It’s hard to adapt any kind of otome game into an anime. Because they center around the person playing as the main character and are influenced based on the choices that the player makes, they often transfer poorly to a linear anime. Does this mean that it’s impossible to make a good anime adaptation of an otome game? Of course not! There’s a handful of shows that have done it decently, such asObey MeandCode Realize. However,Uta no Prince-Samadoesn’t fall into that category.
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TheUta no Prince-Samaseries began in 2010 when the first installment of the otome game was released for the PlayStation Portable. The story of the game is centered around Haruka Nanami, a girl who dreams of becoming a composer and hopes to some day write songs for a famous idol that she admires. To achieve her goals, she enrolls in Saotome Academy where she meets six colorful boys who are all aiming to become idols. She must decide on which boy she wants to partner with for her project, which could be her shot at earning a job at the prestigious Shining Agency after graduation. Luckily, the school has banned romantic relationships, so she should have no problem just getting down to business with her music. Right?
The series became somewhat of a sensation and spawned eight sequel games from 2010 to 2015, and a mobile rhythm game,Uta no Prince-Sama: Shining Live, in 2017. Along the way, the series also released multiple CDs and stage plays, and of course, an anime adaptation began in 2011 and currently has four seasons. Obviously, the series is well liked by viewers. It’s silly and a little cliche, but loveable. It has tons of handsome, princely characters, so it’s no struggle for any viewer to find one to relate to and fall in love with. However, its anime adaptation is hard to watch most of the time and this is mostly due in part to the main protagonist, Haruka. This is why it’s hard to adapt otome games as the main character in them is just a stand in for the player, so it doesn’t matter what they’re like in the game. The player is molding them through their own personal choices and providing their personality, but, this doesn’t translate to an anime. Haruka Nanami results in being a character who lacks deimension and who the audience cannot relate to or identify with.
ThroughoutUta no Prince-Sama’s anime adaptations, Haruka appears to have no unique personality, and, perhaps worst of all, she is seemingly helpless. Most episodes revolve around her being unable to solve any problem until one of the boys arrives to help her. They seem to hang off her every word despite her having no real personality or depth of character. This isn’t saying that Haruka is undeserving of the affection at all; the issue here is that she doesn’t seem to have chemistry with any of the love interests around her because of her underdeveloped characterization as she’s meant to be that stand-in-for-the-player character. She’s meant to be projected on by the viewer, however, using this method simply doesn’t work. The viewer feels no emotional attachment to Haruka at all because there is nothing to attach themselves to. There’s no investment in what boy she’ll end up choosing, because in the end, it doesn’t matter.
This is the other egregious mistake ofUta no Prince-Sama’s anime adaptation. The women in the anime - of which there are only two with truly essential roles - are two-dimensional and almost entirely reliant on the help of the boys. Tomochika Shibuya fills the role of the moral support for Haruka, but she’s given little to no backstory and doesn’t appear much outside of her advice talks with Haruka. Haruka, despite supposedly being an incredible composer, often has trouble writing songs until one of the boys helps her to find the inspiration for them. We see very little motivation for her to achieve her goals outside of the men in her life. While it’s normal in anime like this for the main protagonist to serendipitously cross paths with their love interests often, it’s hard to watch when it seems like the protagonist is entirely dependent on the help of said love interests. Give the female lead personality. Give her a purpose and otivation outside of the men fawning over her. That is how an otome game can be adapted properly.
Lastly,Uta no Prince-Samasuffers a fate most otome based adaptations do. Because otome games often contain multiple endings and an anime can’t cover all of them, only one ending is used or an entirely new ending is created. This means that the romance will occur with only one of the many possible options, and they will end up with more screen time and character development than the others. This is usually a turn off for fans, especially if their favorite character ends up pushed to the side for another- when the characters get any development at all, that is.
Otome games enjoy using pre-existing character archetypes. You’ll always have the sweetheart, the energetic athlete, the tsundere, and so on. This isn’t a bad thing; each story will add its spin on these character types. Each character can be explored and developed further as you play their path. However, this is incredibly difficult to do in a thirteen episode season. Stories become rushed, characters get lost in the shuffle, and eventually, you end up with an anime that has awkward pacing, static characters, and a seemingly unoriginal story.Uta no Prince-Samafell into this trap not because it focused on one romance point, but way too many. Each season added in new love interests that received as little attention as all the others, and it just became oversaturated.
Uta no Prince-Samaisn’t a bad series. It’s fun, bright, has a fair helping of angst, and some wildly catchy tunes. The issue lies in the way it adapted its main character and her romantic storylines. Instead of taking a route likeObey Me, which focused on the romanceable characters and their storylinesoutsideof the presence of the player character, it chose to use the main character and focus on the boys interacting with her. However, they also made Haruka frustratingly dull and incapable of handling things on her own. She’s two-dimensional and lacks any discernible independence outside of the men that she’s around, which is the unfortunate case with most of the women in the series. The audience also barely sees any character development due to the overwhelming amount of them that are introduced, and with everything crammed into only thirteen or so episodes every season, everything feels rushed and awkward. The series manages to remain beloved despite these problems, but they highlight some of the common flaws in anime adaptations from otome games.
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