Show By Rock!!

This anime season has given us many great anime to choose from Show by rock has not really been discussed at all or if it has then very little as the season is shortening and alot of the anime in the season are ending it is only right to say I believe show by rock!! is one of the most underrated anime of the entire season.

The story is kinda weird in the beginning but then everything else is something you probably cannot predict it is fun, super nutty and a really easy watch that is worth it. Girl tries to join a band but with ... her shy personality she pushes it off and randomly gets sucked into a world where music is the soul of the city new friendships begin confidence builds and monsters must be defeated through the shear power of music and stuff.

The art is definitely something that just pops out it is super vibrant really colorful cute character designs and also great character designs i find it to be very "I cant take my eyes off it" But at times during most of the episodes during when something big is happening characters turn into cute little animals and totally changes the animation into cgi which catches you by suprise but with the unpredictability of the anime. Some will love it and others who like the gritty art work and a dark color scheme will not be drawn to it but one thing you cant say is that it doesn't stick out.

Music is the main theme of the entire show so the music is great a really catchy opening as well as an ending. The music theme is rock so with the japanese rock music the ost is great everything is on point especially since its a rock music anime everything just fits and works.

The characters range from super adorable-Hilarious-Dark and possibly more but from what i have seen you get a cute girl band where all the characters have different personalities but they are all bonded as the show progresses and build a stronger bond. A boy band with super funny guys and again all different personalities but are bonded and the enemies who are trying to corrupt the city. Alot of variety in the cast of characters and everything i wanted i got.

I enjoyed the anime alot and had some of my favourite moments from the anime season with this show also anything that gets me emotionally invested by the end is something i love the ending was super feelsy and could potentially make your eyes water so get the box of tissues also the very end leaves you with a sense of satisfaction.

8/10 - 2nd most underrated anime of the season for me.

Edit: Some changes have been made to the score now that the show has been finished. When reading this review, expect to see a few spoilers.

After 12 episodes of good ol' rock, I can confidently say that Show By Rock has been a very good watch this season. To show an example of what kind of anime it's like, imagine a quirky moe anime that turned out surprisingly fun to watch despite being a bit weirder than other shows of the same category. It's as if you're watching a bizarre fairy tale incorporating catchy rock and cute girls without becoming ... a K-on! clone. It's spontaneous, absurd, wacky and easy to watch as you witness four adorable girls and a sexy visual kei band hone and develop their skills while bonding together to become the very best band while protecting their precious world from shady monsters.

Characters- 8/10
A shy girl who wishes to join a band gets to meet other cute girls and have fun together. Sounds simple right? Well imagine that girl suddenly being sucked into a world where producing music is essentially the true meaning to life. Add a twintailed megane tsundere, a cheerful alien, a gorgeous bunnygirl, a talking guitar, an egg for a manager and this absolutely hilarious boyband and you have all the materials you need for an unforgettably interesting show. For the most part, the characters are very attractive and charming and yes, very crazy.
If I were to nitpick about character flaws, it would have to be how the director chose to stick with tropes. It does kind of lead the viewer into being able to predict some character's future actions somewhat based on their behavior contrary to how I said that this show was actually unpredictable. Nonetheless, the story is able to make up for some of the character's predictability

Story- 6.5/10 (CAUTION: This part has a few spoilers!!)
One of the key strengths of this anime is that you never really know what's going to happen in the next episode because each episode gets more and more ridiculous as the story progresses which is mostly due to the characters acting nonsensical but being able to be very likable at the same time.
So then this brings us the question: why did I choose to introduce the characters first and give the story the lowest score? After completing the anime, I realized that there are a few flaws in the main plot.
Despite being centered around Cyan, Show By Rock! unfortunately happens to focus a bit too many of its episodes on Shingancrimsonz to the point where they outshine Cyan and the other members of Plasmagica. The characters themselves are actually quite fine; they are all intriguing to some degree and are very charming. However, the 2-3 episodes that revolve around Shingancrimsonz seemed to de-rail the story progression at times and halt the character development within Plasmagica. Furthermore, this results in moments of awkward pacing. Essentially, rather than the problems having to do with the characters themselves, the anime situated itself in a troublesome and awkward angle where Shingancrimsonz became the main characters and caused an awkward transition back to the main story afterwards. This was something that I simply could not ignore.
On the other hand, in spite of the story becoming off-track, the entire anime itself isn't horrifically affected from those episodes (they were quite enjoyable to be honest). For the most part, the story is actually quite good. It does in fact move forward even during those Shingancrimsonz episodes and actually has a lot of relation to the upcoming events (especially the foreshadowing). Though they were seemingly redundant at times, they were very enjoyable regardless of the weakening in the overall plot. The story is still very bizarre and I can assure you that it won't really get in the way of your enjoyment when watching this show. In fact, I can tell you guys right now, expect to see some crazy stuff going on in the last two episodes!

Art- 8/10
This is actually a controversial topic since many viewers seem to have divided opinions about the rather unique usage of CG animation. While the characters will be drawn in a traditional style that's at least similar to most animes most of the time , there will be times when a sudden transition will occur which then turns your beloved characters into extremely distorted animal forms. It is an abrupt process that can seem "off balance" to many people. My opinion however is that this transition is so ludicrous and over-the-top that it actually goes well with the entire show since the entire thing is supposed to be eccentric anyway.
Other than that, I can definitely say that the art is nice looking for the most part as Bones Studio utilizes an appealing style of colorful, stylish designs as seen from their previous works such as Space Dandy. The characters move fluidly and the guitar playing seems to match with the songs for the majority of the show. Well what else could you expect from Studio Bones other than a great performance?

