Tag: Girls Band Cry

Posted on in The Weekly Orbit

The Weekly Orbit [5/20/24]

The Weekly Orbit is a weekly column collecting and refining my more casual anime- and manga-related thoughts from the previous week. Mostly, these are taken from my tumblr blog, and assume familiarity with the works covered. Be wary of spoilers!

Hi folks! Sorry for the very late article today, I had a lot of reformatting to do, and, as I’ll get to shortly, was catching up on a few things before I put the article up. Enjoy!

Anime – Seasonal

Train to The End of The World – Episodes 7 & 8

More than one person told me that episode seven of Train to The End of The World was “bad,” and as a result I ended up putting it off until today, where I watched episodes seven and eight in tandem. I understand why someone would think that, certainly, and overall this two episode stretch is pretty puzzling. But, I’m not sure I agree, if only because even Shuumatsu Train‘s worst ideas are so confounding that calling them outright bad feels inadequate. A misstep, though, that might be true.

Episode seven is essentially a bizarro inversion of a traditional fanservice episode. These are, themselves, not necessarily super common anymore, and for many kinds of anime they’ve been relegated to the no-mans-land of bonus OVAs and such. Shuumatsu Train’s engagement with the concept is very much Shuumatsu Train-y in that it’s flatly inexplicable. For the most part, there’s not a lot of cheesecake or anything here—which is good, it would be wildly out of tone with this series, and the one shot that is like that is pretty jarring and bad—instead, the girls find out that the zombie horde from episode 6 are weak to ecchi. As in, they are weak to even hearing about it. This leads to a pair of climactic (har har) scenes where Akira dryly intones a scene from an erotic novel aloud, which makes the zombies explode. Later, our main four sing a bawdy song on top of the train, which has the same effect. In essence, I think this is a parody of the entire concept, undermined by the actual panty shot late in the episode. Even if we disregard that, it’s still a very odd direction for even this show to take.

There’s also the matter of three of the four main characters spending most of the episode wearing colored greasepaint. Reimi’s is black, and while it’s not my call to make whether or not that’s racist exactly, it definitely feels weird and uncomfortable in a way that the rest of the show really hasn’t.

Thankfully, the episode’s denouement is actually one of the better ones, preventing this from being a total wash. In it, the girls speculate whether or not Mito (the zombie queen) was bullied when she was younger. Akira says that it doesn’t matter, but Shizuru is quick to point out that it actually does, since we are all shaped by our past; who we are today is who we were yesterday, and who we are today plots who we will be in the future. There’s something to that, and this thread keeps Shuumatsu Train tied together in even its most unhinged moments.

It’s also worth noting that, strangely enough, this is one of the best-looking episodes! The animation is fluid and stylish throughout, the backgrounds are great, and there are some neat effects used to portray the zombie horde as a singular shambling mound of uncanniness. (I want to say the effect in question is some version of Live2D but I’m not actually sure.)

Episode 8 on the other hand, opens with first a brief comedic bit, and then a very much not comedic bit, as the girls pass through an area that seems to amplify their fears and regrets, condensing them all into micro-blip flashbacks that we see for only a split second each. After the credits, we somewhat puzzlingly cut to a different scene entirely, where the girls are planning to enter a town based on that in-universe anime NeriAli, first brought up back in episode 1. (I kept expecting this initial bit to come back but it never did. I suppose the idea is that they got through things eventually just fine? I don’t know.)

The bulk of this episode is probably best understood as self-parody. NeriAli as described in Shuumatsu Train‘s owns text is already incomprehensibly strange, and combined with Shuumatsu Train’s own proclivities, it produces an episode that reaches a level of surreality normally reserved for short-form comedy anime (your Teekyu and Ai-Mai-Mis and such). It is genuinely hard to parse what all happens here, but the very basic gist is that one of the stations has been turned into a warped parody of NeriAli, a version of the show where its bad guys won. But this frankly makes the entire affair sound much more coherent than it actually is. This is probably the strangest episode of Shuumatsu Train thus far, and that’s really saying something.

It is also, unfortunately, one of the weakest, and there are a number of jokes here that land with a thud, a few of which are truly tasteless. (A character from NeriAli shows up who is a magical girl with suicidal tendencies that wears a noose around her neck and over the course of the episode she does in fact kill herself, albeit in a weird roundabout manner. Were the manga more well-known, this would almost come across as a mean-spirited shot at Suicide Girl.) Self-parody doesn’t really work for Shuumatsu Train, while it’s clear that this episode is in some sense an attempt to replicate the feeling of being dropped into the middle of a series you know nothing about, the main series itself is already so bizarre that trying to “amp the weirdness up” just produces the anime equivalent of white noise, and while other episodes of the show have certainly had their ups and downs, the entirety of episode eight here is easily the weakest the show’s ever been.

As with episode seven, the denouement segment at the end does at least prevent it from feeling like wasted time. We learn that Yoka, or at least someone named Yoka, is ruling Ikebukuro as its “witch queen.” This is a big revelation, and confirms what was earlier implied about how the 7G Incident actually functions, externalizing Yoka’s inner world.

There are four episodes remaining of Shuumatsu Train—it was one of the earlier premieres of the season, recall—and my hope and assumption is that this episode was a purging of all the show’s most out-there ideas before we bring things home for its final stretch. Worst case scenario, this ends up being another promising original anime that flames out in its back half. That said, with something this strange it’s hard to make definitive calls on its quality until we have the hindsight of the full series, and I will completely acknowledge that there are a ton of references in this episode I just didn’t really understand. (There’s a whole shogi motif in here? Just as an example.) I suppose we’ll see what things look like in a week’s time.

Pokémon Horizons – Episode 50

Most of this episode’s important moments are within the good ol’ fashioned Pokémon battle at its heart. I have to call out a specific moment in the middle of the battle here, where Dot gets really frustrated by Bellibolt spamming Slack Off, because it’s extremely funny, and is a relatively rare instance of something feeling directly ripped from the games.

Relaxed. Thriving. Moisturized. Unbothered. In my element.

The episode’s real highlight, of course, is the climactic moment of Dot getting her bit of terastalization sakuga, and Quaxly’s Low Kick actually turning into Liquidation is really cool. An arrangement of the terastalization theme music from the games also plays here, which is also really fun. This is the second very solid Dot episode in a row, and I think she’s probably my favorite of the three protagonists at this point. Oh, and Iono [Hondo Kaede] is absolutely great here, too.

Wonderful Precure! – Episode 16

This was an odd episode. More so because unlike a lot of the other strange one-off episodes Pretty Cure has done in recent years, it’s actually plot-relevant! It’s surprisingly sweet, too! This one contains multitudes.

