Trapezium has one of the most cunning and manipulative protagonists in anime

I went into Trapezium, the new anime movie from CloverWorks (Spy x Family, Bocchi the Rock!), expecting what the official summary promised: a slice-of-life anime about a group of friends with big dreams of becoming idols, and a series of conflicts to navigate while they grapple with the rigorous music industry and the perils of fame.

But this movie — the latest anime film playing in American theaters for a one-day-only special engagement — isn’t really about four girls and their big dreams. It’s actually a compelling character study of one of the most manipulative, cunning characters I’ve seen in anime.

[Ed. note: This post contains significant spoilers for Trapezium.]

Based on a light novel by former Japanese idol group member Kazumi Takayama, Trapezium follows a high school student named Yu Azuma, who has big dreams of becoming an idol. But she’s well aware of her own limitations, so she knows she needs a gimmick to catapult herself to stardom. She decides she needs to meet and befriend three other beautiful, talented girls, one from each of the high schools in her hometown, so their group represents the four cardinal directions.

Yu sets off on her quest, first traveling through an affluent academy in the south, where she zeroes in on gorgeous Ranko Katori and challenges her to a tennis match to win her friendship. Then she hits up a vocational school in the west, specifically looking for Kurumi Taiga, the sole female member of the robotics team, who enjoyed a brief stint of viral fame for being a girl in STEM at a prestigious competition. Kurumi is initially uninterested in meeting her, so Yu feigns interest in robotics, then finds a way to help Kurumi meet her goals.

When Yu unintentionally reunites with her old classmate Mika Kamei, Yu is initially reserved — until she learns that Mika is not only beautiful and regularly does charity work (a good look for idols, who must maintain pristine reputations), but she happens to go to school in the north, the cardinal direction Yu is missing. She’s the final piece Yu needs for her master plan.

Yu never lets the other girls know about her grand ambitions, even as she organizes increasingly specific ways to get them into the spotlight. When they’re split up at an event where they volunteer to help kids in wheelchairs up a scenic mountain hiking path, Yu throws a small fit. In her mind, the excursion isn’t worth it if they aren’t seen together for a potential social media picture. But Yu tells the others her bad mood is because she wanted to spend time with them, which they buy wholeheartedly.

That isn’t the first indication of the extent of Yu’s manipulation, but it’s certainly the one that really showcases just how she’ll warp her friends’ affections to further her goals. She constantly pushes her friends to go along with her plans, whether or not they actually want to. She insists each new scheme is just for the sake of doing something fun together, as if she hasn’t been strategically planning her ascent to stardom for years. She’s unapologetically ruthless, in a way that I did not expect from a movie billed as “four teenage girls with big dreams.”

I expected something more like Bocchi the Rock!, where a similar set of girls with musical ambitions forge wholesome bonds as they collectively figure out how to launch their career. But instead, Trapezium unfolds like a tense psychological thriller, focused tightly on Yu, the scope of her ambition, and the lengths she’ll go to in order to make her dreams a reality. She treats her supposed friends like necessary tools in her greater scheme, instead of actual humans. She’s absolutely ruthless as she concocts her plans in her downtime, though to her friends she comes off as someone who’s just very passionate (it helps that she fudges the truth in order to get her friends to go along with her plans). She’s also a bit of a sore loser, pouting when she receives less attention than the other group members, and snapping at her friends once everything begins to spiral.

But at the same time, she’s never outright mean. And she wants to be an idol so badly that it’s hard not to root for her a little bit. She’s a fascinating character, deeply flawed and almost borderline cruel, but her sheer determination is admirable. And even though she starts out seeing the other girls as puzzle pieces, it’s evident that she does begin to actually care for them — even if she doesn’t realize it herself. Throughout the movie, I vacillated on finding her admirable, scary, and even a bit pitiable. What I did solidly know, though, was that she hooked me in, and I couldn’t look away from her story as it unfolded on screen.

A lot about Trapezium’s story could stand to dig deeper, especially when it comes to really diving into the ramifications of idol life, fame, and the group’s eventual reconciliation. But what the movie does wonderfully is give a tight, tense look at one girl, the sheer scope of her ambition, and what happens when a perfect plan begins to crack.

Crunchyroll will premiere Trapezium in American theaters for a one-day-only special showing on Sept. 18. Polygon will update this post when Crunchyroll announces a streaming date for the movie.