A Hundred Scenes of Awajima — Episode 1

What’s it about? At Awajima Opera School, girls all across Japan strive to earn their right to the stage. Some are driven by a love of technique; others by a love of musical theatre. Whatever brings them here, however, is only the first tender step into realizing who they are and how they can make their dreams come true.

The first scene viewers encounter is that of Wakana Tabata, sitting in a car watching movers do what she wishes she could: move into her new dorm and begin life at Awajima, an opera school where talent and skill come to bloom into magnificence. From there, she is escorted to her dorm room where she will don the Awajima uniform and begin her life as a full-fledged student amidst a hundred different personalities, all of whom are growing into their own.

But dorm life isn’t the only thing Wakana and her classmates must acclimate too: there’s the stage and all the skills necessary to stand upon it, and it’s going to take blood, sweat, and tears to get there.

It’s going to be very easy to draw an immediate comparison to Kageki Shojo, but I caution you not to because, while they’re working in similar fields, I think they are both individually standout narratives that take very different POVs. Kageki Shojo is largely focused on one perspective through Sarasa, while Awajima is dozens of simultaneous snapshots of girls who all are here for a variety of reasons. The two shows are different in tone, too—think of them as merry companions, but not competing stars, and that’s for the better because this is just as mindful a story.

Immediately in this premiere, we get a lot of different vignettes of teenage girls trying hard to become their own persons. We also learn that Awajima is intensely competitive: even the slightly off trait becomes gossip for the grapevine. While that could be off-putting, I found it actually humanized Scenes of Awajima immediately by reminding viewers that while this is a drama, it’s also a deeply human story about teenagers finding their footing in a specialized field.

It’s for that reason that I immediately sank into the world of Wakana and her classmates. It’s somewhere I’d never belong—I don’t desire to be on stage and never have—but the draw feels intimate and like something I can claim, a desire to be a start, to find conviction. And while none of the girls truly know their “why” yet, this premiere was enticing enough that I want to watch and see who discovers their path to the stage and their ability to sing an aria that moves souls. Something about that adventure, those steps between now and the future, is so engaging. I liked it in Kageki Shojo, and here, it’s in magnificent form as well.

I knew when I was given this premiere that I’d immediately love it: there was no doubt in my mind that Scenes of Awajima would be a show that I couldn’t help but sink into. It feels as soft as velvet and as luxurious as silk, offering up a deeply introspective look into an opera school and the young girls who fill its halls with their thoughts, feelings, and experiences.

In my opinion, this is a deeply necessary addition to your watchlist: it showcases a really interesting series of vignettes that connect to the shared experience of being classmates while also competing to become the best through having so much damn heart, you can’t help but be locked in. I’m sat and satisfied, and I highly recommend that you join me on the proverbial couch and get ready for a fantastic viewing experience with this series as well.