The most obvious thing of note here is that it’s a crossover with long-running gag anime Crayon Shin-chan. Shin’s appearance itself is really more of a quick cameo that sticks out like a sore thumb against the rest of the episode.

It’s hardly bad or anything, but it does feel strange, especially considering what comes after. Still, it probably delighted a certain kind of 5 year old (and 45 year old for that matter), so I guess it’s all good. There’s a second part of the crossover in this week’s Shin-chan episode as well, which is a lot more in line with that show’s (admittedly amusing but decidedly crude. It is for little boys, after all) sense of humor. It is noteworthy for giving us Shin-chan-style Precures, though.

Back in the actual Pretty Cure episode, the main thing here is that Iroha’s parents more or less find out everything—not literally everything, but way more than is usual for Precure parents— from the sheep butler Mehmeh [Tachibana Shinnosuke, because I think this is incredibly the first time I’ve actually named Mehmeh on this blog? I’m not sure]. I feel like it’s been a long time since the series has done something like this? They still don’t know the full extent of what Iroha and Komugi are up to, but given that this actually sticks, it seems like it might be setting up a later development. Iroha’s parents’ reaction to what they do learn is very sweet, though. Her dad especially doesn’t seem to really understand what’s going on, but is very supportive, which is super cute. (I’ll say it. I’d date Iroha’s dad. Is he my type in terms of looks? Not especially, but good looks are temporary. A good personality is irreplaceable.)

Sidebar: Komugi’s impression of Mehmeh is very funny.

Himitsu no AiPri – Episode 6

This is probably the best episode of this show in a minute, after a couple weaker ones. There are still some strange decisions though; debuting Ruby=Lazuli together makes sense since they’re a duo, but it’s a little weird that we don’t get a clean run of their song here, since it’s the emotional centerpiece of the episode. The episode’s editing is also exceptionally poor. This has been a problem throughout the whole show so far, enough so that it’s sometimes kind of hard to follow. I will say that Sakura [Hibi Yuriko, in her debut named role] treating the entire thing like a shonen tournament arc is really funny, and her relationship with her partner in Ruby=Lazuli brims with lesbian subtext, which gives me a lot of hope for the future of this series.

Ruby=Lazuli’s staging is really nice, as well, and easily surpasses anything we’ve seen in the show so far. Also, hey, a cliffhanger! I wonder where this whole “AiPri is forbidden now” arc is going to go.

GO! GO! Loser Ranger!

We’re entering the weakest story arc of the whole series and the production seems to be kind of melting. Uh-oh, gang.

Ultimately, you’re always going to be comparing an anime against its manga if you’ve read the latter first, but I usually try to accept anime adaptations doing their own thing. This has been a really good one so far, and while I know some of the rearrangement of events in previous episodes has been contentious, I just don’t really agree with that criticism. This episode, on the other hand, seemed unusually weak visually—in terms of directing, animation, even just basic drawing quality—so I’m a bit worried.

On the positive side, hey, it’s Footsoldier XX! [Youmiya Hina] One of the cooler characters, all told, and her feral anime girl-meets-disgruntled hardcore loyalist soldier shtick is already in full force in her first appearance here. I’m hoping the production woes are a temporary thing and we’ll be back on track next episode. I guess we’ll see.

Girls Band Cry – Episode 5

It’s good that this show’s strengths mostly lie in its staging and how it handles conversation and conflict, given that that’s most of what this episode is. The reveal that the new Diamond Dust vocalist is someone Nina used to know, and furthermore someone she had a huge falling out with, is pretty wild. I like how it builds another connection between Nina’s past and Momoka’s; it makes the entire thing feel like destiny, and an element of that kind of romance is always nice in a show like this..

Two side notes: One, what’s with the guy with the emo hair at the end of the episode who seems to be flat-animated? Two, I love the band’s shirts. I would wear those if I could get away with it, which probably says something about me that’s not entirely flattering.

Mysterious Disappearances

This is the first time in several episodes that this show hasn’t felt completely superfluous as compared to its manga, but that really just exposes how workmanlike this adaptation is.

However, on the topic of the story itself, it’s worth noting that 2014 is awful recent as a setting for an urban legend, as is the case in the one brought up here. This is actually something called out in the text of the show itself, and I think that’s a neat detail. Visually-speaking, there’s a cool moment near the end of the episode where a bit of a fisheye-esque effect is displayed, although it only half comes across.

Also the two random maids in the Maid Café, rendered in color and subject to a bit more adaptation than perhaps the main characters are, end up looking sort of like Pokémon characters, which is kind of funny and very off-tone for this series.

A Salad Bowl of Eccentrics

I have nothing to say about this episode but this; the racehorse names are funny as hell, and whoever translated them needs a raise. If you know, you know.

Anime – Non-Seasonal

This section was big enough that it needed its own subheading this time! I probably should’ve also done this a few weeks ago when I wrote an entire article about Air in one of these, but oh well.

Precure All Stars F

My third time watching this film! This time with my friend Josh1. I cried at the climax. Again. It’s a good movie! Not one without problems, but a good movie.

Something that I don’t think fully dawned on me the first time I watched this movie is how well they set up Cure Supreme [Sakamoto Maaya] as an antithesis to the ‘real’ Cures. There’s the obvious stuff—she’s a loner and treats her fairy poorly, for example—but it’s even down to little details. She doesn’t call her attacks, has no bank animation except for a brief clip we never get to actually see in full, doesn’t have a transformation sequence, etc. She understands the form of a Pretty Cure, but not the function; she’s all power and no compassion. If you wanted to interpret this as metacommentary I don’t think anything’s really stopping you. (Although I wouldn’t go in that direction myself.) Although I wonder how that would lead to interpreting the ending of the film, where she and her fairy Puca reunite and reconcile. I’ll leave that as an exercise for the reader.

All this said, while I don’t like ending these things on a complaint, this one still sticks out in my mind: it still bothers the hell out of me that Cure Supreme’s super powerful evil mode entails giving her darker skin, especially in a franchise that still really only has one prominent character of color otherwise. It’s just disappointing and offputting, especially in a movie that’s otherwise so good. Kids deserve better.

Gabriel DropOut – Episodes 1-7

I was a bit depressed a few days ago and needed a pick-me-up, so I chose a comedy anime from my plan-to-watch list basically at random and, as a result, watched some of this. I like it! In absolute terms it’s nothing crazy innovative, just a fairly standard character-driven comedy, but it’s done very well and the comedic rhythm is very strong. I love how much of an absolute shit everyone, especially Raphiel [Hanazawa Kana], who is probably my favorite, is. I’m also very fond of Satania [Oozora Naomi], mostly in how she eats absolute dirt in 90% of all situations. The show is just very amusing all around, and I’m glad I’m finally getting around to it.

