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

DESCRIPTION

CAST

ANIME ComedyBanG Dream!
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

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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• 

  Rinko

  30/100
  No matter how good a series may be, there can always be some meh parts. If only more people would realise that...

  There really isn't anything that is a guaranteed mark of quality, I feel. I mean, I never hesitate to bring up the mediocrity of Bandori s1, so people are probably well aware I don't think the series alone would be a mark of quality.

  And indeed, it is not. Not even in combination with SANZIGEN. I mean that only confirms the animation quality. ...Though with this the outlines are too soft for no reason...

  Music:
  There is so little new music it is pain.
  Unlike the main series, they don't do any non-background inserts while the band is forming, the only such insert in that part of the anime being one in a flashback from the old band...

  But, when they do start putting in more inserts, they are pretty good~ In short, super low quantity, good quality~

  The opening, too is really cool. However the ending... is literally the most boring song I have ever heard, I swear. Even other (Bushiroad) endings that I curse for being meh or boring at least have some distinct beat to them...

  I don't actually have much else to say, probably in no small part due to the low insert quantity.

  Story:
  I must say, I was initially a bit off-put by how they said almost everyone at Haneoka is in a band and is super interested in band-stuff in the synopsis. Because even with a pro-musician senpai, several pro-musician alumni and some non-pro senpai at a similar level, that's just unrealistic. It's not a freakin' music school after all.
  They never presented Haneoka (or Hanasakigawa) in such a way, either, in the main series. And a fixation that immense shouldn't sprout up in only a year... which it does appear to have done.
  It feels mostly only important to being the MC's motivation... but hell that should be something stronger.

  Besides that point, which is really just in the background of the story... yeah I feel like the contents of ep3 probably would have made a better start, to be honest. Giving some new music and some really emotional moments right of the bat and just... the fact it was a lot more interesting than the first two.
  I also am frustrated at how long the main band took to form but that's just normal I ought to learn to ignore it...

  The drama, as is natural, kicks in around the midway point. Though, it really only kicked up at the very end of ep7 which makes it... a bit later than usual but shrug
  It largely revolves around the most boring character and... it couldn't do anything to make me care for her. It was too little to late for that. And afterwards she just returns to being boring, anyway, soo...

  Ep11 finally saw some actually fun moments and ep12 featured an amazing performance. So it does pick up at the very end but... again, it's too little too late. Ten episodes take almost four hours to watch, after all...~ And four (probably actually 3.5, 'cause ep3 was good) hours of being bored... yeah you can't make up for that so quickly and easily...~

  Then the finale focuses on the formation of presumably the titular band's rivals. Naturally they are cool but come on why couldn't they have formed earlier to provide more interesting drama?
  Also... it feels a bit too disconnected from the plot up until that point...~
  A plot structure even just a tiny bit more akin to ARGONAVIS probably would have been a massive improvement, I'm sure. What's the point of a rival band, if they don't participate in the plot, after all? And a slightly rushed but interesting plot is better than a slow and boring one.

  Characters:
  Even if the MC doesn't embody that infuriating archetype, it's still somewhat rare to see a music anime that has a not-annoying MC... this unfortunately is not is not one of those rare cases.
  Also just in general... the cast isn't that interesting, for some reason – it's very hard for me to pinpoint any defining character traits in any of them, which is a sign of a forgettable cast.

  Anon is just... narcissistic isn't the right word but it's all I can think of. Self-important, maybe? In any case, she's annoying, but I can't exactly place my finger on why...
  She is also very forgettable.

  Tomori is also kinda annoying, being a bit of an airhead... or something similar. Again I'm not sure what word is the best to describe her – as I mentioned, it's really difficult to figure out how to describe them, concisely or not, which isn't great...
  But she also has an emotional backstory and some emotional moments later on. She's basically the only even mildly interesting character in the titular band.

  Soyo who?
  She literally has no discernible personality and thus is the most forgettable character. The focus she gets later is, like I've said multiple times already, far too little too late. And she still has no personality.

  Taki is very aggressive and kinda maybe a bit tsundere, but she isn't particularly fun, unlike a certain other character in this series with a similar personality. Indeed, she never lashes out at the weirdos being weird or annoying and... actually, I was wrong in saying "very" aggressive – she never really raises her voice that much, she just says very harsh things in a mildly annoyed tone...
  She is literally a far less fun and interesting Arisa. Why would they do this?

  Raana appears to also be a type of airhead, though ordinarily I think she'd be the funny sort. But by the time she was properly introduced, I feel like it was too late for me to really care about one of the characters that quickly, without some sort of emotional moment or few...
  At any rate, she also feels like a less fun version of another character – in this case, Moca.

  Also literally everyone in the main band, except Taki, sound so damn similar. Like I get it's hard to find musicians who can be good VAs, but... they've found 22 people like that for this series before. And they all have very distinct voices. (though Rinko's old VA was pretty similar to Sayo's)

  Anyways. Then, we have Sakiko, a harsh and mysterious figure. Honestly she's the one I found the most interesting... but we barely know anything about her...~
  One of her childhood friends whom she has not spoken to in a while, is also a friend of Soyo's who actually has more personality than Soyo, despite being a super-minor side character, in that she is a super shy girl.

  And then there's some random duo that isn't even a proper band Bushiroad stop and is... moderately relevant in that one of the members is another old friend of Sakiko's. Neither girl in that group has any personality but their relevance is so little I don't think it matters.
  And uhh... yup two other random girls whose relevance is so little it doesn't matter.

  These not-relevant characters aren't a problem, though. In fact, it's actually something kinda good. Just, it's kinda a non factor. If the main cast were more interesting and/or memorable, then the minor characters' lack of focus would be a benefit, as it gives more time to see the main cast. It is a good fact on its own, but as it is, it makes no difference.

  Overall:
  ...It's just boring.
  The characters have annoying or boring personalities, the drama for the most part falls flat and there aren't enough jokes or inserts to make up for it.
  It has a few good moments, such as the performances and ep3 and the final few episodes... but for the most part it is just so boring.

  A big issue I think there is... is actually the fact it is Bandori. If it weren't for that, it wouldn't have been so popular and highly praised, thus my apathy wouldn't have turned into outright hatred and... it wouldn't have been such a massive disappointment.

  Remember, 50/100 (the score on my list) means perfectly average, nothing particularly good or bad, boring, etc. It does not mean bad. 
  I initially gave it a bit lower than that, for some of the characters being annoying and the lack of inserts, but the final few episodes being kinda fun raised it a tiny bit. But like I said, that really couldn't make up for the majority of it being just boring... too little to late.
  I just decreased the score on this review because of how much of grown to resent this spin off.

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