Feeling out of place in the countryside, high school dropout Nina Iseri moves to Tokyo. After a rough
first day and getting locked out of her apartment, she meets her favorite guitarist, Momoka Kawaragi.
The two put on a street performance together and decide to start a band with three other girls. While
each girl faces her own struggles, their passion for music keeps their dreams alive.
(Source: Crunchyroll)
# ~~~__Review Girls Band Cry __~~~ ~~~__(translated from french into english)__~~~ ~~~img(https://i.imgur.com/pzxqRuI.gif)~~~ ~~~img(https://media1.tenor.com/m/5BoT7peL3jAAAAAC/girls-band-cry-nina.gif)~~~ *Girls Band Cry is surely the surprise that few people could have seen coming, due to the lack of interest from the community at the anime's launch, and also to the 3D aspect which has been much criticized in anime circles to date.* ~~~img(https://imgur.com/F2BJ3AW.png)~~~ ~~~img(https://imgur.com/NT2T5Y6.png)~~~ *The anime quickly divided those who found the 3D "disgusting" "despicable" "burns the eyes", and those who found it lively and extremely enjoyable to watch x)* *I actually made a post in the Episode 1 thread about this, and was very happy to receive so many likes in support of the good use of 3D in Girls Band Cry!* Messages below : >People's relationship with CGI is always negative, whatever the quality. To say that the CGI is average would be to say that the anime is rather average in its animation, and that would be a lie. The CGI in Girls Band Cry isn't "average", it's objectively good. The dinamism is there, the scenery works well with 3D, the characters don't lack facial expression. In general, we tend to accept bad 2D rather than good CGI. - Bad CGI is often recognizable with a lack of expression and jerky animation. I don't think "Girls Band Cry" can be considered average CGI. - img(https://media1.tenor.com/m/GDcbeBthvLMAAAAC/girls-band-cry-anime.gif) *It's perfectly normal to take a dim view of 3D when it has more often than not marked catastrophic works such as the famous "Berserk (2016)". But since then, we've had good licenses like "Houseki no Kuni", which is today the pillar of "Full CGI" and the one that gave 3D its letters of nobility in anime. (I haven't seen the series). There's also "Trigun Stampede", to name but two. Even the CGI in "Chainsaw Man" was criticized when it came out, even though it was really very good.* *Nor is 3D well promoted by some studios, who use it to make disgusting anime, which disgusts newcomers who discover that these animes are mostly aimed at maximum economy.* ~~~img(https://media1.tenor.com/m/9sh2t2Wxi9cAAAAC/girls-band-cry-bleeding-hearts.gif)~~~ *Girls Band Cry is a "band" anime, like "K-on!" and "Bocchi The Rock", not an "idol" anime, as some people seem to confuse it. Only "Diamond Dust" acts like idols, which was the main reason for Momoka's departure, so I highly doubt Momoka will want to follow the style that has been imposed on Diamond Dust! What's more, throughout the anime, the group makes it clear that they don't want to change their style to become more popular.* *The main strength of the series already lies in the characters, especially Nina, the first character to be shown on screen and the very essence of the anime. We're treated to a very lonely character, misunderstood by those around her, despised at school, and also very impulsive. Nina will then meet Monoka, who will enable her to convey her powerful feelings through song, and little by little Nina will take more and more initiative and confidence in herself, even going so far as to make decisions cruelly impacting her future.* ~!*I really didn't expect this revelation about the reason for the argument between Nina and Hina, it made me love Nina even more x)*!~ *For her part, Momoka remains a rather withdrawn character throughout the series, keeping her feelings to herself and finding it hard to reveal herself, even in the face of Nina's insistent temperament. It will take some time and a certain scene for Momoka to dare to move forward, but time is a good thing, so why solve a problem in a hurry when you can take your time*. *Subaru will then come into play to bring a slightly more zany, light-hearted aspect to the group and the discussion between the girls. Subaru hesitates between satisfying her family and living out her own ambitions, as many of us do during our school years.* *Tomo's a pretty straightforward girl, and I recognize a lot of myself in the character, because I tend to be like that too. Generally speaking, we can offend people who don't know us. At the same time, I think Tomo's way of talking is a bit over the top, but she's still a very likeable girl with a very cute side. As for Rupa, all we know is that she's lost her parent, but the anime doesn't really go into it, so there's very little information. But Rupa is a bit like the group's mother, she has a very caring attitude towards the group and especially Tomo x)* *The main role of "Diamond Dust" will be to give Nina and ultimately the group a sense of purpose, as well as Momoka's development. Unfortunately, as in many series of this kind, whether it's an "idol" or a "group", the rivals don't get enough in-depth development.* ~~~img(https://i.imgur.com/pzxqRuI.gif)~~~ ~~~img(https://media1.tenor.com/m/suszbAHp_DQAAAAC/girls-band-cry-anime.gif)~~~ **Why is this anime so good? ** *The characters are alive! They argue constantly, disagree, throw glasses of orange juice in each other's faces. The characters don't say "no, nothing", they talk like we talk to our loved ones, they're not cute, characterized characters. And the 3D gives such power to their exchanges, with such striking facial expressions! We quickly become attached to these characters, who are more like us than like stereotypical Japanese characters.* *The same goes for the music videos, which are incredible!* *It's much better than "Love Live Supertars", which offers an already sublime 2D/3D mix, and much better than "Oshi No Ko" in Full 2D, which is nevertheless an extremely popular series*. *The camera isn't made to stay in place, it spins, it flies, the characters move in such an energetic way through such powerful lyrics. You really feel like you're at a live concert, farting your brains out!* *I don't think anyone would have expected an anime with such striking force, be it in a story that was so classic but so real through every character in the anime!* *The 3D sublimated the anime, with its color schemes, camera movements, and the powerful feel of the screen!* *In short, Girls Band Cry is for me the anime of the season. I know that it won't be able to convince everyone, notably because of the presence of "Full CGI", but I'm terribly happy to have been able to discover a work with such a good atmosphere, and so full of emotion!* ~~~img(https://media1.tenor.com/m/kMIg3TlSAscAAAAC/girls-band-cry-nina.gif)~~~ # ~~~**Thanks for reading this review x)**~~~ ~~~img(https://i.imgur.com/pzxqRuI.gif)~~~ ~~~__And thanks for your legendary "Gif" : __ img150(https://media1.tenor.com/m/JySn44CGUekAAAAC/girls-band-cry-fuck-you.gif) img200(https://media1.tenor.com/m/eWkfxylPZT4AAAAC/girls-band-cry-nina.gif) img300(https://media1.tenor.com/m/XDfCbMsQtj8AAAAC/girls-band-cry-iseri-nina.gif)~~~
# ~~~___"Once you give up, it's joever!"