I don’t suspect my opinion will majorly change at all during the series’ back half, and if I don’t write about it next week, you can assume I finished it up, stamped it with a 7/10 or so, and carried on with my life with no further comments. I will say that if you plan to watch it yourself, it’s probably at least worth keeping in mind the somewhat higher ecchi level than is necessarily the norm anymore. It’s not a sex comedy or anything, but there are boob jokes and such, just as a friendly heads’ up from me to you.

Also I must give a brief shout out to my friends Alice, Alexis, and Julian2, who I watched most of the series with. We had fun.

Asura Cryin’ – Episodes 1 & 2

Goodness, they don’t make ’em like this anymore.

Asura Cryin’ is a 2009 anime based on a light novel, and you can really, really, really tell. Our plot concerns a hapless young high school boy thrust into the midst of a three-way conflict over a magic lockbox that has a mecha inside of it. All the while, multiple pretty girls vie for his attention for reasons ranging from actual affection for him to trying to manipulate him into aligning with their specific goals. At the end of the first episode, a surprisingly intense firefight breaks out between the three factions, which, among other things, involves a girl with glasses popping shotguns all over the place.

So what I’m saying is; Asura Cryin’ is very trashy in that endearingly late-aughts way. These days, light novel adaptations tend to be isekai or at least isekai-adjacent, and this particular flavor of enrapturing goofball shit that stems from a time when “light novel” implied “every genre ever in a blender” doesn’t really exist anymore. The very fact that the three factions are called The Divine Guards, the Takatsuki Clan, and—no, really—the Dark Society should tell you a lot on its own. This is the ol’ Proper Noun Machine Gun at full-tilt, and what a sight it is indeed. We’ve got, as mentioned, a harem setup, we’ve got not-quite-giant mecha in a box. We’ve got knockoff stands in the form of “Spectral Apparitions” (ghost girls). We’ve got a demure girl who’s secretly a demon with heterochromia and a manipulative girl, the aforementioned shotgun-toter in fact, who’s like, some kind of ghost hunter or something? We’ve got the student council controlled by a bunch of kids cosplaying as medieval crusaders. We even, as of the end of the second episode, seem to have a time loop plot. There really is everything you could want in here, assuming “what you could want” is some anime trope or another. This is all in the first two episodes, mind you.

It really all is quite a lot. I have a nostalgic fondness for this sort of stuff, even if I’d be hard pressed to claim it’s “good” in the traditional sense. These are the B-movies of a certain period of anime, and like B-movies they often make up for what they lack in the plot or themes department with strong visuals. Asura Cryin’ isn’t the best-looking of these I’ve ever seen, but it has a strong, stylish directorial sense, and it looks surprisingly good given that it’s in a dead-zone of being old enough to be noticeably dated but not old enough to trigger nostalgia buttons just yet. (At least, not for people who aren’t weirdos like me.)

Shows like this also, and this is crucial, tend to be very watchable. I had to tear myself away from the second episode here because I had some prior commitments when I was watching it. Unfortunate! I could watch a whole half cour of this in an evening, easily. For a certain kind of like-minded person, this is the sort of thing you could easily slam through in a few days, occasionally posting out-of-context screencaps and telling your friends how Peak it is, only to give it, generously, a 7/10 on Anilist when you’re done with it. But damn it all, sometimes that’s just what you want out of an anime.

Manga

The manga that stood out to me this week the most is the one I wrote a whole article on, so do go read that article if you’re interested in my thoughts on DEEP RAPUTA. As for everything else….

Dai Kyoujin

A oneshot collaboration written by a mysterious fellow named Tojou and drawn by Hidano Kentarou (maybe best known for Super Smartphone? He draws a Kaiju No. 8 spinoff manga these days. That’s assuming it’s even the same Hidano Kentarou! Dai Kyoujin looks nothing like anything else I’ve ever seen by him.). A quietly spellbinding story about two witches tasked with an ancient and sacred duty. Of all fictional depictions of witches—a topic that matters a great deal to me, due to my own neopaganism—this ranks very high for me. The entire story feels like we’re seeing a depiction of this secret ritual, and because it doesn’t overplay its hand, it feels as though you’re never entirely sure what to make of it. Interestingly, it’s presented in a long-strip “scroll” format, making it feel even more like some ancient spellbook. I really recommend this, it’s amazingly lovely.

Flan Wants To Die

An oldish Touhou Project doujin by Girls Last Tour creator tkmiz about Flan experiencing a depressive episode because she’s old. Suffice to say, I relate. There is a persistent feeling here of the melancholy that comes with knowing that life is passing you by but also knowing you can’t really do anything about it. Flan tries to, and all she’s rewarded with for her efforts are some rather upsetting sights. She is almost-literally haunted by the ghosts of dead friends throughout this oneshot; that’s how it goes, sometimes.

Of course, this all is of relatively marginal relation to the actual Touhou canon. But that’s OK, the same is true for a lot of Touhou doujins I like a lot. The manga’s single line description is “Flan Scarlet is tired of existing. It’s probably awful to be locked in a form, without the ability to change or live out a story.” Which is interesting, because Flan actually is part of the actively-ongoing portion of Touhou again after many years in narrative purgatory. The same isn’t true for many other characters though, and Flandre as depicted here isn’t really necessarily just Flandre herself, but rather a symbol for all of us who struggle with this sort of depression.

Psych House

I should probably be catching up on all the manga I’m behind on, but me being me I decided to check out some new Jump titles instead, starting with this here, Psych House, which seems to be the first serial from its author, Omusuke Kobayashi.

The premise is very simple; in this particular version of Anime Japan, some people have supernatural abilities called Psychs. Our protagonist, Nemuru, is a kind but somewhat cheeky young boy who can change his size, and in the manga’s inagural chapter he helps out a girl named Kotone, who’s been using her ability to teleport objects to filch from a local grocery store.

I’d describe the manga as….endearingly amateurish, maybe? The bones of a good series are here, but it’s difficult to take too seriously anything that treats stealing—especially petty theft of food, by a starving person, no less—as a huge moral dilemma. Especially when, as in Kotone’s case, her situation is so ridiculously pitiable. Her mom’s in a coma for no obvious reason! She’s been starving herself because she knows stealing is wrong! She’s a good girl at heart who just wants to make her ma proud by going to college and getting a good job! Oh no, oh my! It’s all a little much.

Keeping in mind that Jump’s target audience is still at least ostensibly young boys, maybe this kind of pat Morality 101 stuff isn’t the worst thing in the world, but kids deserve nuance, too. Maybe that’s why Kotone gets off scott-free here when Nemuru invites her to live at the sharehouse alluded to by Psych House’s title.

I could see this becoming funnier and more compelling with a bit more focus, so I’ll probably keep up with it for at least a few chapters. After that, who knows?

