Anime & Manga Discussion Topic 298: Anime is Saved

Started the Heike Story. I'm into period pieces every once in awhile. This has a mix of down to earth yet sophisticated dialogue, and Biwa's story is already pretty tragic. I'm curious where this goes.

I refreshed myself on that one last week and actually remember thinking it was very good. Should get back to it someday.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/3/3c9b72a8.jpg

https://twitter.com/aniplexusa/status/1789113325797716136

I kid you not. Finding out that the voice of Tsubasa in Love Live also voiced Ako was literally how I found out about BanG Dream in the first place. And those two voices could not be more far apart.....until Ako starts singing, then you hear Tsubasa in her voice.

MacArrowny posted...

https://twitter.com/aniplexusa/status/1789113325797716136

I saw this earlier, this is so effing funny. Also everyone is just going to say her Birthday is May 9th now anyways lol.

Most confusing thing is finding out that they don't have cannon birthdays in the first place, you'd assume with all the gachas it would have come up once.

WhiteLens posted...

I kid you not. Finding out that the voice of Tsubasa in Love Live also voiced Ako was literally how I found out about BanG Dream in the first place. And those two voices could not be more far apart.....until Ako starts singing, then you hear Tsubasa in her voice.

Wow, definitely would not have picked up on that at ALL.

I realized when comparing earlier that I haven't seen School Idol Festival in almost a decade now, I really wonder how it would actually compare back to back. Haven't seen Sunshine since it aired, either.

Never got too far into Nijigasaki.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/d/d95a1b96.jpg
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/7/7ecc4bf4.jpg

I've been reading the manga for A Condition Called Love. Physical release, so only up to volume 7 (...though I did skim some later chapters on certain illicit websites because I wanted more and I'm weak). 10/10 romance, realistically flawed and wonderful. I feel like I could write an essay about all the nuances in this relationship.

I've already gushed about the story plenty while talking about the anime, though. Instead, I'll briefly talk about something else. This is the first time I've read a manga beyond what an ongoing anime already covered! It's a unique experience, wondering where the season might end and what plot points they might change or cut. There have already been a few skipped chapters in the anime adaptation, which kinda made me sad.

That brings me to another thing. For as much as I love the anime, it isnt as good as the manga. The art isn't anywhere near as detailed. Some of the stuff it skipped hurt the pacing a little (or were just such cute moments that it's, like, how do you skip those ahhhh). I'm turning into a source snob! I've been anime-only for so long, I don't know how I feel about that.

Mobilezoid posted...

I'm turning into a source snob!

one of us

2 episodes left in Season 3.

Despite how much of a cop out it is, as soon as it happened I realized a tie for second place was the only way I was gonna be satisfied here.

Finished S3!

Definitely the best of this original set, for the first time I'm coming out of it thinking that was actually a great show rather than something that was pleasantly surprising for a series I'm originally only watching out of personal obligation. PPP is much more enjoyable as part of a group cast without the internal drama (the part in S2 when Tae is desperately writing in the sand, and then goes back to play was really great, though). RAS legit coming out as my favorite group despite Chu2. Masking is my favorite non-MyGO member in the series (though I know there's 2 Roselia movies and an OVA about a band I haven't even seen yet, so we'll see).

If you want to become a TRUE BanG Dream fan, you should also watch the three seasons of shorts that they did! Garupa Pico is my favorite thing about the franchise, they're all so fun and frequently insane. It became a running joke in the fandom to keep track of how many people "died" during these videos. All three seasons (Garupa Pico, Ohmori, and Fever) are available on their Youtube channel.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLi6JjODFVq31KIs7VzFU1XfybePhw6qKn

I will check it out!

On to the movies.

Kasumi's passport application being rejected because she autographed the signature is her most gremlin move to date. Someone put this girl in a facility.

Live Poppin'Dream footage;

https://youtu.be/9GUETSn3iqU?si=7GPrXan9ui_AsdWH

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/f/fab90443.jpg

RIP Star & Stripe v_v

oh ya Kafka goes from 0.01% to 1%

that's real MC progress

With this turning into the BanG Dream Discussion Topic lately, I went ahead and finally watched the three movies (the two Episode of Roselia ones and Poppin' Dream).

