The Moon exploded a century ago, nobody cares, and now teenage girls pilot giant robots to fight the debris while also having to nail their idol performances or the whole operation shuts down. It commits completely to the absurdity: this is not a show trying to be two things, it's a show that is two things at once, and the tonal whiplash stops being a problem the moment you accept that Haruka's biggest enemy is orbital shrapnel, not her own insecurity. The mechanical designs are genuinely stunning, the real-robot logic holds up, and the show earns its comparison to Gurren Lagann by understanding that the real power comes from people believing in something ridiculous enough to stake their lives on it. The plot gets convoluted and the character adaptations from the source material fall flat, but neither of those things can touch what this show actually does: prove that mecha and idol anime can occupy the same space without either one apologizing.

Haruka Amami, a 16-year-old from the countryside, auditions for the Idolmaster Project and heads to Tokyo expecting a career as a singing idol. Instead, she lands at a secret school run by the Mondenkind Agency, which uses giant piloted robots called iDOLs to shield Earth from falling fragments of the Moon, shattered 107 years earlier. Living alongside other candidate pilots, Haruka turns out to be one of the rare girls able to synchronize with an iDOL, and the long-dormant Imber chooses her as its pilot. The agency's leaders are not entirely benevolent, and a rival group called Turiavita, which runs its own iDOL, keeps trying to seize Imber. From the start, Haruka senses emotions coming from inside the machine, raising the question of whether the iDOLs are truly just robots. The mecha action is mixed with comedy and romance.