Anime 33573

When Kasumi Toyama was out camping as a child, she heard the rhythm of the "Star Beat" while admiring the starry night sky. This sparkling, heart-pounding sound left a lasting impression on her, and since then, she has constantly been seeking to rediscover that exciting thrill.

Now, as a newly enrolled student of Hanasakigawa Girls' High School, Kasumi is more determined than ever to find that long-lost sensation again. She attempts a myriad of school club activities, and even considers taking up a part-time job, but none of these feel suitable for her. That is, until she chances upon a star-shaped guitar in the storage room of an old pawn shop. It leads her to a live house, where she is captivated by watching a live performance for the first time. Spurred from the adrenaline, she instantly decides to form a band without even really knowing why. However, such a venture requires her to confront various hurdles with new friends she makes along the way, all in her pursuit to encounter that twinkling, heart-throbbing ardor once more.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Toyama, Kasumi Main

Terakawa, Aimi Japanese

Ichigaya, Arisa Main

Itou, Ayasa Japanese

Yamabuki, Saaya Main

Ohashi, Ayaka Japanese

Hanazono, Tae Main

Ootsuka, Sae Japanese

Ushigome, Rimi Main

Nishimoto, Rimi Japanese

Minato, Yukina Supporting

Aiba, Aina Japanese

Aoba, Moca Supporting

Misawa, Sachika Japanese

Tsurumaki, Kokoro Supporting

Itou, Miku Japanese

Imai, Lisa Supporting

Endou, Yurika Japanese

Hikawa, Sayo Supporting

Kudou, Haruka Japanese

Chino, Takatoshi Producer

Iwasaki, Atsushi Producer

Taketsugu, Akane Producer

Nakajima, Yasuhiro Producer

Reviews

Aug 7, 2021

splatongus

Recommended

I'm reviewing this from the standpoint of someone who's been a huge fan of the BanG Dream mobile rhytm game for some time before I decided to start watching the anime.
I'll do my best not to be biased, but I think BanG Dream is an amazing, expansive media franchise, combining good music with great characters and every part of it has been more or less enjoyable for me. At the moment there are 7 bands and the first season of the anime focuses on the main band of the series, Poppin'Party.

The anime does a great job adapting Band Story 0 from the game, which is ... about how Poppin'Party got together in the first place.
Without giving away too much, the story is about Toyama Kasumi, a girl who discovers her love for music and seeks to form a band. Together with her newfound friends and bandmates, she has lots of fun, but also goes through lots of hardships in order to fulfill her dreams.
Both the comedic and dramatic moments were adapted perfectly and they might be even more impactful than how they were in the game. Nothing was left out from the original story, so new BanG Dream fans can easily jump in, while existing fans got new scenes and more fleshed out minor characters. For example, aside from Rimi's sister, Yuri, none of the Glitter Green members appear in the game that much, but they're more prominent in the anime and we get to know them a lot better there.
There are even some cameo appearances from the other bands which don't have a part in the story of the first season.

I already know and love the characters from the game, but they're just as enjoyable and lovable in the anime. Since this first season focuses on the band Poppin'Party, all the members get a lot of screentime, their own arcs and development.
Saaya's arc was my favourite one among them and its finale was my favourite moment of the season.
As for my favourite character, I don't think I have one. The whole main cast was equally great.

Another thing I like about BanG Dream is how it balances slice of life, drama and music. An equal amount of time is spent on lighthearted moments and humour, character drama, character development and showing the band practicing, preparing and playing music.
All those aspects are executed with a lot of heart and soul, too. It's not just all about cute girls or fanservice; it's about the characters being friends, growing as people, giving their best and doing what they love.

Since this is a music anime, the music in it is obviously important and there's a lot of it.
Poppin'Party's songs aren't the most revolutionary music you'll ever hear, but I think they still stand out among music from other similar anime. Most of the songs fall into the J-Pop genre but there's a lot of variety and I personally love them. My favourite among the ones used in season one is Star Beat and it's probably one of my favourites from the whole franchise.
Another thing I love about the music is how the songs that appear in it sound raw and natural, fitting for an amateur band. Sound editing was used minimally so the music sounds just like how it would sound being played in the venues they are playing in (a basement, a school gym, an empty live house...).
Aside from the songs, the background music is also surprisingly memorable and adds a lot to the anime.

