Girls Band Cry

Everyone yearns to find their true purpose in life. This is also true for Nina Iseri, a 17-year-old girl looking to enroll in a good university, but the world always seems to work against her. On her very first day in Tokyo, she gets lost, ignored, and locked out of her new apartment. However, an unexpected opportunity arises when Nina meets Momoka Kawaragi, one of her favorite guitarists.

After Nina joins Momoka for a street performance, Momoka decides they should start a band together. While Nina initially hesitates, her determination grows as they start acquiring more bandmates—the beautiful drummer Subaru Awa, the aloof keyboardist Tomo Ebizuka, and the intelligent bassist Rupa. The five girls face challenges both in the music industry and within themselves, but their shared passion for music never lets them give up on their dreams.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Iseri, Nina Main

Rina Japanese

Awa, Subaru Main

Mirei Japanese

Kawaragi, Momoka Main

Yuuri Japanese

Rupa Main

Shuri Japanese

Ebizuka, Tomo Main

Natsu Japanese

Hina Supporting

Kondou, Reina Japanese

Nakata Supporting

Kanuka, Mitsuaki Japanese

Rin Supporting

Urushiyama, Yuuki Japanese

Ai Supporting

Miyashiro, Momoko Japanese

Nana Supporting

Matsuoka, Misato Japanese

Hirayama, Tadashi Producer

Sakai, Kazuo Director, Episode Director, Storyboard

Miyoshi, Keiichirou Sound Director

Imura, Kenji Episode Director

Reviews

Nov 15, 2024

lycoping

Recommended

This is one of those anime of which I will have much to say, so, buckle in, I guess.

This anime is both a spiritual sibling to "Bocchi the Rock", and yet it couldn't be more different. "Bocchi" is kind of a gag anime that happens to have a story - which is, I guess, somewhat understandable considering its origination as a 4-koma manga. "Girls Band Cry" is an original anime, and doesn't have any of that baggage coming from source material, so it is free to be what it is. I loved Bocchi and I considered her story to be inspiring and ... at times emotional, but other than being about the formation of a girl rock band, it has very little in common beyond the atmosphere, which both seem to share to some degree. Maybe that just has something to do with rock being a bit grungy, by nature.

And what it is, is a story about coming of age, about self-actualization, about finding comfort in the most unlikely of friends as five girls who are very much unlike each other form a band and try to make it to the top.

While there are some very funny moments in this anime, this is not a comedy. This is a drama. There is a lot of emotion, a lot of crying, a lot of confrontation (the number of times they have a loud confrontation smack in the middle of a public place is somewhat beyond belief). But at the end of the day, there is no character that escapes the "coming of age" that this anime, at its core, is about.

And the characters... wow, the characters. They come alive. It's almost like they're real people, that's how well written they are. Nina is an annoying "Morality monster" with a strong sense of justice that has gotten her in a whole heap of trouble, Momoka is a guitarist who left her previous band just as they were on the cusp of going pro, Subaru is a high school drummer who Nina didn't get along with at first, Ruba and Tomo are friends who have their own story.. So much care is taken with the characters that they just come alive, and it's amazing. I have never seen a character with Ruba's name, by the way. And as they bumble through forming a band, you start to think they're real, and that's what makes this an amazing anime, and worthy of a high rating.

There is some controversy about the animation, and I think it's warranted, because they used 3D animation all the way through, which is pretty unique. And they did it well. My complaints about the animation have nothing at all to do with the fact, itself, that it's 3D, my complaints have to do with the fact that they did *exactly* what almost every other 3D animated show/movie does - and that's using overexaggerated movements. If you've ever seen a Disney/Pixar movie, you'll know what I'm talking about. Sometimes their movements are fluid and natural, and those are impressive. Other times they're pretty much hamming for the "camera", and that is so amazingly annoying I can't even describe it. They *almost* had it. *Almost* had a beautiful anime with animation that would have been almost impossible for any other 2D studio to match, and they blew it. That's so disappointing.

The music is really good, the OP is unironically good, and that's not the most common of things. It has some really weird rhythms that work really well. All the insert songs are pretty good, and I'd say that they took a lot of care to get that right. Though the instrument animation isn't really all that great, especially the keyboard animation. I know that's difficult, but they took so much care with everything else, that's just a mite bit annoying too.

In summary, it's a high quality anime with well written characters, great animation, and great music, that somehow manages to just fall short on the animation, and given how much care they obviously put into it, that's a disappointing and borderline unforgivable self-own.

