Anime: Bang Dream! It`s MyGo!!!!!

It seems that Japan has been taking the girls band/idol-ish subgenre a bit more seriously lately, so I wanted to check out some of those titles, starting with this entry of the vast BanG Dream multimedia franchise and all of their bands.

Word online says that it’s different from other entries by being far more dramatic, but also falling into the exaggerated and overdramatic. Well, my opinion about it is fairly neutral, as it wasn’t what I was expecting in both a good and a bad sense.

From the negative side, the tone wasn’t as serious as I expected it to be and the drama wasn’t as good nor as well established as I was expecting, as there is no clear reasoning behind the disbanding of the former band until just a brief hint at the very end of the series. Thus the main conflict isn’t looked into enough in my opinion.

From the positive side, reading about this show online, I expected it to be a lot more of a tearjerker that wants to manipulate your emotions with overdramatic reactions. Although it’s true that the characters tend to manipulate others and be somewhat toxic towards each other, the tone is not overdramatic nor melodramatic.

Not that the plot is that good though, as the story is still fairly simple, the pacing rather slow and the band does progress fairly fast at the end especially considering all the issues it had, thus it is not that believable either. Another issue is that although the characters end up sticking together, it does not seem like they resolved the big issues between them, ending in a kind of a toxic working relationship if anything else. I wonder if that’s how the band was presented in the videogames, and what does it say about the real band that launched from this one lol.

There are also references to other bands from the franchise and cameos of the ones that already had appearances in their own anime series, though I missed them at first because, well, this is the only series I watched from the franchise. I gotta say that every major band and character being nearby or having a direct connection with each other feels like a stretch though.

The resolution is so-so, it is what it is, what you would expect from it, as the band stayed together, nothing special. It also confirmed a sequel series focused on another band from the franchise, and in turn focusing on the girl that broke the previous existing band I guess. They seem to have a gothic theatrical vibe in them, and although a bit pretentious, I did preferred them musically over MyGO!!!!!, and if the tone is like the one in here, I want to check it out when it comes out.

The characters are also ok, they fit into a stereotype but are explored enough to explain their personalities with a half-decent result. I still think that they are very toxic towards each other to stay together, and their backdrop stories are way too simple to excuse any of their reactions, but having flawed characters with more than one dimension to their personalities does make them better than the competition. Other than that, despite their different stories, at the end of the day it all comes down to everyone wanting a place to belong, so the resolution of their character arcs do feel a bit samey and repetitive after a while.

Just for the sake of writing some more both about them and in the review, I appreciate Komori being the shy, quiet and emotionally suppressed character moving from being the token girl to becoming a proactive character that learns to voice her thoughts and standing up to others and getting everyone together. Best girl not only for being the best written character, but also the most mentally sane.

Anon was interesting to follow for how selfish and self-centered she was, yet still tries to be a good person and find her own path alongside the others. She is the second most looked into character, being the co-protagonist and main perspective we follow in the first half of the series and all. Her drama, backdrop and character arc of realizing she is not as amazing and special as she used to think was somewhat interesting to see.

The others are not as good, Taki isn’t as interesting as she seemed to be, her initial rude behaviour changing to a kind of overprotective and maternal attitude around Tomori didn’t feel organic to make her a character that well written.

As for Sayo…well, seeing the typical nice and relaxed girl that wants for everyone to be on good terms and stick together snapping and ending up being the worst and most manipulative and toxic character was kind of awesome at first, but it all resulted in the slowest and most overdramatic episodes in the whole series. Plus down to it, doesn’t Anon already fill her role in the story with being a fake nice girl and all? And her past of feeling lonely and wanting somewhere to belong and stuff does not excuse her being a bitch, the others had that as well and didn’t do any of all that toxic shit. Seems kinda redundant to have this girl around, writing wise I mean, I know she HAS to be in there because she is the bassist.

And Raana…what were they doing with this character man? She is just the token funny kinda random character that’s there just to make the tone a bit more lighthearted when things are becoming too serious or sad. She has no personality nor character arc whatsoever, and she even enters the band just because she wants, and also because she is the best musician of the bunch.

The girls of the other band are just kinda there, coming off as bitches with first world problems than anything else, but some other friends and members they come to find at the end seem nice. There’s nothing else to say about them because they will get their own series next year.

Visually, anime has come a long way to make CGI that doesn’t look like complete trash and make characters with enough facial expressions to not come off as robots, but is still not that good and the motions are a bit stiff. Luckily the backgrounds were very good, so it gets a bit of an extra point for that.

The sound effects and music do their job just fine. I don’t find the themes impressive in the least, especially after listening to them outside of the anime, because I don’t fancy much talking in the middle of a song, and the lyrics come off as first world teen girl problems. But as background music for the anime and used narratively as forms of expression for the characters, they are fine, and that includes the opening and ending. As for the voice acting…I’m not entirely sure but I think the standard for this subgenre is making the bands themselves act, instead of hiring seiyuus that can sing, or better yet hiring seiyuus and replacing them in the musical parts. As a result, whenever the girls aren’t singing, they are very mediocre at best as far as acting goes.

So yeah, there kind of is a story, conflict, dramatic pasts, hardships while forming an indie band from scratch and making it big. That alone, and not becoming a mess all things considered, are enough to consider it a bit more realistic and place it on top of other shows of its kind, which presents the same thing in a very unrealistic and idealized manner. But it is also nowhere near great for any particular reason.

I’d like to add that after this series I went on to watch the other kind of dramatic entry in the franchise, the Roselia movies, so I will cover them shortly. Visuals and sound left the same impressions in me as this title, although I preferred the themes of that other band because MyGO!!!!! has a bit more typical jpop style, while Roselia leans more towards rock with a bit of gothic vibes in them, which I prefer by a lot. I still don’t like that there are many voices singing at the same time, as they feel like pop idol groups to me, and I don’t like them one bit, and the themes themselves aren’t as good on their own as they are for background music (I’m listening to their singles as I write this), but they’re overall fine. With that said, Komori is a far better singer than the one of Roselia, very noticeable on a a capella scene near the end of the first movie, if I remember correctly.

The main issue about these movies is that they’re like two and a half hours long combined. They should either be longer or a proper series, as they are, the first one is very rushed, making events, character interactions and changes, drama, conflicts and the band progressing, to come and go very fast and not being believable and convincing, thus it deserves a below average score. By the second one, all of that was over, and it was shorter and just about the characters introspecting a bit and defining their goals and motivations before they make some new songs and get what they wanted at the end, so it was ok and better. The characters weren’t as interesting as the ones from MyGO!!!!! but they’re fine. So yeah, the first movie was bad, the second one wasn’t and improved the characters, making an overall watchable whole.

I considered the two more serious and dramatic BanG Dream to be watchable and a step up from other similar titles that I could barely stand, if at all, and will try to watch Ave Mujica next year.