By the way! Don’t confuse this with Hiimote House, an anime of a somewhat similar name. That series has basically the same premise but could not be more different from this one. Although, that said, give Hiimote House a try sometime if you’re in the mood for something delightfully weird.

That’s all for the main body of the article today. Before you go, I’d also just like to alert you to the existence of these two trailers for upcoming projects by the studio Kinema Citrus [Revue Starlight, Made in Abyss, etc.], respectively Goodbye, Lara, and Ninja Skooler, for no particular reason than that they both look very promising. Sadly, neither of these projects has an actual release date (or even release year) yet, with both trailers ending with a vague “Work In Progress” note. But still, it’s nice to get excited about things when you have an opportunity to do so.

As for today’s Bonus Thought….why not try some Devilish Actions?

See you next week, anime fans.

1: Hi Josh
2: Hi guys

Like what you’re reading? Consider following Magic Planet Anime to get notified when new articles go live. If you’d like to talk to other Magic Planet Anime readers, consider joining my Discord server! Also consider following me on Anilist, BlueSky, or Tumblr and supporting me on Ko-Fi or Patreon. If you want to read more of my work, consider heading over to the Directory to browse by category.

All views expressed on Magic Planet Anime are solely my own opinions and conclusions and should not be taken to reflect the opinions of any other persons, groups, or organizations. All text is manually typed and edited, and no machine learning or other automatic tools are used in the creation of Magic Planet Anime articles, with the exception of a basic spellchecker. However, some articles may have additional tags placed by WordPress. All text, excepting direct quotations, is owned by Magic Planet Anime. Do not duplicate without permission. All images are owned by their original copyright holders.

Posted on in Anime Orbit Weekly, The Weekly Orbit

The Weekly Orbit [5/13/24]

Hello anime fans, it’s another light week here on Magic Planet Anime as I fight against the raging tide of getting sucked into playing Hades II all day every day. Anyhow, here’s what I do have to report on this week. Enjoy!

Anime

Delicious in Dungeon – Episode 19

We’ve got a split episode this time. Firstly dealing with Izutsumi joining the party.

I have to say, I think somebody on the staff is a bit thirsty for her. I can’t precisely explain why I think that but it has something to do with how her face is drawn compared to how it’s drawn in the manga, or even in scenes after this opening one.

The directing in the first half of this episode is otherwise actually a bit dry, but the second more than makes up for it.

The decision to render Marcille’s nightmare in black and white is bold. I don’t think many other studios would’ve even tried it, but it pays dividends here. Not just because it enhances the alternating terror and, yes, comedy of the nightmare. (Do keep in mind that against the backdrop of Marcille running from a monster symbolic of her fear of death we also have Laios Being Laios. Poor guy.) The moment where she retrieves the book from the monster, and it’s a golden yellow in contrast to the black and white dream is just absolutely brilliant. I love it.

Also, the Falin doll is really, really cute.

GO! GO! Loser Ranger! – Episode 4

God Suzukiri is so good here. Anyway!

The transition to Red just laying into the guy mouthing off to him is very sudden and I think it’s effective in how out of nowhere it is. This is the first time we really see unambiguously that the Rangers are deeply corrupt.

Thus begins Loser Ranger‘s flirtation with political metaphor. It’s, uh, a lot. The Invaders are genuinely a threat here; we see so in Hibiki’s flashback as their general murders his whole family. Yet, he clearly bears individual invaders like Footsoldier D no ill will.

What is the show trying to say by this being the case? Hard to say. This is very slight manga spoilers, but the series’ worldview eventually develops into what I’d call nuanced (although not without problems), but it takes a while to get there.

In any case, the fights remain tricky and full of surprising little twists and turns, and by episode’s end we’ve got D and Hibiki set up as our Lelouch and Suzaku (so to speak) respectively. Fun times all around.

Girls Band Cry – Episode 4

The fact that Momoka’s high school band photo is 2D and is thus literally a window into a prior era of the girls band genre is pretty great. I wonder how intentional that is.

We here meet the stern aristocratic grandma. Who is also a minor himejoshi, if her choice for the improv scene that she makes the girls act out is any indication.

Said scene is genuinely so intense with the secondhand embarrassment that I had to mute the audio on the first bit. The second half where it turns into Nina just putting Subaru on blast is brilliant though. (Also, hm, comparing being in a band to dating. Interesting angle for a show airing in The Yuri Season to take.)

There’s something about the visual of an anime girl saying she doesn’t like acting “because it’s embarrassing” and calmly turning off the TV behind her. Interesting stuff.

I was repeatedly warned by people that this episode has a “weird resolution.” I don’t really agree, Subaru clearly is more conflicted on her split loyalties than she’s actually letting on, and the final scene is Nina realizing that. I will grant that it’s an unusual emotional expression to hitch an entire episode on, but it’s far from the strangest I’ve ever seen.

Also, Nina being a serial meddler is going to come back to bite her at some point. Sadly, it doesn’t seem like SobsPlease have gotten to episode 5 yet. If they still haven’t fairly soon I might try out the other group fansubbing this. It would be a shame though, I really like SobsPlease’s work thus far.

Mysterious Disappearances – Episode 5

This adaptation reminds absolutely confounding.

In what I assume is some attempt to get around broadcast standards, the bath scene that should chronologically have been in the last episode has been split up in two, and the longer half has been wedged in here. It takes up a good half of the episode, isn’t titillating, and is only “comedic” in a very technical sense.

What survives the transition are little character moments; Oto’s friend getting annoyed that she can’t peep on the girls undressing, Oto herself being wooed by snacks into visiting the teacher’s apartment and later leaving some of those snacks at the altar of her late grandmother, etc.

In the episode’s last third, Oto is scared awake by haunting knocking and disembodied footsteps in the rain, creating a tension that is completely shattered the second that a new character is introduced by rushing at Oto, sans context.

There’s some other stuff in here. But for the most part, Mysterious Disappearances is so far mostly an example of the truism that horror anime are never anywhere near as good as horror manga. The original manga is trashy but fun. The anime has been mostly a series of puzzling decisions that dull the manga’s strong points and create new weaknesses. There’s still time for it to recover, of course, but this weak opening half is going to make it a hard sell to anyone who’s not already a pretty big fan.

A Salad Bowl of Eccentrics – Episode 6

Is your favorite girl band anime this season Girls Band Cry or Jellyfish? If you’re undecided, can I interest you in a dark horse candidate?

Salad Bowl is thankfully back on track this week, and quite honestly this episode is a complete odyssey, more than making up for last week. I’m never going to claim that an obsessive lesbian cult leader like Noa is good rep, exactly, but in The Yuri Season it’s as on-tone as anything else. The sugar mama arrangement that Livia stumbles into with Noa is pretty fantastic, whether it’s in the realm of taking her clothes off so Noa can 3D scan her and make dolls of her or convincing Noa, who is also a bedroom musician, to join Puriketsu’s faltering band.

