RiverRode

It's become a common trend in recent years for an anime project to spawn an idol group - it boosts the popularity of the franchise, and provides another avenue for profit. However, according to Takaaki Kidani, founder and president of Bushiroad, the company responsible for the BanG Dream! multimedia project, the era of idol anime is coming to an end, and band shows will be the next big thing. Which is interesting, because despite technically being a band anime, BanG Dream adheres incredibly close to the idol formula. You can buy albums and character songs for BanG Dream. (Shouldn't the focus be on the instruments?)You can go to a concert and see the voice actors perform live. And it's not just concert tickets and CDs that BanG Dream is trying to sell you; the multimedia project also includes card games, headphones, several manga series, and a mobile game. BanG Dream is an extremely commercial project, which isn't a bad thing in and of itself. However, it becomes a problem when the pursuit of financial interest comes at the expense of creativity. Everything about this anime is designed to be safe and inoffensive. There's nothing new or risky here that could potentially alienate consumers; just trends and tropes that have proven themselves to be successful thrown together into an amalgamation that's sure to sell. It's something that nobody is going to hate, but that nobody is going to love either. Rather than creating something that's only okay for everyone, it would have been better if they had created something that will be at least one person's favorite. Sadly, making a good show seems to be secondary to making good money. There's not much that's more generic in anime than a story of a high school student trying to start a club for one of their interests. With that premise alone, you already have a fair sense of the events that will go on over the course of the series: In the first two thirds of the series, it'll be necessary to recruit more members, and of course they'll all have some issue that needs to be worked out before they can join, and once the group is finally completed in the final third, there will be some last challenge to overcome. But genericness aside, there's also the issue that the series is loaded down with fluff. There are so many scenes that don't accomplish anything, when there's so much that needs to be accomplished. It would have been possible to tell a much better story in much less time if the staff actually cared enough to write something interesting, but as it is, the story is generic and insubstantial. Scenes that don't accomplish anything doesn't refer only to the half-developed plot; character growth was only sorely lacking. The characters start the series well within the lines of clearly defined archetypes, and over the course of 13 episodes, they never really go beyond that. There's the occasional scene that will hint that maybe some growth is going on, but it'll never result in lasting change. This results in a tragic absence of sincerity. No matter how absurd a situation characters are placed in, it's still possible to relate to and care about them if their actions and emotions feel genuine. Here, the situation isn't all that detached from ordinary life, but these characters are so flat that it's near impossible to connect with or be invested in them. Perhaps another aspect of this is that the characters aren't visually appealing. BanG Dream relies heavily on CG for its performance scenes, and this causes the characters to look really unnatural, especially their faces. And even when the show isn't relying on CG, the use of stills and pans is abundant. Over the course of its run, there were two occasions on which episodes were delayed by a week, and it also started two to three weeks into its season. It's not unreasonable to expect that this extra time would be put to good use for making sure that everything actually looked good, but apparently CG was passable, and the staff couldn't be bothered to go beyond that. After watching a certain amount of anime, you begin to pick up a few words and phrases: youth, dreams, bonds, excitement, you get the idea. These are the types of words that make up the songs from BanG Dream - no real depth, just a barrage of platitudes and banalities. At least, that's how the lyrics are for the opening and ending themes. As for all of the other songs that are sung over the course of the show (like five?), they're left untranslated. It's probably no great loss, though official releases ought to get into the habit of translating song lyrics. Despite being a band show, it seems that the music really wasn't all that important. None of these factors on their own would necessarily ruin an anime. A solid cast could compensate for a lousy story, and some people won't care how a show looks or sounds as long as it has something interesting to say. The problem is, BanG Dream doesn't have any strong suits; everything about it is derivative and half-baked. It doesn't have anything new to say, and exists only to make a profit off of an existing trend. It projects a future for the industry where creativity is shunned, and the only thing that matters is marketability. This is everything that is wrong with the industry. Good riddance.

Nafisa

I decided to give BanG Dream a shot since I enjoyed the tap tap hell which is the rhythm game. In all honesty, I usually go into these types of anime with low expectations and I set the bar especially low because of how boring the synopsis made the anime sound. At a glance, BanG Dream looks generic, bland and boring. Storywise, there’s nothing outstanding about it but it isn’t bad nor good, it’s more mediocre. The plotline is definitely not the selling point for this anime. It’s your standard “airhead gathers girls to start a band/group” which is fine, it’s supposed to be lighthearted.Although, there is some realism within the show. It touches on family issues, finding yourself and there are some very serious takes on friendship and relying on others. The plot itself isn’t completely predictable, there are a few things that might leave you wondering what will happen next. The story does start off slow and a couple episodes are mainly just the progress of the group which can be boring. Overall, the story wasn’t bad but it could’ve been better. As for characters, they’re all very likeable. A variation of tropes, you’re bound to like at least one of the main girls. There was at least one episode dedicated to each member, the development was pretty good for twelve episodes. The bonds between them all were displayed well and the friendships were developed nicely throughout the series. If you played the game like myself, you will notice an absence of three other bands, if you haven’t played the game you aren’t missing out on much so don’t worry about it. If BanG Dream does get a second season I would like to see more of these characters implemented in story rather than just being cameos. The artwork was nice, like most band/idol anime the colours are vibrant. Everything else was pretty standard apart from the eyes, they seemed to focus more on the eyes than anything else. Only complaint would be the CG, it was messy. Didn’t look particularly good and they would’ve been better off without it. Now one of the more important aspects, music. The OST was nice enough, it wasn’t memorable or anything but it did add to the atmosphere during scenes. Although, there were a lot of times where background music wasn’t used where it could’ve been. If you don’t pay attention to that kind of stuff then it shouldn’t be a bother. The opening and ending were nice, ending better than the opening in my opinion but both were catchy. The songs were cute and funny, the voices were raw which I can appreciate since they’re all supposed to be novices. The seiyuus did a great job portraying their character, you could really hear the emotion. Generally speaking, BanG Dream wasn’t fantastic but it was enjoyable. Lighthearted atmosphere, cute characters and catchy songs. Whether or not you watch this anime is for you to decide. I hope this review at least helped you finalise your decision!