Show By Rock!!

Man, I really wanted to like Show By Rock.

There was something quite special about it for a short time. It strayed very much on the 'simple' side of entertainment, confident more in the cuteness of its cast than anything else, but damn, it worked. It brought me the same sort of joy I felt back in the Middle Ages when K-ON first started airing. But, as seems to be the trend with most anime, it decided to abandon everything it did well and instead shoehorn in a cheesy, boring action story that the characters were obviously not meant to be a part of. Great. ...

I remember telling my friends to give the show a shot beyond the first episode, which, at the time, seemed very misleading and unlike anything that came after. And while I would still stick to my comment that there is nowhere near as much CG as the first episode suggests, the actual content of the anime-- its story, its themes-- is that same nonsense over and over again. The interesting bits in the middle of the anime are the actual misleading part.

There is nothing wrong with an anime not being what you expected it to be. Genre shifts, when done effectively, are one of the most powerful techniques in storytelling. It's not necessarily the change in style or genre that is the issue with Show By Rock, but that what it changes to is so half-hearted, so stale and lifeless that you can't help but wonder if, maybe, something went wrong during its production. Half the time it wants to be a light-hearted music show, and the other half it wants to be some deeply emotional battle opera. And as a result it succeeds in being neither.

The melodrama is tiresome, to say the least. Far too little time is spent developing the characters before it is suddenly thrown our way. Five episodes in, nothing meaningful or interesting having occurred with the characters yet, it suddenly acts as though we are supposed to care when the main four's friendship is falling apart. Give me a break. The reason why K-ON-- the anime that Show By Rock clearly wanted to be-- worked so well is because it focused on making us care about the characters long before doing anything dramatic or emotional with them. Drama, if meant to be taken even remotely seriously, is a privilege that must first be earned. Show By Rock does nothing to earn it. It acts as though it is the audience's duty to cry along when the background music urges us to. No thanks. It can take my groans and sighs instead.

And, really, it's stuff like this that is the biggest disappointment, because there's clearly some signs of talent hidden underneath all its problems. During the sixth episode, Cyan sings a love song in order to show her true feelings (demonstrating how important the music - supposedly - is to her), and her seiyuu actually sounds like she's about to break down and cry during it. There is obviously no real emotional response to be had with this scene, but the execution itself is pretty remarkable. If it had actually been put at the end with the rest of the series slowly building up towards it, it could have been a genuinely amazing scene. There's some neat pieces here, but the pieces are arranged so poorly that none of it actually means anything. If you slap pretty things together with no consideration as to how each individual piece works, it will invariably be a mess.

I suppose the addition of four bishounen characters helps add some variety to an otherwise one-note story, but the entire time it just felt as if they were taking precious screentime that could have been better spent developing Cyan and her friends. Or, heck, they could have had their own show instead - at least the stupidity they got themselves involved in was more entertaining than all the drama with the girls. As it stands, it feels like the production team had far too many visions for the anime going on at once, and rather than settle for one, they attempted to incorporate all three or eight of them.

If nothing else, at least the sound and visuals don't entirely suck. The opening is super cute and feels like something that would have come straight out of K-ON, which, in my book, is certainly not a bad thing. The CG, on the other hand, is very much off-putting-- switching between two distinct art styles rarely ever works well-- but it's not frequent enough to truly be bothersome. Even when there is big explosive CG action nonsense going on, it looks fine. It actually carries a sort of professional quality to it, which sets it apart from pretty much all CG in anime. It's just that the traditional 2D stuff is so much more appealing, what with all the adorable faces and poses that Cyan makes...

You've probably guessed from all the complaining, but I am not a very big fan of the show. I cannot recommend watching it unless you are bored out of your mind and possess a bottomless well of patience for mediocrity. You won't be missing anything of great importance if you decide to skip on it and check out something else instead, anyway. I actually had it on-hold for two months without even noticing-- it's that kind of show.

When this show aired, I must be sincere, I thought it was too cute and "stupid" for my liking; I generally thought that it would be a waste of time, yet I heard some of the music of the show and I decided to give it a try nonethless since I never really watched any idol based anime. Well, I was not exactly disappointed, but I'm going to develop it further below.

