Anime Review: Girls Band Cry (2024) by Kazuo Sakai

“Girls Band Cry” is an original late-night anime series produced by Toei Animation. The animation producer Tadashi Hirayama supervised the planning process, selecting a rock band as the subject matter in 2019 and dedicating several years to complete this challenging project. Kazuo Sakai directed the series that premiered the 5^th of April on Tokyo MX and has aired for 13 episodes till June 29, 2024.

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Nina Iseri leaves Kumamoto Prefecture and arrives in Tokyo after dropping out of high school and with a bee in her bonnet: she doesn’t want to give up; she will not acknowledge defeat! Momoka Kawaragi is going to leave Tokyo and go back to Asahikawa because she is not able to support herself with her music. But during her last street performance, she meets Nina, and this encounter disarrays all their plans: Momoka resolves on staying in Tokyo, and Nina, after some resistance, agrees to become the vocalist of the new rock band Momoka is going to form.

When Subaru Awa is recruited as drummer, Momoka challenges her fellow musicians with a live performance: Nina is scared, but eventually she finds out that the stage can turn into a place where she can shout at the top of her voice all their feelings without leaving out anything: all the frustration, embarrassment, anger, pain, hate, the past with all its regrets that make you want to die: she can pour out everything.

Nina comes from a traumatic bullying experience; moreover, her best friend and her father don’t acknowledge her acting with justice, neither her feelings. In this rough sea, the music becomes a life raft through which she starts a journey with Momoka, Subaru, Tomo Ebizuka, and Rupa that rouses and involves not only her cognitive and relational capabilities but also her feelings and aesthetic sense.

This adventure starts on with Nina’s astonishment for Momoka’s music and artistic skills: this leads them to forge a deep bond. The second leg of this journey into art concerns the development of Nina’s personal identity. Playing music lays the foundation for a positive attitude and a rewarding and happy relationship with other people and things: the app for composing, the new members of the band, the microphone, the rehearsals, the stage dresses, the audience, the guitar…All this pushes her to cultivate the desire of existing and making the scene, improving, and becoming a vocalist.

Finally, the educative aspect of music! Nina discovers that performing on the stage and writing lyrics means also choosing some words that already exist outside her usual vocabulary for allowing the inner imaginary world to take on a life on its own. Therefore, her narrative experiences in music become important for the attainment of a more conscious and communicable emotional intelligence.

However, for Nina, living authentically means making music without any constraints. She wants to sing herself hoarse and express all her feelings without worrying about what people think of her. She finds in songs and lyrics a way to make her mark on others’ hearts, turn the world a better place, and give strength to whoever needs it. But this seems an illusion! In the current music industry, competing with other bands means producing what sells well, catching and maintaining the audience’s interest, and winning followers, views, and likes. Living up to the audience’s expectations, running the risk to become an idol, or making music as one truly pleases? This is the dilemma Nina will face, involving in this opposition the whole band.

The vivacious pacing adorns a plot willing to meander here and there to explore various aspects of the main characters’ lives. The anime keeps the laughs coming with running gags, and in some interesting cases the narration takes the form of a polyrhythmic structure, like during the etude of improvisation of episode 4. But it’s the CGI technique that increases the overall quality of fast-paced shots during the live performances.

All the main voice actresses are new! In fact, from June 27 till July 31 of 2021, agehasprings and Universal Music Japan launched a call for applications called “Girl’s Rock Audition.” After more than one year of auditions, five candidates were selected to be the Togenashi Togeari‘s voice actress cast and musicians. Rina is Nina’s voice, Yuuri interprets Momoka, Mirei dubs Subaru’s lines, Natsu voices Tomo, and Shuri plays Rupa’s part. Their sound is accurate and solid, it expresses a smooth mixture and is the result of a good technique. Their voices try hard to develop Nina’s breath-taking emotivity; Momoka’s aloof, direct, but trustworthy attitude; Subaru’s cheerfulness and dissembling air; Tomo’s doubts and introversion; and Rupa’s kindness and calm.

Since, while celebrating the freedom of youth, the series is also about pain, loss, and regret, Kenji Tamai composed a fresh soundtrack full of the fuzzed, catchy rock and pop sounds that evocatively capture the anime’s bittersweet mood: fast tempo, density of phrasing, poignant lyrics are the hallmark of compositions optimized by a fine-tuned control of the sound and editing.

The character design is realistic and exact: Nari Teshima shows remarkable artistry, both with the terse but delicate style for the facial expressions and with the color design of outfits, ornaments, and musical instruments, which is detailed and well-finished. Moreover, moving elements like the strings over the fretboards of guitar and bass, hi-hats, crash and ride cymbals, toms, snare and kick drums, and keys of keyboards are reconstructed with expertise and well-coordinated with the personal touch and technique of the young musicians.

Tadashi Hirayama used CGI in most of the visual effects of the series to attain the desired effect similar to the animation of virtual tubers. But to create an original product, and also on Kazuo Sakai’s advice, most of the CG and animation were used at up to 24 frames per second. Even if the footage might look unfamiliar compared to that of a normal TV CG anime series, this animation stands out for its fluidity and realism: most of the sequences result in elegant continuity while the motions, fingerings included, look accurate and clean.

Moreover, while indoor backgrounds are so realistic almost to the point to reflect a photograph, like for the live house or restaurants or sound studio, these settings of realism dissolve into a sea of colors during the sparkling live music of Togenashi Togeari, that can be accompanied by quick and bold strokes or fine chads fluttering in the wind and whose soundtrack must be a cheeky rock performance where the vocalist dashes off in inspired dances and interpretations.

Thanks to the teamwork of all the crew of “Girls Band Cry,” the live rock performances become the most precious moments of the series: they take the audience into a realm of synesthesia where the emotions and feelings of the young musicians become the heartbeat of a trip whose rhythm enchants all those who love art.