Oh Trapezium you could have been a much better movie. Trapezium is based on a 2018 novel by former Nogizaka46 member Kazumi Takayama about a young girl Yu Azuma who wants to become an idol so much that she decides to manipulate three girls from different schools into being her friends and making an idol group. Now the fact that the original story was penned by a former idol does give the movie a lot of necessary context for its background premise and overall approach with her experiences influencing the story quite a bit especially in regards to how Yu the main character drives the entire plot. It also raises the question of what kind of behindthescenes behavior Takayama may have witnessed during her idol tenure. On the whole Trapezium as a movie is really compelling in that it doesnt go for the tried and true method of selling you on how great idols are and going for an uplifting story. Instead Trapezium explores both the good and bad of the idol industry and how it can both positively and negatively affect the people in and out of it. It even takes a huge risk by having its protagonist be unlikeable and even a manipulative little brat which you dont often see in most anime. On one hand this is a ballsy movie and I respect the movie for going against the grain. Unfortunately on the other hand its whole scaffolding completely falls apart at the end completely ruining what it had established reducing it into just yet another idol movie that plays it safe. But before I go into detail on this Im going to talk about the positives first as I dont want to be a purely Negative Nancy. Being a movie the animation budget is put to good use here and is beautifully grounded. Characters move like real human beings CGI is used sparingly the backgrounds are detailed but not cluttered and the character designs are a nice mix of realistic and the moe art style without leaning too hard on the latter. The music is nice too though I really have to question why the movie needed a wholeass anime opening sequence. Like was that even necessary? Furthermore out of the four girls I liked Kurumi the most because not only was she the most relatable and interesting the movie does a great job at selling you on her plight though thats not to say the other girls are poorly characterized. Plus for 90 of the movie Trapeziums exploration of the idol industry and how it metaphorically uses and abuses idols is interesting and compelling. A large portion of it focuses more on the journey to getting there such as how most idols get exposure through comedic variety shows. Unlike most idol anime Trapezium doesnt put as much focus on music and dancing but the snippets of it we do get do their job and dont overstay their welcome. I actually think it does a better job at exploring the perils of the idol/entertainment industry than Oshi no Ko if only because the latters take on it feels more performative and tactless in that its more interested in shock value and easy solutions than actually doing anything meaningful. Yeah I said it I dont like Oshi no Ko. Sadly this is all the praise I have for Trapezium as a movie because like I mentioned earlier its ending completely ruins it. What do I mean? Yu the storys main character is both Trapeziums greatest asset and biggest weakness. From here on Im going to go into a ton of spoilers because I cant adequately explain my thoughts on the movie without doing so as the context is really important. But not committing to its premise isnt the only problem it has. For one thing how the hell is Yu able to get away with getting into different schools while in uniform without getting kicked out? Shouldnt a staff member or security guard have spotted her and made her leave? Plus Trapeziums pacing is rather rushed especially in the beginning. Yu tracks down the girls she wants to manipulate/recruit talks to them for a bit and then boom suddenly theyre buddybuddy which totally isnt inorganic and suspicious in any way whatsoever. Not to mention a lot of plot beats are just summarized by voice over narration rather than actually being shown because fuck meaningful character development and showing over telling am I right? Also who the hell thought it was a good idea to have two elderly men be voiced by women? Im not even exaggerating theres two old men who are VERY CLEARLY voiced by women who are trying to make their voices sound elderly and failing miserably at it because not only is it completely obvious that their voices are female they cant even manage to sound convincingly elderly especially since theyre trying to play men. Like how hard was it to get more than one elderly male voice actor to voice an elderly man? I mean Kazuhiko Inoue Akio Ohtsuka Kazuhiro Yamaji and Yoku Shioya are still working Why not hire them to do it? Its better than forcing two women to play a role that theyre clearly unable to pull off Bottom line Trapezium had an interesting premise but completely botched it by choosing to suddenly play it safe at the very end ruining what came before. It could have been a great movie had it gone all in on what it wanted to do but instead tripped over itself for the sake of wanting a sloppy happy ending. I wouldnt recommend this one even for fans of idol anime. If you do plan on watching it though dont watch it on Crunchyroll. For some reason the audio mixing on that version is atrocious. Like the volume level is so low I have to turn up the volume to the highest level and its still hard to hear anything whether it be a PC or a TV Just wait for the Japanese bluray to come out or something.