Idol Rejects Can Shine Bright: Shining Song Starnova Review

Player(s): 1
Platform(s): PC

Shining Song Starnova is a visual novel, put plainly, about a bunch of idol rejects who are given another chance at becoming successful stars again.

Can't have idols without glow sticks.

Now I must give a couple fair warnings before diving deep into this review. First, I am bias. I am an absolute fan of idols, and that already makes me more interested in this story than the average reader. Keep that in mind when reading about my perspective. Second, I will briefly discuss the 18+ content from this VN and will clearly mark that section in case you care to avoid it. I don’t mention anything explicit.

Country bumpkin.

With that, let’s jump in with an elaboration on the quick description I mentioned at the beginning. The main character, simply named ‘Producer’, had recently left the biggest agency who manages the biggest idol group: Quasar. This whole event is surrounded by controversy and is explained before you reach the end of what I will refer to as the first act. The story, to me, is split into three main acts: the first being everything that happens before you choose the character route you’d like to pursue; the second being the setup of said route; the third being the culmination of that setup and eventually, the conclusion to the story.

There wasn't enough utilization of this silly feature of Nemu's.

Mentioning the routes is important because there are 7 total girls who the Producer decides to pull together to create this new idol group called Starnova. The catch is that these are all girls who either would normally not be able to make it in the idol industry or girls who had a chance and lost it, hence my reason for referring to them all as ‘rejects’. I call them rejects in the most endearing way, and behind all the silliness, this visual novel is a very important commentary on the Japanese idol industry as a whole.

Completely accurate depiction of that corner of Akihabara.

Going into this story, I expected it to be a silly story about idols with annoyingly gratuitous amounts of sex, and instead was greeted by a very powerful commentary about the trials and tribulations that surround the idols industry. Each of the Starnova members represents a separate issue that idols face (and this applies to entertainers in general), such as disillusionment, an overwhelming learning curve and unreasonably unfair removals (aka graduations/scandals). There are a ton of parallels made to the real-world idol industry, along with some clear exaggerations (such as the way that Quasar is a parallel to AKB48).

Touching on the cycle of members.

This whole concept and setup is a perfect doorway into fulfilling the fantasies of many I’m sure. You get to read from the perspective of a producer who has control over a bunch of girls. Seems like a recipe for a very perverted story, yes? Well, it’s not. The writers did a careful job of creating a character who legitimately wishes for the best for his group and will do anything within his power to keep his girls from being taken advantage of, often to his own detriment. It’s a rather refreshing perspective of a main character in compared to the visual novels I’ve read, and certainly helped to keep me very invested to the end.

Gotta have some fun fourth wall breaks.

Don’t get me wrong, there is definitely romance involved, hence the need to have routes at all, but they feel like they are smartly placed and don’t take away from any of the characters. I’ve only gone through three routes at the time of writing this review, but they all felt fair, appropriate and respectful. With that, I might as well mention the NSFW content briefly.

That isn't the case here.

NSFW CONTENT


I won’t lie or pretty it up: much of the NSFW content in this visual novel is clearly there for the sake of fan service. As an example, they go to an onsen, as an excuse for all of the girls to be naked. The scene itself is very playful and helps establish some much-needed bonding for the characters, but this could have been done anywhere besides somewhere where they needed to be naked. To top this off, the sex scenes within the story also mostly feel forced for the sake of fan service. The only one, of the three routes I’ve read, that felt natural was with Julie, due to the way she is characterized and the situation in which it happens. Mariya’s was totally random in a very out of character portion of the story, and Nemu’s, while somewhat believable, still felt a little off. That being said, with seven girls in the story you will definitely get a good variety of NSFW content for your viewing pleasure, which is animated and well-drawn.


NSFW CONTENT OVER

Any fan of idols knows to what event this refers.

Each route follows a similar structure in theming. You explore why the girl is a failure, they start to do well, they fail for some reason again then pick themselves up and succeed. The journey is quite different for each girl though, and that’s what makes this so enjoyable. Case in point, this is the first visual novel where I’m willingly and happily going to pursue every route because I legitimately want to learn how each girl gets through her own individual struggle. There’s a lot of touching stories told in Shining Song Starnova, and that’s a really great thing.

Shit loli gotta do those shit loli things!

I think I’ve made it perfectly clear that I rather enjoy the story of this visual novel, but how do the rest of the features stack up? Well it offers the standard fair of rewatching ‘movies’, H-scenes and checking out the gallery of all backdrops and CG scenes. Nothing special in that regard. There’re also a couple decisions you get to make, depending on the route you choose that can sometimes lead to an alternate ‘bad’ ending. Beyond that, there is almost no real interactivity beyond choosing your character route. It’s a straightforward visual novel through and through, so if you’re looking for an interactive experience you should probably look elsewhere (though you’d be depriving yourself of a good story).

Any controversy you can think about is covered in this story.

I find it interesting that Shining Song Starnova is among the first of the visual novels to take advantage of Steam now allowing 18+ content on their service, as its 18+ content is hardly a selling point of the story. Based on the three routes I read through, you could easily play the all ages version and not miss out on anything. That decision is left up to you though, with the simple click of a button by downloading a ‘DLC’ which is the 18+ patch through Steam. With the 18+ patch, I was able to read through 3 routes in about 15 hours, to give you an idea about the overall length as a slow reader. The art is absolutely gorgeous to go with that story. There’s a lot of expression in all the girls, there’s a good variety of environments and everything looks so crisp. It’s unfortunate that the voice acting is so minimal, because the little that’s there is pretty solid. Only select dialogue is voice acted, with everything else only having generic one-liners indicating their current mood (like Julie exclaiming ‘FUCK!’). The music is catchy as well, and there’s even an idol-inspired song. Granted, the song is extremely generic, but it at least fits the theme and helps with the immersion. It’s certainly a nice touch.

I did say every controversy, didn't I?

In the end, Shining Song Starnova is an important visual novel that all idol fans should read. While the story is clearly told for a male-centric audience, (as it barely even acknowledge the existence of female idol fans despite the rather large growth in the last few years) it still tells a compelling story with interesting characters that helps shine a light on a part of Japanese entertainment that is far from perfect. For people who aren’t idol fans, it can certainly be insightful to see the good and bad of the idol industry but might not be as interesting to read without that context. Even so, the negative character archetypes who develop throughout the story still make for a well-done story, and this is among one of my higher recommended visual novels. Check it out!

- Teepu

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Story: A
Graphics: A
Sound: B-
Value: A-

OVERALL: A-

Pros:

+ Fantastic art.
+ Great characters.
+ Nice social commentary.

Cons:

- Voice acting is very limited.
- Extremely linear with no real interaction.
- 18+ content feels shoe-horned in.

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Disclaimer: This visual novel was provided to us by the publisher for the purpose of this review.

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