The Roselia ones were fine. Lots of it was just retellings of events from the mobile game. It was still nice seeing it all animated though, and they turned it all into a cohesive narrative. There was lots of new content too. Roselia isn't my favorite band by any means, but they have a good story and a fun dynamic most of the time. These movies were fine.

Poppin' Dream was amazing, though! More Kasumi is never a bad thing, but this was Kasumi at her best! I laughed a lot at stuff like her passport misadventures or her fear of flying. Their performances at the end of the movie were the best ones of the series, too, at least in my opinion. Good stuff from RAS and Morfonica, too.

I was literally going to post all about these in like 2 hours when I finish the 4 OVA episodes, so you came in under the wire lol. Just finished Roselia movie 2, I will wait to do it all at once.

Also I just had, like, literal breaking news for something that just happened in the actual Bang Dream game story hit me on my timeline on Twitter and it fucked me up! Mind you I had not even started MyGo a week ago and now I'm doomscrolling the tag for a mobile game I don't even play.

I'm gonna guess that it involves the current event story with Afterglow on the Japanese server. While I haven't been closely following it, I have a general idea of what's been going on.

Though I gotta say, it's been a pleasant surprise seeing you essentially go through most of the anime material of BanG Dream and even liking it. It's definitely not a franchise I expect a lot people to pick up on, and that's even with MyGO.

WhiteLens posted...

Though I gotta say, it's been a pleasant surprise seeing you essentially go through most of the anime material of BanG Dream and even liking it. It's definitely not a franchise I expect a lot people to pick up on, and that's even with MyGO.

I gotta say, I certainly didn't expect to come out of MyGO pondering if I need to go back and refresh that Top 10 anime of the decade list from the last topic, and I certainly didn't expect to then go follow that up with 39 episodes, 3 movies, and 5 OVAs about a girls band gacha. But here we are!

What I DID expect going into this vacation was that I would join the masses and become a complete and total Stan for Bocchi the Rock. We know how THAT worked out.

Tonari Episode was good as always though I do think it was the weakest ep so far. Would still be like a 7.5/10 episode for me, just didn't super hit for me like all the other eps have.

I'm still enjoying Tonari no Yokai-san, but I feel like it had the potential to be amazing and instead it has just been pretty good. There's been lots of focus on the fox lady and she isn't exactly my favorite character in the cast. I want more Jiro

Cleaned it all up. Just gonna briefly touch on this last chunk before I pass the fuck out and will talk more about my feelings on the series as a whole tomorrow.

Roselia 1 and 2 - These were pretty mediocre. It's clear it's meant more for existing fans of the game rather than anime onlys, and there's nothing inherently wrong with that, but it leads to some frustrations. Despite being a combined 2 and a halfish hours, it feels like not a lot happened here, just some really basic and predictable plot beats (even if the core issue if the first movie wasn't just stated back in season 2, prequel problems). The worst thing of all is that the stuff that movie 1 covered in the montage about 20 minutes in seemed FAR more interesting than the moves themselves. Sayo is my favorite Roselia character, you think I don't wanna see the stuff with her and the Pastel scandal? Come ooooon. At least the performances were good.

Poppin'Dream - Literally the only issue I have with this is it was too short. This was an excellent movie, but it being shorter than either Roselia flick is a crime, since those really don't have much going on while this is stuffed. It's a strong setup that's wholey unique from anything in the show, great humor (it turns out I'm not too mature to laugh at English struggle jokes, Chu2 just oversaturates the market. Koko - Coco mixup, genius.) and excellent performances. This movie has both the best acoustic performance and the best full stage performance in the series up to this point, with the fireside song and RAS' last performance respectively.

5th Anniversary Special - There not really anything to say here, it's really just an excuse to have every character in the series show up for a little personality showcase over a 40 minute period. Why didn't they just bring the painted sign inside overnight?? Cinema Sin. Noteabley, though, I actual think the group performance here was better than the one at the end of S3!

Morfonica - OK. Wow. No surprise I guess that this would be the one that grabbed me the most. I saved this for last completely by chance, but what a way to go out. Just like MyGO this is entirely self contained, and you could watch it with no Bandori knowledge, even though these characters do show up promenentally in Poppin'Dream. This is easily the best LOOKING thing in the franchise until MyGO, which isn't surprising given it was just 1 years prior, but in some aspects it actually looks even better due to some of the fantastical imagery in Mashiro's mind. On a purely technical character level it's still not quite to MyGO, but just barely, but they're finally almost there with the hair which is the easiest way to tell the difference between older and newer Bandori CG.

