bare-chested moments of the OP and ED, Actors seems to be going for something a little deeper than that, and I suppose that counts for something – but that’s about as charitable as I can be after a truly insipid first episode. I don’t know if there are any other music shows airing this season, but if so, I’m just going to assume they’re more interesting than this one, if only because it would be really hard not to be.