Anime original by Toei Animation
Simulcast Pending
Premise
Looking to start a new life in the big city, high school dropout Nina bumps into Momoka Kawaragi, the guitarist of her favourite up-and-coming band. Unfortunately, the band in question has just decided to call it quits, and Momoka is preparing to give up on music entirely.
Aqua’s verdict: Less Sugar, More Salt
It doesn’t matter whether you give the girls instruments or toss a different genre of music into the mix, I recognize a Love Live! wannabe when I see one. On paper, just about any part of Girls Band Cry — from its casting of hitherto unknown talent, over art design that manages to be both overly intricate and bland at the same time, to its meticulously laid-out multimedia marketing strategy — oozes with a cynical lust for what little still remains of the idol pie. I say “what little remains”, because at this point just about every major media conglomerate and record label in Japan has had its slice of this particular delicacy for years. With Girls Band Cry arriving when juggernaut franchises like The iDOLM@STER, Love Live! and BanG Dream! beat the piñata to a pulp years ago and are now squabbling over what little of the candy remains, Toei seem to the wrong kind of late to the party, destined to launch their latest project straight into oblivion alongside fellow also-rans like 22/7 or — God forbid — Wake up, Girls!.
But it’s never easy, isn’t it? For one, as with gatcha games, there doesn’t seem to be a limit, nor an expiration date to the success of these kinds of franchises, as long as they have what it takes to stand out on the battlefield. The market is not a pie or a piñata, it is an endless, swirling void with not a limit in sight, a primordial snake that has guzzled up so much of the general otaku zeitgeist at this point it has become an Ouroboros. The multimedia idol franchise is not a trend — at this point, it is an inevitable, universal truth, one of the very fundaments the entire medium of anime is built upon, like giant robots, characters calling their attacks and rampant misogyny. Yet this is not the conclusion I must draw after watching the first episode of Girls Band Cry — a show that, mind you, is being written by a guy who has been writing these kinds of franchises for over a decade. This is merely the premise. I don’t particularly care that this show proves the idol genre’s potential for infinite life. I care that it proves its potential to be good.
For the longest time, I have held the belief that an idol show that the notion of a “good” idol show is an intrinsic oxymoron. There have been idol shows I’ve enjoyed, surely, but it’s hard to call anything that unquestioningly celebrates something as wretched as the idol industry “good”. Is Girls Band Cry good? It’s hard to tell at this point, but the question does merit consideration for one simple reason — this show has bite. Girls Band Cry is not by any stretch of the imagination a cynical show, but it is at least a show that acknowledges the fallibility of both its characters and the world they live in. There is a melancholy to the nighttime streets of Kawasaki that Nina and Momoka wander in this episode, a grittiness to their struggles and a wryness to their banter in comparison to which the inflated melodrama of something like Love Live! pales. In your average idol anime, life is something you can skip and flutter through with nothing but determination, pluck and a poorly choreographed performance or two. In Girls Band Cry, life just straight up sucks sometimes, and all you have are a guitar and two middle fingers. Music is a relief, but not a solution.
It’s surprising just how much brighter Girls Band Cry shines compared to its brethren just by slightly toning down the saccharine. At its core, this episode still bears the signature marks of a Jukki Hanada joint, from the distinctive rhythm at which the characters interact to an emotional climax reflecting familiar themes of friendship and perseverance — “I saved you but I never expected you to save me“, all that jazz. The guy can write these kinds of narratives with his eyes closed at this point, but what makes Girls Band Cry distinctive is how liberated it feels from the chains that have held Hanada down for most of his career. Many of his prior works — especially the various seasons of Love Live! and most of the shows Kyoto Animation produced during the height of their popularity — are distinctly set in worlds of unrestrained idealism. Love Live!, in particular, is infamous for barely ever even acknowledging the existence of men, lest their presence infringes upon the idealized girlishness and unapologetic innocence of its setting. This lack of real friction has its merits, but it doesn’t play to Hanada’s strengths.
There’s a quote from Dutch actor Aart Staartjes, known by just about any Dutch-speaking child my age for his role as Mr. Aart, a grumpy, cantankerous old man on our version of Sesame Street. When asked to explain the point of his antagonistic character, Staartjes replied that “every Garden of Eden needs a snake.” In other words, a perfect world cannot be perfect if its perfection is under no threat. I believe Jukki Hanada is at his best when Staartjes’ quote can be the thesis of his narratives. The man thrives when he gets to write idealistic characters in a world that doesn’t fully facilitate them, like in A Place Further Than the Universe or Sound! Euphonium, when the optimism of his plucky protagonists has to carve out a space for itself, as opposed to being offered a seat at the table the moment it makes itself known. To cart out another famous quote in my native tongue: “between a dream and a done deal, there are rules and pragmatics to be considered, and even melancholy, which cannot be explained.” Girls Band Cry is still a show about following your dreams all the way to the top, but it does acknowledge the realities and complexities of life — from financial hardship over social anxiety to the fact that gay people exist — recontextualizing its entire narrative by doing so.