This has a bit of a different tone from everything prior that feels like it's bridging the gap. It's the missing link! In just 2 episodes it made me fall in love with this group, even if Rui is noteabley flat, but she has a violen so I'll forgive her. That combined with the full band have midnight black instruments....good shit.

So yeah. Will say some stuff tomorrow....and will....also rewatch all of MyGO tomorrow with full context lol.

Robazoid posted...

There's been lots of focus on the fox lady and she isn't exactly my favorite character in the cast. I want more Jiro

I'm the same way. She's a fine character. I just want more Jiro and Buchio. Though at least Buchio has been part of fox lady's story.

Robazoid posted...

I'm still enjoying Tonari no Yokai-san, but I feel like it had the potential to be amazing and instead it has just been pretty good. There's been lots of focus on the fox lady and she isn't exactly my favorite character in the cast. I want more Jiro

She actually is my favorite character in the cast, but this was still just an OK episode.

UshiromiyaEva posted...

In just 2 episodes it made me fall in love with this group, even if Rui is noteabley flat, but she has a violen so I'll forgive her.

Yeah that's my problem with Rui. She doesn't do anything bad, she's just a huge buzzkill in an otherwise fun group. They gave her a great design, they gave her a cool violin... and then they made her the most boring character ever. Then again, I'm like 100 event stories behind in the mobile game, maybe she's lightened up a bit since then. Morfonica is great other than her, though! It's been awhile since I watched their OVA (and I'm sad its been removed from their Youtube channel), but I definitely remember it being creative with its visuals. Nanami is my favorite from Morfonica.

Anyway, I'll echo WhiteLens and agree that this recent BanG Dream watchthrough has been a pleasant surprise. MyGO went mainstream, hell even Mac watched it, but I didn't expect many people to go back to the earlier stuff, never mind enjoy it as much as you seem to have! I can't call it a perfect series, and I'm sure we have different opinions on some of the good/bad parts lol, but BanG Dream has a special place in my heart. Plus we agree that Poppin Dream was amazing and should've been longer.

Looking forward to any other thoughts you might have!

In my case I'm on a music anime binge in general and Bang Dream was on the list. Got through Love Live SIP and Sunshine but needed a break before Nijigasaki. There are a few other shows on the radar afterward as well.

Man I stayed up way too late to finish all that lol.

Overall take on the original series (Morfonica honestly makes the clean cut separation a bit easier than I expected, but I'd still say that's fair for now) is that Bang Dream is a very enjoyable time, bordering on great at some times, and that the vibe I've seen second hand for years that it was a wannabe Love Live simply isn't true. Season 1 can definitely drag, but I strongly disagree with the idea that it can be skipped. It's like telling a new FFXIV player to skip A Realm Reborn.

Season 2 is in a wierd place because I actually liked it quite a bit at the time, but it's basically an entire season of setup for S3, that sounds half it's time introducing new bands. This is stuff I enjoyed and is necessary, but it means that when I look back on all of it that it's just the weird middle child. I did like the Tae arc, and it did introduce a ton of characters to me though, so I have to give it it's kudos. It's easier to think of S2 and 3 and a single 2-cour season I guess.

S3 on it's own definitely comes out in top here for me. It shakes that Gacha feel because everyone is already established, has a strong througline arc from start to finish, and is the most we ever get focus on a single band that isn't PoPiPa in the whole original series. Some of my favorite characters get plenty of spotlight here, some characters I disliked a lot like Rock end up improving significantly, and even Chu2 became....tolerable! I went from wanting to punt her like a football from wanting to throw her in that pool...which they kind of do I guess, lol.

I'm general, some issues are innevitable with a gacha adaptation, a bunch of characters I want to see more of get their episode the are mostly gone. The Pastel episode only really focuses on 2 of them, and neither is the one I really want (Hina and Sayo have come out of this as surprise top rankers for me), Afterglow is practically a background character in their own episode and never gets a chance to shine the entire series from here on out (I feel like this was intentional, since it would get in the way of the narrative for another heavier band directly rivaling Roselia and RAS to be prominent, but still...), and Happy Smile World.....is a thing!