Sound- 8/10
This is definitely a major asset of the entire show. An EXTREMELY addicting opening and a catchy ending song along with the numerous insert songs that will get you fired up as if you're in an actual rock concert, I guarantee that you will like this show if you enjoy J-rock to some degree. Hopefully, there will be more crazy guitar solos and shredding in the future episodes because the songs are great so far. The only thing that can possibly make this better is if they add some heavy metal to it. Yeah that would be totally kickass!
EDIT: The background tracks in some parts of the anime are ominous sounding enough where it actually becomes metal! Also, though many parts of the show are light rock, all of the tracks are very melodious to the ears. I highly recommend trying to get a sample listening of the entire soundtrack because it is definitely GLORIOUS. The insert songs are just fabulously good!

Enjoyment- 9/10
I really shouldn't have to explain any more about this part. From what I've described already, you should be able to imagine how much of a wild experience this show will be. I would like to point out that despite Sanrio (the studio that apparently made the original rhythm game) stating that the characters were based for an older male audience, the show can definitely be enjoyed by people of all ages. Both male and females can easily enjoy this show since there is some degree of subtle fan-service (super moe level from Plasmagica and manliness from Shingancrimsonz) though there definitely isn't an excessive amount.
I must emphasize once again that every episode is weird enough to make you want to see more. This show is definitely far from being generic as possible. I mean, it's no Legend of the Galactic Heroes but I can say with confidence that this show is insane! It would make Dante from Devil May Cry very proud if he ever saw these lovable girls rocking their socks off while battling monsters to save their world.

Overall- 8/10
I'm extremely content with the results that Bones has produced in 2015. If you're hesitating to watch this show because of the low score on MAL, stop everything you're doing at the moment and think about giving the show a try. It's seriously better than what you would expect in the first place. I've been watching other shows from Spring 2015 and I can confidently say that this show has been better than otherwise cliche animes (pointing at a certain twin-tailed greek loli goddess and an almost 9-year old loli android who works in an office). This show is definitely a good recommendation for those who want an anime that's easy to follow yet far from generic as possible.

Hey!

I picked up Show By Rock!! on accident.
I decided, after the very first episode, that it was an extremely happy accident, not to be ignored in the least.
Show By Rock!! is a quirky, wacky, sometimes just plain silly anime about a girl who gets trapped in a magical, musical world with the goal of exterminating the "shadow monsters". Leaving out the talking guitar, cat ears, alien sheep, and the music, you might think you should take this anime seriously.
Don't.
I warned you.
Even the first episode has an alternate theme song animation that tricks you into thinking it's a K-ON clone. It really isn't.

My Reactions To ... The First Episode:
Okay, weak female protagonist is too shy to join a band. Okay, fine. Now she's home playing a song. Good. Now she's playing a cool rythmn game. Something suspicious happens with her phone.
//what the heck is going on//
*adorableness overload*


SPOILERS AHEAD

Story: //7//
Show By Rock has a very intriguing story, though it is simple, and for the most part, straightfoward. No next-level crap or complicated plot twists here, just "play music to get to the top and be cool and famous" with a little bit of "defeat these horrible shadow monsters".
I'd have to say, my favorite part was when I realized that Strawberry Heart (aka Mr. Berry) was the Grateful King himself. That was the closest I got to surprised, though I couldn't predict where the story would go, due to the unpredictable nature of the anime in general.
I did find that it got a little slow towards the middle, which is dangerous for anime, as that's when I'm most likely to stop watching.
Aside from explaining the plot itself, there's nothing much else to say here.

END SPOILER

Art And Presentation: //8//
I found the art style in general very enjoyable and easy to look at. One interesting part of this particular anime's art style is the fact that it also has a pretty hefty chunk of three-dimensional animation. I, for one, loved that particular aspect of the series, as it was something I hadn't seen yet. (and the 3-d models were all super adorable)
The show presents itself nicely, and there were very few moments where I thought the animation looked awkward, though I'm not usually one to notice animation errors.
The dub was actually well done! This made the show so pleasant to watch, even for someone who usually will watch the subs first. I actually watched a couple episodes near the middle subbed to see how it was, and I actually really wanted to go back to the dub! That doesn't usually happen for me.

Sound: //8//
Mostly, I didn't pay particular attention to the background music, but the songs in the anime were catchy and fun-sounding. As far as the balancing of volume, I thought it was well-done. Not much to be said here.

Characters: //9//
Oh boy. Characters usually make or break an anime for me, and I suspect that is the case for many others. I have to say, though I rated Characters a 9, that the main 4 characters actually have fairly predictable character development, maybe besides Moa.
The real reason I rated characters a 9 is for the awesome cast of zany supporting characters that I found enjoyable, and many times relatable.
The other bands have interesting characters, often extremely wacky or exaggerated, but they don't get repetitive. Little details like one band selling mineral water and one band having yokai members really made the experience enjoyable for me.
I am glad, however, that there actually was character development for the main characters, unlike some anime. *cough cough*
I did find it disappointing that Moa, who like I mentioned was the most unpredictable, got less character development than the others.

Overall, I enjoyed this anime a lot, and I think I'm going to re-watch it soon with my sister, who I'm sure will enjoy it. Something I do have to say, though, is that if you don't think you'll like it, still try it. You might actually like it!