Story: 6

It was nothing breathtaking, quite linear and simple, though slightly deep; it had something that just made me come back to watch more. It was cute, fun and easy to follow. ... I definitely do not think of it as a waste of time. My main issue with the story however, was that it lost the focal point of why Cyan was sent to Midi City to begin with. We were caught in her own internal issues, trying to interact with the other members of Plasmagica and just become friends with them; which friendship, I must add, was also quite shallow and simple. While I understand very well the importance of that, it still doesn't excuse that Plasmagica did not feel like the main characters at all, simply because it was all just so trivial and they didn't even try to go back to the main goal till the last 2 episodes. I also don't understand why Dagger in the end only picked on Cyan when he clearly said that he also needed Shu☆Zo and Darudayu, yet that was also kind of lost in translation.

Characters: 5

I really cannot think of them more than simply mediocre. As I said above, Cyan and Plasmagica did not feel like actual main characters, since I felt like they simply did not contribute to anything for the plot if it was not for playing the "roles" of main characters (only by name). Cyan was also given credit for things that she never did, which was really annoying for me to watch. I almost wished the whole anime to be about the ShinganCrimsonZ guys. They overall looked more involved in their musical career and leaned towards a GOAL, more than I ever saw Plasmagica do; friendship issues to a side. I find them the only valid characters, personally. And it was just overall more entertaining to see them bicker only to have Rom put them back in place, than cheesy cutesy of the main girls' bonding. Yet, another character that I have to praise is definitely Dagger. While he fills in the typical villain troupe and is just evil for the sake of being evil (and obtaining the best song/band), I felt like he tried to symbolize the current music industry. It might be just a personal feeling, but slave contracts, overworking and cohercing is something that I did actually heard of in the asian music industry. And I really appreciated this villain for that; and also because he was that "dark" note that the anime needed to "lighten" up the whole cuteness-spree.

Art: 8
Definitely the thing that the anime shines in. The character designs were quite unique and even if I read many opinions on the 3DCG, I was fast into getting used to it and by the end even came to love it. It really fit the whole atmosphere and they were so cute that I wanted to take them all home!

Sound: 9
Definitely considering to buy the OST. There are few the songs that I don't like. I almost wish that they would have more songs, like ShinganCrimsonZ and Tsurezure Naru Ayatsuri Mugenan; my love for visual kei and traditional Japanese style rock being one of my favorite Japanese music genres.

Overall: 6

Art and Sound unfortunately aren't enough to make me consider this anime more than fair for what it is and what it tries to do. I definitely did enjoy it, yet I can't overlook the issues I pointed out above. I recommend it to all JRock lovers out there, and don't get tricked by the "cute" first impression. It's a good watch!

Okay, Show By Rock!!....What do I say about this anime....

I have to say, it's a bit of a disappointment. I picked up this show because one day out of the blue I had an extreme craving for an idol anime and lo and behold I found this. It also has people with animal traits so at the time, it was a bonus.

Let's start with the story. Girl who loves music ,but is too shy to join the school band gets sucked into another world which allows her for the chance to get into a band. Being sucked into another world has been done plenty of ... times, but I wouldn't really call it cliche. It's like a writing prompt. Just by that description it might not be unique ,but it has a LOT of possibilities. However, the story is very predictable. A few episodes in you'd probably already know how it ends and it doesn't really have any twists and turns that would at least make the journey more entertaining. It also tries to be two things at once. It's an idol anime but it attempts to use the "big bad trying to take over the city plot." I'm not saying that those two aspects would never work together ,but I don't feel this anime did it well. The "Big bad trying to take over the city plot" usually requires a lot more action scenes and characters either learning or fighting in some way. There is only three scenes where "fighting" initiated and only one of them can I actually call a battle. I feel like this series should have just been an idol anime and left out the villain taking over the city part. It probably would have left more room for other, more important stuff, such as the characters. Drama came way too soon as when it starting showing up and threatened to break relationships, I did not care as It didn't really show strong bonds beforehand.Also, the ending. I say NO to unexplained Deux Ex Machina.

