Hypnosis Mic: Division Rap Battle – Rhyme Anima Episode 1 (First Impression)

I don’t have too much of a history with Hypnosis Mic since only recently I’ve really looked into it. I’ve had a general idea what the series was about and the episode straight up tells you what it is, but I still wasn’t too sure what to expect from this. This episode really served as a typical introduction episode, showing us the world, the different groups and their personalities. Seeing the actual rap battles animated was something I was looking forward to the most, because I was just so curious how they’d look and how they’d work and…this show is insane but I really enjoyed it.

In this world, women rule over Japan during the H Age after a certain war that happened. They call themselves the Party of Words, and the leader of the group is Otome Tohoten. With this new matriarchal ruling, they ban the use of any weapon and disputes can only be done through words instead of violence, said words being used through hypnosis microphones. We don’t really know how the mics are distributed or how many people even have them, such as if everyone has them or not, it’s not made too clear right now. Still, that’s what we got for now because we move on to the present day afterwards.

As strange as it sounds, I’m not going to lie the whole premise is kind of cool. I feel like it’s a very stereotypical idea that women prefer to use words rather than violence to solve conflicts, rather than vice versa for men. To an extent that idea seems to be true, so it’s really interesting to see this idea literally come true as the ruling party full of women force the people to use words (which are just raps) to solve their disputes, replacing weapons. Even though…one of them has weapons but I’ll get to that later. However, it seems like there’s a bigger reason why the Party of Words is doing what they’re doing and I’m excited to see what their true motives are. I wasn’t quite sure whether Otome and pink booby lady would be integral to the story but it does seem like they will be and I’m into it! They both seem pretty cool and they could possibly be great antagonists, depending on what they do.

Like I said, the episode is pretty simple. The ladies secretly spy on each division group, and this serves to properly introduce them to us and I think they did a pretty great job. Each group, each consisting of three guys, has their own distinct personalities and even rap style, which I love. Playing the mobile game, I’ve heard a lot of their songs and I noted how each group has their own rap style, and even each guy has their own rap style with their solo songs. When it comes to the music, they really did a great job and put a lot of thought and care into it. The four groups we got are:

• Buster Bros! – a group of brothers with a strong bond, from Ikebukuro
• Mad Trigger Crew – the corrupt and dangerous group, from Yokohama. Rio is the one with literal military weapons, I don’t know how but wow.
• Fling Posse – the fun and upbeat group, from Shibuya
• Matenrou – hard to describe them, they’re kinda weird but mature? from Shinjuku

From what Otome said, the leaders of each group used to be part of one group before called The Dirty Dawg, which I did know about. It sounds like the ladies were the ones behind their break up, but we’ll see. I know this is going to come into play again later so I’ll just leave it at that.

We got small segments with each group, getting an idea of their day-to-day lives and the interactions with each other and I thought they were great. Their personalities were shown perfectly and I already have a pretty good idea what each group is about. We were also treated to four performances from each group, and it was insane to see how the hypnosis mics work.

This is going to sound like a really stupid and weird comparison, but the mics and the effects they have on their opponents really reminds me of Mermaid Melody: Pichi Pichi Pitch. Which if you don’t know, is a magical girl idol show THAT IS NOTHING LIKE THIS. But one thing that’s similar is that the mermaids singing was also the weapon against their enemies and that’s the only thing I can think of when I watch these rap battles and it’s kind of making me laugh. However, the rap battles themselves are visually even more insane with all the effects representing the group, as well as all the colors. They’re really fun to watch! I do express a tiny bit of disappointment that they use CG for the rap battles, but it doesn’t look too bad. The CG change is noticeable but it doesn’t look clunky or anything, which I’m pretty grateful for. The anime itself outside of the CG looks pretty great too, the visuals of the OP were wonderful, and the music…

I already loved the music from my time playing the game, but man they really killed it. I’m not super knowledgable about the rap scene in Japan but the music in this series is so damn good, and the actual OST I heard throughout the episode was just so good. The OP, the ED, the rap battles, everything, I love it. It’s also just so cool having a music series based around rap when the market is oversaturated with idols, so it’s nice to have something that’s totally different. They handle the genre really well and it just makes me more excited to hear the new songs from the anime.

This premiere episode was a lot of fun. While not too much happened, we still got a lot to digest when it comes to the characters and I’m excited to see what the actual plot of the anime is going to be. From the sounds of it it looks like the Party of Words are going to force the divisions into some sort of competition/tournament, so we’ll see how that’ll turn out.

Possibility of watching: Guaranteed

Possibility of blogging: Guaranteed

Oh yeah, also it’s hilarious that Funimation didn’t put a TV-MA rating before the Higurashi episode, but they did for Hypnosis Mic because Samatoki can’t stop saying fuck.