Now, when you first look at this anime you'll think how is this different than any other "Music animes" Well here let me tell you a little story.


When i first started watching this series my thoughts were, how can this compete with for example Love Live! School idol project, since that was the first "Music Anime" i watched, (i think?) Well let me tell you something, I was wrong. I can't compare it.

Show by rock is about a girl named Cyan, who is terrified of everything and everyone, her self-confidence is -10, what we get in this anime is the character development of Cyan ... and her group, combined with many other characters and groups all this in 12 episodes. This is the part where you'd think "Holy shit how is that possible, it has to be like very shallow!" Well you're wrong, if you listen and learn from the Character development episodes, you'll see that it is more deep than you'd ever thought.

I did not have high hopes for this anime, the only reason i started watching it, is because kissanime (Kissanime.com) described it as "A kitty girl wearing gothic lolita clothing" I got totally sold from that preparing my body only to watch that kitty girl.

Now that i've watched it i'd recommend it to anyone who likes anime. It doesn't matter what kind of genre they like, they will love this one aswell.

The problems this Anime had is following:

First off the cgi was insane i mean, it really looked kinda terrible, but when you get used to it or are used to cgi normally (which i wasn't) it turns out to be a very nice eye show.

Second, since the anime was very short they had to hurry up the story a bit, even though the CH. Dev. was amazing, the story took quite a hit and is very fast progressing. (imagine if the story was just amazing as the CH. Dev. Holy shite that'd be a favvy of mine)

Third, the music, now when you think about a music anime you'll think "Oh man! Alot of new music!" Well it's too bad that in this anime, they have too few music parts, this made me quite sad, making it only an "8" in enjoyment.

But overall it got a 9 which is quite nice actually.

Thank you for your reading hope you'll learn something from it atleast :)

Cuddles! //Duztie

Rock and roll, it is always a genre that lots of people get excited about. But what if I were to mash rock and moe? We probably have some anime that got this kind of crossover, one example being the famous K-On series. This season has one anime covered for this crossover, and you may like it a lot if you are into both things.

Show By Rock!! is based of a rhythmic video game aimed for the male audience. Its anime is produced by Bones, which was honestly shocking when I researched on its production staff months ago. I never thought that Bones has done ... moe before (or maybe they did, I just do not know yet), so this might be an interesting take. The story sets in Midicity, a city that never sleeps and always up for music, and revolves around an aspiring rock band of four band members Plasmagica. One of them is Cyan, who is sucked into this world from Earth. Her introduction to Midicity makes a big notice to many - having to fight a “dark monster” and afterwards she is found by the president of Banded Rocking Records, which manages Plasmagica and Shingan Crimsonz, called Maple. From then on, the band has a wonderful experience rocking out together, meeting with more-famous bands along the way and a fun journey ahead. But as they enjoy their fun times, danger looms around Midicity.

The story is pretty much episodic, usually dealing with problems that came about either through themselves or a band. Apart from that, there is also a sub-plot which I looked forward for the most about these “dark monster”. I found the overall story is nicely-executed and it is quite simple to understand the context of it. The story is comedic most of the time, with a lot of cute moments to feel happy about. Sometimes, it can get quite dramatic when there is a fallout and I do not think it is forced. The anime has no major problem with flaws such as plotholes or pacing, although I think the last episode has a lot of things happening - it is something that many anime suffer, but what can you do anyway? I must say that it is a great original anime done well.

Plasmagica may look like a very weird rock band, but after watching the anime, I feel that the band possesses something unique, despite how ordinary they might be in terms of music. With guitarists Cyan and Chuchu, bassist Retoree and drummer Moa, they make an interesting combination to look out for whenever they perform. Since they are the main focus of the story, they are the main characters of the anime. They have different personalities that are similar to other anime characters, however still enjoyable to watch because of their interactions. Each of them have developed along the storyline, especially for Cyan, who used to be shy in her real life counterpart. The cast has also other bands such as Shingan Crimsonz - a male rock band with a theme I could not describe, Trichronika - which is introduced in the first episode, and more. A few of them look like opponents to Plasmagica, but nevertheless all of them give a push for the main band’s progress, and it is nice to see that. There is also the antagonist of the anime who is related to the “dark monsters” and he plans to take over Midicity with the help of someone.

I want to stress that 3D animation does not mean the anime looks like poop. The anime has a fair usage of it, and that is during performance or battle time. You probably encounter this kind of animation on every episode, and it does not take more than 30% of an episode. My thoughts: I really love it a lot. The 3D character designs feature the band members in chibi form and the animation is so fluid, which goes along well with nice visual effects. Hence, 3D animation is not necessary bad for some anime, and it can be used if there is intention to do so. Onto everything else, most of the sceneries come from Midicity, that portrays similarly to a busy downtown with lots of flashy colourful lights and billboards, and music blasting out from place to place. They look great, but it annoys me that the sky is always dark. I wonder how the characters tell time. The character designs are nice and cute, all of them look great in their own way. Each of them has an animal trait that goes along with their design.