This episode is the best of Salad Bowl as a series and as a concept. Pure uncut zaniness, no chaser.

As a side note, this is really the first time I’ve bought into Livia being hot. Maybe it’s the sharper visuals here than in prior episodes, maybe she just looks good with a guitar. You decide!

Pokémon Horizons – Episode 49

Dot episodes are always fun, and I’m a sucker for anything that even remotely touches on the performer / performance dichotomy, as this episode does with the dichotomy between Dot and Nidothing. So this episode was just an all-around hit with me. Also it’s a 2-parter! Cool!

That’s it for this week. Please bask in the glory of this week’s bonus thought before you go.

Like what you’re reading? Consider following Magic Planet Anime to get notified when new articles go live. If you’d like to talk to other Magic Planet Anime readers, consider joining my Discord server! Also consider following me on Anilist, BlueSky, or Tumblr and supporting me on Ko-Fi or Patreon. If you want to read more of my work, consider heading over to the Directory to browse by category.

All views expressed on Magic Planet Anime are solely my own opinions and conclusions and should not be taken to reflect the opinions of any other persons, groups, or organizations. All text is manually typed and edited, and no machine learning or other automatic tools are used in the creation of Magic Planet Anime articles, with the exception of a basic spellchecker. However, some articles may have additional tags placed by WordPress. All text, excepting direct quotations, is owned by Magic Planet Anime. Do not duplicate without permission. All images are owned by their original copyright holders.

Posted on in The Weekly Orbit

The Weekly Orbit [4/22/24]

The Weekly Orbit is a weekly column collecting and refining my more casual anime- and manga-related thoughts from the previous week. Mostly, these are taken from my tumblr blog, and assume familiarity with the works covered. Be wary of spoilers!

Hello, people of Earth! As the season rolls into its third main week, I’ve picked up an additional show, checked out a Netflix series that I think is probably worth diving into, and just all around had a pretty solid time. Hopefully you will, too, as you read on.

Anime

Mysterious Disappearances – Episode 2

I have been somewhat down on this show’s visual direction but I like the “cut in half” motif at the very start of this episode. Overall, this is an alright episode that forms the first half of the—yuck—Dribblers arc. I maintain that this series doesn’t entirely work in motion, to the extent that it works at all, but I think this is about as well as they could’ve done it? The ecchi scenes continue to stick out like a sore thumb. Also, it must be said that the whole “drooling sickness” bit is significantly more viscerally unpleasant in motion than it was in the manga, and it was already kind of gross, there.

The Grimm Variations – Episode 1

The Grimm Variations is a hell of a thing, and essentially my big ‘discovery’ for this week. (To the extent that getting into an anime that recently released on Netflix counts as any kind of discovery of anything.) I really liked what I’ve seen so far, and not just because this is the first anime with CLAMP character designs in a good long while. I’m going to spoil much of the first episode, which is a self-contained story as this is an anthology, right here. So if you’d prefer to just get a quick yes/no recommendation, I’d say skip this entry and go watch the first episode for yourself to see what you think. Although do be aware that it, and indeed every episode of this show, is double-length. Personally, I would say the first episode is pretty great, though not without some caveats.

Essentially, this is a twist on the Cinderella story, wherein Cinderella is evil. Kind of. It’s nuanced, but she’s definitely at least an antagonistic force. This version of the story is transplanted to Japan in, if I had to guess, roughly the 1800s, and our Cinderella figure is named Kiyoko [Kugimiya Rie]. There’s also a frame story featuring the brothers Grimm themselves and a young girl named Charlotte [Fukuen Misato], but they’re not a major factor here.

The main force of this tale is the stepsisters’ own greed, at least at first, since they move into Kiyoko’s home as their mother marries her father. But there’s more going on here, and it’s difficult to tell where the dividing line quite is between what happens to the stepsisters being the result of their own actions vs. it being a consequence of Kiyoko being actively malicious. The slide from the former to the latter is gradual, and the episode’s final moments make it unclear if perhaps this entire thing wasn’t her plan from the start. The fact that Kiyoko displays no obvious malice until the episode’s halfway mark actually makes her more unsettling. The living doll in her possession is an interesting development, as well, especially since she looks like Charlotte from the frame story and seems to actively dislike how ruthless Kiyoko is being.

In the episode’s last act, Kiyoko, of course, unexpectedly shows up at the ball outshining both her sisters, propelling us to the end of the Cinderella storyline in which it is inevitably her, and not her stepsisters, who is wed to the prince. (Or, in this interpretation, the heir of a noble family. Same difference. As a sidebar, the show’s translation of various Japanese noble titles into words like “Count” and such is a little strange, although given that this is ultimately based on a European story, perhaps it works.)

It’s interesting how open to interpretation the entire story is. When the stepsisters first arrive, the affection Kiyoko gives them seems genuine, but over time, she begins mocking them, and it seems to grow into a twisted thing where she thinks of them as her playthings. (That she feels this way at least by the end of the story is one of relatively few things we know to be true.) Is this some kind of twisted vengeance? Is this the entitlement of the upper class? Maybe a bit of both? A conversation with a friend of mine (hello, Lexi) led me to think it’s interesting how the stepsisters’ fate can be read in a number of different ways if one is so inclined. For example, as the tendency of moneyed society to shut out anyone who tries to rise above their station. You can see this with how Kiyoko relies on the trust of the house servants, despite throwing one of them under the bus in order to frame her sisters, and how she arranges events such that their “impure” tendencies from their upbringing, their poor etiquette and gaudy dress sense, are exposed and mocked.

On another note entirely, the show’s visuals are worth praising. Overall, it mostly looks good, but I do wish it looked just a little more so. In its best moments it really captures the sickly elegance and sumptuousness of a rich household, but it falters just often enough that it only works some of the time instead of all of the time. Notably, the characters look significantly better in profile than they do dead-on, which is mostly to the episode’s benefit but occasionally saps a bit of impact out of closeups and such.

But these shortcomings are more than made up for by specific, highly stylish moments. The shot of Kiyoko in a bloodied kimono, juxtaposed over herself as she stands in the ballroom, is lovely. As is her expression, visible for only a frame or two, of a sadistic grin when she’s (correctly) accused of killing her stepmother.

The final reveal; that the stepsisters are also acting, is quite the twist, but makes sense with what we’re presented beforehand, and leaves the tale on a suitably unsettling and disquieting note. All questions, no answers.

