2015 | IDW
Writing: Kelly Thompson
Letters: Robbie Robbins
Art: Sophie Campbell
Colour: Victoria Robado | Paul Mounts
With the future of the band threatened by breakup after Jerrica’s performance anxiety ruins another band audition, Kimber and Jerrica discover a gift left by their father: Synergy.
This had garnered a lot of squid hate after reading. Now, I remember the cartoon, I had a few of the dolls, but I hardly remember the story beyond a blonde girl has earrings that make her henshin into an idol via holographic projection weirds. I wasn’t big on the cartoon and remember I hardly ever watched it, but I still remember the theme song to this day. When I saw nostalgia striking the comic industry again, I had to at least see what it was and once I did, the hate flowed.
Let’s just start with premise. I don’t know if it was exactly this way in the show, but in the book, the band already exists and our main heroine has performance anxiety. In order to deal with it, rather than super rich daddy getting her some therapy to resolve the issue, decides to ignore it all by developing holographic technology. Now, Jerrica can hide behind a fake identity and be loved for who she’s pretending to be. This is no Full Moon O Sagashite involving a 12-year-old girl with throat cancer aspiring to be an idol. This is just a spoiled rich brat with performance anxiety. Surely, there’s more interesting ways to reboot this series than that.
The other big object of my rage is stereotyping. Our two caucasian sisters, Jerrica and Kimber are slender. Shana, our african american, has a pear-shaped body type sporting quite the bootie. Aja, our asian girl, is chubby. … Yeah. Way to embrace all body types stereotyping.
I don’t like it. I really don’t like it. The idea of Jem being a holographic projection isn’t terrible. It’d be a good gimmick for the band. Hell, it sure shortens dressing room time. It’s a great idea for how idols could work in cyberpunk settings. That this all comes from anxiety just makes me roll my eyes and groan. Our non-perfect body typed band members seem to handle things just fine, so why can’t Jerrica just be okay with being herself and actually work on that anxiety? Oh, right, because no one can think of a better premise.
Done. I’m just done. Garbage.
Thulhu Guu Super Nice 