Being a music anime, I am glad of the music of the anime is being offered. It is nice that some bands have a unique trait with their music like that one band which fuses rock to Asian tunes. Since there are a lot of bands, expect a huge song collection from this franchise. The opening and ending songs, sung by Plasmagica, are very enjoyable and great for singing as well. The opening song is very addicting that I kept it on loop sometimes, while the ending song is more catchy. I personally did not care about the soundtrack much, but I have faith that they are nice. I love the voice acting. Being a seiyuu fan myself, I always adore these seiyuus for acting their very best in their own respective characters. Inagawa Eri’s first role is Cyan, so I like to give mention for her great voice acting and I hope to see her in future roles.

I do not understand why someone does not like this anime, and I feel that it deserves more recognition. It is one of those anime this season that has little mention but has a great quality overall. I personally enjoyed this anime a lot and I constantly asked for another episode every time a cliffhanger is dropped. I do not mind seeing more of Show By Rock!!, but I do not think there will be a sequel. Maybe a side story depicting another band is nice.

Moa for best girl!

You gotta be careful with animes based off of Android phone games, and Show By Rock is one of them. I've never played the game, so I went into this show blind. Did it live up to its potential? Well, I don't really know its potential, so the real question is, was it any good? The answer: eh.

Story: 6
Stop me if you've heard this one: some nerd girl is too beta to join her school's band, and then her phone absorbs her and transports her to musical furry hell, where she's a lolita catgirl. She joins a band with some other furries, and they ... go on a wacky adventure fighting dark monsters. Or something. Their actual goal is kind of vague for most of the show, and the parts where they actually do fight evil dark monsters are actually the least interesting parts. In addition, everything's very predictable.

Art: 7
This 7 doesn't mean that the art was average, this is a controversial one. Show By Rock has these bizarre 3DCG sections that mostly happen during concerts. They were a huge turnoff for me and many other people at the start of the show, but you'll be pleased to know that this 3DCG doesn't happen too much, just some of the concerts. That being said, the 3DCG isn't that bad - it's meant to be jarring and differing from the rest of the artwork, and it's stylized pretty well. The rest of the show is bright and bubbly, but nothing too special.

Sound: 7
I don't really like idol music, and I guess that's just my problem. To make matters worse, the lyrics of the songs they sing are utterly meaningless. At least they keep things interesting by also having an eastern band and a metal band.

Character: 9
The character design was by far the best part. As expected, the cast of the main band, Plasmagica, were all adorable, and they all get fleshed out at least a bit. The real stars of the show are Shingenzcrimson, the metal band. They're a ragtag team of really edgy guys who, despite all being really dark and edgy, are absolutely incompatible with each other. They are the funniest part of the show, and I'd love to see a spinoff show focusing on these guys. The other characters all check out nicely too.

Enjoyment: 7
If you can get past the potential-turnoff CG (or you can just skip the songs and not miss too much), the show is pretty easy to watch. You won't ever be at the edge of your chair though.

Overall: 7
Show by Rock!! plays it very safely. There aren't many curveballs or unpredictable events, but it's still enjoyable. If you're a furry, or really like idol music, you should probably go to church and redeem yourself of your sins. But you should also watch this show.

WARNING: MIGHT CONTAIN SPOILERS
I mostly give animes a 10/10 because i could easily enjoy any anime and this is one of them.
I must says, this was really cute, I haven't seen any moe-moe animes in a awhile and this was the one that got me. I usually wouldn't cosplay something I don't like, however I'm planning to cosplay Cyan from this show. I cringed when Cyan went back to her place, to which I really hope that there will be a second season, and it seems it will!
The story was cute. Like any normal Magical Girl anime, they start with a clumsy or 'usagi-like'(sailor ... moon)character. This was one of them. The story was fluffy and cute, so it really got to me.
For the art, it was beautiful, it was cute for the females or mature for one of the female characters, the males in this anime were really hot- Unless you're talking about the antagonist and the president.
The sound was perfectly fine, I love the music they sang and it was also addicting which got me humming during class. And the voices match the characters perfectly.
Overall, this may be a short review but I can't really think of anything else because this was such a simple, but yet very cute anime. If animal ears are one of your kinks, then this anime would fit you greatly!
PS, I'm a fujoshi so I ship the hot guys in this anime lmao.
Great for fujoshis too

This anime is amazing. It is essentially Precure but with a heavy emphasis on music and rock bands. It even shares the same composer of several Precure tracks, Yasuharu Takanashi, giving Show by Rock a similar feeling.

The world of MIDI City is incredibly detailed, its brightly coloured cityscape and CGI give a sense of both modernity and nostalgia. Pacing is really nice, the story rarely lingers too long on one scene.

The main characters are so cute, and they have no idea how much they have been in this anime series. Cyan and Plasmagica have some of the coolest designs we’ve seen in anime girls. ... They are strong and capable, and have actual personalities instead of being objectified. Even the side characters are just as brightly coloured and memorable. The boy band SHINGANCRIMSONZ makes for a memorable side group, they’re pretty humorous. Maple is a silly little mascot who makes for a likeable manager. The villainous Dagger is our personal favourite, one of the coolest and most intimidating anime villains ever. Every moment he appears, he exerts terrifying menace. You can even feel the fear of the characters when in his presence. Criminally underrated. (pun on criminal)

The story has a great balance on comedy and music-making. The mystery and anticipation of the main story is amazing, making the perfect buildup to the climax. Battles in this anime are very few and far between, (around 4, if we remember correctly), but when they happen, they are breathtaking. The glass shattering sky when everything becomes 3D is incredibly well animated, and the first dark monster battle was so exciting and well-made that it felt like final battle quality. Of course, the actual final battle is even better.

