BanG Dream Is Better Than Love Live! – A 20 Question BanG Dream Review

What’s the show? BanG Dream!

“BanG Dream!” huh? Is… is this a porn? I wish. It’s a music anime, as in cute high-school girls forming a band and writing music and trying to get successful, etcetera.

Okay, fair enough. I’m just so used to you reviewing perverted things, it’s a reflex so sue me. Tch.

So what got you watching a music anime, last time I checked you weren’t the biggest fan of Love Live! School Idol Project? Okay, first of all Love Live is fine, it’s good even, don’t pretend like I don’t like it. It’s just kind of forgettable and repetitive and predictable, but it’s still cute and fun and why are we talking about Love Live in a BanG Dream review?

Sorry, I was just trying to ascertain your state of mind when going into this show. Okay fine, so I already mentioned this in my Love Live season 1 review I was in Japan—specifically Akihabara—and Love Live merch was EVERYWHERE, like literally there were trucks blaring Love Live songs rolling through the streets it was so damn ubiquitous. And as I was perusing the shelves of various anime stores, wading through the plethora of Love Live merch there was by the side the ~occasional~ piece of merch for a show called BanG Dream, a show with much cuter girls who actually play instruments!

Oh no you didn’t! Yeah yeah I know it’s lame to like a musical act over another one (especially a fictional, animated band) because they actually play instruments but I’m an old man and I still inherently respect anyone that bothers to learn play music.

So wait, what does there being a lot of Love Live merch in Akihabara got to do with you starting to watch BanG Dream? I just wanted to see what this other show was like. It’s like going to a store and seeing a whole bunch of Coca Cola on the shelf with big displays and promotions. And then seeing a can of Tab Cola or RC Cola relegated to the side, sometimes you just want to see what the less popular alternative is like.

Right. So all that out of the way, all the external stuff, how is the show? Yeah it’s good.

Just… “good”? So here’s the thing, I really really like the characters here and I actually love that these characters spend this whole series going from mediocre amateurs to kind-of-okay amateurs, rather than going from the bottom to the top with little to no interference. I love that they have performance anxiety and self doubt and family troubles and history with other bands, it’s all a rich tapestry but…

But? But it’s still kinda boring, actually no that’s not fair… it’s kind of ~minimalistic~, if there’s generally a plot point that an episode wants to cover it does so and does little else. It’s very laid back with regard to narrative progression and not in a ‘Laid Back Camp’ way. But… it’s still better than Love Live…

You keep bringing it up. Why don’t you make this a comparison piece? Like ‘BanG Dream is better than Love Live’. Isn’t it a bit late for that we’re halfway through the review—though I guess I have spent a lot of it mentioning Love Live already so it’s not entirely out of the blue… okay, I’ll do it!

So what about BanG Dream is similar to Love Live that it deserves to be compared to it? They’re both about high-school girls who want to enter a super competitive musical field, both shows are about them training to be better and both shows centre around a school/hobby balance, also both shows put an emphasis on friendship.

Right and so it doesn’t seem like you’re just bashing the show what does Love Live do better than BanG Dream? It’s characterisation is more immediate and distinctive and it’s arguably more easy to binge-watch. I had trouble watching more than 2 episodes of BanG Dream on any one week.

And what does BanG Dream do better than Love Live? There’s more of a sense of how hard it is to become even semi-professional, these girls work so hard and by their final audition (after 2 failed ones) they still kind of sound pretty average and the show isn’t afraid to make them sound like this, their singing is raw and unpolished and their instrumentation is amateurish. And they get upset when they fail, they cry and get angry with themselves, there’s a real sense of passion in their craft. Plus I feel like this show is a lot more realistic, it could be argued of course that Love Live isn’t trying to be realistic but I appreciated the more low-key approach to this kind of story. It might be a small thing but the fact that their outfits for their first ‘big performance’ look hand-made and kind of cheap looking was very endearing, especially compared to the other bands.

Other bands? Mmhmm, the plot of the first season is the girls of Poppin’ Party (that’s the name of their band) want to perform at an all female music venue called ‘Space’, except they have to impress the Owner before that’s going to happen. But throughout the series we get to see a bunch of different girl bands and they’re all unique and interesting and it’s just another thing that helps set this show aside from Love Live, these other bands offer variety to the music and aesthetics.

But there’s obviously a pacing problem if you can’t watch more than 2 episodes in a row without getting restless. Undoubtedly, the whole ‘it’s hard work, there’s lots of training involved’ shtick isn’t relegated to brief montages, it’s whole episodes, it’s the whole damn series and so the fact that there is little improvement from where they start to where the season ends is a double edged sword—It’s realistic, it’s honest, it’s surprising but it’s not exactly the most riveting thing in the world.

Kind of like this review… kind of like this revi—hey!

If the point of these music anime is to sell singles and albums but they aren’t especially good. Isn’t that a bit of a problem? They are good though, the OP and ED song by the band is polished, professional and catchy as heck, but i think the way we’re supposed to look at that is that those songs are of the band when they make their professional debut some years from now. This first season is but a small part of a planned franchise. (Seasons 2 and 3) were recently announced for a 2019 air date.

Fair enough. Anything else you wanted to add before we wrap this review up? Rimi is best girl! Oh and I never want to hear “twinkle twinkle little star” ever again…

Right. So final score and recommendation for BanG Dream!? The aesthetic differences between this and Love Live are all a matter of opinion, whether you prefer one show’s characters or songs to the others is entirely down to the individual. Critically speaking however, I found myself more invested in the story and character development in BanG Dream as it wasn’t nearly as predictable as the aforementioned idol show. Both shows are far from perfect, but I found just the entire experience of watching BanG Dream more pleasant, fulfilling and rewarding—even if it suffers from serious pacing problems. This is one dream I look forward to having again, 79 out of 100.