___~~~ ~~~__Spoilers Ahead__~~~ __Introduction__ Girls Band Cry, a 3D original anime which didn’t even get an English license. A show that had everything set on hard mode from the very beginning, and yet, it delivered. It delivered so well that I, a person who always reads reviews and writes small comments about shows here and there got urged to write a review because of how well this show delivered. Going into this show all I knew about it was that it was animated in CGI and that there were music elements to it. I actually saw a clip from the song in episode 3 and after seeing it I knew I had to start this show. img(https://i.imgur.com/kgfxUgt.png) __Story (8.5/10)__ The story of Girls Band Cry starts with a lone girl running away from home to the bustling city. She goes on to meet Momoka, one of the artists from her favourite band and eventually starts a band with her. They go on to eventually make a group of 5 and go through the trials and tribulations of being a band with a bit of character drama along the way. As this show is part of the Slice of Life genre you couldn’t really say this show followed an overarching story or really had a concrete goal until maybe halfway into the season. That never took away from it though. Through all the character interactions, drama, and music that was produced throughout this story, it either had you glued to your screen listening to these mesmerizing performances or tearing up from some of the emotional backstories that these characters had. __Characters (9/10)__ So the plot of the show isn’t its main driving factor, then what are we here for? The characters, we’re here for the characters. The characters in this show are a very enjoyable group to watch and mesh together very well through their interactions. Something you might notice that sounds a bit off is the voice acting, and this is because it’s done by the actual band members from Togenashi Togeari. As this is all of their first-time voice acting you might find sometimes that it feels a bit off but it gives this feeling that it’s so much more real than traditional anime. Some might find this a positive while others might see it as a negative but I think this enhances the show greatly. Overall, the set of characters in this show gives us a fun chaotic group which somehow balances itself out with each of their respective traits and because of this they fit together perfectly. img(https://i.imgur.com/LIfE9CD.png) __Music (10/10) __ Let me be outright, the music in this show is phenomenal, it’s how I got into this show and one of the driving reasons for why I love this show so much. This show isn’t just like any music show which produces one if not maybe two songs throughout the show. No, this show gave us seven, yes SEVEN songs throughout its 13-episode duration. This isn’t just Toei throwing out random tracks at us either, since this show is based on the actual band Togenashi Togeari, each song was energetic, loud, and really gave off the rock band vibe that they’re going for. You can really feel this right away from the first track VOID that is shown in episode 1 which is my personal favourite. img(https://i.imgur.com/SicGTfT.png) Other than the music that the band produced, we also have to look at other things like the background music. The background music is fun and upbeat when it needs to be to put you in a good mood, light and mellow when characters are having casual conversation and it can be touching and emotional in scenes where you need to feel emotionally connected to some of these characters. One thing I really like about the background music in this show specifically for these emotional moments is that sometimes the music is just the opening of the anime but slowed down and played with a strong focus on the piano and you might not notice unless you really listen for it but I find that incredible that such an energetic and upbeat song for the opening can be changed to be used in such emotional moments in the show with such effectiveness. I thought that this was used very effectively in a lot of moments especially episodes 8 and 10. img(https://i.imgur.com/ZcfkvFr.png) __Animation (10/10)__ Now we all know the stigma that comes with CGI. It’s always worse, hand drawn is better, only use it for background effects, is what they all say. CGI in itself doesn’t have all that good of a track record either besides some specific titles. Girls Band Cry however, takes all of those stigmas and flips them right over on its head. This show has redefined the use of 3D animation in anime and all the credit is due to Toei Animation for this. This show displays some of the most unique and fluent CGI I’ve seen in anime and I think this is really a hard selling point for this show. It’s able to be goofy with facial expressions and give us some real comedic effects because of it. img(https://i.imgur.com/N7nQbjT.png) While at the same time it’s able to give us some incredibly beautiful shots like this. img(https://i.imgur.com/RSUTKnV.png) I also really love the effects that are used in the anime at times that really give off more personality and emotion to how the characters are feeling like Nina’s thorns. img(https://i.imgur.com/m6wXYJH.png) I could probably talk about the animation in this show forever and provide so many different screenshots and clips on why I think this show outdid itself many times over but alas I have to continue on with my review so I’ll spare everyone the photo dump and conclude that I think this unique animation is one of this show’s selling points and really redefines the use of 3D animation as a whole. __Overall Enjoyment (10/10)__ All ratings are subjective at the end of the day and I personally think it’s very important to gauge how much you liked the show whenever you review something. It may be an incredibly deep and thought invoking show that dives into themes which aren’t explicitly written out to the viewer which is a 10/10 to the critic while it could be a mere 7/10 to the average person who’s just watching shows for their personal enjoyment but didn’t really understand the point of the show in general. With that being said, I absolutely loved every second of Girls Band Cry. From the amazing characters, music, animation, and story, everything about it dragged me in further and further each episode and left me wanting more whenever it ended. It’s very simple and easily watchable for anyone and for viewers wanting more there’s quite a few easter eggs here and there which elevate the show when you notice them. __Conclusion__ Overall, I think this show was the hidden gem of this season by far and would’ve gone so much further if it had an English license. While I’m sad that it might not have reached that many people, for the people it did reach, I think most of us can say that this show was amazing in so many different aspects. The animation, music and characters were the key standouts to me and I think it will be looked at in the future as the start of hopefully more amazing CGI anime to come. If you made it this far thanks, for reading my review as it was the first one I’ve ever written. For anyone who just scrolled to the bottom to see my rating, lets all flip them off together! img220(https://media1.tenor.com/m/JySn44CGUekAAAAC/girls-band-cry-fuck-you.gif)
img880(https://i.imgur.com/6ascIag.jpg) ----- ~~~All of my reviews contain __spoilers __for the reviewed material. This is your only warning.~~~ ----- ~~~*“We believe there’s a place where we belong. That’s why we sing.”*~~~
There is something fitting about the fact that, as of the time I’m writing this after the anime’s just ended, there is no way to legally watch ___Girls Band Cry___ in the west. It’s completely meaningless to call anything, much less an anime—the end result of many, many corporate machinations at the end of the day—“punk” in 2024, but there is something at least a little rock ‘n roll about how if you wanted to watch *Girls Band Cry* as it aired and you lived in North America, the UK, or many other parts of the world, you had to pirate it. Steal This Anime, they’ll call the documentary. It’s appropriate because *Girls Band Cry* is a thirteen episode ode to the power of rock music, of youthful indiscretion, of the power of spite—of doing something just because everyone tells you you can’t—of love, of rebellion. I’m 30 years old, now, so I can’t speak to how *Girls Band Cry* may or may not be resonating with the actual teenagers of today, but I can say that for myself, for a generation that grew up on the pop-punk explosion, perhaps rock n’ roll’s last gasp of any real cultural relevance in the United States, it hits like revelation. The very short version is that this is an absolutely kickass tour de force, a complete triumph for Toei’s burgeoning 3D department, proof that Sakai Kazuo (also of Love Live! Sunshine!! fame, among other things) still has it and that his best work is ahead of him. This is a show that cements itself as an instant, iconic classic, and a series that other anime will build on in the future. If you haven’t watched this, you need to. Go look around, or ask a friend in the know if you don’t know where to search. You’ll find it, and it’ll find you. It’s a story about teenage rebellion. It’s a straightforward underdog rock band story, the best we’ve gotten in years, and a rare recent example to feel truly connected to the real world. It’s also, if you’re paying attention, a love story. Suffice to say, as is obvious from my effusive praise, I think *Girls Band Cry* is great. I could nitpick various things, and I don’t think it’s literally flawless, but it’s about as perfect as anime gets for me, at least. It’s an admirably dense text for its genre, too; thirteen episodes of the most emotionally resonant shit