Let me tell you this: IT IS NOT GOOD IF IM MORE INTERESTED IN SIDE CHARACTERS THAN THE MAIN ONES. Honestly, the girls bored me. Honestly, EVERY OTHER BAND WAS MORE INTERESTING THAN THEM. I'd honestly enjoy a spin off staring Shingancrimsonz more than I enjoyed watching Plasmagica. The worse part is that none of the other bands really got much screen time besides Shingancrimsonz. The Plasmagica members barely have any personality traits.

Cyan's the naive newcomer who is very shy but a very good musician and singer. She ends up the main target of the villain even though the villain explicitly states that there are others he is after, he barely pays attention to the other two more interesting characters he mentions. Anyway she ends up making the band better but outside of that we don't really know much about her personality. Chuchu's only real standing trait is that she want to be the top star and used to be willing to manipulate others to get there. Retoree is a tsundere who had few friends, that's it. Moa has absolutely no personality traits. Look her up on Tvtropes, I'm a 100% right. The group doesn't even provide any good comedy.

Everyone else seemed like they could possibly be interesting characters, but their only reason for not being so is that they weren't the focus of the anime.

Now for the Art. I personally don't mind the two different art styles ,but I understand that the shift CAN be a bit jarring. I also liked the vibrant colors. However, when it comes to the animal aspects of the characters I wish it was more obvious what animal some of the characters were in both of their forms. There was a frog drummer that looked nothing like a frog. Also maple's assistant had rounded ears so she looked nothing like a wolf. When I first saw Shingancrimsonz I couldn't tell what animals most of them were until I looked it up.

As for Sound, it was pretty okay, but the songs most of the girl bands sung made me wonder if all female pop idols in Japan sang about the same exact kind of thing.

Finally Enjoyment. I'll say this, I didn't hate it, but it lost me at a lot of parts.

Overall, it's far from a masterpiece. If you were expecting one, go away

Ever since K-On's success, there have been a huge surge in both slice-of-life anime featuring cute girls doing mundane things and anime where boys or girls try to get into the music scene. They say imitation is the greatest form of flattery. However, this isn't always a good thing, as there's a lot that can go wrong, such as companies making rip-offs or copies of said show, focusing too much on fanservice and doing what K-On did rather than actually having a decent story, characters, and conflict, or standing out on its own merits. If creators try too hard to copy other works, they won't ... be appreciated for their own merits, and if a piece of media can't stand on its own merits, then it'll just fade into obscurity. But even shows that stand out and are able to stand on their own merits aren't always good, and sometimes the show that inspired so many rip-offs may not even be that good! Despite its problems, Show By Rock definitely stands out and knows what the heck it wants. Unfortunately, it's being held back by many problems that, if rectified, could have made it so much better, had the creators been given more leeway with it.

A young girl named Cyan (pronounced Shion) Hijirikawa wants to be a rock star and join her school's music club but is too shy to do it. But when she's at home, she gets an app on her phone that suddenly takes her to this magical world called Sound World, particularly one place called Midi City. It's full of half-animal half-human people called Myuumons, and music is par for the course. There are popular bands such as Trichronika, Criticrista, ShingancrimsonZ, and another band she joins called Plasmagica. She receives a sentient heart shaped guitar named Strawberry Heart that tells her she needs to defeat dark monsters that are threatening Midi City. Dark monsters are created when someone's Melodisian Stone is corrupted by negative feelings or outside forces. Cyan joins Plasmagica and gets the chance to fulfill her dream, along with saving Midi City from the dark monsters.

Yeah...as you can tell by the summary, the premise is admittedly very convoluted and cliche. Random kid gets taken to another world by someone or something, is the chosen one and has to defeat evil villain via insert macguffin here, make friends, etc. There's too much to deal with, and it doesn't help that the show is only twelve episodes long. It could have benefited from being a lot longer, like 26 episodes or even 39, for a variety of reasons that I'll get into. Sound World itself doesn't really get expanded upon, nor do we learn all that much about Melodisian Stones, the villain behind the scenes, what made him what he is, why certain people are so important, how and why Midi City is the way it is, etc. I do find it interesting that Sanrio (Yes, this was made by Sanrio, the people behind Hello Kitty. Just go with it) named a city after a midi file. Heck, I remember when midi files were especially popular on places like Neopets, waaay back in like, 2003-2005 or something. However, having an interesting setting doesn't matter if you can't expand upon it or use it to your advantage.