This is one of the few anime that actually feels like an anime, with the cons being almost nonexistent. Exactly why Show by Rock is obscure is beyond us. We highly recommend this masterpiece, so that it gets the recognition it deserves.

Better than most of the music anime I've seen. 12 episodes usually make for a good short and sweet story instead of a stretched out, prolonged one.

I went into watching the first episode of this anime blind. I didn't know it was based off a game so I was pretty confused why there were cgi scenes out of nowhere. I had no prior knowledge of this series so I also didn't know the characters would be turned into these miniature furry chibis. But they were pretty cute. Visually the cgi scenes were the best.

I felt the pacing was kind of slow sometimes and really only ... picked up when "serious" plot happened. I also felt like Plasmagica's characterization was much weaker than Shingan Crimsonz but it's probably because the anime focused on their growth as a new band while SC was an established one with its members already familiar with each other. I'd have prefer it if they didn't have Cyan be a high schooler from another world and just.. introduce the music world to us from the start with Plasmagic already established instead. It'd make for better world building and much easier to work with story wise.

The only big complaint I have is Cyan's voice. I understand that this is Inagawa Eri's's first gig as a main character but the inexperience kind of shows. Her voice sounded best when Cyan was really angry and determined when she strummed Strawberry Heart in the first episode. But everything before that, her high pitched voice made me cringe sometimes. It did get better... or I got used to it I'm not sure. But I would definitely like to see Inagawa voice a character that didn't need to force a small, higher voice when speaking. I think she'd sound better if she went for a more natural approach. Her singing was definitely good though, no doubt about that.

Music was also good. I liked Crimson Rose a whole lot, it was definitely my fav song. I also like Tsurezure aldfjkalf THE REALLY JAPANESE BAND's song too.

Oh yeah, Miyano Mamoru was there and wouldn't stop talking and then wouldn't appear at all later. What was his significance?? I guess he was just automatically important. But who is he?? What was his ambition for music? We never find out even though we got to see everyone else's. The anime kept hinting there was more to him but in the end, we didn't get much. Huh.

7/10 I enjoyed it but I'm probably gonna forget about it. I'm really glad it didn't turn out as fanservicey or moe as I thought it would be so it exceeded my expectations there. It was a cute anime, just not groundbreaking. Looking forward to seeing more of Miss Iwagawa if she gets any new roles.

This anime is such a blessing, I can't believe I'd never heard of it before spotting it on some 'top ten X' list.

Pro Tip: It doesn't take itself seriously, and neither should you.

This is an anime where one band has a member described as 'the only sane one' (an understatement) and another band with two 'aliens'. Both bands are managed by an egg in a suit, who can only be calmed by being 'whipped' by his well-endowed assistant. Together, they must save the world through the power of music, friendship, and cliched plot devices reworked to be charmingly insane and goofy.

SbR! makes ... fun of tropes, of genre cliches, but also lavishly uses them, twists them, and pokes fun at them. You get magically transported to another realm with no idea how or why? Who cares! You're in a BAND now (insert 'squee' here)!

The part most likely to put people off (or at least, that weirded me out the most) is that during music/battle sequences, the characters transform into 3D chibi animal... things. It's odd, not going to lie, but in a time where Pop Team Epic is about, this seems somewhat tame in comparison.

All in all, it's a goofy, fun, and at times genuinely intriguing/emotive idol anime that managed to make me like an anime in the idol genre. If you find most music/idol animes cringe-worthy and completely lacking in self-awareness, then this anime is the perfect antidote, still equipped with all the cute cat girls and bishounen boys you could ask for.

tl;dr: GO WATCH THIS, CATTLE!

Studio Bones, known for One Punch Man, Boku No Hero Academia, Wolf's Rain, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood and many more well known anime titles, gave us in Spring 2015 us diabetes for your ears and your eyes in the form of a cute anime show called 'Show By Rock!!'

This anime is an anime adaptation of the rhythm video game developed and published by Geechs for iOS and Android devices and is basicly a show filled with music and fanservice in the form of moe diabetes level from Plasmagica and manliness from ShinganCrimsonZ. We have our main character; Cyan that BECOMES a catgirl in Gothic Lolita fashion ... and let's be honest; pretty much anyone that likes anime likes neko's. We have a cute bunny girl named Chuchu, we have the cute dog girl named Retoree, we have Moa the pink alien girl that reminds me as Slurpuff from Pokémon being an anime girl and we have a boys hardrock band which serves very well as fanservice for the female viewers. There's also a talking guitar, which Cyan plays and thier manager/president is a talking egg-man. I know that all doesn't make any sense if you haven't checked up it main source material, but you really should not take anything serious when you're going to watch this cute anime.

I bought the two DVD's for the two seasons blindly only by judging by the cover and I'm kinda glad I did that. People that shamefully write this show off as an shameless K-On! clone iether didn't have seen this show for real or they didn't seen K-On! iether. You really can't compare the two shows with each other. It's like compairing apples with pears if you tell me and that's coming from a guy that's a K-On! fanboy. I'm pretty positieve the main goal of K-On! was not to deal with "shadow monsters" and what not. You can compaire this anime however much more with 'The Idolmaster' anime series in a frenetic cyberpunk setting with rock music for reference if I really want to make a comparison.

The only real drawback that I have with this anime is that I'm not really a fan of transactioning sometimes in an awkward 3D CGI fest, but hey, that's just my preference. I really feel this drives the show a bit back to it's treu potential, but every anime has it's own flaws. There's no such thing as a perfect anime.