you’ve ever felt in your life. It’s an electric, nervy thing with a ton of heart. I love it. Would you believe it all starts with a middle finger? img880(https://i.imgur.com/ZM0jKzA.jpeg) There’s an entire sub-article to be written about how *Girls Band Cry* makes use of the middle finger gesture. It starts as a running joke in the first episode, before being traded off for its more polite counterpart, giving someone the pinky finger. But then that becomes an in-group thing, something Togenashi Togeari, the band in *Girls Band Cry* (the name means something like ‘spineless spiny ant,’ I’m told), use to identify themselves, each other, their fans, their supporters. It becomes a fandom thing, a scene thing. A sign of belonging. But before even that much, there’s Nina [**Rina**, in her first-ever anime role. All of *Girls Band Cry*‘s voice actresses go by mononyms and are new to the industry], a lonely girl keenly aware of her place in a world that is much, much bigger than she is. As our story begins, she’s just arrived in Tokyo, leaving behind a complicated home situation that we won’t learn more about until near the end of the series. The more specific reasons aside, the main sense we get early on is that the real reason Nina struck out on her own in the big city is just a sense that she felt like she didn’t belong in her hometown. Given some stuff later in the show, it is really easy to read Nina as a closeted (maybe even to herself) lesbian, but more generally, she definitely at least feels like a stranger in her own home. Getting away from it all makes an amount of sense. Much, much later in the series, we’ll learn that this all stems from trying to stick up for a girl in her class who was being bullied and being smacked down hard by the school system (and more literally, the actual bullies) for doing so. It quickly becomes clear that Nina is a pretty angry little thing, and that most of this anger is a justified expression of disgust with a deeply unfair world. That kind of anger can ignite a fire in a person, and I’ve always found these stick-to-your-guns-at-all-costs types admirable. I have a few friends like that, and they’re some of my favorite people. Something that gives Nina relief from the general, well, pain of being herself, is the music of rock band Diamond Dust. Or at least, Diamond Dust as they used to be, before they replaced their lead vocalist Momoka [**Yuuri**] over what we later learn was a falling out about a shift in style at the behest of their label. img880(https://i.imgur.com/Ic21fP0.jpeg) Nina, a real head, is a fan of their older stuff with Momoka, particularly the original version of their song “Void”, which makes things pretty astounding for her when she meets Momoka on a street corner, putting on a street performance. Nina introduces herself, starstruck, extremely awkward, and maybe a little smitten. The two hit it off pretty well, but Momoka plans to leave town the next day and quit the music business entirely. Suffice to say, that doesn’t happen. Over the course of the remaining 12 episodes, Togenashi Togeari (who only actually get that name a fair ways into the series), gain three additional members; drummer Subaru [**Mirei**], keyboardist Tomo [**Natsu**], and bassist Rupa [**Shuri**]. All are fantastic characters, although they don’t get an even split of focus, as this is mostly Nina’s story, at the end of the day. Before we get more into that, though, we should actually talk about how this story is told, since the presentation is so important here. Any anime is to some extent defined by its visual identity, and the sound work is always important as well, but both of these are particularly crucial to Girls Band Cry, which is genuinely attempting something new on the visual front, and sonically requires its viewers to buy into the idea of Togenashi Togeari as a credible rock band. The look of the show is the most notable thing about it, I’d argue (aside from that other elephant in the room we already addressed, anyhow). If you are one of the people who has held off on GBC because “it’s CGI” or “it just doesn’t look good,” this is me telling you, as politely as possible, that you are having an Goofball Moment and need to gently shake yourself out of it. I’ve long been a defender of 3D CGI in anime, but this is not a case like say, Estab Life, where the series is using CG to emulate the traditional “anime” look. Instead, Girls Band Cry focuses on capturing the feeling of being an anime, as opposed to clinging to techniques that don’t necessarily work in its particular format. This is obvious in details as basic as its apparent framerate. The common 3D CG shortcut of halving the final product’s framerate to make it look more like a series of traditional anime cuts is not present here, as Girls Band Cry‘s visuals are able to capture that look without relying on doing that. In general, the CG is fluid, cartoony, and wonderfully expressive. Not every trick it tries works perfectly, but it has an astoundingly high hit-rate for something that’s basically extending anime’s visual language on its own as it goes. In more general terms of style, the show manages to pull off keeping things relatively grounded on a presentational level while still feeling cartoony. Some of the usual anime hallmarks are absent here—no one but post-Momoka-split Diamond Dust have any of the usual anime hair colors, for instance, and in their case there’s decent reason to think it’s dyed—and the backgrounds in particular lean toward the realistic. Despite this though, GBC is perfectly willing to break that illusion of restraint whenever it has a reason to. This can be as simple as a character making a goofy pull-face (something the show is shockingly good at considering how hard that is to do in 3D), or giving a character a literal aura that radiates off of them and impresses the other characters or telegraphs an emotional state to us, the audience. In one scene, for example, Momoka is given a gentle, cool lavender aura. We don’t need Nina to directly tell us that she thinks Momoka is beautiful and admirable. The entire series is loosely from her perspective, and devices like this let us directly see how she feels. This is even more obvious in the “rage spikes” the show draws around Nina when she’s angry; she literally brims with red and black needles, representing the barely-contained boil of her temper flares. *Girls Band Cry* can and does use traditional 2D animation as well, but only in very specific contexts; the idealized, crystallized memories that we all have as part of our core personalities, very occasional flights of fancy when the show dreams up what “real rock stuff” looks like, including the opening theme, and for minor characters. If we interpret the show as being from Nina’s perspective, we can think of the 2D segments as her romantic notions filling in the gaps as she’s telling us her story, even in remembering minor characters she has no real extended contact with. It is certainly not a compromise or a concession, which is what a lot of people—myself included—might’ve initially thought, as it’s important that these are the only times when *Girls Band Cry* uses these techniques. In terms of sound, Togenashi Togeari are surprisingly believable as a rock band. Obviously, despite the show’s gestures toward an independent rocker spirit—gestures that become more and more important as the show goes on—this is an anime series, and those need to be backed by corporate money, so they’re not, like, The Clash or anything. They’re pretty fucking good, though! It takes several episodes for their sound to really come together, as it doesn’t entirely click until they pick up Tomo for keyboards and Rupa for a real bass about a third of the way through the series. In the great Girls Band Anime Power Rankings I’d put them somewhere above (don’t kill me here) honestly most of the *BanG Dream* groups, and Kessoku Band, but below Ave Mujica, Raise a Suilen, and Sick Hack, bands whose very existence kind of feels like the series they’re from is getting away with something. (Even accounting for the last of these having only one song.) TogeToge aren’t that, but they’re great as the protagonists of this kind of thing, since they make straight-down-the-middle, fist-pumping, angst-shedding alt-rock of a kind that’s basically extinct as anything with any real cultural currency in the United States but remains a viable commercial and artistic force in other parts of the world, obviously including East Asia. Their