As a fan of the game, I was so excited getting to watch this episode but I was worried, but it ended up being way better than I thought it would be. Again, I say this as a fan of the game but I’ll get to that later.
I was planning on doing a Random Review of the first season of Bang Dream before this would air but I felt like I would just compare it to the game too much, and the review would just be about the game’s writing being better than the anime’s. So to keep it short and simple, the first season wasn’t that good. It was still kind of enjoyable for me but there were lots of problems and I can see why Bang Dream lacked popularity at first. But until the game came out it skyrocketed in popularity, even more when it finally got released internationally. So popular that it spawned shorts such as Pastel Life and the recently finished Garupa Pico (which was amazing). Because of this, I think they’re going to take care of this series a lot more to please its fans.
And I am pleased.
A year has passed from the events of season one, which is a rare thing in these types of franchises. So many things have changed such as A-chan going to Haneoka, Ako also getting into Haneoka, Hina becoming the new student council president for Haneoka (poor Tsugumi), and with Hanasakigawa, Rinko is going to be the student council president?! This is extremely shocking, because the poor thing is so shy and she messed up during her speech but the reason she did this was to conquer her fears of speaking…also, she was asked to. At least she has the support of Arisa, Sayo, and Kasumi. And man, it’s so strange hearing Rinko with a new voice. It’s noticeably a lot more different from Akesaka’s performance as her, but I’ll support her, it’ll just need getting used to. The girls have their new classes and this time Tae is the one that’s separated from the others. Rimi is upset because Yuri decided to go overseas for college, the girls are a lot busier now, and they haven’t played together in awhile. There’s so much things going on now, so much we’ve learned, and so many things that might affect Popipa in the long run. But they get their chance to play a live together when a certain glasses girl approaches them and asks them a favor.
The second half was full of performances but I can’t not mention the very opening scene, which was Pastel Palettes performing Shuwarin Dreaming. As usual it was adorable and colorful. Out of all the performances this episode, Pasupare probably had the weaker one but I still enjoyed it. Their performance was being shown on a screen where our glasses girl, Asahi Rokka gazes up at them with a smile. To the people that play the game and keep up with Bang Dream news already know who she is, we sort of know who she is but for people who don’t I won’t tell. But we don’t really know what role she’ll have so that’s new for all of us.
Asahi is a first year student at Haneoka and in the same class as Asuka. She’s the one that comes up to Popipa in the middle of the night, asking them to perform at the grand opening of Galaxy, a live house. Of course the girls agree and this part of the episode is nothing but fanservice and performances from Afterglow, Hello Happy, Roselia, and of course Poppin Party. Each band’s personality shone with the cool but chill vibes from Afterglow, the craziness from Hello Happy, the intimidating aura from Roselia, and Popipa being their usual selves. All songs I’ve heard before but it was really fun watching them perform them. Of the songs my favorite it LOUDER, but visually Hello Happy looked great. It was a simple episode where we got a set up of the girls and their lives, but we may get some competition between Popipa and Roselia. At the end of the concert, Sayo and Yukina announce to the crowd that Roselia is going to host their own sponsored show, making their fans excited. And in typical Kasumi fashion, Kasumi then announces that Poppin Party is going to have their own show as well, even though they never planned one. Bad idea! Yukina and Sayo looked shocked, and this is probably going to irritate them. It’s…really not a good idea to just announce you’re going to have a show after another band just did. Why didn’t Arisa or Saya stop Kasumi? ;>>
And that’s that. I really liked the episode. It had lots of energy and was fun, and I loved seeing these girls animated. The big thing that people have to point out is the use of full CG for the anime and I’m glad that it looks so good. I’m already used to the CG because the game has already put out full CG music videos for each band and they look fantastic, and the anime still looks just as good. Though I will admit that it can look a little clunky at times, for the most part the characters are really expressive and cute. There were even moments from the episode that looked 2D so I’m glad that SANZIGEN did a nice job.
The episode was great, but one glaring problem is that this anime is basically for the fans of the game. While I’ve been a fan since almost the beginning, anime-only people are going to be completely lost and I’ve already seen comments like that. I was worried about this because Garupa Pico, while it was only a short, included all 25 girls with not much of an introduction. Jokes, character relationships and quirks shown there were all stuff fans knew if they played the game. The first episode of this second season doesn’t give much of an introduction for people that have not played the game, which might deter people from watching more if they were lost this episode. Other than Poppin Party, everyone else is completely new and the fact that all of them are friends with each other makes no sense.
I’m hoping that maybe they might include flashbacks to really give anime-only fans reason to care for each band and to get to know them more, but for now, anime-only fans can at least get a feel for all the bands based on their performances. And I’d guess this is my chance to tell anime-only fans to play the game, because it’s genuinely a fantastic game with fun gameplay, great music, and great writing.
A fun and energetic start to this season, and I can’t wait to see where the story is going to go from here. Seeing this potential rivalry between Poppin Party and Roselia, I just hope that Afterglow, Pastel Palettes, and Hello, Happy World get equal treatment and spotlight as well.
Possibility of watching: Guaranteed
Possibility of blogging: Guaranteed
