BANG DREAM! IT'S MYGO!!!!!

DESCRIPTION

CAST

MUSICKageiro Mai
MOVIE MusicBanG Dream! Poppin' Dream!
ANIME DramaBanG Dream! Ave Mujica
MOVIE DramaBanG Dream! It's MyGO!!!!!: Haru no Hidamari, Mayoi Neko
MOVIE DramaBanG Dream! It's MyGO!!!!!: Utau, Bokura ni Nareru Uta & FILM LIVE
MANGA DramaBanG Dream! It's MyGO!!!!! Ame ni Soyoide Hare wo Kou
ANIME ActionCardfight!! Vanguard: Divinez - Deluxe-hen
MUSIC PsychologicalShiori (2023)
MUSICUtaimashou Narashimashou
ONA ComedyMyGO!!!!! Member no Nichijou
ONA ComedyGanso! Bandori-chan

REVIEWS

• 

  ZNote

  80/100
  A franchise survives when it takes risks, and MyGO!!!!! took many.

  (Video includes audio. Be sure to unmute)

  BanG Dream! It’s MyGO!!!!! has its characters start at the lowest point imaginable – a band having broken up, friendships fractured, and feelings hurt. Togawa Saki rubbed salt on a wound so quickly and ruthlessly that any chance at repairing things reads as nonexistent. Considering how much the franchise up to this point has relied on its sense of communal fun, it seems like the most-antithetical, experimental, and sure-to-fail approach that could have been taken. To be sure, the franchise has never been afraid to dip its toe into the more-dramatic aspects of its universe; the two-part Episode of Roselia film series and the arcs from seasons two and three certainly showed that. But to start at the absolute bottom and with that melancholic overhang? It’s making a sincere ask of its audience by doing so.

  And it’s not the only gamble it took, either. After 2022’s BanG Dream! Poppin’ Dream film, the animated franchise as we knew it was over. For three seasons, many specials and MVs, and that most-recent outing, the series had well and truly run its course. The final performance seemed to encapsulate everything that the series had been blooming at that point in time, relying upon both its fun music and its fun characters to create something that meant smiles and “kira-kira-doki-doki” were never in short supply. But what was also present was the finality of it all; the performance within the context of that film clearly indicated that if things were to continue onward, it would not be in the same way. A change was needed to inject some life into a franchise that, while not old or long overstaying its welcome, had to create something new. You can only rely on the same seven bands up to a certain point.

  Even though only one band is featured in the course of BanG Dream! It’s MyGO!!!!!, it’s really a story of two separate(?) bands. Left in the wake of CRYCHIC’s breakup, the cast is left socially and spiritually adrift, made all the easier by them attending three different schools. The breakup haunts the characters like a ghost, dogging them and their motivations nearly every step of the way. Some of the lingering relationships, such as the one between Takamatsu Tomori and Shiina Taki, are more stable than others, while Nagasaki Soyo cannot seem to stop trying to talk to Saki, the breaker of CRYCHIC. Kaname Raana is disparagingly referred to as a “stray cat” by Taki, coming and going to RiNG whenever she feels like shredding on her guitar. And all the while, a new girl named Chihaya Anon enrolls at one of the schools and wants to form a band of her own, not realizing the emotional tempest she’s wandered into and how it will clash with the emotional baggage she has brought herself.

  

  (The series has the characters failing, arguing, or metaphorically stumbling woven into its fabric more tightly than in previous installments, which helps distinguish them from their predecessors as a narrative and presents genuine obstacles for them to overcome)

  Everyone presented has their own reasons for wanting to form the band, yet the result is that BanG Dream! It’s MyGO!!!!! allows all its main characters to assume the antagonist role—either directly or indirectly—at some point or another, with their own fixations and motivations steering the ship. Bossiness, assuming too many responsibilities, and a sense that the band is boring are recurring and longstanding. These are not situations that are resolved via quick gags or in one-episode spans; temporary respites or patchwork solutions might stop the bleeding, but the lingering wound remains. Abandonment and being effectively “lost in the wilderness” stains all the CRYCHIC members, Anon, and Raana, whether that came in the form of it being imposed on them or them carrying that weight long after the fact. It creates a deliberately infused disharmony, with everyone operating on separate wavelengths that only happen to align with each other every once in a while. It’s not until the final few episodes that the familiar mold of BanG Dream! starts to manifest, but the shape and color therein are distinctly MyGO!!!!!’s own, never to be confused with any of the prior bands or seasons. As such, its sense of communal atmosphere is also wholly unique to itself.