biggest asset is Nina’s vocals; clear, piercing, incisive, bright as a shooting star. She sings like her vocal chords are trying to climb out of her throat to strangle everyone else in the room, and while she lacks the complete knockout punch holler of someone like, say, real-world rock star LiSA, she more than makes up for that in knowing her instrument and in her sheer on-mic charisma. This all rounds together as TogeToge being a pretty damn good band, I’ve found myself spinning their songs both from the show and from their album Togeari a fair bit, which is more than I can say of a great number of in-fiction acts from anime in this genre. The important thing to note here is that TogeToge don’t have to be better than every other rock band from every other series, though. The main thing they have to do is be better than Diamond Dust, as over the course of its central narrative, Diamond Dust become TogeToge’s main rivals despite appearing only very rarely; TogeToge’s opposites in approach and philosophy, and also subject to a personal grudge from both Nina and to a lesser extent Momoka. This, TogeToge easily pull off. To the point where I feel a little bad for the actual people behind Diamond Dust, as DD’s music is just not nearly as good or interesting. (It’s polished and professional, certainly, but it lacks the magnetism that TogeToge eventually develop, and their own lead is a much less compelling vocalist.) The deck is clearly stacked in TogeToge’s favor in this way, but that’s not a bad thing. I think stoking a bit of fannish partisanship within its viewers is likely intentional, in fact. As though you’re supposed to hear Diamond Dust and think “what, people would rather listen to this than our girls?!” Given that *Girls Band Cry* clearly takes place in some version of ‘the real world,’ it’s distressingly plausible! It’s a fun little story-hack, and it makes GBC a nice exception to the trend of band anime main character bands being the least interesting groups in their own shows. There’s a level of cognitive dissonance here that merits a quick aside. TogeToge, despite the show’s own themes, are, in fact, exactly as much a commercial product as Diamond Dust. The main reason this doesn’t really matter is that getting you to buy into the illusion that they aren’t is something the show goes through great lengths to accomplish, and I’d actually argue this is the main reason the show works at all. (It’s also why it took a few episodes to click for me! Nina is such an incredibly polished and talented vocalist right off the bat that I found it a little unbelievable. Imagine my shock upon learning that her voice actress is actually a year younger than she is.) I will confess that I think I’d like TogeToge even more if they had a little more grit in their sound, but that’s a personal preference. In any case, the story of Togenashi Togeari has elements of a traditional up-from-the-bottom rock underdog story, but more important is the band’s members using music to process their personal traumas. Nina has the whole bullying situation, as well as an overbearing family and an equally-stubborn father who are not supportive of her sudden decision to drop out of school and pursue rock music when they learn about it. Momoka has the lingering pain of leaving the original Diamond Dust, and ends up projecting her own experiences onto Nina who she clearly sees as a slightly younger version of herself. Subaru is the granddaughter of a famous actress, and is expected to follow in her grandma’s footsteps despite her own disinterest in the profession. (She calls it “embarrassing”, even!) Tomo is living separated from her family for reasons we only get a very broad picture of, and has previously dealt with people cutting her off when they can’t handle her frank personality. Rupa, Tomo’s roommate and easily the most mysterious character of the main five, is originally from Nepal, and lost her mother in an unspecified tragedy before moving to Japan with her father. A common thread here is that of seizing your life, every minute of it, to do what matters to you, not bowing to anyone else’s whims. In one of the most casually-devastating lines in a series full of those, Rupa lays things out in one sentence. img880(https://i.imgur.com/ZR2t1Ra.jpg) In other words; Girls Band Cry will be romantic, because it clearly cares about that starry-eyed rocker girl shit a lot, but it’s not going to bullshit you. The window for anyone to make an actual rock band and have it work out in any way is very short, and *Girls Band Cry* is keenly aware of that. This frank attitude extends to the characters’ personal problems as well, and each has an issue they struggle with over the course of the show. Nina is a cute anime girl and she’s ridiculously fun to watch, but her prickly personality makes it hard for other people to get along with her and she tends to retreat into her anger when in difficult situations. Momoka is genuinely a beautiful and cool rocker lesbian, but she also actively uses that persona to deflect tough conversations that she doesn’t want to have, and as mentioned she tends to project her own hangups onto Nina. Subaru is easily the funniest character in the series, a lovable goofball who gets most of the show’s most comedic moments, but her screwy attitude seems to stem from feeling repressed in her home life, and it’s downright uncanny how she acts around her grandmother. Tomo is similar to Nina in a lot of ways, as her blunt, often critical way of talking about things with people can make her seem rude or thoughtless to those not attuned to how she thinks. Rupa, lastly, actually seems to be the most well-adjusted member of the group, but there are a few moments when the façade cracks and it’s clear that something the loss of her mother is still weighing on her. It’s also worth noting that she drinks a lot, and while the show mostly plays this for laughs, it’s hard not to read a certain level of coping mechanism into it. The show’s command of characterization is just excellent overall, and it reminds me a lot of another anime original with a script by screenwriter **Hanada Jukki**, ***A Place Further Than The Universe***, which also had a cast of strong characters and a deft hand with staging conversations. Our central story is actually fairly straightforward, compared to all of this complex characterization. For the most part, we’re tracking TogeToge’s formation, relative rise, and as it turns out, very brief time on a major label here. I don’t want to bleed the anime of its specifics, but the short version is that the first 2/3rds of the show focus largely on Nina and Momoka’s relationship, which goes from that initial meeting to a sort of strained friendship before the two come to accept each other in episodes seven through nine. We need to talk about one other character here, Mine [Sawashiro Miyuki], a singer-songwriter whose time in the show is brief but makes a huge impact, especially on Nina. In episode seven, Mine, who is an indie musician getting by even if she’s not famous, explains to Nina, after a joint show, that the reason she still does music for a living even if it’s very hard is that it feels like she has to. She goes into some detail about how she tried to compromise with herself, to take up a teaching position or something else more “stable”, but she couldn’t do it. Making songs, performing those songs, connecting with people via her art. It was too important. Nina seems to really internalize this. I’d argue it’s also basically the thesis of *Girls Band Cry* itself. Everything else is extraneous, what matters about making music—or any kind of art—is that you’re getting something of yourself, your soul, across to your audience. That’s what Nina got from the original version of “Void,” and that’s what she hopes to do with TogeToge. img880(https://i.imgur.com/A4L846C.jpeg) Momoka can’t quite see that. She spends most of the early series convinced that Togenashi Togeari are destined to fail. Not just fail, crash and burn. Because she failed with Diamond Dust, and can’t seem to consider that the only data point she’s working off of is her own. Given what little we see of Diamond Dust, who mostly seem to be happy with their new direction, it’s entirely possible that Momoka splitting off was actually the best thing for both her and the band, but Momoka just can’t see it and continues to insist that she’s going to quit TogeToge in the near future. At one point, Nina is so fed up with all this that she just slaps