I don't think it's any surprise to anybody that, despite coming to enjoy it so much it's still not in the same league as MyGO for me even at it's best, but considering how I just put down $100 to preorder the 3 currently available hyper marketable plushies (JUST LET ME PREORDER ANON AND SAYO I DONT CARE IF THEY JUST HAVE PLACEHOLDER PICTURES) I don't think that a sleight against this other content at all. The ultimate sign of surrender to Bang Dream fever is that I might, one day, watch all those fake live stage performance movies.

As stated, gonna rewatch MyGO....right now! It's not like I haven't been pulling up clips every day all week anyways lol. Very curious to see what references I missed, but most of all I REALLY wanna know how I feel about that last episode now.

MI got done watching Sailor Moon Crystal with my friend. It was better than it had any right to be, considering my expectations were "really dumb and saccharine BS." I mean, it sure as hell was dumb and goofy, but there's these weird things people would say or do, or some of the visual moments that bled into the narrative that were oddly dark and depraved a show like this really shouldn't.. Momo and Chibiusa/Black Lady (father and daughter) making out, or a line in the movies about wringing a baby's neck until they die. Jesus Christ dude...

But yes, the transformations, some of the goofy attack names (COCONUT CYCLONE!?) aside, there's enough here that it's a surprisingly fun watch for such a dopey, pre-teen kinda show. Enjoyed it a lot more than I would have figured going in.

UshiromiyaEva posted...

The ultimate sign of surrender to Bang Dream fever is that I might, one day, watch all those fake live stage performance movies.

I've been considering this too. At the very least, I might put them on someday as background noise while I'm doing something else, the music in BanG Dream is always good.

Anyway, I enjoyed reading your overall thoughts! I agree that S2 is the worst, but for different reasons (I didn't like the Tae plot). I'm glad you enjoyed the series.

I'm happy I got into it too. Though I didn't tackle it the same way, I'm just glad this isn't a Mother's Rosario situation where you have a super amazing story super far into a series, and everything prior to it is is total booty.

I do think it's super unfortunate how difficult this series it so watch. I had to start and end it with torrents, and even the stuff you can stream is split between different services.

(Not going to talk about this MyGO rewatch until I finish it again, but I'll almost certainly do it all in this one sitting.)

Finished rewatching.

.....Honestly extremely shocked that I love it even more now than the first time. I guess that's just the different attitude going in initially? This has completely infused itself into my brain.

For most of the series, references are minimal. I don't recall anything in the other seasons mentioned that Hina ran the astronomy club, so I had to find that one by looking it up. Also, Hina and Sayo are twins?? Just nothing for the P*P lore huh lol.

Raana is actually precious, her character wasn't the best to me when I was still engrossed in finding out the plot as it went, but now with that out of the way I thought her antics were great and she was crucial in both breaking the band down and building it back up again.

La Creatura

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/7/704c17ee.jpg

Watching episode twelve was hilarious, though. Just absolutely no attention was paid to these side characters at all the first time though, but the room is fucking full of past characters. What do you mean Saaya and Kasumi are on the staff for this event??

More important than anything, I have completely turned around on the last episode. All my annoyance that it seemed like In was getting cut off from MyGO too soon was obviously unfounded, because clearly they're still going to be omnipresent in the new season in January. I also liked the performance at the end much more this time, except Saki's keyboard is kind of....not great? Maybe that's just the song. All of the preliminary buildup to the song was still omni-cringe though, god.

Anyways

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/8/8642b8ef.jpg

Hashira training is afoot!

rumor is it's 8 episodes so basically slowing it down to a chapter an episode

then the rumor beyond that is the Infinity Castle arc will be a trilogy of movies

OH BOY

I'm surprised you didn't pick up that Sayo and Hina are twins. I guess it's been so ingrained from the start with the game that I didn't think that an anime-only person could possibly not realize that.
Their story is actually considered as one of the highlights of the overarching story throughout the game.

For the astronomy club thing, Hina's catchphrase is something like "ruun~" (localized as Boppin' in English, but Crunchyroll has it as "la la la"), so it came of as a nice nod to her when Anon reads the note out loud.