  

  (Despite being the person who broke CRYCHIC, Saki is not hastily written out of the story, creating an ever-looming throughline for some of the band members to reconcile in their own way. And that’s not even getting into what Saki has been up to in the meanwhile…)

  Most surprisingly in this respect however is its humor; the jokes (both one-off and running) throughout, while not on the same wavelength as the previous installments, still are unmistakably BanG Dream!-esque. However, they also utilize the inherent disharmony I alluded to before as one of the central ingredients to making the drama work as well. Of note here is Raana; since she functions as the show’s wild card in terms of personality, she’s more or less off in her own world, moving wherever her whims take her. That comedic chaotic energy acts as a rather effective bridge to lead into BanG Dream! It’s MyGO!!!!!’s more dramatic moments. The comedy therefore acts as an orientation for the next phase of the drama, or a simple little indulgence for a moment. It’s not a crutch, but a part of its integrated whole. In that spirit, it’s the most experimental that the franchise has been in this respect, which makes even its not-really-that-funny gags feel funnier than they might have been otherwise.

  

  (BanG Dream! It’s MyGO!!!!! resides more within the dramatic than before, but takes great care not to drown within its own melancholy. Raana is the most-prevalent form of comedic levity the show has, with her fickleness and propensity to be chaotic a most-welcome presence)

  I used the word “experimental” before when describing both the show’s comedy and drama. In using that word though, I don’t want to be misunderstood. This is not anime arthouse, but in the context of the rest of the franchise, it certainly feels experimental. BanG Dream! It’s MyGO!!!!! made the effort to avoid stagnancy, and in so doing, breathed new life into the franchise. It dared to bring the dramatic to the fore, to have its characters argue while musically sucking and getting on each other’s nerves, and SANZIGEN made its 2D and 3D animations smoother than ever. It did all of that while not betraying the franchise’s communal spirit. It asserted its right to exist by having it come together, and ranks as one of the more unusual, yet somehow still bizarrely magnetic, installments BanG Dream! has had yet.

  They won’t be lost forever.
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• 

  das

  90/100
  Lost, but Human: The Importance of Communication

  Disclaimer: This review contains light spoilers, but they shouldn’t negatively impact your viewing experience

  > “Why is it that we can never say the things that are most important?”

  Communication is hard. Even if you know what thoughts and feelings you want to relay to others, choosing to do so can be an entirely different matter. Even if you intend to speak your mind, the wrong words may escape your mouth in the spur of the moment. Even if you manage to express what you were trying to say, you never know for sure how your partner interprets your message and how to interpret someone else’s – such is the very nature of communication. It is all a black box.

  

  This is especially true for Tomori, a character who undoubtedly exhibits neurodivergent behavior. As such, making sense of other people is often a Herculean task for her, especially because people are often alienated by her quite unusual interests. Although she made a few friends in school, she can never shake the feelings of loneliness, and the dissatisfaction with her own eccentric behavior brings forth a desire to be like the others – “human”. However, there is hope: when she is suddenly approached by a stranger from her school, a talented musician named Sakiko, who appears to embrace Tomori’s hobbies instead of outright rejecting them, she can’t help but join her band CRYCHIC. Random scribbles, screams of Tomori’s heart from the midst of her depression, are turned into melancholic yet beautiful songs thanks to Sakiko’s music with the help of the three other band members – Mutsumi, Soyo, and Taki. Everything seems perfect, and the five of them successfully pull off their first live performance without any major issues. But then, disaster strikes: Sakiko, the girl who founded the band and is arguably the central piece of it all, suddenly announces her retirement. Soyo, CRYCHIC’s bassist, can’t give up on it so easily, but her friends Mutsumi and Taki do. And so, to Tomori’s shock, the band, the only thing that was ever dear to her, shatters in front of her tearless eyes.

  

  “I want to become human”

  This incident, despite laying in the past, not only represents the foundation for the predominant drama in It’s MyGO!!!!!, but also introduces us to the characters with some of their flaws and establishes some important character dynamics. Tomori is eager to express her true feelings, but is unable to do that on her own. The impermanence of what she believed to be permanent became painfully obvious. And after this event, she is once again exactly where she started: disconnected from the people around her, incapable of properly expressing herself and still unable to achieve her goal of becoming “normal”. However, the experience with CRYCHIC also noticeably damaged her psyche, and she’s now blaming herself for the breakup because there were complaints after the concert about her passionate singing. One thought permeates among the former members: the regret of not having properly communicated with each other before things reached this point.