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My First Girlfriend is a Gal – 20 Question Anime Review (Moderate Spoilers)

What’s the show? My First Girlfriend Is A Gal (2017).

Hmm, not to get all “heteronormative” on you, as you so like to claim I constantly do, but well obviously a girlfriend is a gal, am I missing something here? It’s okay I forgive you for you for how painfully straight you are. But to answer your question, yes ‘gal’ is a Japanese term; it comes from the word ‘gyaru’ which refers to a specific type of girl.

Oh? How to explain this in the way a ‘filthy normie’ would understand. Oh right, I don’t need to I can just let the English dub do it for me. Gals are like, you know, total valley girl bitches! Like you know whatever!

Isn’t that all high school boys think about after all?

I think I see what you’re getting at, so stereotypically shallow, wear lots of make up, love shopping and socialising? Yeah pretty much, the funny thing is…

What? Well, I don’t usually watch shows with the English dub, and it’s even rarer that I’ll bother to check out multiple episodes in both formats if I’ve decided on one or the other, but the original Japanese version and the English dub are like two completely different shows!

How so? Well the Japanese version is a romantic comedy whereas the American version is a bawdy sex comedy.

Let me just squeeze pass here…

But isn’t the only difference the dialogue, how can it make that much of a difference? Episode 8, beach episode, one of the supporting characters enters the scene with a water pistol and shoots the main guy. In the Japanese original her subtitles read simply “I’m joining in, prepare yourself”, in the English dub she says “That’s right I’m a squirter, better watch your back”.

Huh, that’s quite the liberties taken… Which might be okay, if it weren’t nearly every line of dialogue, there’s a difference between making an adaptation relevant to a Western audience and completely re-writing the script! Every opportunity for innuendo is seized upon and none of it is in the original subtitles. It’s like, it’s like, okay I’m going to make a very specific reference here so try and follow along.

Okay. It’s like when those semi-racist TV-shows of the 90’s used to re-dub clips of foreign movies with intentionally comedic and out-of-context dialogue to get some cheap laughs.

Don’t mess with Ranko.

I get what you’re saying, but what’s the problem? Just go back to watching the Japanese subbed version instead, like you did with Dagashi Kashi and Food Wars! *whispers* come closer, I need to tell you a secret and I don’t want the others to hear this…

Uh… okay. What is it? The English dub is really f**king funny.

Torturing pervy virgins is fun!

So what’s the problem then? Are you kidding me? You can’t just rewrite someone’s material just because you thought of some funnier lines than the original. This isn’t a Hollywood remake, it’s an English dub, it’s supposed to be a ‘translation’ not an ‘adaptation’. Also, I don’t want to sound like I’m siding with those assholes who took down Funimation’s website because the dub decided to throw in some Trump jokes, I don’t care what the jokes are and I don’t care about politics, that’s not the issue here.

But the plot is the same surely, what’s it about anyway? It’s about virginal nerd Junichi and his desire to get a girlfriend, he decides to confess his love to busty blonde ‘gal’ Yukana, despite her being fifty seas out of his league, but to his surprise and adulation she decides to go out with him. The rest of the series is their awkward but kind of adorable courtship and the various obstacles that are thrown up along the way.

Obstacles such as? Such as her overaggressive best-friend Ranko, a fellow gal who may or may not have a thing for Yukana and Junichi—just not the two of them together. And of course there’s Nene, the ever dependable and clingy childhood friend who has the third largest set of breasts of any anime girl I’ve ever seen.

Also she’s 140cm tall, or 4ft 5in. I can’t even imagine what Nene would look like irl.

Is she your best girl then? How dare you! No, actually, in this show I’m actually torn between our main love interest Yukana just because of the seriously noteworthy amount of character development she’s given and the smart, sultry mysterious third(fourth?) girl to the burgeoning harem Yui.

The show should be told from her perspective.

Seems like you do like this show. It’s funny I went into the review with the intention to write a negative review, at least negative for me. But the more I talked about it the more I realised how much I like it, even if it pisses me off how the English dub is both simultaneously, a travesty to ideas of authorship integrity and also much much funnier.

What were the negatives though? Oh, well Junichi even though he starts off as a ‘good guy’ has too many moments where you wonder what on Earth Yukana sees in him, especially towards the end of the season. Also, Junichi’s 3 schoolyard charms are very hit and miss when it comes to their comedy, and downright obnoxious when it comes to their ogling.

You don’t wanna know what the chubby one’s thinking.

So how do you review a show like this? I don’t know… like this I suppose, what you’ve been reading. If you watched it in Japanese only and thought it was dull then watch the dub. If you watched it in English and thought it was crass and dumb then watch the sub. If you’ve watched neither… I don’t know, watch whatever you think will satisfy you better, an authentic but kinda dull romantic comedy or a very funny but inaccurately dubbed imitation.

If only every episode could have been as interesting as episodes 9 & 10.

Great but that’s not what I meant, how do you review a show like this. What score do you give something that’s essentially two different things? I… I don’t know. Quick, put me on the spot and make me decide!

Final score! The worst thing that can be said for the Japanese version is that it’s frequently dull, that in of itself deserves a score of 65 out of 100. The English version, while occasionally hilarious is an inaccurate representation of the actual product, but the issues of character and plot and tone persist despite the added comedy, an appropriate but not much better 69 out of 100