Try Hard — they sure did!

Alex, an art student, dreams of joining Eve, the “Elite’s Visual School”. Together with her best friend Kimmy, they train hard to pass the notoriously impossible entrance exam. Alex’s training turns into an obsession, compromising her friendship with Kimmy.

Try Hard is the first of the graduation animations (teaser) made by the class of 2023 at Gobelins, a French school of “visual creation”, with each new animation released weekly on Wednesday. English subtitles are available if you don’t understand French.

Really a lovely bit of animation that makes me look forward to the other entries.

Everybody’s gone and I don’t have music but this… is a song

With the final episode of Bang Dream! It’s Mygo!!!!! only two days away, let’s look back at episode ten’s epic climax:

From the start Mygo!!!!! has been different from any other Bang Dream series, rougher, darker. Suddenly being in a girl’s band wasn’t all smiles and friendships anymore. Being in a band could hurt you, as it hurt Tomori when Crychic, her first band broke up in the very first scene of the series, leaving her feeling lost and blaming herself for the breakup. Episode three showed exactly how much its breakup messed her up and why she was wary when Anon dragged her into a new band. Yet she did join, as did Taki and Soyo, both also having been hurt by that breakup, both now looking for a new start.

But that was a lie. Anon may have been transparent and open in her desire to use being in a band to get popular, but both Taki and Soyo had ulterior motives too. Taki just wanted to be with Tomori and it didn’t matter how, while Soyo saw the new band as a way to get the old one back together. When that failed Tomori’s worst nightmare happened again. Once again she was alone, once again she failed in keeping her band together.

Episode ten is where she fights back, the only way she can. She books a series of performances at Ring and starts singing her frustrations. First alone, but quickly joined by Raana, the lead guitarist, who is content to be there to provide the background music. Taki too joins quickly, forced to by Raana. Anon is harder to convince but Anon is also the one who gets Soyo to be there, who drags her onto the stage and gets her to play.

It’s hard to understate how different this performance is from any other Bandori performance. The band completely ignores the audience, are purely playing for themselves. Their focus is Soyo who in turn only has eyes for them. The song’s structure too is a far cry from what we’re used to from Bang Dream songs. Just compare with the much more typical Haruhikage from episode seven. Both are good songs but even the slightly more polished official release is so much more interesting. The rawness of Tomori’s singing, the willingness to abandon the usual structure of Bang Dream songs, the emotion, it all makes it the perfect climax to the first ten episodes. The band has come to its lowest point and together they’re climbing back up again. And it’s all thanks to Tomori.

It’s Tomori’s desperation to be understood that drives that performance. From that very first performance, standing along, reading out the song as if it was a poem, the need to connect to her band mates is clear. That it’s Raana who’s drawn in first fits. She may look like she has the least connection to her fellow band members, but she also understand them the best. It’s her that then forces Taki to join, exactly the person Tomori needs to be there before she can even think about getting Anon and Soyo back. It’s also the first time we’ve seen Raana be restrained in her guitar playing, to support Tomori like Taki supports her.

Tomori then recruiting Anon is the mirror image of how Anon got Tomori back into doing music. And it’s only Anon who could’ve brought Soyo back. Anon might have been hurt by her manipulations, but she understands Soyo, she knows how to push her buttons to get her there. Tomori dragging her to the stage and Anon dragging her on it, a cocky grin on her face is the perfect encapsulation of their relationship. The small details of Anon cupping her face and Raana skipping back to her position after handing Soyo her bass are the cherry on the cake.

The performance itself, Tomori facing down Soyo, back to the audience, with Raana and Anon flanking her, Taki providing rock solid support from the back: you can feel the emotions running loose even before the water works start. It’s the sort of performance that you’d never forget if you’d been there; there will be quite a few people wishing they had been there, or will make out they had been, or at Tomori’s earlier gigs. It’s like having been at the first Sex Pistols gig: something new is starting even if you don’t quite know what.