Despite this little factor with the 3D animations I really enjoyed this show and I think a well deserved 7/10 overall score is well suited for this first season.

To keep it short;

Story: 6/10
Art: 7/10
Sound: 9/10
Character: 8/10
Enjoyment: 8/10

Overall score: a well deserved 7/10.

Now I'm off watching sometime in the future season 2 of this show.

As a fan of the game, I was very excited for this anime to air. I got into the game not too long ago, in February, but in the two months from when I started playing and the anime's first episode, I was hyped.

Only to be disappointed. It's a good series overall, but as a game fan it let me down several times. The AU plot was okay, but my god, did they rush it. 12 episodes was not enough time to give all the characters the development they needed, and many plot points were rushed. Chuchu's in particular comes to mind, I had been ... looking forward to that drama for the entire series, and not only did they wait to introduce it until episode 10, but then it was solved that very episode.

With this AU storyline, 24 episodes would have been more ideal, more time for the characters to grow, and more time so that the plot isn't rushed.

Now onto the part of the review that only game fans will understand.

The next issue I have with SB69A is the lack of the majority of characters. Only five out of the game's twenty (well, 21 now, but 20 when it started) bands were important, and even then, only Plasmagica and Shingan got a decent amount of screen time. Three other bands, Uwasanopetals, Shizuku Secretmind, and Shinimonogurui also appeared, but very briefly.

Uwasanopetals were fine in this, I had no issues with their appearances. Shizuku Secretmind and Shinimonogurui on the other hand.... yeah...

When episode 5 aired, the episode with Shizuku, I had assumed Shabobon and Turtle BIG were unable to make actual appearances because they currently lack human forms in the game, they haven't gotten their UR cards yet (UR cards are the only appearance of human forms in the game, everyone's in myumon form the majority of the time). I figured Bones decided to make them not there because it would have been strange having Wendy and Corriente in human form, and Shabobon and Turtle in myumon form. With this episode, I was annoyed by them not being there, but it made sense.

Until episode 7. Episode 7 had Shinimonogurui appear... and two of them were in human form and the other three were in myumon form. So what was the real reason for Shabobon and Turtle not being in epiosde 5 then? Anyway, Marimari was in human form, as was Tsugihagi. Why was Tsugihagi in human form? He doesn't even have a UR yet, why was he in human form?

Duradura, Monmon, and Gashigashi were in myumon form. Out of those three, the only one with any real dialogue was Duradura, who had one line. Monmon spoke a little, just his name (for some reason? I don't think he does this in the game?), and Gashigashi had no dialogue. All three of them only appeared for a couple seconds, and didn't appear again when Marimari and Tsughagi reappeared in episodes 11 and 12 (why not?).

And Marimari... oh, Marimari. After episode 6, when the preview for episode 7 was shown, I was insanely hyped. Shinimonogurui are one of Show By Rock's tie-up bands, meaning they're based on an actual Japanese musician. In their case, they're based on singer/guitarist/songwriter Marie Ueda, who, thanks to the game, has become one of my favorite musicians, with her amazing singing voice and very catchy songs. I was so excited to see her voicing Marimari, the character based on her! Except Marimari was instead voiced by some seiyuu who apparently only had one role before this one.

I understand that it's hard to get musicians to do things like this due to contracts, I understand completely. With the fact that they were unable to get Marie Ueda to voice Marimari, why have Shinimonogurui appear in the anime AT ALL? Why hype us Marie Ueda fans only to disappoint us? Don't have a tie-up band appear if you can't get the real musician to provide voice work.

So, with all this human and myumon form talk I've been doing, what exactly is the explanation for the forms in the anime? In the game, everyone is a myumon most of the time, but becomes a human when excited (according to a video from 2013 made to promote the game). But how did it work here? The main characters were in human form most of the time, with background characters in myumon form. The main characters went into myumon form only when performing and battling the bosses. And Maple was in myumon form the entire time, but seemed to change into human form at will in the final episode. What do the forms mean in anime canon? They didn't explain it. Why were they human forms most of the time? Can everyone just change form when they want to?

And the final problem, which is the most minor of all of them, GOONEYS (the studio who did the GCI) clearly chose bosses at random. They didn't bother actually matching the bands and bosses. This was annoying. The skeleton boss? That's the one you fight when playing Shingan CrimsonZ songs. The one Tsugihagi turned into? That was the boss you fight playing Dropout Sensei songs. The moth Criticrista were? The Demons Venom boss. GOONEYS made it very clear that they didn't give a crap what bosses they used and just chose them at random.

/the part only game fans with understand

Story: 6/10

The plot itself was fine (although the whole Cyan is a human who was sucked into the game thing was kind of unnecessary), but it was way too rushed, several times.

Art: 10/10

Very good, both Bones and GOONEYS did a great job animating. Both the traditional animation and the CG looked very nice. The CG is probably among the best CG in anime. Very fluid and beautiful to look at.

Sound: 9/10

Would have been 10/10 if it wasn't for Shuu-zo's singing. Mamoru sounded very exhausted singing that song, they should have used a better take. Doing some more takes of that song wouldn't have done any harm. If he sounded better in that song, this would be a 10. The rest of the songs were great, however.

Character: 7/10

They could have used some more development, but the anime being 12 episodes didn't allow that to happen. However, they were in character. Well, aside from Cyan but that's because of the anime's AU plot. Everyone else was fine, they just needed more development.

