Spring 2024 Anime: Girls Band Cry

Synopsis

The main character drops out of high school in her second year, and aims at entering a university while working alone in Tokyo. A girl is betrayed by her friends and doesn’t know what to do. Another girl is abandoned by her parents, and tries to survive in the city by doing part-time jobs.

This world lets us down all the time. Nothing goes as planned. But we want something that we can continue to like. We believe there’s a place where we belong. That’s why we sing.

(Source: Official YouTube Channel)

Comments

Alif Naufal H. (The Indonesian Anime Times)

To be honest, when Toei Animation first announced the Girls Band Cry project back in 2023, I was…skeptical. The premise of it sounds like an attempt to capitalize on the popularity of Bocchi the Rock‘s success to me back then, and while the music videos look good, early footage of the anime’s 3D animation shown via the trailers didn’t really appeal to me; It looked really stiff and somewhat uncanny, to the point that I brushed it off as yet another bad 3D anime.

Imagine my surprise when I finally watched the first episode of Girls Band Cry during its premiere and discovered just how wrong I was. Within its first episode Girls Band Cry showcased very beautiful, fluid, and expressive 3D animation, with a lot of warps and stretching to its character models to convey the characters’ emotions. While that particular aspect of its animation is done in an attempt to mimic drawings done in a two-dimensional anime, I think what Girls Band Cry excels at is embracing its 3D format and utilizing all of the advantages that come with it, instead of trying to look like a 2D anime. Following the conventions of 2D hand-drawn animation when making a 3D anime is not a bad thing to do, it’s just…really hard to do well. The only animation studios by far that has mastered the technique to make a 3D anime ‘looks like 2D’ are Studio Orange (Land of the Lustrous, Beastars, Trigun Stampede) and Sanzigen (BanG Dream! series, D4DJ First Mix) in my opinion, and Toei Animation’s success in its approach with Girls Band Cry definitely shows that there’s more than one way to making 3D anime.

Not to mention, the animation in this anime feels similar to a video game cutscene because of this approach. This feeling is really apparent during the band performance shown at the end of the episode, where they put special care into the lighting, camera work, and visual effects; The cut ins to each character’s instruments, the little drops of rain around them stopping as the song goes into its chorus, the sweeping camera movements, they are all done in a way that’s reminiscent of cutscenes in games like IDOLY PRIDE to me. It’s somewhat hard to put into words, so I suggest to just see for yourself here:

While I have been singing it praises, it’s not as though the animation is perfect; I feel like there are times when the character models feel like they don’t ‘blend in’ with the backgrounds, and while the main characters’ models look great and distinct, the same cannot be said about the background characters that are shown during the crowd shots. The smoothness and almost weightless feel of the characters’ movements might be the animation’s strongest suit, but it can also add to the uncanny feeling that someone might have while watching it.

I’ve gone on this far just talking about this show’s animation, but it’s not like the story itself is a slop either; Girls Band Cry‘s first episode has a really strong script, with really funny and emotional moments that blend in really well to tell the themes it’s trying to tell. While I initially thought the story would be full of angst based on the official website description, it surprisingly balanced the tone really well. I liked how it had a running gag over the run of the episode and used it as a cathartic emotional moment by the end. I have high hopes for the story moving forward, and based on Jukki Hanada’s previous works, I think I can safely say that it’s in good hands.

Since this is an anime about girls in a band, the music is, as expected, really great. At least from what’s played currently in the anime, since Girls Band Cry as a project has been releasing songs ever since its inception back in May 2023. The songs are really energetic, with some really nice piano alongside the strong guitar sounds. The vocalist, Nina Iseri (portrayed by Rina Uchiyama) is the main highlight of the sound of the band for me; with really strong vocals that complement the emotionally charged lyrics of the songs. Looking at the credits for the songs, it’s not really surprising that they are this good since they’re composed by the music production company agehasprings, which has a bunch of popular J-Pop artists under their belt.

Unfortunately for people outside of Japan who are looking forward to watching Girls Band Cry, at the time of writing, there are no official English releases yet. It’s unfortunate, considering the hype that has been going around social media about this show’s animation, and somewhat weird since the English account for Toei Animation themselves posted a translated trailer of Girls Band Cry. I hope this problem can be solved soon so that more people around the world can experience this anime.

 Facts and Figures

Screenshots and Trailer

The Indonesian Anime Times