Momoka across the face. img880(https://i.imgur.com/ZR2t1Ra.jpg) Would you believe that doing so actually makes their relationship much stronger? In fact, you can pretty easily argue that shortly after this, they become more than just friends. Nina, in episode eight, straightforwardly confesses to Momoka in the middle of a very hectic scene that I can’t bring myself to spoil the minutiae of. If you see people call *Girls Band Cry* a yuri series, that’s why. Does Momoka reciprocate? Well, she never actually says so, and I know that the lack of verbal confirmation will disqualify it in the minds of some, but based on what we actually see throughout the rest of the show; the two affectionately leaning on each other at various points, the fact that Nina has Momoka’s name circled on a calendar and a note reading “spend time with Momoka after practice” jotted down at one point, etc., I think the situation is fairly obvious. Maybe more than any of that is Momoka’s constant reassurance that she loves Nina’s voice. It’s clear that she’s not just talking about her literal vocals—although probably those, too—but Nina’s point of view, her passion, and her inner fire. In fact, after this point the entire band seem to form a really coherent unit not just musically but as friends. I saw another fan of the series mention that the way you can really tell that TogeToge get along is that they’re comfortable being jerks around each other. And that’s honestly, completely true! TogeToge love to mess with each other, but it’s also obvious that they really do care. This is most obvious, at least it was to me, in episode ten, where Momoka has to be stopped from driving all the way back to Nina’s hometown by herself to pick her up. You don’t do long highway trips for people you only kind of care about. About that; episode ten sees Nina return home to try to explain her situation to her parents, mostly her dad. Nina’s father is another great character who really shines despite a limited lack of screentime, and I’m absolutely in love with how the show stages the first conversation between the two where they’re not really listening to each other. How does *Girls Band Cry* communicate that? By sticking them on opposite sides of a sliding door. Subtlety is for losers. img880(https://i.imgur.com/iv23HJK.jpeg) The entire episode is fantastic, but the key points touched upon here, particularly where Nina says that the original Diamond Dust’s music saved her when she was feeling—she says this explicitly—suicidal in the aftermath of the bullying situation at school. That is the real power of art. That’s what TogeToge are seeking to channel, and episode ten is where Nina really starts understanding that. The self-acceptance she shows here is hard-won, and this is the sort of thing I refer to when I say that *Girls Band Cry* is really Nina’s show at the end of the day. I have rarely felt proud of an anime character, an emotion-object combination that just objectively doesn’t make any sense, but *Girls Band Cry* got it out of me. As for the band themselves, they eventually sign with a real publishing company. (Or are they a label? To be honest, I am a little unclear on this point, but it doesn’t really matter.) The episode after this is where all of this buildup—the character arcs themselves, the emotional peaks, the sound, the love, the lightning—hit their climactic note. This is the best episode of the series, the best anime episode of the year so far, and one of the best of the ’20s in general. They play a festival, with TogeToge on a B-stage, in what is nonetheless the biggest moment of their careers. Diamond Dust are at the festival, too, but we only get to see a very brief glimpse of them playing, because this is not their story, and they’re not our real stars. Togenashi Togeari aren’t up on the main stage, they aren’t playing to the biggest crowd, and they aren’t the main attraction, but for the three minutes and ten seconds of “Void & Catharsis”, their big roaring emotional fireworks display that is, in its own way, a response to Diamond Dust’s own “Void”, they feel like the best and most important band in the world. The entire series hinges on this concert scene, which is good, because it’s one of the best of its kind, and “Void & Catharsis” is TogeToge’s best song. It’s been weeks since I first saw it and it still blows me away. I might go as far as saying that it’s the best in-show rock band concert since the iconic performance of “God Knows” in ***The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya***, a full eighteen years ago. If it’s not, it’s definitely at bare minimum the best of this decade so far, and it’s hard to imagine it being topped by anyone any time soon. youtube(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tr8psNtqYxg) It’s not just the visual tricks the show pulls out here; wild, zooming camera angles, cuts to 2D-animated segments that dramatize the girls’ own backstories and traumas in the way that so much great art does, some of the most raw rock poster animation I’ve ever seen in any television series, etc. It’s the song itself, a screaming and, yes, cathartic anthem about rebellion as personal salvation. Nina has no time for anyone’s bullshit. She’s busy screaming about insubordination as admiration, how telling someone they’re aiming too high is a rotten thing to do. She won’t be obedient but she’s scared to even try to resist. She doesn’t want to die. She wants to live so bad it hurts. She inhabits not just her own trauma but her bandmates’ as well, singing brief sections of the second verse from the perspective of Momoka, then Subaru, then Tomo, then Rupa. She channels the painful split Momoka endured from the original Diamond Dust, the towering expectations placed on Subaru, the forced clamping up that Tomo put herself through, and the unimaginable tragedy of Rupa’s loss of her mother. She’s not just a singer, she’s a medium. She takes on their pain as her own and lets every razor sharp line bleed her voice until there’s more blood on the stage than sweat. In a particularly astounding lyrical turn that I’m not entirely sure of the intentionality of, there’s a line in the chorus that is a completely coherent sentence in Japanese, translating very roughly to something like “because my anger can’t be stopped”, but sounds phonetically like the English phrase *“so I can die young.”* That kind of intentional bending of language, to facilitate a bilingual pun that calls back to and reinforces an earlier line, no less, is normally the domain of rappers. Particularly heady, lyrical ones (the likes of Kendrick Lamar or Lupe Fiasco or such), so part of me wonders if it’s not just an astounding coincidence. But if it’s not, that’s some 5D chess shit, and I feel wrong not pointing it out even if it is an accident because, holy fuck, what an accident. img880(https://i.imgur.com/FfXWZAc.jpeg) It must also be said, she looks amazing throughout the entire concert scene; an honest-to-god icon of rock n’ roll rebellion in an age where the very idea should be a laughable archaism. She pumps her fist both toward the crowd and back at her own band to egg them on. She stomps around on the stage like she can barely control her anger. She glares at her audience, maybe Diamond Dust specifically, since they’re also watching, like she’s trying to kill them with her mind. All this while rocking a billowing yakuza shirt and with quick-apply teal dye that I must imagine smells like an unfathomable mix of chemicals slapped on the underside of her hair. In one particularly great moment, she makes an open-palmed gesture toward the crowd and then clenches her fist tight. It’s clear that not only is she insanely good at this, she really loves doing it. For all of her fury and thunder it’s also obvious that she’s having the time of her life on that stage, and who could possibly blame her? She gets to be in a rock band. Who wouldn’t love that? That feeling itself is embedded in “Void & Catharsis” as much as the righteous anger stuff. It’s subtextual, but it’s definitely there. All this about Nina and barely a word about the other girls. The truth is that despite being a hobbyist musician myself I’m not much of a music theory gal, so I can comment only in generalities. Still, Rupa’s pounding, oscillating, heavy bassline grounds the song, as do Subaru’s nimble drums. Tomo’s key work—some of her best—provides some much needed texture to contrast the main sonic palette of the song, Momoka’s guitar, and have a sparkling, star-like quality that really reinforces the piece’s sky-looking aspirations. On the note of Momoka’s guitar, holy shit Momoka’s guitar. For the most part her riffs here are the song’s muscles, they give it strength and fullness and make it more than just a bed for Nina’s vocals, but there’s a really great moment where Momoka gets a full-on solo, a sparking piece of pyrotechnics that really sends “Void & Catharsis” over the top. I have it on authority from a guitarist acquaintance that it’s also fairly technically tricky, and I have no reason to doubt them. All this to serve a song and a scene that streaks across the show like a comet. 