8th Episode nervous breakdown

This is not how a well person texts:

Close-up of soyo's phone showing a string of sent messages apologising to Saki

Bang Dream! It’s Mygo!!!!! is the most darkest entry in the Bang DreaM franchise so far. Instead of nice stories about starting a band together, this one started with one breaking up and things did not improve from there. This episode again was as emo as your average Roselia concert. The focus this time was on Soyo, the ex-member of Crychic who seemed the most put together. Seemed. To be honest, I distrusted her friendliness and cheerfulness from the start. She seemed to be in denial about how badly Crychic had ended, a bit obsessed with getting back in touch with Saki, the one who broke it up in the first place. She seemed friendly and helpful, but there was always something manipulative about her.

Soyo tearfully tugging on Saki's arm, imploring she needs her and the others.

After episode’s seven’s concert, what should’ve been a triumph turned sour because Soyo got upset they played Crychic’s old song. Soyo got upset because Saki was in the audience and she got upset hearing it. So this episode she spent ghosting her team mates and guilt tripping Mutsumi, another ex-member in bringing her to Saki’s home. Which did not went well. Saki confronted her with the truth: Crychic was not coming back and trying to revive it for her own selfish reasons would just hurt everyone. That Soyo took it badly is an understatement.

A posterboard full of neatly arranged buttons

by contrast, Tomori is moving forward, even inviting Anon in to her house. I liked how we got a slow pan of her bedroom with all its various collections neatly stashed away. Also liked the detail of her serving Anon milk, when you’d ordinarily expect some sort of tea. With five more episodes to go it will be interesting to see how this will all get resolved.

Anime Worth Watching — Summer 2023

In no particular order.

Zom 100: Zombie ni Naru made ni Shitai 100 no Koto
Gleefully fleeing the zombie hordes as you don't have to go to work
Previous series have taught us that the office work culture in anime Japan is bad enough that getting hit by truck-kun to reincarnate in a fantasy world is preferable and that the best you can hope for is a kindly kitsune taking pity on you. For poor Akira, a three year veteran of working for the blackest of companies, it’s the zombie apocalypse that finally liberates him. Now he can finally run through his bucket list of things he wanted to do before he was forced to work nearly 24/7. A fun concept, but what makes it really worth watching is the execution by new studio Bug Films. See Sakugablog for what makes this production so special. Best looking anime this season.

Bang Dream! It’s Mygo!!!!!
Protect Tomori at all costs
I already raved about this series; if you like idol-adjecent anime this is a great entry point in the world of Bang Dream. I really love Tomori, who seems very much to be neuroatypical, and her relationship with Anon, the transfer student who wants her to join her band. Anon as well as their classmates respect Tomori’s bounderies even as she gently pushes her to take a step out of her comfort zone. The way Tomori herself also seeks friendship by sharing her latest obsessions, like her penguin bandaids is adorable and slightly sad. What sets it apart from other Bang Dream series is its darker tone: it starts with the implosion of Tomori’s previous band and it has scarred her. Anon herself also has a bit of a dark past while the ex-members of Tomori’s band are equally scarred by its breakup. Anon here is the outsider who can see through the group’s dynamics, the catalyst who can get them to change and grow again.

Watashi no Shiawase na Kekkon
Closeup
Long abused and neglected Saimori Miyo is forced by her family into an engagement with Kudou Kiyoka, who has scared off all his previous marriage partners and has therefore the reputation of being a monster. Three episodes in and it’s clear how much the neglect and abuse of her family after her mother died has stunted Miyo’s personality. Nothing more than a servant in her family home, she’s meek, quiet and terrified of making a mistake that will see her sent back there. She’s wary of kindness and confused when her fiancé asks about her preferences. Her abuse has not been magically fixed by escaping her family or the love of a good man; she’s still damaged by her experiences. There’s also a tension in the way others, like Kiyoka’s elderly housekeeper see her meek personality as that of the perfect yamato nadeshiko. Even more so than MyGo this is a melancholy, sombre anime that’s occasionally hard to watch.

Horimiya: Piece
the usual gang of idiots posing for the camera
Horimiya got an adaptation two years ago that took thirteen episodes to cover the entire manga and the romance between Hori and Miyamura. To do so however it skipped a lot of chapters less relevant to the central romance. This new season adapts those. I actually like this, even if it could be argued that a two cour season would’ve been a better way to adapt it. There’s a mellow vibe to this season as it goes for comedy rather than romance. Episodes have been grouped thematically: the first one was about the class truip to Kyoto e.g. It does have the same weakness as the manga, as every now and then I have to remember who this character actually is. Having the hair colours actually visible helped a lot there.

