“Miss Monochrome” is another short-pull series. At four minutes, it’s short enough, but one of those minutes is taken up with the ending credits, so it runs even shorter than that.

Miss Monochrome is a caliber of robot, her best friend being that Roomba. She somehow was worth 19.2 Billion yen, but her rapacious private secretary took everything and left her destitute. She has a dream of being the best pop idol in Japan, but has no method or manner to do this. She gets a manager, who happens to be the shift manager at the convenience store she works at, to try and get her all kinds of gigs and public meetings to get her face and talent out there. A manager is a manager, right? Get the gigs.

But she is an absolute klutz when it comes to things and the episodes end where they started: with her no closer to her dream of being a pop idol.

It is an odd show, in that more effort was put into the closing credits than the show itself. You don’t feel anything for her. You watch her going through the motions and not succeeding, but also not understanding why it’s not working.

It’s an OK show, but a lot is left on the table and at the end of the run, you are right back where you started from yourself, with no idea how you got here and no direction to go to get to your dreams. It’s just another head-scratcher show.

On a scale of 1 to 10:

Artwork 7 (Rather standard)
Plot 6 (Rather standard)
Pacing 6 (Rather standard)
Effectiveness 6 (Handcuffed by the brevity)
Conclusion 7 (It reaches a ‘coupler’, but doesn’t really end)
Fan Service 0 (A similar show would be “Honey and Clover”)

Overall 6 (Too directionless)

And remember, it’s first run until you’ve seen it. I need a AA battery, please.