A Salad Bowl of Eccentrics – Episode 3

This is easily the best episode of Salad Bowl so far. It’s also really weird! The two things are connected. In general, the series continues to have a very modern and satirical sense of humor, which is not really something I was expecting when I started watching it. There’s an unstated irony (and perhaps an implied parallel being drawn) between the actual genre of fiction this show occupies and the roped-off world of the Branch Hill cult, who are the main element introduced in this episode. They’re a cloistered, faux-positive, new-age hack religion, of the kind that is very prominent in Japan, and seeing an anime tackle this at all, much less this brazenly, is pretty impressive.

The absolutely incredible parody of a cult recruitment video would be the highlight of the episode were it not for Livia inadvertently turning herself into the cult’s Jesus by healing a stab wound in its final act. I’m sure we’ll see the Branch Hill folks more as the show goes on, and I’m interested to see how they factor in to the series’ overall goals.

Unnamed Memory – Episodes 1 & 2

I watched the first two episodes of this with friends because I heard from some other folks that it was amusing, and also because one of the main characters is a witch and that’s a whole Thing with me. I’m not sure what I think of the series on the whole so far, but it’s definitely at least decent. The first episode is extremely dry and expository, though, so if someone got a bad first impression of it I wouldn’t be that surprised.

So, what is Unnamed Memory on the whole? Well, something with the very broad structure of a fairytale, basically. The crown prince Oscar [Nakajima Yoshiki] needs an heir but has had his, ahem, manhood cursed by a witch. He sets out to find, and conquers, a mystical tower, petitioning the (unrelated) witch of the tower, Tinasha of the Azure Moon [Tanezaki Atsumi], to free him of his curse. When she can’t, he tries to convince her to become his wife instead, since the curse won’t affect her. (It’s complicated.) When she refuses, he instead asks her to live in the capitol for a year, which she agrees to. Implicitly, this is also to give Oscar time to woo her over.

Fundamentally all of this is basically fine, but it’s a little dry. That said, as someone with very strong opinions as to how such characters should be written, Tinasha, to my own surprise, works a lot more than she doesn’t. She’s powerful, mercurial, a little silly, and full of secrets. Still, her ultimate purpose in this story is to eventually marry Oscar, a fact that the show, in its first two episodes, circles around but (perhaps unsurprisingly given how we’re not very far in), doesn’t directly address. Tinasha says herself that witches are objects of fear, but does the narrative fear her? If it doesn’t, it’s hard for us to do so either, which makes it difficult to buy into the series’ central conceits. The additional fact that she occasionally is played as nothing more than a staid tsundere is pretty bad, too. So it’s a mixed bag on that front.

On the other hand, Unnamed Memory is hardly the anime actually responsible for reducing the sorceress archetype to a gag character, and Tinasha is still given more depth here than many are, and when she’s on she’s on. There’s a particular scene in the second episode where she takes out a cadre of evil wizards and a giant wolf imprisoned in a chunk of ice all on her own, and it’s far and away the best thing in the entire show so far.

Basically, the impression I’m getting here is of a story carried by one of its characters having a lot more appeal and charisma than the rest. (Not a unique phenomenon at all. See The Detective is Already Dead, by this same studio, for an example from a few years ago.) Oscar is broadly Fine as a protagonist but he’s hardly worth talking about compared to Tinasha, and I’ll acknowledge my own biases there, but I really just can’t imagine this show working with a less interesting female lead….and it’s entirely possible they’ll fumble that aspect, anyway. So I’m not sure if I’m going to stick with this or not. If I am, it will mostly be for Tinasha herself.

Also, it’s worth addressing the visuals since this is a series, as mentioned, this series comes to us from the infamous jankmeisters at Studio ENGI. All told, it actually looks pretty much fine, at least not any worse than any of its narou-kei anime contemporaries, and there are actually a few scenes where the animation pops in a nice way, so that’s cool. Will it keep that up? Who knows! But I’m interested in finding out, so that’s definitely one thing in the show’s favor.

Jellyfish Can’t Swim in the Night – Episode 2

Great second episode from this one.

I do not see enough discussion of how unique this show’s soundtrack is. I haven’t heard this many analog (or at least analog-sounding) synthesizers in an anime OST. Not recently, and possibly not ever? Certainly not in something released this decade.

Let’s talk about the new character, Takanashi Kim Anouk Mei [Shimabukuro Miyuri]. She seems to be a little older than the rest of the cast, but more to the point, is a hardcore idol otaku to the point where it’s actively offputting to the other characters. Especially offputting to Kano, whose old idol persona Mei is a diehard stan of.

This is, on the surface, a very strange move for this show to be making, but I think I see what they’re doing here, casting Mei as someone who is clearly working through her own stuff by burying herself deep in idol fandom. And indeed, we soon learn she was bullied, possibly for being biracial and perhaps neurodivergent. The text isn’t technically explicit, but it’s fairly clear that these things are factors. One of the people bullying her literally just outright says that she’s bad at social cues, and her hair, apparently naturally a reddish-orange, sticks out, as does her name, which she’s openly mocked for. When she first met Kano in a flashback, she was adrift and purposeless, but it’s clear that over time the sincere connection they made at that point has curdled into something sour. It takes realigning herself with Kano the person, and finding an internal acceptance of how she’s changed, that lets her open back up. The show playing this whole very idol anime-y “prior meeting of destiny” bit completely straight is a little surprising, although it can’t resist playing with it as Mei makes a bunch of goofy gay disaster faces the entire time, but I think that by the episode’s end it works out pretty well, with Mei accepting Kano as she is now, and allowing herself to move on.

On another note: there’s a whole thing with hair dye (and more generally, changing one’s appearance) as a motif through this series. Kano goes blonde to avoid any association with her past life as an idol, Mei dyes her hair black both to emulate Kano-as-Nono-tan and to hide her unusual hair color, and this even sort of extends to Kiui, who we haven’t really met yet, who doesn’t physically dye her hair but has a VTuber rig with a different hair color. (Kiui’s hair being pink puts a kink in this whole thing, but not a major one.)

Overall, this was a really strong second episode and I’m glad that this show has kept up the momentum so well.

Delicious in Dungeon – Episode 16

Another good episode this week. I don’t have a ton of thoughts, this time around, but I do have a few minor observations.

In general, watching Laios say entirely too much while talking to Shuro is a lot more uncomfortable when it’s animated and voice acted. This is one of the least visually-impressive parts of the anime (which isn’t to say it looks bad. It looks quite good and TRIGGER delivers well on what is there, but there just isn’t a ton to draw), but it’s one of the most effective. Especially when Shuro absolutely freaks out on Laios during the pivotal scene where he finds out just what Laios and company have done to resurrect Falin.

