Idol Project is a four-episode OVA from 1995, about a 14-year-old girl named Mimu Emilton and her quest to become a great idol singer just like her personal idol, Yuri. On the way to her audition, Mimu encounters the six "Excellent Idols", the top singers in their craft. They quickly become her allies and then her friends as they give her advice for how to succeed at her audition. They come to cheer her on as she begins to sing...
...but they are all kidnapped by aliens and taken to another dimension to compete with idols from other planets.
This series contains:
- Anime Anatomy: Even during the full frontal breast shots, we never see any nipples.
- Beach Episode: The second OAV has one on a planet called Wollyhood.
- Companion Cube: Layla's guitar. She's very protective of it and can't sleep well without it.
- Deliberately Cute Child: Ruka's act is all about this, which Mimu finds out the hard way.
- Determinator: Mimu's going to become a great idol, and nothing's going to stop her.
- Genki Girl: Pal Pu, to crazy extremes. Ruka is also pretty cheery.
- Gratuitous English: Corvette often uses random English in the original Japanese version. In the English dub, this is replaced with gratuitous French.
- Idol Singer: All seven of the cast are these, and get abducted by aliens because of an eighth.
- Improbably Female Cast: The only male characters are the aliens and the crows who capture the idols and run the contests.
- Informed Ability: Corvette's specialty is supposed to be "rhythm," which she tells Mimu is important for an idol, but when the Beach Episode's competition requires rhythm to be able to stay on course, she fails.
- Konami Code: One of Mimu's fellow Idols enters this into the "armor" she's given.
- Landing in Someone's Bathtub: Mimu lands in Corvette's in episode three.
- Shout-Out: Layla, the rocker, is of course named after the Eric Clapton song.
- Token Lesbian: Corvette really likes pretty girls.