This Week in Anime

Is The Anime Girl Band Era Here?

Nick
Hey everybody! Welcom to TWIApolooza! We're called Any New Noise, and this first song is called "ANNtidisestablishmentarianism!" ONE TWO THREE FOUR

It's been a while since we had such a confluence of music anime in a single season - and a lot of them somehow aren't about idols. It really is like being at a music festival, except it's not a thousand degrees, and nobody smells like overpriced beer.

Music, at least, is a lot more of an understandable trend. There have been anime about music for decades, ever since a producer figured out you could sell records alongside VHS tapes. Still, it's funny to see a confluence of shows that are somewhat outside the norm of idol-centric pop.

I'm fine leaving the band geeks backstage. They can go march in the Rose Parade or something. Stuff like this is way more my speed:

Yeah, we've already covered this show's bizarre absence from the English-language landscape, but it is wild that a project with a lot of money and marketing behind it just...isn't available. That MV I posted has over 10 million views! Usually, a band has to hire their alcoholic friend as their manager to leave that much obvious money on the table.

It really sucks because, well, honestly, it seems like the show that best understands the appeal of a music anime. These music videos have flare, drama, and mood! They have characters doing cool stuff to show their coolness while utilizing all the visual tricks developed in the past decade of CG idol performances. But if you want to know what's happening, you'd better have taken French in high school.

See, that whole angle is fascinating! We've had girl band shows before, but they're always about high school kids doing it in their free time. According to all the promotional info, the main character of GBC is a high school dropout, and the guitarist is a full-on adult. By all appearances, half the conflict is about the struggle of supporting yourself while also trying to be an artist. Full disclosure: I checked out the official French simulcast, and while I'm not fluent enough to catch everything, I'm pretty sure they talked about copyright for songwriting at one point. I've genuinely never seen an anime talk about that!

Again, weird synchronicity with this season. However, I'm less interested in the music than in GBC's angsty rock tracks.

The generous part of me wants to say that it's intentional. Kano's musical performance there is a pretty simple, stripped-down acoustic ballad that's more of a song scrap than a whole track. It's supposed to be a small, personal triumph that inspires Yoru to reclaim her art, and it does that pretty well. At the same time, god damn if GBC doesn't hit with way more impact when the characters stop time with the power of their song.

There's no "right" way to do it, but I'd be lying if I said GBC's unadulterated angsty energy didn't appeal to me a lot more. It might not be an idol show, but being directed and written by Love Live! alumni means it understands how to use music to emphasize and punctuate emotional moments. Much like a stage musical, it heightens things for the audience in an infectious way if done right. I don't need to see the full episode to understand the feeling in this performance clip:

By comparison, Jellyfish is much closer to a typical film or TV drama. The music videos are extras meant to complement the emotional moments within the dialogue.

It's a distinctly modern perspective on music-making, and that unique angle gives it a lot to work with. I may be most familiar with the music scene of live shows and rock bands you see in Bocchi the Rock!, but for many young artists, JELEE's setup of collaborating amateurs putting stuff up on YouTube probably strikes true. They even have to figure out DAW interfaces!

It's not enough to learn an instrument, now you have to have a Bachelor's in Garage Band to get anywhere.

That's why I think it lost me after a couple of seasons. A big part of my connection to music is its ability to express things that can't be put into words. Technical ability is absolutely a part of that, but the competition to see who can tuba the best has just never really clicked with me. Also, three years of middle school band made me allergic to teenage marching band drama.

It's also the gayest by a country mile, so it's got that going for it.

Himari might not realize it yet, but I have enough experience crushing on hot girls who play guitar to recognize a kindred spirit.

Himari's lucky her crush isn't old enough to play an 18-and-over show, so she doesn't have to beg her cousin, who knows a guy, to sneak her in. Cough

It's the only adaptation of the three, rather than an anime original. Since the manga couldn't exactly lean on songs to punctuate the narrative, it's much more focused on the process rather than the end product. The big question for Yori is how she can express feelings of love genuinely, something that even the most accomplished songwriters struggle with. It took David Byrne years to make one he was happy with, so good luck, girl.

Yeah, in the Anime Battle of the Bands, Love Song will not win any prizes for its stage effects. GBC and Jellyfish are setting off pyrotechnics and rotating stages while Yori is trying to find a mic stand that will stay up.

For all its production woes, there's still much to like about the show and what it might say about music. If nothing else, the short snippets of Yori humming on her guitar captured the right vibes.

It's certainly got me eating well! And hey, if the industry is looking for another gay band series to make into anime, I might have a suggestion or two. The world is ready for Jass-fusion lesbians.

I certainly won't say no to more stories in this vein, provided I don't have to pull my high school French-to-English dictionary out of storage again. Maybe we'll see a production brave enough to make good on Zombie Land Saga's premiere and get a death metal girl band. The world of music is as vast as the ocean, and in the age of streaming, there's an audience for every sound!