Genjitsu no Yohane: Sunshine in the Mirror
Yohane laughing and proud with her big dog sister next to her side
A brilliant idea to make a fantasy anime starring Yohane, the chuuni one from Love Live Sunshine who pretended to be a fallen angel. Having failed to become an idol in fantasy-Tokyo she returns to Numazu, her hometown, where she gets “summer homework” from her mother: she has to find out the one thing she really wants to do. Also, there’s a sinister noise plaguing the town that only children and failed idols can hear, while something is corrupting the animals of the nearby forests. So far this plot has been mostly confined to the background while Yohane meets up with the rest of the Love Live Sunshine cast. Most of them have similar personalities to the original, but most noticably Mari is very different. As are the relationships between the characters, especially their relationship to Yohane herself. Yohane/Hanamaru shippers eat good here. One minor dislike I had was how much the first two episodes made Yohane out to be a lazy failure; that could’ve been dialed back a bit. I’m also a bit wary of Lialapse, the huge dog that’s supposedly Yohane’s sister and which only she can hear speaking.

Last season ended on a high for me because it had half a dozen romance anime that were as good as or even better than their source manga. Skip to Loafer, Kimi wa Houkago Insomnia, Watashi no Yuri wa Oshigoto Desu!, Boku no Kokoro no Yabai Yatsu, Jijou o Shiranai Tenkousei ga Guigui Kuru, Yamada-kun to Lv999 no Koi o Suru were all excellent as were the slightly more formulaic Otonari ni Ginga and delayed from the previous season Kubo-san wa Mob o Yurusanai. It has been a long time since a non-isekai genre so dominated a season. Nor should we forget there was both Kidou Senshi Gundam: Suisei no Majo and Birdie Wing: Golf Girls Story both sticking the landing in their respective romances.

In contrast, this season has regressed to the mean, with isekai and related shows dominating again with no real outstanding shows in it unlike you can tolerate Mushoku Tensei. Which I can’t. There aren’t that many series I’m at all enthusiastic about or looking forward to seeing each week, except for the ones above. Lots of shows I wouldn’t mind watching, but little interest to actually start watching. But maybe there are shows that I’ve missed that you like?

A gacha based economy would be interesting — First Impressions

Ryoto and his harem

I can so understand the frustration Richard Eisenbeis has with the wasted potential of generic isekai series #1,098, Level 1 Dakedo Unique Skill de Saikyou Desu:

The setting is likewise a mess of wasted potential. The idea of a world where literally everything comes from dungeons is insane. People with high drop rates for plants replace farmers. Those with high drop rates for weapons replace weapon smiths. Basically, all jobs outside the dungeon would be the infrastructure for those going into it.

Fully exploring this thought experiment would honestly make for an interesting fantasy story. What kind of government would arise in such a world—what kind of art, music, and religion. And since everything comes from the dungeon, how would technology advance—or would it at all? Then, on the isekai front, you could look at what would happen if someone from our world taught people how to farm—breaking the dungeon-industrial complex’s strangle hold on the agricultural economy in the process. It’s a playground for stories. It’s just unfortunate its used in this anime as little more than a one-off line to explain why slimes drop bean-sprouts.

Honestly the economics never make sense in any isekai series. Where is the money coming from to pay adventurers to kill monsters in the first place? How can a medievaloid society sustain an elaborate, country or even worldwide guild system filled iwth what are objectively deadbeats when in reality most of those would be needed to either farm or do craft work? How come there’s enough gold available to mint millions of coins to pay the protagonist their absurd monster bounties and not crash the economy? Foolish to worry about of course; that’s not what isekai stories are written for. It’s power fantasies all the way down and that includes the fantasy of finding treasure.

And this is a typical example. A guy dies of overwork in Japan and discovers while he’s only level 1, his ability to pull from gacha is S-tiered. So he goes hunting slimes to make enough money to afford a home with the cheerful small blonde girl who fed him soup when he first awoke in the dungeon. There are going to be more girls later on, if the opening is to be trusted. The animation and character design is not something to watch this series for, so it all depends on how you like the usual isekai formula.