Same goes for the characters. They're not bad, but there's loads and loads of them, and they're all very under developed and bland save for one character, Cyan getting the worst of it, which is actually lampshaded in the final episode. She begins and ends the show being the exact same person. She doesn't do anything, she gets scared, she doesn't do anything by herself, she's shy and insecure, she just gets dragged into things without actively doing anything about it, she's never directly affected by anything that goes on around her...she's just not very interesting as a character. Not only that, she's constantly told that she's the one who absolutely has to defeat the dark monsters, but it's never stated why she of all people has to do it. Others could have very easily been better candidates, and they never state the actual reason why SHE is the one that got picked, which makes the whole chosen one plotline very superficial. Give us a reason, dag nabbit! Sakura from CCS was made to be the cardcaptor because she accidentally released the cards from the Clow Book. Sasami from Sasami Magical Girls Club was born with her powers. Hitomi from Vision of Escaflowne had a pendant from Gaia that she inherited from her grandmother, who received it from a dying man whose son becomes her friend later on. They all start off one way, and end the series having grown and learned from their experiences. Cyan doesn't. Therefore, she's not interesting.

The other characters are no better. True, some of them do get expanded on, but it's all very predictable, and none of their backstories are actively fleshed out save for Chuchu. Retoree is shy, Moa is a cheerful alien who misses her home (and it's quickly forgotten about), Chuchu wants to be the best, etc. I have to admit though, ShingancrimsonZ is the best band in the entire show. The guys in that band are not only hilarious, but charming and are often the comedic relief despite being crazy gothic punk rock bishounen who scream a lot. They're just as bland and underdeveloped as the others, but their antics are funny enough to steal your heart. Criticrista, on the other hand, is the worst of the bunch. We're told that they're best friends who love each other, but we never see them interact much unlike with Plasmagica. It doesn't help that they're all annoyingly cute moe girls with obnoxiously high pitched voices (one of them being voiced by Rina Hidaka, one of my favorite new VAs, and as much as I like her, her work as Rosia really isn't one of her best) who are there to pander to creepy guys, etc. Everyone else is just there for eye candy or doing stuff nobody really cares about. But there are these two animal high schoolers who appear at the end of some episodes who go to school and constantly complain about wanting to go to Midi City, with one of them always saying "Sorrrry!! X is the pits!!" Why are these Myumons here? What purpose do they serve? Nothing! They're never used for anything, so they're just a waste of animation and broadcasting time! The producers should have ditched them and used their budget for, oh, I don't know, actual world building and character exploration? Also, Moa also has an annoying voice actress who tries way to hard most of the time, coming off really shrill in the process.

Animation wise, the show is decent, albeit way too flashy, especially with the way they draw the character's eyes. Too many sparkles and diamonds in them! It's so distracting and completely throws you off. But the character movements are fluid, the character designs are relatively decent, albeit a little too over the top for some (the water band and Criticrista being two such examples), the cosmopolitan look of Midi City is very beautiful and it kinds resembles modern day New York, as the biggest tower in the city kinda looks a lot like the Empire State Building, complete with flashy neon colored lights, etc. Also, the CGI. It is beautiful, and I do not mean that sarcastically. I'm serious. The CGI in this anime is the best I've seen. It's actually fluid, the animators actually put in effort to make it relevant to the story, and since the characters are all rendered into their animal forms during the CGI scenes, they don't fall into uncanny valley territory, and considering how anime CGI is usually REALLY bad a lot of the time, that's saying a lot. I also appreciate that the show likes to parody various animation styles, especially when ShinganCrimsonZ is involved, like having the characters go all buff and beefy a la Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, or giving them girly 70s shoujo faces complete with exaggerated faces and long eye lashes and sparkles a la Rose of Versailles. The way its used for comedy is actually pretty cool.

Since the show's about music, obviously the music has to be the best part of the show, right? Well...yes and no. Pretty much everything by ShinganCrimsonZ, Trichronika, and that other band called Tsurezure is awesome, but all the other songs are mostly just bland, cutesy moe fare that grates on your ears, Criticrista's song obviously being the worst one. The opening and ending songs are no better. It's nice that the show uses a rock and roll music style, since the show is about bands and the music is actually relevant to the story, albeit used in a ridiculous, stupid, and deus ex machina-using way. However, if the songs have cutesy high pitched voices singing them, then all they are is annoying if said voices aren't in tune with the music.