Enjoyment: 7/10

Due to the reasons stated above, as a game fan it was hard for me to enjoy it completely, but I guess that's what I get for expecting that much out of an adaption.

Overall: 7/10

An okay adaption, but I would have preferred an anime with a lot of episodes, with every band, and no ongoing story. An anime similar to the game would have been better.

I gave this show 7.8/10, which is about a C. I liked this show. It reminded me a bit of K-On!, as both were centered around a band and the friendships within the band that grow overtime. This show, of course, has a lot shorter of a run time than K-On!, so it was not able to get in nearly as much as character and relationship development, which is unfourtuneate, but not necessary. The show's ending felt complete; it didn't feel like the main plot needed to go further or that it was cut short. However, I though there was a lot of things that ... were left enexplored in the show. I would have liked to know more about the world the show is set in, as well as the relationship between Shuu and Rom, which is mentioned, but not much information was provided. It just showed the two being antagonistic to eachother, which would make more sense if the audience really knew what was causing those feelings. There were some on running jokes in the show, mostly concerning the band ShingancrimsonZ, that didn't get annoying, per se, but were more boring as time went on. Overall, the jokes were all pretty funny and made me laugh out loud most of the time. I absolutely loved all the characters, especially the side characters who were from seperate bands. They all had interesting personalities and were fun to watch, though some of them we didn't see much of and would pop up every so often, making it difficult to discern what their character was. Another confusing and amusing aspect of the show was the character designs, which ranged from cool to what is that. A couple of the charcater's animals were easy to tell and for a few, one could at least make a partially accurate guess. Most of them, however, were a mystery. I had to look at the Show By Rock!! Wiki to know what animals the majority of the animals were. This is partly due to the designs of the characters looking nothing like the animals they are supposed to be. The twins from Trichronika had medium sized ears and a tail that looked somewhat nine-tailed fox-like, so I assumed they were a wolf or maybe even a cat, but they are actually fennec foxes, which perplexes me. The main and most noticeable trait of fennec foxes are their huge ears, but Riku and Kai's ears were not big at all. Fennec fox tails, too, are fairly slender and almost cat-like, but their tails were out of control. The design of Retoree, a supposed golden retriever, always makde me snicker when she ws on screen because instead of haveing actual dog ears, they gave her twin tails. I thought she was just a regular human until I saw she had a tail. She looked very out of place. What's more is that some of the animals chosen were just bizarre and sometimes weren't even animals! There was a character that was a tadpole and a few that were yokai and spirits. Their designs weren't necessarily bad, but just looked very odd next to the rest of the cast, who were mostly plain old mammals. Nonetheless, there were also lots of character designs I really liked, like Darudayu's and and Shuu's. In this review, I did point out a lot of it's flaws and didn't touch too much on the good points. This is mostly because the good points are more simple and the issues were either dissapointing, so I felt I should mention them, or funny and actually something that added to the show. I really like this show becuase of just how cute it was. The music was cute, the animal virtual animal forms were cute, and the fact they defeat monsters with music is also really, really cute. This is a show that is an interesting watch and enjoyable if you like adorable things.

Imagine if Hello Kitty made her own rock band, then after introducing to enough moe anime she then decides to create her own anime where not only is it based off it's app game counter part but makes it so color, so catchy, so lively that you just wanna watch more? Well this is it people. This is reality at it's finest. Show By Rock may not have it all to be the greatest anime ever, but it's a really decent anime topped with it's own story, colorful cast of characters, and good musical elements to top it off.
From what I can see this ... show has an average stand point. Not too bad, not too good, but honestly it's enjoyable to watch. It's funny because I'm not into moe anime that much but this is just too kawaii for me to handle, also cyan is best girl.

I hope when season two comes out we'll get the full effect on the story, music, and characters from different bands we haven't see so I can't wait. :3

(Please note that I haven't watched this in a while, so take this with a grain of salt!)

Not counting things like Pokemon, which I admittedly didn't know was an anime at the time, this was my first anime, and what a great first anime it was! I was only around 10 when i watched this for the first time and I fell in love with it almost immediately. While it doesn't bring a whole lot to the table in terms of story (I do remember being bored at some points), it makes up for it with incredible music (the opening still remains one of my ... all time favorites!) and its fun, vibrant art and designs. It's hard to look away with how colorful the show can be and its cutesy character designs are still a big inspiration for me. Another big part of the show is its cgi segments during performances--that might seem like a bad thing if you've seen other shows that brought idol anime to the mainstream, but this show's cgi is unique, high quality, and just really cute! It definitely caught me off guard when I first watched, but it soon became one of my favorite parts of the anime.

I mentioned earlier that it was a great first anime, and I definitely do think its a good introduction to not just music anime, but anime in general (it certainly was for me lolol). While there definitely are tropes present, to me they were a good introduction to these tropes and didn't exactly hinder my enjoyment (but like I said at the beginning, take that with a grain of salt, I was 10). I feel like this would be a nice thing to show an older kid if you know they wouldn't really care about some cursing or fanservice (I think there's some fanservice? Once again I haven't watched in a while, but if anything it's not major). I've only seen this season, so I can't really say the same for later installments, but overall I think Show By Rock is a great show if you just need something cute to relax with, and you'll get some fun music too~☆

Cyan, a shy guitarist whose dream is to join a band, gets transported into Sound World, specifically Midi City, a place where everything revolves around music.
She bumps into an amateur band down on its luck called Plasmagica, joins them and their journey begins.
It's a story that's been done numerous times (minus the weirdly complicated isekai setting), but does this story stand out among the others?
Production-wise and entertainment-wise, yes, but on most other levels, maybe not.