  In the present day, a girl named Anon joins Tomori’s class in the middle of her suffocating school year. Despite initially showing little interest in each other, the two of them quickly discover their common interest in bands. Anon has a stark interest in joining a band because it’s all the talk in class, but Tomori has grown too insecure and declines an invitation to form a new one. Only after one of the old CRYCHIC members, Soyo, decides to join Anon in an attempt to get closer to her old bandmates, does she seem to take an interest. But then, something you seldomly see in anime takes place: Anon gets Tomori, Soyo, and Taki, the three members of the former band, to sit down together and talk out everything about the CRYCHIC. This simple idea turns out to be a perfect opportunity for the three to finally put into words what weighs on their mind and clear all the misunderstandings that arose in the midst of the chaos. I find this solution to the difficult relationship between the three particularly interesting because of how straight to the point and down-to-earth it is – the drama is not dragged down for episodes on end. Sitting down together and having a chat can work wonders. As such, proper communication is established as the principle of the new band. But of course, not all wounds can be healed so easily: Tomori, in an attempt to not make history repeat itself, persuades the others to swear that they will stay with her for their whole life, further revealing her insecurities. They decide to at least stay together until the first live performance, a chance which would soon arise. And so, the unnamed band has been founded and the rehearsals begin.

  

  However, it is quickly evident that Anon is not a very experienced guitar player, especially compared to Raana, another guitarist who suddenly joins the band on her own because its other members pique her interest. Controlled purely by the desire to have fun playing music, she is a very unreliable person, but every time she appears on the screen, it is bound to be humorous. This might make one dismiss her as a character who is there entirely for comedy’s sake, but there is more to her character than that. Throughout the series, Raana acts on her own on multiple occasions, sometimes even against the wishes of her bandmates. But every time, her actions ultimately result in a positive change in other people, which makes me believe that she is doing this intentionally to help her friends. She might not be the best at verbal communication, but makes up for it through other means, even if it might not seem like that on the surface – and that arguably makes her the band’s most reliable member.

  

  As Anon starts to practice the guitar to catch up to Raana, she quickly realizes just how hard of a skill it is to learn, and decides to go with the easiest solution: giving up. As we learn, it is not the first time she backed up from a major challenge, and she gets called out for this multiple times. However, using Tomori’s own insecurities as an excuse, she attempts to obstruct the other members, which inevitably leads to a rising tension in the band. Anon has an emotional outburst, but Tomori manages to remind her of her own conviction back when she was persuading Tomori to join the band. Together, they want to find a path even if they’re lost, and move forward, together. This convinces Anon to take her newfound hobby more seriously, and expectedly shows major improvements. It is only a band-aid for the band’s suboptimal interpersonal relationships, but a step into the right direction – take many steps in the right direction, and you end up where you want to be. The idea of the girls being “lost” surfaces multiple times during the series, and turns out to be a fitting descriptor for each one of them in one way or another. This is even acknowledged by the girls, who subsequently decide to name the band “Maigo Bando”, literally “Lost Child Band”, which later gets turned into “It’s MyGO!!!!!”.

  If you are familiar with the other entries in the BanG Dream! franchise, you might notice that It’s MyGO! is quite an unusual artifact. Most notably, it often prioritizes its deep-rooted drama over comedic sequences, even if it still is, at its core, a very positive and life-affirming series. Over the years, BanG Dream! has accumulated a large number of bands whose interactions and dynamics shape most of the story, a recipe that has proven itself to work thanks to its absurdly diverse cast built for comedic relief. But that’s also precisely what makes It’s MyGO!!!!! such a fascinating anime: it intentionally breaks away from the franchises’ formula for success, and instead focuses on only a handful of characters. This break is what enabled them to build the dramatic case study that is this particular entry without having to deal with other bands interrupting the flow of the drama. Regardless of whether this works for you, I believe that it is a fascinating and commendable decision.

  

  It’s MyGO!!!!!’s focus on the drama and the disconnect from the rest of the franchise enables it to dive deep into the five main characters’ personalities and issues. It particularly stands out thanks to its intricate and diverse cast, as well as its positive representation of neurodiversity that enriches the bands. All the while, it still offers numerous comedic elements that make it identifiable as a part of the bigger BanG Dream franchise. The question of how to best communicate your feelings is raised multiple times, and music as a potential solution is simply beautiful.

  Maybe Tomori was the most ‘human’ all along.

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• 

  kariohki

  90/100
  Standing out from the standard "girls doing music" series

  This anime review needs to start with some personal backstory.
  I've been a fan of the Bandori franchise since 2018, which by standard metrics means I'm ancient around here. I've seen the addition of two other bands to the original five the franchise (re)launched with, both with their issues in being folded into the story well. When MyGO (I'm not typing out five exclamation marks every time, I'm sorry) was revealed to be the eighth band in this universe after existing for a year IRL with no information where they existed in the franchise, I was extremely pessimistic. When they were revealed to be first year high schoolers (for the most part), I was pessimistic because the franchise just made the large step of graduating its oldest characters into university, opening up the story to new experiences. And shortly before the anime debut, when they were revealed to be getting added to the mobile game, I was pessimistic because the game's writing has been relatively poor in character development and even event distribution and focus for the past two years.
  So saying I was going into this anime looking at it with as much dislike as I held for Aqours at the end of the µ's era is an understatement. I didn't expect much - just wanted a decent narrowly focused show akin to season 1, showing how a new band gets formed.