Recommend from me, strong recommend, actually, but don't be surprised if it doesn't really blow your socks off.

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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Nov 3, 2024

SleepingDragon01

Mixed Feelings

In the premise that this is a music anime, this definitely is good as the songs and how they present the song is done well and was made purposely to please the viewers eyes.

Onto the character side, the MC's personality is definitely something that pisses me off, typical DIVA in the making and though I appreciate that somehow there was an improvement somewhere episode 10 onwards, MC already ruined my viewing experience so much so that I can already say that I hate her. If they do plan on making a sequel I do hope that they change her personality or focus more on the ... other bandmates.

Story side, plot is a little cliché, country girl trying to make it in the big city, meets supporting characters and proceed with their goals. One thing that I like is the responses of each character to another. It became a little bit more realistic especially at the end part.

Definitely would have been an easy 9 or 10 if MC was not made to be like that.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Nov 7, 2024

Tacsk0

Not Recommended

Creative

I spoiler-free don't recommend watching Girls Band Cry (GBC), for two main reasons:

1. It's the kind of story you'll either hate (because of the 3D-CGI animation or how unreasonably unsufferable the MC is or any misc. reason) or you'll fall for the experience right away and become addicted. If you'd hate it, why watch it? If you become addicted, you'll waste your life by re-re-watching it and searching for or creating fanart and buying merch - in stark contrast to what the series' theme song says!

2., Girls Band Cry is like the cursed apple tree standing in the middle of the Garden of Eden. Eat ... from it, says the snake and your eyes will open, suddenly seeing the whole television anime industry is naked... 99% of seasonal produce are always poorly drawn partial animation at a mere 7-13 fps and giving "hand-made 2D" look a bad name. For bonus, there are uninspired and uninteresting plotlines and pro seiyuu who cater to assumed "high-pitched loli maid" expectations of the otaku, rather than expressing anything meaningful.

GBC entered such a market, shining with 30fps of often motion-captured but always expressive and continously fluid 3D-CGI animation. (Nota bene: as much as possible within sub-Hollywood budget allocated to a freely broadcast original TV show lacking LN / manga source support.) Yet script-writing and episode directing are stellar for both comedy and drama, music hits are memorable, non-music hits also... Main characters have personality, strong presence and very real emotion, even though the show uses no seiyuu, per se. All five members of Togenashi Togeari are voiced by teenage rock musician girls, whom Studio Toei and Universal Japan label recruited to form a real-life band and gave them a crash course in voice acting for anime - based on the reasoning talented musicians have good ears so they'll quickly get the hang of it. The producer was right: Nina's and Momoka's VAs are super talented, even star-crossed and Subaru sounds refreshingly realistic, they are easily par for their beautiful visuals. You've found your angels, even if they are fallen ones with just cardboard wings...

After you've witnessed all those miracles, you get expelled from Paradise: post-GBC the japanese animation industry still continues to roll out the same garbage as before, this past summer, this autumn, coming winter season. With your newly opened eyes it becomes gruelling labour to watch the poorly drawn partial animation, the mockery of hand-made 2D style and digest the soulless and all-around juvenile and/or cynical plotlines, while listening to seiyuu who try to sound like chipmunks. You may even give up on anime or at least be unable to (re)watch anything you haven't seen and accepted pre-GBC!

Is it worth discarding your whole anime baggage for the sake of a singular show projected from Paradise? It's not a trivial decision, but a surprisingly large number of japanese otaku voted YES enthusiastically (and many foreign fans as well, even though GBC wasn't legally available for them until August and not conveniently available until Nov 2024. Fansubs ranged from evil-memed MTL to highly controversial regarding a crucial scene). More than half a year later GBC disc sales are still crazy high and TogeToge live shows are 25x overbooked. Even the famous BanGDream / MyGO franchise went to GBC for a collab, which helped them through difficulties of delayed game development. Maybe, maybe the industry will see the light and begin to change - but in the meanwhile you'd lose 3 to 5 years of anime enjoyment. Decide for yourself whether it's worth it!?

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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	Poll: Girls Band Cry Episode 13 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 ) KANLen09 - Jun 28	166 replies	by agunZagun »» Nov 20, 2:31 PM
	Poll: Girls Band Cry Episode 9 Discussion ( 1 2 ) IzanaSolos - May 31	57 replies	by Uguu_Tsukimiya »» Nov 20, 10:41 AM
	Poll: Girls Band Cry Episode 6 Discussion IzanaSolos - May 10	43 replies	by Uguu_Tsukimiya »» Nov 19, 8:14 AM
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