Show By Rock!! Episode 12: Our Youth is Non-stop!! (FINAL)

POWER OF ROCK N ROLL. Which is an easy summary but I used that for the first episode. But then it also took a magical girl turn, so hurray for magical music powers. Cyan looked beautiful.

We pick up where we left off, where Darudayu holds off the monster. Cyan knows it’s Rosia and all of Criticrista as the monster, so she can the rest of Plasmagica save them. This incurs the wrath of Dagger and he engulfs himself over the entire concert area, trapping everyone in his web-like substance. He goads Cyan that Midi City needs her and her music and that she can be famous with everyone falling to her knees. Cyan doesn’t want this but to stop Dagger from hurting her friends, she accepts. While this is happening, Angelica the Badass and Maple climb up Dagger’s building to find Grateful King and bust him out. They do just in time, and just before Dagger could take control over Cyan, Grateful King uses THE POWER OF ROCK AND ROLL and saves everyone.

Too bad we never got to see his face this entire episode. After freeing everyone, Dagger gets even more angry and gets even more bigger and is ready to attack Cyan when King steps in to save her. Then all of a sudden Cyan is whisked away and is about to go home! I actually am not sure who did that or how that happened. Dagger was the one that brought Cyan into Midi City so I don’t think he’d send her away, and I didn’t think Grateful King had the power to do that. Anyway, Cyan is being sent home while leaving the others behind to defeat Dagger. Which is awful and Cyan feels awful too. Cyan questioned why she was ever there and what was the point, and the fact that she hasn’t even grown since coming to Midi City. And there’s no way that she’s going to leave everyone behind to take care of her business. So she comes back, turns into magical kitty angel, and defeats Dagger with her guitar that turned into a bow and arrow.

And Cyan saved the day, just like you’d expect. Cyan thanks Berry/Grateful King for always encouraging her and being there for her, and of course she thanks everyone else for being with her. Chuchu presents matching guitar picks for the four of them, so they can always remember each other. With a tearful hug, they finally perform like they always wanted to in the Grateful Rock Festival, which also marked their last performance together.

After the credits, we skip to Cyan in her school, peeking through the classroom door where the school’s band is, just how we saw her in the first episode. She’s still really nervous, but she takes out the guitar pick Chuchu made for her, and that gives her the courage to finally open the door and introduce herself.

A pretty simple finale for a pretty simple show. I’ll be honest, when it comes to the actual plot of the show, that’s probably the weakest part. We had seen these dark monsters in the beginning and learned that Cyan had to grow her musical power to take them on, but I guess I just didn’t feel it. Cyan performed a couple times, but because she was “the chosen one” that gave her an advantage over the others and she didn’t have to do much to be powerful. I only felt it in the finale, when Cyan transformed into magical girl mode to get powerful because she really pushed herself to get stronger. I just wished the show did more when it came to the plot with Dagger and the dark monsters, and the ending was typical as the main character was getting beat, then awakens her true power, then wins. It’s been done, so that’s why I wasn’t really jumping out of my chair when watching the episode. But it was still a fun watch. I didn’t expect a show like this to creep me out a couple times and to get a little dark via Dagger, so that was a nice touch.

But really what this show excels at is its grand cast of characters. There’s a lot of characters, but the main focus are the bands in the BRR label. There’s a lot of characters so you’ll find some you’ll love. From the sweet Cyan to the slightly evil Chuchu, to the crazy silly boys of SHINGANCRIMSONZ. Hell, how can you not like Angelica? She’s hot and a total badass when busting through Dagger’s place. The girls of Plasmagica got good character development and became more complex than I expected them too, and they were very relateable. I enjoyed their time together and their growing friendship.

I also loved the colorful character designs. Animation for this show was pretty great, I didn’t find much problems with it. It had slapstick comedy, it had its share of emotional moments, and most of all it was fun. But in this type of show, I think the most important thing is the music because it’s a music show. And the music delivered. I enjoyed all of the songs and wasn’t disappointed. So that’s another plus.

Should you watch Show By Rock? People were turned away by the overly cuteness, but at least give it a shot. It’s a very cute show, but it’s also really fun. You have fun characters, great music, funny moments, and just a bunch of cute. At least give the first episode a shot. And don’t be drawn away from the CGI, which I think was wonderfully done, because they actually don’t use it that much in the show. The story-telling in the show was the weakest part, but even so I enjoyed the show a lot, and would give it an 8/10. I wonder what the future of Plasmagica will be now since Cyan is gone. I’m gonna miss these girls, especially my best girl, pyuru.