3 minutes isn’t that long for a rock tune! I listened to the song a number of times while writing this piece and I was always astounded by how brief it is. Because in the moment, in the context of the show, it feels monumental and eternal. It’s not, though. When Nina hits that last note, the song ends, and in fact episode 11 on the whole ends. We are left with the feeling that we’ve just witnessed something rare and special. I wonder if the crowd that TogeToge attract during the show feel the same. The rest of the show, really, is denouement. Falling action, of a sort, something that single cour anime have largely forgotten how to do. Episode 11 is the show’s peak both emotionally and qualitatively, but the miniature drama that follows, where TogeToge are briefly part of a real label, have their first single flop hard, and then quit to return to the indie grind, is compelling on its own. It’s a full extension of the show’s passion-driven spirit, and it also allows Nina to reconnect with an old friend. Hina [Kondou Reina], the vocalist for the incarnation of Diamond Dust that TogeToge spend the entire show in the shadow of, was a classmate of Nina’s. She was there during the whole bullying thing, and she told Nina not to get involved. Nina, as we know, did get involved, and this led to a rift between the two that still doesn’t fully heal even by the end of the series. Honestly, in her sole on-screen appearance of any length, Hina comes across as a pretty nasty piece of work! Some of this is clearly affect, and the show’s final minutes state outright that she was deliberately pushing Nina’s buttons during their one meetup, but still! I would say that Hina would be the main character if this were an idol anime, but frankly I don’t think most idol anime have it in them to portray their characters with this much honesty. (***Shinepost*** did, which is why *Shinepost* rules.) img880(https://i.imgur.com/TENXata.jpeg) The charitable read is that she’s a realist. Someone who knows how to play the game, someone who is actually interested in the monetary side of the whole industry, someone who wants to be famous. In pretty much every sense, she’s Nina’s complete opposite Their meeting is enough to convince Nina that she was in the right back then, and she’s in the right now. This also concludes an entire plot about a dual Diamond Dust / Togenashi Togeari concert, that ends with TogeToge amicably leaving their label. Momoka, in one of her last lines in the entire series, gently teases Nina by suggesting that this whole thing was Hina trying to extend the Diamond Dust / TogeToge rivalry, partly because she enjoys playing the part, but also partly because Hina really loved Diamond Dust’s music too! Maybe not in the same way, maybe not to the same extent, but she did, and this is a commonality that connects the two similarly-named vocalists permanently, whether they like it or not. img880(https://i.imgur.com/0j2jbVT.jpeg) This, then, is how the series ends, with Togenashi Togeari back on the indie circuit, a cult phenomenon at most. We will never know if they achieve success beyond this, although we do know they’ll keep trying. Either way, at the end of the day, part of the very point of this show is that success is secondary to being able to look yourself in the mirror. Nina is ridiculously, astoundingly, monstrously stubborn, but she sticks to her principles. In one of the flashbacks that dots the finale, Hina tells her that Nina’s intense “spikes” of justice make her feel like the bad guy. The thing is, in those flashbacks, Hina is the bad guy. She seems to even know this, on some level, given how she does everything she does in the last episode specifically to prod Nina into sticking to her guns. Arguably, that’s a pretty cold mercenary move too—after all, TogeToge and Diamond Dust are direct competition—but I choose to take it both ways. Yes, Hina is conveniently knocking a rival band down a peg, but she really does seem to care about Nina, too, in her own way. (Implicitly, there’s also some reason to wonder how happy Hina really is about having basically sold out, despite her own claims in the finale about how important success is. We may never know for sure.) By design, we don’t see the rest of Togenashi Togeari’s story. We could write it ourselves, we could choose to extend the show’s text into the real world and keep an eye on how the inevitable actual touring version of the band do. You could argue, well, hey, Diamond Dust aren’t the ones with a Spotify ad or the goddamn branded earbuds. You could even argue there’s room for a hypothetical second season (there is, but I think people get way too caught up in that particular discussion). Ultimately all of that, all of the money and fame and success and legacy and popularity and on and on, is less important than the show’s overall dedication to sticking to the spirit of rock n’ roll in a time when that is a fast-fading phenomenon in even the most vestigial sense. These girls appreciate music as art, as life. They’d die without it. Even if TogeToge are never bigger than they are in episode 11, I have no trouble at all believing they will play together for the rest of their lives. In their very last concert of the series, in the middle of a charmingly awkward monologue, Nina declares her audience rebels and misfits, and while that’s true of TogeToge in a very different way than it was for rock and roll’s originators many years ago, it is still true, and it’s true of *Girls Band Cry* itself, too. In one very specific sense, TogeToge have a luxury that real bands don’t have. They get to ride off into the sunset and into our memories forever. The ED is something of a very short postscript, and it seems to suggest that TogeToge will soldier on together, living that indie rocker life, into eternity. That’s a bit ironic for a series that’s also in decent part about seizing life while you still can, but hey, it’s one of the perks of being an anime character instead of a flesh and blood human being. All this said and there is so, so much I haven’t touched on. I think time might risk forgetting how funny *Girls Band Cry* is (seriously, it’s borderline a slapstick series in some spots). The girls have incredible costuming both in their day to day life and especially on stage. I didn’t talk at all about Subaru’s character arc, nearly as important to the show as Nina and Momoka’s. I didn’t talk about Tomo or Rupa that much even though they’re probably my favorite characters (one of the very few criticisms I could make of the show is that I wish it were just a bit longer so Rupa could’ve gotten an episode). I didn’t talk about Tomo’s pet snake or the fact that her outfit for the festival concert is an extended reference to Undertale. I didn’t talk about Rupa’s legion of gay fangirls, a real, canonical thing that we are shown in the series. Even in the parts of the plot I did go over, I skipped a lot of details. Hell, if I’m honest, I could write a whole other article about the sleazy indie rocker sex appeal of Momoka’s stupid fucking trucker hat that she wears while piss-drunk and acting like a jackass in one of the episodes. Like any good rock band, TogeToge have way more to them than any single writeup, video, whatever, could reasonably cover. The list is endless! But this review is not, and I need to stop somewhere, even if any point is ultimately going to feel arbitrary. img880(https://i.imgur.com/TBdMPQT.jpeg) If this is the end of the series the fact remains that we were all here to see this, together. The moments themselves are more important than any lofty discussions of success or legacy, and if the show does find a long tail, which I really hope it will, it will be because it feels so huge and fiery in the moment. If you’re going to make an impact, make it electric. Connect with people, find your voice, live your life. Everything else is fluff.