I get why people like more traditional, idealistic idol anime, I do. They are baroque cathedrals, opulent and operatic, rife with intensity in both of its euphoric and dramatic moments — but also bloated and unfamiliar. The more grandiose the friction in Love Live! (“Our school is going to be closed!”, “We got zero votes from the audience!”, “I hate idols because my poor mother died before she could reach the top!”, et cetera), the less personal it seems. These problems don’t feel like problems, they feel like facsimiles of problems produced only to celebrate their resolution. I don’t give a rat’s ass about whatsername’s reasons for hating idols in Love Live! because I know that in the end she’ll learn to stop resisting. I’d much rather root for the characters in Girls Band Cry, whose issues exist within the realm of the relatable. For Nina, who is running away from an authoritarian family seemingly incapable of giving her the love she needs. For Momoka, who gave up on her dream because she just couldn’t be arsed any more and signed away the rights to her own songs because she was strapped for cash. That, to me, is drama. That is friction. That is the real world. That is the snake in the Garden of Eden, not the cardboard cutout so many other idol shows love to wave in front of their audience, dramatic audio stings and all. After all, actual snakes hide in the grass.
Peter’s verdict: Certified Banger
Aqua’s first look above largely summarises my feelings about this show, and I say that as an idol show apologist too. Even I have grown tired of Love Live!’s largely recycled formula, though I will say that, to me at least, The iDOLM@STER tends to be different enough with each iteration and with more of a gap between seasons that it doesn’t suffer from quite the same level of burnout.
Girls Band Cry on the other hand really does feel fresh. Characters who are both entertaining and also real, music that slaps, a really nice looking visual style in the 3D CG space, just an all round interesting and fun show… from episode 1.
Here’s the thing though, can they keep this up for a whole season or more? There’s only so much mileage flipping the bird will get you, even Pop Team Epic knew that. I am cautiously optimistic from the writing so far due to how thoughtful it’s being. A real stand out moment for me was what Aqua described as “the fact that gay people exist”. Despite this being a very brief moment, I want to point out a few important things about this. 1) it’s an explicit acknowledgement of a gay man having a boyfriend. 2) it is (mostly) not played for laughs (Nina’s reaction is “Tokyo is amazing” in a more “we wouldn’t get that where I’m from” kind of way and getting overwhelmed by how different it is). 3) There’s no gay panic of assuming all gay men are rapists like various other anime. Truly, the bear minimum of non-toxic representation, but it’s there. Question is, what was the goal in drawing attention to it? Nina reacting the way she did, although not offensive, draws attention to it rather than it being a throwaway line. Considering how much queerbaiting is in idol shows, having an early and explicit acknowledgement of gay people being real, gay men as well, may well come up later on if they want to go down that route. Alternatively, it could just be virtue signalling. It depends on how much they want to treat the performers behind this like “idols you might have a chance with one day” rather than real people.
On that point, this anime is a collaboration between Toei Animation and Universal Music Japan, the latter of which, in conjunction with music studio Agehasprings, held auditions for the real life band members and formed the group IRL. Prior to the anime starting, they put several music videos on YouTube too. These are real artists performing these songs, with composition and production by Agehasprings, compared to your standard idol fare of just singing to a backing track. Even back in K-On! days, the VAs couldn’t play their instruments outside of one heavily rehearsed song for live shows. That being said, Toyosaki Aki (VA for Yui) learnt the guitar for real after the popularity of her character in K-On! so there is that (just don’t mention her cover of “Hey Jude” to any Beatles fan1).
Apart from that, I think I’d just be reiterating what Aqua says. Episode 1 left a very good impression and I am looking forward to seeing more.
- Aqua‘s note: God forbid women have hobbies! ↩︎
The Glorio Blog 
Never really got into idol anime much, but nice post. I like hearing y’all’s thoughts on anime, and it was especially nice to hear that there’s a gay couple who are mostly not a joke. What do you think about anime like K-On with a music focus but not really about pop idols? I watched both seasons of K-On and found it mostly enjoyable.
I think K-ON! is great, though I would argue its music — while certainly prominent and enjoyable — isn’t much of a narrative element. The characters are in a band, but their story is not really about music, at least not in the way music often features as a unifying, liberating or empowering factor in a story.
In that regard, a show like Bocchi the Rock arguably does a better job at making the music a thematic element, showing how it allows the characters to express themselves and gives meaning to their lives — which is something K-ON! isn’t usually actively interested in. It’s an incredibly fun comedy, but it’s also rather shallow, and intentionally so.
As for the pop idol thing, I vastly prefer my anime about music to stay far, far away from any of the the tropes associated with the idol industry. This is not necessarily about my taste in music, but about my disdain for that particular industry. Idols are objectified, exploited, denied proper security and working conditions and made to perpetuate outdated and frankly humiliating stereotypes, all while their employers constantly neglect to protect them from the toxicity in their fandoms.
The fact that anime so often portray a career as an idol as emancipatory and as a beautiful dream to aspire to, when the reality is so often so different, is just something I can’t deal with. I believe that music can be all these great things idol anime say it is, but I don’t believe the idol industry can make it be these great things. I know shows like Love Live! barely have anything to do with the actual, real-life idol industry, but their relentless optimism about the very concept of idols still rubs me the wrong way.
Thanks for the reply. You’ve got a good point about K-On not really being about the music. I had a friend recommend Bocchi the Rock recently and it looks very cute. I’ll have to watch it before long. And I hear you on the idol industry. I don’t know a ton about it, but everything you said are echoes of what I’ve also heard online. Sad.