  From the first episode, my expectations were met. From the third episode, they were blown away.

  The premise written, about a girl, Chihaya Anon, who starts the school year late because of reasons revealed later, wanting to join a band when everyone else is already in one, except for their class "weirdo", Takamatsu Tomori, doesn't even scratch the surface of what happens. From the beginning that shows the result of what happens when a band has a catastrophic break up, how that affects every member involved there, to Anon who walks into this minefield and attempts to navigate it stepping on multiple mines along the way, to what's needed for this band to actually form in the end - it takes the entire season, but the feeling of the the payoff is immense.

  On to the characters. Each one of these characters is flawed and human. Tomori can't communicate her feelings or words well in speech, and feels everything that goes wrong is her fault. Anon runs away at the first sign of any extra work needed to succeed. Taki's overprotectiveness of Tomori and initial inability to accept others help cause her to become combative to others. Rana only sticks around when she finds things interesting, later revealing she's been trying to find another place to belong after her grandmother's live house shut down (yay season 1 callback!). And Soyo, who looked at older characters Sayo, Chisato, and CHU2 who were all disliked by the fandom at their introductions and said "hold my tea." Soyo's arc takes up the majority of the middle portion of the series, the threads of her arc being hinted at along the way before her turn, her mask cracking, and her eventual acceptance of what has happened in her life post-CRYCHIC.

  And that's only the characters in MyGO proper. This story couldn't be told without five others, the girls that eventually form the group Ave Mujica at the end of the season in the final episode. Sakiko, probably the new most disliked character in the franchise, drives the plot train of "why did she break up CRYCHIC?" that started the series, leading up to the final reveal of her situation in life currently. Mutsumi, her friend, Soyo's friend, someone who has been strung along and used by others. Uika, a popular singer in an idol group, who is also Sakiko's friend, and the one who spurred Tomori to perform again. Umiri, Taki's classmate full of snarky banter, who also gave Tomori her best wishes. Nyamu is the character who just "exists" the most, but her two-faced influencer personality is setting up for trouble.

  There are little bits here and there to remind existing fans that this is taking place in the same universe at the current point of the timeline, which I appreciated as it was not heavy handed. Of course the girls would run into Saya and Kasumi at Livehouse RiNG, as both frequent or work there. Of course they would meet Afterglow at a live, be inspired by Morfonica, or see the Roselia posters in the old astronomy club room. The only band to not have any representation is Hello, Happy World!, which while on one hand makes sense with the overall melancholy of the series, but as they are still a band that exists here, some showing would've been nice - Misaki at school, a Michelle sighting in town, Kanon at the aquarium, basically anything grounded for them.

  As this is a music-themed franchise, the use of music is of course important. Most importantly are the use of the vocal songs - typically in these series you get the short cut and just assume the groups performed other songs off screen. Instead, MyGO uses multiple full length songs, where some were even re-recorded from the anime to sound rougher if needed - Hekitenbansou in episode 7 being the main example of this. This does make a couple of the episodes be half performance/song, but in the first case it's their first performance as a group and sets up Soyo's arc, and the second case in episode 12, it's their first performance as a true band.

  The camera and scenery work is top-notch and a great example of what CG animation can do. Sanzigen levels up with every series they do, and comparing Bandori S2 to D4DJ First Mix to this demonstrates how they've started blending in more 2D for more varied expressions and movement, and improved their lighting in backgrounds. Stand out moments are every time Soyo is framed in slight darkness, the varied spacing and views of characters in rooms to show distance or discomfort, and the entirety of episode 3 being from Tomori's first person POV - the most unique way to do a flashback episode that I've ever seen in an anime.

  The only flaws I have with the series are relatively minor - the opening sequence, while a great song, doesn't have too many interesting shots compared to previous Bandori seasons (the second version of Kizuna Music is one of my favorite OPs ever). Episode 13 is more of a victory lap for MyGO, before heading face first into a prologue for the upcoming Ave Mujica anime, which if you're not invested in that group can feel like a non-ending. Additionally, there's a few non-Sakiko related loose ends between MyGO that have probably been saved for the mobile game, which if you don't play that, tough luck, go wait for other people to play it and upload stories to Youtube. For English server players it's an even longer wait as MyGO isn't being added to that server until spring 2024.

  This is the sleeper hit of the summer 2023 season, the one that'll be always called criminally underrated and brought up as something worth watching in future threads about animes you love but no one talks about. Which is a shame, as it deserves to stand next to series like K-ON! and Bocchi the Rock that are some of the most frequently recommended music anime.

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