The art and animation are wonky sometimes, but it wasn't distracting to me. The animation being off-model at times maybe even makes the characters more expressive; especially Kasumi, who's hyperactive and lively almost all the time.
Something that did bother me is how, in a lot of the performance scenes in the first half of the season, the characters are playing music, but we don't see them actually playing their instruments at all. Instead we get a close up shot of them swaying and singing, while their hands are just kind of moving off-screen.
It's like they were trying to show them playing their instruments as little as possible, presumably because they didn't have the time or money to animate it properly. From episode 8 until the end (where most of the performances are), every performance is properly animated, though, so it's not too bad.
In those performance scenes the characters are animated with CG, which isn't perfect, but it's good enough not to take me out of the experience.

Considering it's just a bunch of still shots, the ending looks surprisingly awkward and it's impossible to ignore how strange and uncanny the characters look.
On the other hand, the opening is the complete opposite. It's very animated, natural and feels perfect for the series.

In conclusion, BanG Dream season 1 might not have the very best art or animation of 2017, but it's still an above-average music anime full of heart and soul. It's a feel good show full of great characters and music that's guaranteed not to leave you indifferent.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

What did you think of this review?

Nice 0

Love it 0

Funny 0

Confusing 0

Informative 0

Well-written 0

Creative 0

More reviews by splatongus (12)

Show all

May 10, 2022

ZNoteTaku

Mixed Feelings

SPOILER-FREE!
There is just no predicting the life of a franchise. Seemingly for no reason whatsoever, a certain property can catch on like wildfire and take the anime community, or the larger media-consuming public, by storm. Other franchises peter out into oblivion before getting their chance to shine, and yet still there are some where their very existence is a jumbled mass of “What on Earth is going on?” Especially given the sometimes-erratic nature of anime production, there are some buses that keep starting and stopping.

"BanG Dream!" is one such show that falls into that category. Originally released in Winter 2017 to complement the video game, ... the animated franchise effectively underwent a period of dormancy for a few years before its second season was released in Winter 2019. The second season itself was more a functional reboot and re-writing of the rules, as it ultimately continued the series in a new kind of direction both tonally and character-wise. In the meanwhile, it’s worth taking a look at this first season since it stands apart as though it resides in its own universe, somewhat divorced from the whole that eventually formed from it.

New high school student Toyama Kasumi is looking for something that will cause her heart to beat like it did when she gazed at the starry sky as a child. After following a trail of starry stickers to her classmate Ichigaya Arisa’s warehouse and fawning over the star-shaped guitar there, she and Arisa both attend a Glitter-Green girl band performance at the SPACE club. The performance ignites the fire that Kasumi has been looking for, and together with Arisa, a baking family’s daughter named Saya, the younger sister of a Glitter-Green member named Rimi, and SPACE club staff member Tae, they form their own girl band – Poppin’Party.

Despite the rather conventional setup, "BanG Dream!" early on demonstrates a narrative awareness of the genre and actively works to try and subvert it. Under normal circumstances, a show like this about making a group (be it for a sports club or an idol troupe) would introduce the various members one at a time, usually the result of being swept up by the main character’s charisma or presence. The series doesn’t completely divorce itself from those standards, but here though, all five Poppin’Party members are introduced and interact with one another early. The sense of familiarity with the various members is allowed to germinate sooner than most other shows would, so by the time the group begins to form, enough time has been taken to establish the dynamic. This holds true even though they are not all brought into the group at the same time. It makes the overall sense of character camaraderie tighter than it would be otherwise.

Though as far as the individual characters personality-wise are concerned, there is definitely a wide disparity between which ones resonate as far as an enjoyable presence. Two characters best exemplify this, with one being Arisa. She’s the group’s curmudgeonly character, and easily became one of my favorites to see. Her reactions and quasi-tsundere tendencies are thankfully over-the-top enough to get their comedic value without crossing the boundary into nauseating, and the fact that all of the group members seem to know exactly how to push her buttons makes poking fun at her fair game at any moment. The story also gives her enough moments to show that, despite all of that, she still has fun and will go those extra steps for her friends.

Kasumi’s character is unfortunately at the opposite end of that spectrum, at least at first. As could be expected from an overly-enthusiastic character which comes dangerously close to being a nuisance, she doesn’t necessarily have the greatest sense of personal space, and already wants to be on given-name bases with nearly everyone that she meets. Her presence produces the rather strange effect of both wanting to see her dream of Poppin’Party realized, while also seriously wishing that she would, at times, dial it back, and not just a little bit. It never got to the point where I didn’t want to see her on-screen, however the writing seemed to channel her energy in a hundred different directions that took too long to find its way. This does partially get rectified in the second half of the season when she faces a shift and can demonstrate restraint and unease.

