Articles with the Tag BanG Dream!

It sure looks like it from the first three episodes. Bang Dream! It’s Mygo!!!!! opens with a band dramatically breaking up, against a backdrop of a suitably moody rainy night. The fallout of that breakup is present in all three episodes released so far, leaving psychological scars on its ex-members. Previous seasons of Bang Dream did not shy away from intra band conflicts, but those were mostly misunderstandings that could be resolved quickly, people acting with the best of intentions making mistakes. Here however there seems to be an actual villain if we take the opening scene at face value, something that the third episode, seen from the point of view of Tomori,who was hurt bad by the breakup, seems to confirm. To the point that when Anon asks her to start a band with her, she runs away.

Throughout these first three issues Tomori, the silver haired girl in the clip below, comes across as neurodivergent. You can see that on display in the background of this clip, in a wonderful bit of what Jo Walton calls incluing. As pink haired protagonist Anon talks to her class mates on her first day at school, she notices they all have guitars and everybody’s in a band. While she hasa talk about it with her three class mates, in the background Tomori is quietly ordering the magnets on the chalk board to be in the proper order.

At that point Anon and Tomori had already met once, as Anon found her collecting pebbles on the school ground, the first clue that Tomori is a bit different from most girls. Later, when they run into each other again and Anon gets a little scrape on her knee, Tomori offers her a bandaid with a penguin picture on it. When Anon is politely interested, it awakes Tomori’s hyper fixation as she starts explaining about the type of penguin it shows and how she collects these. Again, something very recognisably neurodivergent. There’s of course no real diagnosis given for her, but that third episode, which is literally from her point of view, does show that Tomori is aware she’s different and sometimes struggles with it. I couldn’t help but feel a bit sad for her after watching this. She seems such a lovely but easily hurt girl. Fortunately Anon at least is aware enough to pick up on her moods and kind enough to help her. I like what Bang Dreams is doing with this.

I also like the lack of characters from the previous series. So easy to put a lot of cameos in here, but that would’ve have stifled the series. It’s enough to just have the references and the occassional off screen cameo.

Roselia desu.

Rosalia is the second ‘real’ band from the Bang Dream project, after Popping Party. where as most of the Bang Dream only rarely do live events, with the members being voice actors first, musicians second, Rosalia’s members are both, regularly releasing new music and doing shows. The anime version of Bang Dream has been mostly focused on Popping Party, with the other bands in supporting roles. It’s therefore time Roselia got some attention. They were already featured heavily in the third season of the anime, but hadn’t had their own series yet until this two part movie, retelling the band’s story from the game. Like every other Bang Dream anime since the first season, this is done with CG animation. It takes a little bit getting used to if this is your first time encountering the style of CG anime Sanzigen employs for the franchise, but on the whole it works. Especially the music performances benefit from being done in CG rather than 2-D animation

It all starts with Yukina, an outstanding rock vocalist whose strive for perfection tends to alienate the members of the bands she sings for. Her obsession for being perfect is driven by her desire to ‘avenge’ her father, who saw his dreams of making it as a professional rock artist destroyed by the music industry. To do so, Yukina wans to enter and win Future World Fes, the festival that her father also played. It’s not until she meets Sayo, a guitarist as driven as her to be perfect, that she can make a start on fulfilling her dream. Yukina also has the support of her childhood friend Lisa, an outgoing fashion conscious girl who used to play bass with her. Worried that she’s not good enough to satisfy Yukina’s need, still picks up the bass again. Finally, there’s Ako, the second best drummer in the world (after her big sister), a happy gremlin who thinks both Yukina and Sayo are super cool and who convinces her best friend Rinko to play keyboards in the band. Together this mix of friends and relative strangers set out to create the perfect band. There are of course stumbles and missteps along the way, with most of the drama front loaded in the first part. The second part is Roselia triumphant, on its way to achieve its goals, but what comes after?

Roselia is probably my favourite band from the entire Bangf Dream franchise. Their music, style and outfits (created by Rinko) is extremely gothy, with a bit of a metal undercurrent, something you could see angsty teenagers really getting into. That goth seriousness also fits well with Yukina and Sayo’s extreme obsession with creating perfect music, while Lisa provides the moral support to the rest of the group, Rinko the style and Ako is there to keep everything cool. It’s still idol music of course and doesn’t quite escape that genre’s cliches sometimes, but all of their songs are fun to listen to and even more fun to play in the Bandori game. The other thing I like about Roselia is how much they’ve grown as friends and comrades over time, something that’s not quite captured here, but that’s a minor quibble. On the whole this was an excellent showcase of Roselia’s story and music, a good way of getting into Band Dream if you’re new to it.