We get a little more acquainted with Shuro’s retainerate (is that the term?) here, as well. I always wished we could spend a little more time with these characters, so I’m savoring every moment they’re on-screen, they’re all super fun. Inutade [Furuya Yoshino] will probably emerge as the fan favorite but I like all of them, personally.

As for that final little reveal at the end, what can I—or anybody?—say? She’s here! I’m very excited for the next few weeks.

Pokémon Horizons – Episode 47

With the delinquent, rude rival trainer involved and the battle itself being preceded by some unrelated challenge, this felt oddly like a season 1 episode of the original Pokémon anime.

Largely that’s not a complaint; I think Liko’s ongoing internal struggles are compelling. If I can criticize something though, the “losing the battle doesn’t necessarily mean failing the test” thing seems like it might do weird things to this series’ structure? I guess we’ll see.

Wonderful Pretty Cure – Episode 12

We get a surprisingly moody and starkly-directed episode of Pretty Cure this week, and I am very much here for it.

Cure Nyammy [Matsuda Satsumi], as teased last week, is real! But she’s also a brooding loner and kind of a hardass, and it seems like the disjunct between her more violent method of dealing with the Garugaru and our original duo’s caring, hug-it-out process is going to be a conflict for at least the next few episodes. It is wild how strongly her violent approach contrasts with Wonderful and Friendy’s, and I am a little surprised the show goes there.

Visually, this is the best episode of Wonderful Precure so far. Lots of really stylish animation, especially with the fight scenes, and in general, a surprisingly eerie vibe throughout much of the episode’s back half. If I can make a potentially controversial claim, I actually think this season has (so far!) had a higher batting average of great to merely decent-looking episodes than Hirogaru Sky. But then, we’re only a quarter of the way through Wonderful, so perhaps the comparison is meaningless as of yet.

Anyway, yes, Nyammy. It’s been a while since they’ve done the Cure Honey approach of having a character become a Precure offscreen and then be introduced to the other characters in a piecemeal sort of fashion. I really like the approach here, given Nyammy’s antiheroic personality and general moodiness. Since we already know her backstory, we can make some educated guesses as to how she ended up this way and what she’s prioritizing. (Hint: it’s protecting Mayu.) Although I do wonder if this might be a little intense for your average kid? That aside, Nyammy might be my favorite Precure overall in a hot minute, to be honest.

Himitsu no AiPri – Episode 2

This show is so wonderfully incoherent that I only barely know what actually happened in this episode. Everything else is just a pure sugar rush of digital imagery, only loosely tied together by this whole plot of Himari and Mitsuki trying and failing to keep a mutual secret from each other. I liked this episode, but gosh was it a lot to absorb.

Girls Band Cry – Episode 2

A very good second episode, although one I could not really wrangle my thoughts into a coherent whole about. Have a bulleted list instead. Also I must say, I could relate to this episode a lot, as someone who also often fails at basic household tasks and ends up crying on the floor.

  • I like the sky-patterened bird cutout as a metaphor for bottled-up feelings. I wonder if it’ll recur in later episodes.
  • We learn more about Nina’s weird rich girl country family and her bad school experiences.
  • The meal becomes an immediate metaphor for both Nina’s own past and her emotional baggage in general. It’s clear that she wants to devote herself to music, despite her own protests, but can’t bring herself to focus on anything but studying.
  • NOT THE EMOTIONALLY RESONANT ENGLISH HOMEWORK?
  • Momoka bringing her a light fixture literally vs. symbolically “giving her light” is very funny.
  • The subtle alienation in the scene where Momoka and her new friend/bandmate Subaru invite Nina for a meal and largely talk with each other without involving her is really sad.
  • I really liked the lashing out and making up scenes at the end.

Train to The End of the World – Episode 4

It has been a while since an anime made me think “what the fuck am I watching?” verbatim. Shuumatsu Train really probably should have joined this illustrious club a while ago, but maybe it took four episodes for it to really sink in just how utterly weird this series is. Episode 4 continue the stretch of the show that I’m tentatively referring to as the “Akira just has a generally quite bad time” arc.

I was right last week, she had a mushroom growing on her backside, and she spends most of this week’s episode hiding it from her fellow travelers as they go through an increasingly esoteric series of whacked-out train stops populated by bizarre, sometimes hostile creatures. We don’t get a long look at any of these, which is possibly for the better (sometimes it’s best to let the audience’s imagination fill in the gaps). Angry goat people who compulsively run at and headbutt the train? Screaming plants that cackle insanely as the train rolls past? Floating internal organs? Hails of golf balls? Why the hell not? Reimi openly speculates within the text of the show itself that these might all be former people, which is an even more mortifying thought.

Akira’s dilemma is the real central concern here, though. When the others find out about her mushroom, they yank it out, and in what I believe is a reference to the idea of a shirikodama, seem to take her soul with it, leaving her a babbling, sleepy mess who can barely sit upright on her own. The entire thing is pretty sad, and with this being the show’s first two-parter, we don’t see how or even if Akira will be returned to normal. I’m worried for my girl! Even though her normal personality is basically outright said to be a coping mechanism for the depressing state of the world both before the 7G Incident but also very much after it!

I also have to point out an excellent piece of analysis I saw elsewhere. I generally check /r/anime (as well as a few other places, namely, the relevant tumblr tags, Twitter hashtags, and BlueSky hashtags) for shows I’m keeping up with, because I like to have a general feel for the timbre of conversation about a given series while it airs. Usually, I do not see anyone make any inferences I didn’t make myself, but this post on the former by user 8andahalfby11 postulates an interesting—and sensible!—source for all of the weirdness in the series.

And that’s all for this week. Putting this column together took several hours, which is a lot more than I thought it would! I need to streamline my process, perhaps.

Here’s this week’s bonus thought: things that seem insignificant to you might mean the world to others, so mind what you say when speaking to people.

Like what you’re reading? Consider following Magic Planet Anime to get notified when new articles go live. If you’d like to talk to other Magic Planet Anime readers, consider joining my Discord server! Also consider following me on Anilist, BlueSky, or Tumblr and supporting me on Ko-Fi or Patreon. If you want to read more of my work, consider heading over to the Directory to browse by category.

All views expressed on Magic Planet Anime are solely my own opinions and conclusions and should not be taken to reflect the opinions of any other persons, groups, or organizations. All text is manually typed and edited, and no machine learning or other automatic tools are used in the creation of Magic Planet Anime articles, with the exception of a basic spellchecker. However, some articles may have additional tags placed by WordPress. All text, excepting direct quotations, is owned by Magic Planet Anime. Do not duplicate without permission. All images are owned by their original copyright holders.

Posted on in anime

Seasonal First Impressions: Flipping The Haters Off in GIRLS BAND CRY

Seasonal First Impressions is a column where I detail my thoughts, however brief or long, about a currently-airing anime’s first episode or so.

