BanG Dream! Series Review
BanG Dream! is a flawed product that tries to recapture the vibe and feel of Love Live but ends up as a slightly cheesy, dorky yet ultimately decent take on the genre. Not all idols dance and sing for you, in BanG Dream! our five leads form a rock band together. The series is a multimedia project, with many singles released for the Poppin' Party unit. The point of interest however is the voice actresses actually perform concerts, playing the instruments and all. It's also an upcoming mobile game! But with all of this promotion, the show doesn't quite do much that exciting or different. But let's smash into it.
Kasumi is a normal high school girl with no direction and no idea what she wants to be. One day she is led by literally stars of fate, leading her to schoolmate, Arisa's storage space. Inside there happens to be a ESP Random Star guitar. Kasumi is instantly in love. In their town is a venue, Space, a spot for all girl rock bands to jam out. It's a friendly environment that encourages fun, improvement and community. Kasumi watches the band Glitter Green and decides she must form a group. In a matte of time she gathers more friends, and through a series of arcs the band Poppin' Party comes together. The band aims to perform at Space, their one big goal.
In the group is our excitable lead Kasumi on guitar. She's basically Love Live Sunshine's Chika, the super motivated, hyper and single minded leader. Arisa plays the keyboard and is a raging tsundere, always in a sort of gumpy mood. Rimi is the shy bassist who's sister is the frontwoman of Glitter Green. Saya is the drummer, a troubled but hard working girl who's family owns a bakery. Rounding out the group is the only unique character, O-Tae is the odd, easily amused, lead guitarist. It's a simple bunch, composed of a lot of tropes. O-Tae is really amusing and she has a really weird personality, ever scene with her is great. Arisa is also solid. Rimi and Kasumi fall most to their respective cliches.
The series is basically about their struggles and journey to the try out at Space. It takes all the ques from Love Live, even down to the moody drama of why Saya can't join the band, and Kasumi over working and getting sick. In K-On Yui lost her voice, it was resolved quickly when Mio took the vocals and we got the awesome Husky Yui version with her on backing vocals. In this show Kasumi losing her voice is a whole dramatic and drug out thing. The show has a lot of this and drags heavily in the middle, going along overly slow.
It's a very simple story and it's told straight forward, with little else behind the scenes. The idea of Space is pretty cool, similar to the whole Riot Grrrl thing in the sense that the Owner formed the space for girl bands to play without worrying about the sweaty and unsafe rock crowds. But these bands ain't quite Bikini Kill or anything...in fact they are much less interesting. The music in this series is okay, but it's pretty standard. In a way Poppin' Party has a sound similar to those groups like Silent Siren, but the vocals and melodies are fairly standard.
Still by creating this little community there is a cool dynamic of multiple bands working together and being friends. The members all have connections and stories, and when it comes together in the end it was actually really nice. This little space is the only real unique or interesting thing BanG Dream has to offer aside from actually instrument progression. In K-On!, Yui learnt to play guitar super fast because she played all the time, but we never saw much of her struggle. In this series we see a little of Kasumi learning, O-Tae teaches her a few things and there is a sort of progression. In three months time she's still too good, but it's an anime.
The animation for this series is where it losses a lot of points. It's a stiff cardboardy show, with some truly dorky frames and an overall poor quality. The character designs are okay at best, Kasumi has some odd hair buns, and a lot of the side characters actually sport more interesting looks then our main five. It's a pretty weak presentation overall, and in the band scenes it all turns into CG. Now, the playing is very accurate to the music, but it's still CG. We have a long way to go before CG starts looking normal in anime, but this, well off-putting a bit, was not terrible. The main voice cast was composed mostly of rookies. Aimi Terakawa has a few roles behind her, and Ayaka Ohashi is one of the most promising rising seiyuus, but the other girls are fresh. They do...anime voices.
BanG Dream is a major shot at recapturing Love Live's success. However it ends up copying way too much, let's compare it to Sunshine for example.
Bang Dream
- Kasumi is a high school girl with no idea what to do
- She is lead by literal fate to discovering a hobby
- She sees a concert and instantly is dead set on making a band
- Kasumi gathers a group of friends to form a band with her
- There are issues to overcome to form the group
- In the end the group gets together but at first are unsuccessful
- Drama
- Small success
Love Live! Sunshine!!
- Chika is a high school girl with no idea what to do
- She is lead by literal fate to discovering a hobby
- She sees a Muse PV and instantly is dead set on making an idol group
- Chika gathers a group of friends to form an idol group with her
- There are issues to overcome to form the group
- In the end the group gets together but at first are unsuccessful
- Drama
- Small success
It would be incorrect to compare BanG Dream to K-ON on a basis of it being moe girls in a rock band. K-ON is not the story of Hokago Tea Time rising to anything, it's the tale of 5 high school girls chilling out in their little music room and living their normal lives. Love Live and BanG Dream are stories about a group with a goal and a dream. It's the struggle to achieving this goal that makes the series progress. It tries to win the viewers affection, and makes you want to pick a best girl. It's one of those type of anime. Not grounded, just a pure rising up, dramatic and generally fun show of moe girls in a rock band.
Overall BanG Dream is a bit flat. It does much of what's already been done before, and to more watered down results. However it does present a few interesting elements, such as Space, and the cast is fairly likable. It's not the best of shows animation wise, and in general it's a pretty mediocre production. A show like this would need a second season to really become something, as this one had too much moody stuff in the middle. I don't recommend this show that much personally. Still, BanG Dream! is a flawed product that tries to recapture the vibe and feel of Love Live but ends up as a slightly cheesy, dorky yet ultimately decent take on the genre.
Topic: Winter Season 2017 : First Impression Reviews & Dicussion (Read 20264 times)