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It gladdens me to see people on this website fighting the good fight by arguing for this show’s presentation. I personally find the ‘3D computer-generated imagery (CGI) versus more traditional methods’ debate far too banal of a discussion for my tastes so hence why I will spend no more time on it than this in this review. There are many benefits to using CGI for band anime, and this show utilizes the tools they are given brilliantly. From dynamic performance sequences, vibrant character movement and facial expressions as well as accurate instrument-playing, it oozes charm. I say take it or leave it.
## *(Give me a second while I glaze the art style as a 3D artist...)* This show honestly blew me away. I was expecting not that much from it but it was honestly one of the best like- SHOWS on my list. The animation and visuals in this show is great, the 3D medium translates into the artstyle really well. It also allows the animators to afford more tiny details in character animation that you don't really see in other anime normally animated in 2D from little mannerisms and gestures to big expressive motions- as well as being able to animate the action of playing instruments more concisely than usual rotoscoping. **[ ! ] Do not be mistaken, this show is not an example of bad anime CGI at all. Please, just have an open mind ~~though I do understand where the stigma towards 3D animation in anime comes from~~- this is just not that what so ever. PLEASE- *JUST LOOK WITH YOUR EYES!!*** We are finally at the point where stylized 3D animation is blossoming in to this amazing medium and I'm glad that- at the very least- Toei is producing some really great 3D animation in anime among others. There are moments where they just use a 2D artstyle, namely for the intro, characters that appear for one or two shots, and an entire flashback segment- and it's pretty obvious for those instances why (other than the intro, where I assume that the show was planned to be animated in 2D but was further realized to be 3D after the intro was made). It's a little bit jarring but I didn't really mind it too much, the artstyle of the 3D animated things don't stand out too much against 2D assets- but I can imagine it probably would have paid off better if they just fully leaned into the 3D artstyle. ## *(Okay now to talking about the actual show...)* This show has really good character writing. I specifically really like and partially resonated with the main character, Nina Iseri. Her characterization is just so... real. The other characters are just so nicely written too- and when combined with that lively character animation I was just talking about- everyone just feels realized and I personally was just more attached to them because of that. It just makes the drama in this show hit so much harder too, just really interesting stuff that honestly had me hooked the whole time. The music in this show is pretty nice too. I found myself listening to a little bit of the songs outside of the show and they really do a good job of projecting the characters' (Mainly Nina's) thoughts and struggles. *(Obvious comparisons to Bocchi...)* I feel like Bocchi's music just hits harder- both musically and then inherently emotionally too- but that's waay more opinion based than anything else, lol... ___ Overall, I really love this show. I NEED a season 2 and I think it's absolutely insane that no one in the west officially picked this show up for at-least subtitling- I was only able to watch it due to fan subs- specifically 'SubsPlease' (under the name 'SobsPlease' specifically for this show, lmao). I also really hope the new 'meta' is girls in a band because we're [2 for 2](https://anilist.co/anime/130003/BOCCHI-THE-ROCK/) on those right now!!
What's with all these anime about girls making rock bands? Did _Bang Dream_ start this new trend? And what's this? Toei is putting their hat into this pile as well? Why the hell not?! Sure, one could argue that _Bang Dream_ started the trend of companies making shows about girls starting up bands, but the runaway success of _Bocchi The Rock_ was apparently enough to convince others to jump on the bandwagon. Yes, that pun was intended. So when a promo for a show called _Girls Band Cry_ popped up, with Toei listed as the producer for it, many decried it as just a knock-off made to ride the coattails of _Bocchi The Rock_'s success. Then it was revealed to be a 3D CGI anime, making people think it was just going to rip off _Bang Dream_. Many were quite dismissive of the show, me included...but then _Girls Band Cry_ actually aired, and people's opinions on it did a complete 360, for damn good reason. Not only was the CGI surprisingly good, but the writing and characters were much better quality than even other shows airing in that exact same season (Three of which were also shows about girls focusing on music, _Sound Euphonium_ season 3, _Whisper Me a Love Song_, and _Jellyfish Can't Swim In The Night_). I was late to the GBC party, only just now finishing it and...yeah, I agree, this show is awesome. Life hasn't been going well for 17-year-old Nina Iseri. Bullying in school and being betrayed by her friends and family have left her so jaded that she decides to strike out on her own to prove to everyone else that she can live by herself and be independent. The only thing keeping her going is her favorite band Diamond Dust, mainly one particular song. But life in the big city is a new adventure for Nina, one she is woefully unprepared for. While struggling to find her apartment, she happens upon the very person who wrote her favorite DD song, Momoka Kashiwagi, an ex-DD member who left the band due to internal conflict. The two of them quickly bond of their shared love of music and troubled pasts, deciding to form their own band to use as an outlet to unleash all their pain, rage, and raw emotions into. Three other members join their band afterward, and with that, Togenashi Togeari is ready to take on the music scene! But forming a band isn't all sunshine and rainbows, as all of them face their own hardships and struggles on top of managing the band and trying to break into a scene that's already dominated by more popular competition. First off, let's talk about the thing most fans of GBC tend to notice right away: the animation. As far as I know, this is the first time Toei has ever animated humans in entirely 3D CG, and most of the time, CG models of people made for TV are criticized for how stiff and uncanny it can feel compared to 2D animation. Even well-known studios like Sanzigen and Orange had their growing pains with it before they really hit their groove with their 3D animation. Surprisingly, Girls Band Cry doesn't have this problem at all. Every 3D model of whatever character they're animating is expressive, smooth, and buoyant, with none of the usual stiffness you see in most CGI models, and the animators really took care in animating everything from subtle gestures to facial expressions, so it never gives off that uncanny valley vibe. The few uses of 2D animation are pretty good too, even by Toei standards...though I do have to question why they chose to mix both as opposed to just going with one style over the other. There are times when both styles of animation are used for a scene, and the differences between them are so obvious that they're almost jarring. It does make me question why Toei didn't just choose one animation style and stick with that as opposed to blending the two of them together. Individually, the differing animation styles are fine, but together they go about as well as mint and chocolate, which is an acquired taste for anyone, really. But in all honesty, GBC's clashing animation styles are but a minor bump in the road, as what really holds it up is its writing. GBC prides itself as being a girls band anime that's much more down-to-earth, grounded, and cynical than its more optimistic contemporaries like early Bang Dream, or even idol series such as Love Live, lacking a lot of the saccharine cheesiness and over-the-top positivity that they embrace. For one, the main characters actually struggle to start their own band, and said band's members are a mix of teenaged dropouts and adults in their early 20s trying to balance both the band and part-time jobs to pay the bills and put food on the table. They're only able to play short gigs at whatever small venue will give them the time of day, and one girl dropped out of her former band and had to sign away the rights to her original song as a result, and has to watch as her now successful former band flourishes off her work. GBC wants to explore the often unforgiving realities of being a professional musician and the constant friction between making art and making money, and