There are two immediately noteworthy things about Girls Band Cry, one fairly frustrating, and the other very much a selling point for a series that is going to need it. Point one; you cannot legally watch Girls Band Cry anywhere in the anglosphere as of the time of this writing. There’s just no way to do it. For whatever reason, none of the major streaming services have picked this thing up, and it’s only because of a fansubbing team going by SobsPlease that this article exists at all, since I don’t speak Japanese and would otherwise have written the show off as beyond my reach. If we were talking about a show that was fairly uninteresting, this would still be a little sad, but mostly of no major consequence. However, in the case of Girls Band Cry it is very annoying because of point two. This series has an extremely distinctive visual style. I would go so far as arguing it doesn’t really look like any other TV anime. At the very least, it certainly doesn’t look like any that I’ve ever seen.

All-3D CGI is not new anymore, it’s been an accepted approach to creating TV anime—if a contentious one—for over a decade by now. What separates Girls Band Cry from even its most immediate peers like Bang Dream! It’s MyGO!!! is a stark juxtaposition between its fairly grounded environments and incredibly fluid, almost cartoony character animation. These twin approaches, combined with a flair for directly incorporating visualizations of pure feeling into the series, create a world that feels simultaneously very physical and very stylized. It’s a very interesting contrast, and I imagine some will be turned off of it just because it’s so different from even other 3D CG anime, but it works very well for what the show is trying to do, and I would not be at all surprised if Girls Band Cry ends up influencing other anime to attempt a similar style.

So, you may ask, what is the show trying to do? A fairly simple underdog story about rock bands, so far, but it’s doing it with a real, competitive vigor that’s all the more important because of where and when this is airing.

Our main character is Iseri Nina [Uchiyama Rina], newly arrived in Tokyo*, and apparently fleeing a somewhat difficult home situation, although the details are vague. Following the compass of some online hearsay, she, after a series of minor mishaps, catches a street performance by her favorite musician, Kawaragi Momoka [Yuuri]. Momoka is a former member of and songwriter for a group called Diamond Dust. They’re broken up now, and Momoka and Nina happen to meet after the latter awkwardly introduces herself to and professes her fandom of the former. Hijinks ensue, wherein Momoka is chased from her spot by a pair of punk-looking people, who she promptly flips off as Momoka and Nina, who finds herself caught up in all this, flee together. Momoka also happens to flip the double birdies to their pursuers, beginning both a running gag and an honest-to-god visual motif that I really hope the series keeps coming back to, because it’s funny and earnest in a way that centers the entire narrative.

Nina and Momoka develop a fast friendship, and as they learn about each others’ woes (Nina’s buttoned-up home life, Momoka’s falling out with her bandmates over a song ownership dispute), Momoka lets it slip that she’s moving away the very next day. Obviously, this doesn’t really happen. Nina, who is left Momoka’s guitar, pursues her, and with the unlikely help of the same punks that chased Momoka off earlier, convinces her to stay, and they put on an impromptu street performance that ends the episode. The real lingering message is the one Nina shouts into the crowd while trying to get Momoka’s attention in the show’s closing minutes;

What helps sell this whole unlikely, delightfully cartoony story, is that the motivation for Nina moving to Tokyo in the first place isn’t some grand ambition, it’s just a feeling that she doesn’t belong. As somebody who also moved halfway across the country to get away from family who just Kind of Don’t Get It, I am immediately and immensely sympathetic to her plight. This is admittedly a stretch, but given her reaction to learning that Momoka’s roommate is a gay man, I think she might be queer and closeted, possibly even to herself. I’ll admit that present textual evidence is minimal, but the situation makes the shoe fit. More generally, and even if that turns out to not be the case, there’s a real sense of earnest sincerity to the show’s pop-tough-guy fuck-the-world attitude. “Punk” is a meaningless descriptor in 2024, but the show is genuinely doing something pretty different here, and I think that counts for a lot on its own.

Because while its story is straightforward the way in which it’s delivered sets Girls Band Cry apart from its peers. When Nina is upset, she literally seethes prickly red particles. When she first hears Momoka’s song on the street, the first chord becomes a physical smear of pure blue that wafts over to her ears. When she hears Momoka sing, it’s with such force that an explosion of rock glass erupts behind her. None of these things physically happen, but the show’s willingness to illustrate feelings as though they were literal events is very striking. It also puts it in direct conversation with that other rule-bending underdog story about the power of music airing right now, Jellyfish Can’t Swim in the Night. In a battle of the bands setup, I still think Jellyfish might win, but it’s not really a competition in that way. (And both shows are still very early on in terms of episode count, so who knows where things will eventually end up.)

It might sort of be a competition in another sense, though. Nearly two years ago, I wrote an article about the state of the then-omnipresent idol girl group genre. In the nineteen months since then, that entire format of anime, quite contrary to my prediction in that article, has virtually disappeared. The only idol anime airing right now is THE IDOLM@STER: SHINY COLORS, and of the type that we normally think of when the term “idol anime” comes up, it’s the only one slated to air this year at all, every other example being a movie, a spinoff, or shows which fall outside of the traditional format (like Oshi no Ko‘s second season or, on the other end of things, kids’ anime Himitsu no AiPri). I bring this up not to make the claim that idol anime are dead necessarily, but to underline that there does seem to be some kind of shift occurring, as we move back to the similar but markedly less formulaic girls band genre. Once (BOCCHI THE ROCK!) is a fluke. Twice (the aforementioned MyGO) is coincidence. Three times is a trend. What’s remarkable is that despite these shows all being very different, there’s a running thread of visual experimentation that makes them exciting. If these two facts really are connected, then it’s a damn good time to think girls playing guitars are pretty cool. The rocker girls are back, and if this wave continues, they just might be the future.

1: Technically the place she moves in to is just outside of Tokyo, but even in-text, this is acknowledged as splitting hairs. A bit like the Chicago / Chicagoland distinction where I live.

Like what you’re reading? Consider following Magic Planet Anime to get notified when new articles go live. If you’d like to talk to other Magic Planet Anime readers, consider joining my Discord server! Also consider following me on Anilist, BlueSky, or Tumblr and supporting me on Ko-Fi or Patreon. If you want to read more of my work, consider heading over to the Directory to browse by category.

All views expressed on Magic Planet Anime are solely my own opinions and conclusions and should not be taken to reflect the opinions of any other persons, groups, or organizations. All text is manually typed and edited, and no machine learning or other automatic tools are used in the creation of Magic Planet Anime articles, with the exception of a basic spellchecker. However, some articles may have additional tags placed by WordPress. All text, excepting direct quotations, is owned by Magic Planet Anime. Do not duplicate without permission. All images are owned by their original copyright holders.