Episode 17-
And here we get a Makoto-centric episode, which I don’t think we’ve seen in this series at all yet. It was a silly, whimsical and fun episode for the most part, even with the slight bit of drama involving the enemy studio. This series has really been trying to explore more of it’s cast by having one-episode arcs about each, and while I’m not a huge fan of the approach, it does give the characters more personality. That being said, do idols really have enough free time to play around for a vast chunk of the day? It sure seems that way in this episode.
Makoto’s prince-complex is pretty fun to watch for the most part, especially when she goes into anti-prince rant mode. All of this does make me wonder how many actual guy fans she has, lol. Anyways, aside from fleshing out her hatred of her princely image, Makoto turned out to be a rather entertaining character to watch. A bit too rash and hot-headed, mind you, but still fun as a character. The way her story was wrapped up is rather cliche, though it does end up fitting with her character.
And of course, Miki goes all nuts when she learns that Makoto took the producer to an amusement park. I still don’t quite get why Miki calls the Producer “Honey”, but hey, it makes things more entertaining :3
Screenshots are later in the post.
Distant Paradise 
I imagine idols do get a day off once in who knows how long in the “off” seasons. However, how does a producer in charge of so many idols ever find time to devote a whole day to just one of them :p ? Fun episode nonetheless. Much better than the previous one in my opinion.
Indeed, the Producer has far too much free time. Shouldn’t he be busy managing the, oh I don’t know, dozen other idols that are also working? I guess the studio has competent management if he has that much free time.
I definitely liked this episode more than the Hibiki one, that’s for sure. Hibiki is a fun character and all, but the previous episode just outright sucked. Maybe it was because of the Kuroi studio; they almost always ruin the episode.