Music anime is a rather specific genre. While titles like “Sound! Euphonium” and “Blue Orchestra” are tucked away on the shelf for those deeply interested in the subject, “K-On!” and “Bocchi the Rock!” demonstrate that popular music anime often can`t do without a hefty dose of memes, ideally pushing the music itself to the background. The new season`s highlight, “Girls Band Cry” (referred to as “Rock – Female Modesty” in the original context), shows how to achieve balance in this regard: there`s room for both substantial, heavy playing from wild rock girls and their hilarious spats in the pauses between powerful performances. What distinguishes this recipe?
The series recounts the daily life of the protagonist, a commoner who landed in an elite girls` academy because her mother married into high society. Now, she must navigate this society, doing everything to hide her “criminal” past: a serious obsession with rock music. What adds spice is that she`s quite good at lying to herself, causing her to genuinely swing back and forth, making the conflict feel unforced. She might have spent her whole life caught up in formal courtesies had she not encountered drummer Otoha Kurogane in an abandoned academy building.
This lady wouldn`t let her off the hook – the guitarist, supposedly having moved on from her past, was so provoked by Otoha`s challenge that she went off the rails, grabbed a guitar from a locker, and fell back in love with it. After cursing each other out passionately after rehearsal, the girls realized the transcendent level of their musical chemistry and that they were now inseparable. What else could they do? Only form their own band.
Evidently, such explosive personalities couldn`t coexist with the mundane (though the series surprisingly subverts this too), so the band ends up being completed by quite the group of eccentrics. A secret life at the academy, arguments during rehearsals, and the discovery of new dimensions of music and their own potential at concerts – this is the explosive mix awaiting viewers who came expecting to see cute girls playing cute things.
The entire narrative core of the anime is built on three pillars: the protagonist`s personal circumstances, her studies, and her musical activities. It must be acknowledged that each of these is executed impressively, if not flawlessly – there are nuances everywhere that distinguish this title from other works about girl rockers. And since we have the opportunity for comparison, we will turn to “Bocchi the Rock!”, as the most recent sensation in the genre.
Let`s start with the protagonist: she is a realistic character it`s hard not to sympathize with. Much of this is due to her mother, obsessed with her behaving like a lady. This obsession isn`t a caricature but is presented in measured portions, allowing us to gradually understand the full scale of the tragedy. The protagonist also doesn`t act like a constant sufferer – the conflict and her personal desire to play rock fully coexist within her. She constantly flits from pole to pole, simultaneously contemplating: is it possible to combine the paths of a lady and a rocker?
While such a conflict doesn`t aspire to Shakespearean depth, “Bocchi the Rock!” doesn`t present itself as a dramatic anime at all, focusing entirely on gags. Yes, Hitori is supposedly a shut-in, but funny awkwardness is the most she gets from that lifestyle. The protagonist [in GBC] manages to be comical due to embarrassments in the ladies` academy, but simultaneously aims for personal development, and significantly more than just overcoming social phobia.
Incidentally, about the ladies` academy: it`s not homogeneous, as befits a quality environment for a developing character. There are both hardened radicals in the category of “women are sacrificial guardians of the family hearth” and ladies who balance elegance and rebelliousness, each doing so in their own way. Amidst so many role models, she has to find her own individuality, and all of this is layered onto the protagonist`s difficult family relationships.
But these are all setups for future drama – for now, the academy primarily serves as a generator of memes and comical mishaps. When rebellious ladies unexpectedly reveal their true nature in public, they have to extricate themselves through exotic means – sometimes they even inspire classmates. Not to mention, even the protagonist`s stepsister becomes ignited with enthusiasm and respect when she learns about her true self, which also sets up a future storyline.
And the most succulent part of this title is the music. It is significantly more complex and harder than in “Bocchi the Rock!”. Here we have the opening from the well-known J-rock band BAND-MAID among fans, and more old-school compositions from instrumental groups. This, by the way, is a key feature of the series: the band here plays without a vocalist, so the entire emphasis is not on “inspiring songs for fans” or “piercing” lyrics, but on the quality and punchiness of the girls` heavy, near-metallic shredding.
Yes, it`s still not the cream of Japanese progressive rock, and let`s be honest: the concentration on riffs clearly doesn`t contribute to the catchiness of the songs, so a solo might be amazing in the moment, but the composition likely won`t stick in your head after watching. Nevertheless, it`s highly commendable that this anime champions different perspectives on music.
For example, one of the characters is a wild underground fanatic. She has also perfectly mastered several instruments, so she pokes every passing musician with the words: “You`re sellout pop working for fame.” Such underground zeal is not memorable in “Bocchi the Rock!”; the maximum unconventionality there is Kikuri Hiroi`s bass lines, done in a psychedelic rock style.
Here, each character is a real rock “bitch” (in the sense of fierce musician). Drummer Otoha throws down brutal solos now and then, mixing them with blast beats; the bassist tries to keep control of her and the protagonist`s wild duo, and there`s no need to talk about the main character: at each concert, she awakens new facets of “selfish” guitar playing, which clearly references “Blue Lock” with its famous “egoist” meme.
And what about the keyboardist? Well, she`s a rare talentless person. This is a brilliant find for the title – showing that not everything in creativity comes from talent and timely training. Some musicians will have to compensate for a late entry into this scene with admirable diligence if they want to keep up with other bands. And here they also need to find motivation, resolve conflicts with perfectionist colleagues, and overcome stage fright.
All of this is wonderfully conveyed through imagery. “Girls Band Cry” often constructs miniature vignettes showing the subtlety of sensations in a given situation. In some ways, it strongly resembles old-school ecchi, for example, “Food Wars!”. To show how the drummer restrains the guitarist with rhythm, she might be drawn in dominant mistress attire, chaining the protagonist. But this is mixed with the tension of the performance in the moment and the furious clashes of the musicians on stage, so it truly starts to resemble a musical version of “Blue Lock.”
The rock visual language is also effectively conveyed: when the girls give their all, sweat flies everywhere. Maniacal smiles, the audience blurred during solos, some wild sonic hurricanes sweeping away viewers – it`s all there to make the viewer feel that something heavy is genuinely happening on stage, not just some tinkling about sad love. They even included traditional jokes about bassists, which says something.
Each title revolves around its own formula. “K-On!” added rehearsals with cake to music, “Bocchi the Rock!” added memes with a shut-in. “Girls Band Cry” successfully mixed personal drama with jokes and relatively advanced musicality right away. Even with slightly heavier music, new content arises at the level of questions like: “How do you surprise an audience accustomed to songs with vocals using only instrumentals?” or “How do you work in a band if all musicians have different playing abilities?”
And if the music were made even heavier, there would be even more fresh and unexplored content, which would be like water in the desert, considering the existing deficit of ideas in the genre. How does a hypothetical band like Sokoninaru think when composing “Gou Ni Moyu” or “Tenohira de Odoru”? How do bands like Suspended 4th or Buxus form and grow musically on the streets? Each band can form a cosmic world of meaning if its members are filled with creativity in their craft, and it`s quite believable that all of this can be adapted for a mass audience, especially if memes are involved, which are clearly called for here. We look forward to such anime delving even deeper in the future.
Finley Holt