There are two main plot lines.
One of them concerns the bands of Midi City, mainly Plasmagica.
We follow them getting to know each other, practicing, improving and finally performing and ... competing with other bands.
Plasmagica's members are all different and the development of their relationships are fun, emotional and rewarding to follow. They're not incredibly complex, but they all get their small character arcs throughout the season and they're definitely interesting and loveable enough to carry the series and for me to care about them.
From time to time SHINGANCRIMSONZ, another band in the same agency as Plasmagica, gets the spotlight, and they're extremely fun to watch. Their intensity and immaturity serve as a great foil to Plasmagica's friendly, cutesy demeanour and they're the source of most of the humour in the season.
I'd say their scenes are just as enjoyable as Plasmagica's and I hope they appear a lot more in the following seasons.
Several other bands also appear, but, even though most of them seem and look interesting, those characters don't get much screentime or development, at least not in this season. One of them, a band called Criticrista, has a bit of a bigger role, but they're unfortunately among the less interesting ones. Tsurezure Naru Ayatsuri Mugenan is the most interesting among those secondary bands, having a distinct japanese aesthetic and greater presence than most others.

The second plot line revolves around a shadowy figure called Dagger, who wants to rule Midi City by recruiting and manipulating the best musicians while also occasionally corrupting them and turning them into monsters.
While Dagger is a surprisingly cool and threatening villain, that whole part of the plot could have been left out altogether and not much would be lost.
The fights are visually spectacular and very well animated, but they're not really why I started watching the show and just leave me a bit confused as to why they're even featured. What's more, there aren't even that many fights: out of the 12 episodes, only 4 feature fighting, which makes it even stranger.

Animation and art-wise Show By Rock looks consistently gorgeous with no noticeable mistakes. There's no drop in quality at all and every episode looks great. All the characters and locations look colourful, vibrant and alive.
During concert sequences and fight scenes the characters are depicted as really cute and well-designed CGI chibi animals, which works really well as a way to handle those complex, more demanding scenes.
It definitely helps that the CGI looks truly great, almost like something you'd see in a movie production.

Aside from the opening and ending songs, which are pretty catchy, none of the other songs really stuck with me, which isn't a small flaw, since this is a music anime. The songs aren't bad, but they're mostly forgettable and similar to songs found in other music anime.

Even though Show By Rock isn't the most groundbreaking show, even among music anime, it's a fun, feel-good anime I'd recommend to anyone who's looking for something cute and entertaining to watch.
Its likeable characters, positivity, earnestness and very high quality production captured my heart and I'm definitely going to check out season 2 in the future.

Randomly picked this anime and I say that it was okay. I was able to finish the anime without complaining how bad or how slow. But put that aside, this is an anime where you will have the cringe feeling with some episodes, I had no problems with so I was able to enjoy the episodes.

Story (8) - Show By Rock!! is somehow unique to its own, or maybe not (I may have to see another anime where a random main character is sent to another world just to save it and all). More of the reason why I like this anime it is ... because of the story development. It doesn't feel rush or too slow, although it has 12 episodes. It felt like it didn't have 12 episodes.

More reasons, characters have almost equal screen time, and this is why I was able to remember their names and able to find myself with some of them.

Art (10) - Yes, I gave it a perfect score because the creator of this anime tried a mix of 2D and 3D. Although the 3D looked like it was made to lure the kids into buying them because they really look like a figurine. What I like about this series is that they keep separate and appropriate where they show the 3D version and 2D version. This is why it didn't confuse me.

Too be honest, the 3D version will stick to me more because it's not something you get to see on every anime.

Sound (10) - Since it's a music genre, it has to live up its expectations. It has some good variety of genres, thanks to the bands that are available on the series. We get to hear some classical Japanese music, some rock music, some visual kei (well a certain boy band looked like it can pass for a visual kei band). And they are all catchy.

Enjoyment (8) - I certainly enjoyed this anime, even though I had moments where I was cringey. Or sighed because how dumb the joke was, or it was getting annoying.

I like that the creators didn't focus on one main thing, and they add some fun things in there while Cyan is getting better with her guitar skills.

Overall - It is an anime that you can recommend to a younger teen, not to an older teen, even though they are scenes that can be deemed not for 12 year-old or so. Reason why I said this anime is for younger teens it is because of the 3D animation and models, the models look like they are there to lure the kids and the kids will beg to buy one for them.

Anyhow, I hope my review is helpful even though it is already 2 years late.
Have a nice day!

I was thrown into this anime by the first screencap i've seen. The art is astonishing, and the moe is real. Very good anime if you want to get an heart attack or get diabetes, because it handles the cuteness factor very, very well. The story was a bit lacking, sadly, but made it up by showing beautiful songs and charismatic characters. At first sight, I thought i would've been a slice-of-life anime, a bit like K-ON!, but instead they brought up a plot that was... not bad, but not that good either. it isn't easy to fit a complex story into so few episodes, ... but somehow I feel like they could've done better in that sphere.

In the end though, if you're ready to turn your brain off, your speakers up and to squee at how moe, cute, kawaii, etc this anime is, go watch it, definitively worth the time!