Now that you watched the first three seasons, you have better context of the hints that Raana drops about her grandma. But on that note, these were mentioned in a Q & A after Season 3 of the anime.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/2/2e78d7d5.jpg

Here's the rest of them if you want to read through them:
https://en.bang-dream.com/news/20200422/post-11

In any case, if you ever want to know what goes on in the game story, there are transcripts for them that you can read through:

https://bandori.fandom.com/wiki/Category:Main_Story
https://bandori.fandom.com/wiki/Category:Band_Stories
https://bandori.fandom.com/wiki/Category:Event_Stories

But you can skip Poppin'Party Band Story 0 and Raise A Suilen Band Story 1 since those are both covered in the anime.

Or watch them through this YouTube channel that looks to have archived them

Main/Band stories
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLcvT6sHhJaeOATL1bLPTAFkaE1MeIucBd

Season 1 event stories
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLcvT6sHhJaeM3q_4fQwMg9cOBHCiEwbPu

Season 2 event stories
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLcvT6sHhJaeN_OAQBXGRPcbT-fGCiRHCZ

Season 3 event stories
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLcvT6sHhJaeP7LexjLyd1j_BWfoCkd7-X

That channel seems good at keeping up-to-date because the current event story is on there. Just keep in mind that the event stories are in most recent order on the playlists. So if you wanted watch the very first event story, you have to scroll all the way to the bottom of the Season 1 event playlist.

Since there are a ton of event stories (literally over 200 of them), this is a good site to kind of scan through what the event may be about and to see the card art.
https://bandori.party/events/

It's a lot of material, so it may not be a bad idea to have those somewhere on hand as a reference.

Jeeesus, OK, I'll keep this all bookmarked for a rainy day, I'm definitely interested!

Hina always calls her Onee-chan and the twin thing is never said in show I'm PRETTY sure.

Though I haven't read anything yet, looking at fan content it seems that both of them are indeed super popular, which is cool.

SHINE_GET_64 posted...

Hashira training is afoot!

rumor is it's 8 episodes so basically slowing it down to a chapter an episode

then the rumor beyond that is the Infinity Castle arc will be a trilogy of movies

OH BOY

The falloff of this adaptation needs to be studied.

Speaking of Raana, her VA has a TikTok account where she posts videos of her playing various songs, and well, let's just say two of them are from the girls band anime that's airing this season.

https://www.tiktok.com/@aoki__hina/video/7366463657896627463
https://www.tiktok.com/@aoki__hina/video/7365806645839990034

Crossover of the century.

Also I obtained all 3 seasons of Pico, haven't started yet though.

SHINE_GET_64 posted...

then the rumor beyond that is the Infinity Castle arc will be a trilogy of movies

pls no

SHINE_GET_64 posted...

Hashira training is afoot!

rumor is it's 8 episodes so basically slowing it down to a chapter an episode

then the rumor beyond that is the Infinity Castle arc will be a trilogy of movies

OH BOY

That sounds awful

Still have only watched the first season of Demon Slayer lol

I've still only watched the first 12 episodes of Demon Slayer. They started introducing characters other than Tanjiro and I was immediately out.

edit: I lied my MAL says 13 episodes

https://twitter.com/AmolPiece/status/1789676103579148759

my reaction to the opening was basically "when did Zenitsu get so buff?"

pyresword posted...

They started introducing characters other than Tanjiro and I was immediately out.

I love demon slayer but I completely understand. Reading the manga weekly that was the lowest I felt for the story, until the season 2 material. Which is to say I liked it a lot more during/after season 2, not that it was an even lower point.

But your mileage will vary depending on how much you like drawn out high stakes fighting.

Honestly I feel like I still liked the manga all the way through.

However I give a ton of credit to Gotouge for knowing she needed to end it when she did. I think any attempt to keep it going would have been disastrous, and it must have taken a lot of will to stick to her guns when at that time people were talking about Demon Slayer like it was the next One Piece. I'm sure Shueisha wasn't happy!

It's too bad she didn't, because Muzan's a godawful villain and the series would be way better without him.

https://tenor.com/view/spice-and-wolf-spice-and-wolf-remake-spice-and-wolf-2024-holo-korbo-gif-17828235424199105160

This made me happy all over again. The power of Holo the Wise Wolf doing Holo things.

Never going to get tired of watching that.

People are powerless against Holo the Wise Wolf. We just exist in whatever world she does the fun in.