Hikaru feels like the average teenager, nothing special to her, although everyone who hears “the songstress of the public bath” insists that her voice is something special.
But even when a world-famous music producer says that he’s looking to create a new idol unit, one made of “special people,” Hikaru still hesitates to audition, fearful of being judged on the thing she loves the most. It’s not until her childhood friend Ran convinces her “If you can put in effort, that means you’re already a special person” that Hikaru agrees to audition with her and try to become members of Girls in the Light!
I’m not sure you could call any story about becoming an idol “realistic” (or about any position in show business for that matter) both due to the sheer variety of ways people enter show business in real life and the inherent attempts to glamorize work found throughout fiction. However, Hikaru in the Light! is certainly a more down-to-Earth story than most idol tales and it feels refreshing to have an idol series with so few structural gimmicks involved. It does say something about show business that even a series whose initial premise involves going through a rigorous competition dubbed “a survival camp” doesn’t seem too far-fetched, really it just seems like generic song competition that you see all over American TV! While the series may be trying to differentiate itself from other idol shows with that catchy wording in the premise, “an idol survival game,” I think it should instead be focusing on the girls themselves and the fresh feeling they bring to a story that’s as old as time.
While the story is set to introduce more girls, and from what has been shown so far many of them do have the more typical “quirks” I associate with anime and manga idols, our initial main characters are the childhood friends Hikaru and Ran and they both truly do feel refreshingly “normal.” While Ran has already been a part of another idol group for years, Hikaru hasn’t and is having the typical teenaged worries about what she wants to put down on her career plan, if her singing really is as good as everyone around her says it is, and if she wants to pursue being an idol instead of “stuff that you can only do now”. The two of them have a friendly and honest relationship with each other, tinged with just a bit of competition (since no one knows just how many idols there will be in the final group, making everyone a rival). While Hikaru’s main character status is secure, I hope that Ran doesn’t become just another background character now that there’s more competition for page space, her frankness with Hikaru had me cracking up and really enjoying how their friendship played out.
Sometimes it’s harder to enjoy a music-focused manga series since you do miss out on all of the actual music and movement but with Mai Matsuda’s lively artwork, and again the great interactions between characters, I never felt like I was missing out. The art and character designs are on the simpler side but simple is hardly bad; it may not have the most innovative panel framing or the most intricate shading/screentones but Matsuda’s art has a confidence to it that matches the characters and the story well.
Of course, I wouldn’t say no to a full anime adaption with song and dance but for the moment, I’m perfectly pleased to be reading this story of aspiring idols and the obstacles that they need to overcome, and looking forward to more!