unlike, say, _Jellyfish Can't Swim In The Night_, which would either resolve everything with a neat little bow or not at all, GBC more than succeeded on that front. I'm gonna be comparing these two shows a lot because they share the same premise and themes, but have completely different approaches in regards to their execution, and GBC succeeds in how it manages to pull it off whereas Jellyfish didn't. This really shows what good execution can mean for the overall quality of a story. One aspect in which GBC succeeds over Jellyfish is how it writes its characters. Now, I admit, I only watched one episode of Jellyfish and read blog posts and reviews of the other episodes. But just watching the first episode was enough for me to see its flaws and knowing how they persist throughout the entire show, I'm not surprised. Jellyfish's characters never felt to me like three-dimensional characters or flawed, awkward human beings with their own unique strengths or weaknesses; rather, they felt more like a combination of what adults writing kids THINK kids are like and mouthpieces/props that just spout moralizing, melodramatic speeches about the show's messages without even an ounce of subtlety and trust in its audience, only acting on whatever the writers feel is convenient to make drama in the plot happen. GBC's cast of characters actually felt well-rounded and true to life, with all the drama and conflict mainly being fueled by angst and optimism being at odds with one another. It helps that any angst is nicely balanced with some fun physical comedy and absurd slapstick that manages to keep the show from being a slog to go through. It also helps that unlike _Jellyfish Can't Swim In The Night_, the characters' actions and motivations are actually consistent and feel natural, and GBC actually understands the concept of "show, don't tell." These kids are flawed, awkward, and aren't afraid to riff on each other if someone deserves it, but their interactions felt believable and grounded, and most of them are well-realized and wonderfully layered. I say most of them because while Nina, Momoka, and Subaru have strong character arcs, Rupa and Tomo admittedly got the short end of the stick, Rupa especially. The latter two don't get as much screen time or development in comparison to the other band members, and while we're given snippets of their backgrounds, they're not given any proper exploration of their pasts, nor do we see their journeys to come to terms with and overcome their personal traumas. Considering how open-ended the series is, with quite a few plot threads left unresolved, this isn't much of a surprise. Hell, even the creators of the show have said that since Nina's whole arc takes up so much time that the other characters don't get to do much. I also would have liked more background on Diamond Dust and their newest member Hina, who is the source of most of Nina's problems. For what it's worth, the show's creators have said that they do want to continue GBC's story, though there's no concrete info on what form that'll take. It was announced to be getting a cellphone game, but as of now, there's little information on it. Other, smaller nitpicks are the band's songs having a bass sound to it even though early on, Togenashi Togeari doesn't have a bassist, and Rupa's bass producing a sound it really shouldn't. Also, I liked the songs, but I admit I'm not really a huge fan of hard rock songs, even though that's Togenashi Togeari's whole schtick. That's not to say the soundtrack is bad, it's more personal preference for me than anything. I'm not gonna go into the whole spiel about Toei refusing to put GBC on a streaming site and putting it up on Amazon to purchase, because everyone and their mother has done that already. For anyone who has an Amazon Prime account, you can buy the series digitally on Prime Video or the Microsoft Store for $8-10. I wound up buying it at its first price, around $30, on Amazon, but that's fine with me, because _Girls Band Cry_ is absolutely worth the cost. While I admittedly like _Bocchi The Rock_ a little more, _Girls Band Cry_ is an excellent anime showing Toei at their best, sporting a great cast of characters, uniquely strong animation, stellar writing, and some head-banging songs. Is it any wonder it became so popular? Yeah, I think _Girls Band Cry_ earned its popularity, and I really hope this isn't the last we see of these dumb chaos children.
Backed into a corner, the ropes cold against his back and every muscle burning, a boxer has no choice but to fight. He's down, but certainly not out. One of the underdogs of 2024's anime season, 'Girls Band Cry' is a story about a similar battle that hits every emotional weak point throughout its duration. It's a battle to prove your worth, and Nina Iseri has surprised us all by not admitting defeat, even in the fourth quarter. 'Girls Band Cry' is a show coming out of left field. Off the first episode alone, you're blown off your feet, instantly hooked on Nina's character and invested in her relationship to Momoka. It's a wonderful starting point that highlights all of this show's strong points: Beautiful 3D animation that's enhanced by the visuals accompanying it, strong character focused writing, and the spirit of rock. Each and every subsequent episode pushes these to their limits and beyond, highlighting feelings of truth to yourself and strength with others along with new, interesting plotlines to follow. It's almost hard to find the words to describe how almost nobody saw the popularity of this show coming. There are so many risks being taken here that have all paid off with larger returns than anything else this season. What started off with a response of 'What's that?' has now become 'I love that show', 'It's beautiful', and 'It saved me'. That's the mark of something special. This is absolutely the fault of 'Girls Band Cry' and its mass appeal. A story about a girl moving to a new city and starting college is something that almost everyone can see themselves reflected in. Many friends of mine, even those who I'd never expect to watch something like this, have told me that it's a new favorite, and it's clear as to why. Seeing the fans grow with this show was almost an experience in and of itself, each week seeing more acquaintances become invested in the wonderful world created by Kazuo Sakai and Jukki Hanada. It's safe to say they've outdone themselves here (Hanada-sama especially), as expected. We get such a new focus here on a cast and story that evolves what's become the norm for so long, tearing down many cliches of the genre it's apart of while elevating others to new heights. Momoka's struggles especially echo the typical anime band girl and yet manage to be so real and human which makes her character so delicious to dig your teeth into. For as much praise as this show could be showered in for all of time, there are some faults of the story worth mentioning. Some of these will likely be fixed in a subsequent season, but rating this show on its own is a must. The first, most glaring issue is the lack of a dedicated episode to flesh out Rupa. While a more pretentious me would say 'Rupa's character benefits from having most of her story shrouded in mystery', even the show's writers have come out and said they wish they could have done more with her. She's got a lot of moments scattered throughout the show that are amazing, but nothing that you can point to and say 'this was her moment' as the other characters do. Much of the show's writing depends on what you get out of Nina as a character, and for those who struggle to stomach her completely this might put them off. How you'd manage to hate Nina is beyond me, but.. people always manage to surprise. Finally, (mild spoiler warning) there's a few scenes that have describe suicidal ideation which are quite heavy in their emotional scale, so for viewers sensitive to this it's worth making you aware. Nina Iseri and Momoka Kawaragi's bond is something truly special. It's the northern lights above a moonlit sky, the sun setting at dusk; something you only get to observe once. Our main characters are bound by the fates of their lives, many strings pulling them each in different directions, yet always ending up in the same spot. I can't recommend this show enough. Watch it with your friends, watch it alone, watch with everyone you know. You'll understand that these thirteen episodes go by faster than you could ever imagine, and by the end, you'll understand that 'Girls Band Cry' is a show that will move you like no other, throwing in all the anger, joy, and sadness of life. Perfect for anyone, it will teach you to never back down, to fight for what's right, and most importantly, it'll teach you to take all the obstacles in your life and flip 'em off. It's perfection.