Part of this shift is due to being at the mercy of the shift in narrative tone – at first, "BanG Dream!" tries to straddle the line between wanting to and not wanting to take itself seriously. Kasumi roping in the other members of Poppin’Party reads as light-hearted, yet cannot quite coalesce since the show’s anchor is teetering on the edge of being a frustration. Halfway through the season we come across the first genuine conflict of the show, but it does have the problem of being almost too serious in contrast with more or less everything else that came before. It’s one of those circumstances where juxtaposition works in theory, yet the actual impact feels more ham-fisted and artificial since the dissonance is so stark.

The end of the season, however, manages to settle into its proper rhythm – if the previous arc went a little bit far with its gravitas, the final few episodes manage to find a decent middle ground between them. The problem facing the group is serious to be sure, but feels more akin to an actual problem that a real band would be facing if they were trying to become known. By getting a cold dose of reality splashed in their faces, it allows the group to show their true mettle and tackle their challenge head-on. It therefore makes the season’s climax read as deserved.

The look of the show itself is not terrible, but it does leave something to be desired. Despite coming out in 2017, "BanG Dream!" season one feels as though it came out of the late-2000s with its character designs. The compositing however is its weakest element – there is an awful lot of sunshine in the course of the series, which unfortunately gives too many scenes a bit of a glare and whitish hue. Quite a few locations are recycled, which is perfectly fine, although certain things like the warehouse rehearsal space are rather blank.

Gratefully, if the visuals were lacking in some respect, the music does help to make up for a lot of these shortcomings. Though, given the Poppin’Party songs that were available at the time of the anime’s release, I do have to wonder why they chose “Tokimeki Experience” as the OP song. The track itself is not bad as a standalone piece of music, though it lacks the kind of exuberance that the story seemed to be striving for. That said, all the choices for insert songs within the thirteen episodes themselves were good picks, and the rare occasions where there was original material contributed to an earnestness that was pleasant.

And “earnest” more or less is what defines the first season. In the midst of its heavy-handedness and occasional times where it wasn’t that funny, this did feel like a group of five girls who cared about what they did and about each other. There’s a kindness in the series that made it seem like this band was worth following. Did I like this season? I can’t say that I did, but I was intrigued by it, which is more than I can say for a lot of other things I’ve seen in the course of my anime life.

"BanG Dream!" season one is an odd duck. It seems to keep itself tied up when it wants to let loose, and when it does indeed let loose, it gets a little bit crazy. It manages to find some semblance of balance in the second half by introducing some rather practical conflicts and allowing the group as a whole to combine in a way that feels strong. It may be at times rather uneven, but it was fun when I wasn’t necessarily buying it or laughing with it. It’s kind of in its own quirky little corner of the anime music world…

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

What did you think of this review?

Nice 0

Love it 0

Funny 0

Confusing 0

Informative 0

Well-written 0

Creative 0

More reviews by ZNoteTaku (51)

Show all

Jun 20, 2022

90shentaigirl

Not Recommended

Like many others, I discovered BanG Dream! when it was a fresh app that had just come out. I consider myself extremely well versed in idol anime especially those that have spawned from mobile rhythm games. When I saw an anime had been made, I was looking forward to it because other idol anime like Love Live! and Cinderella Girls had been successful. However, this was not the case with Bandori.

It is extremely bland and seems like it was a fast attempt to catch up to other idol anime that had been successful and making tons of money. None of the characters are multifaceted, ... and the plot itself is generic. Personally, I would stick to playing the game and skip the anime itself if Bandori interests you. However, there are many more series more deserving a watch.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

What did you think of this review?

Nice 0

Love it 0

Funny 0

Confusing 0

Informative 0

Well-written 0

Creative 0

More reviews by 90shentaigirl (17)

Show all

Anime with guitar

by MadanielFL

Bright and Breezy Anime

by radton

Theme Songs sung by Characters 3

by kuzamine

Now’s Your Chance!—Beginner's Guide to BanG Dream!

For those that are new to the world of BanG Dream!, let us bring you up to speed with this franchise’s activities up to now, each band’s style, and details on future live performances.

by MAL_editing_team

13,525 views

Advertorial

Prominent Singers and Voice Actors Gather at Animelo Summer Live 2019

We've got all the details and lots of photos to share from the world's largest anisong event!

by MAL_editing_team

27,330 views