So yeah. Show By Rock isn't great, but it's not bad. Cliched, yes, but not bad. It's pretty fun if you want something good to watch, and the fanservice is pretty mild for the most part. But if you're looking for more serious fare, then give it a miss. Also, ShinganCrimsonZ is awesome. Why couldn't the show be about them?!

what?
What just happened?
That was it???
no, no, no, no, no , NO!

The songs that were played were nice and the characters were nice (Although it is the typical nonsense kind of personalities)
The decisions they made really didn't make any sense; I mean it suits the series but it kind of makes the viewers do a faceplam sometimes when watching the show.....

It is defiantly for people who wanted to listen to the music cause the storyline was rushed and it feels like a big faceplam....

The music I must say was great tho!

What do I like about Show by Rock? Honestly, there are quite a few things I like about it. The fact that there's this crazy premise about Midi city and defeating "dark monsters" and everyone's an animal, and how Cyan is just randomly plopped in this music world and yet, the tone of the story matches the crazy premise. This anime is not a super "deep" show with a lot of serious tones a lot of the time, and the introduction does keep a good atmosphere that matches the setting. Coming into this anime, I'm not looking for flowery backstory and exposition about how this ... world came to be. I don't care. The anime clearly understands, and just breezes past all the requisites in order for Cyan to join the band in this magical world. There isn't a super serious story with tons of text on why all of this happened, it's more like, "well, defeat the baddies," and I'm okay with that since that was not what I was expecting, anyway.
I also do find the CGI to be quite well made. When was this made? 2015? The CG is extremely expressive and does its job well. Well, the only thing is that there is no mouths because obviously, the animators did not want to animate mouth movement. Overall, it's one of the best CGI I've seen in anime, but that also doesn't count for too much in this industry. I still would have just liked for 2d animation instead of this weird animal gimmick, but I don't hate it.
Really, the only thing I don't quite like about this show is the lack of focus. I really like how unlike Love Live or any idol anime ever, this anime is a band oriented one, and it means that there are only 4 members in a band that get screen time and characterization, as opposed to the 10+ girls in an idol group. This small pool of characters could definitely bring for a good depth of character for all four. The problem is, it doesn't. These girls get less development than the girls did in K-ON. Despite the show being all about music, they even have less practice and screen time about music than K-ON. There is no struggle or obstacle for any of these girls to make music, and if they are, they're symbolized by stupid drama instead of actual roadblocks such as not being able to write new songs, play a certain part, synergy, etc. Look, I didn't really like K-ON, didn't like Carole and Tuesday and I don't like CGDCT anime, so I guess it's only on par for course that I don't like this show. All of these shows have an emphasis on music, yet there's never any realistic depictions of these girls rising to stardom and there's a lack of any sort of progression and maturing that should be happening for bands that are getting better and better. Beck is still my favorite music-type show/manga because it really shows these characters getting better, so I actually care when they get that break towards success. Sadly, this show just skips and muscles through any sort of development, characterization, and realistic obstacles for me to ever care about these characters.

[Story]

The story is about a girl getting suck into a music game. I'm kind of over simplifying a bit but honestly it's not that deep or complex of a story-line. While understand the 'whole main character getting suck into a another world' idea isn't that original, there are way to makes it seem unique or interesting. Unfortunately, Show by Rock doesn't really do anything new with the plot. I guess you can say it's bit different since its about music but other than added rockband and idols to the mix the story still comes off quite boring. Girl is shy but talented, girl get ... sucks in to favorite music game, girl joins band and start to gain confidence, girl save world through music.

[Art]

It's okay? I mean nothing about was really worth noting, I did however was kind of interested when the anime switch over to 3d mode. It was a bit cool looking at first but after each ep it gets old and you quickly realize it's probably just the studio trying to find ways to save money.

[Sound]

The music isn't bad persay, but the reason I'm giving it such a low rating because feel a show about music should have at least one really good song in it. All the songs played in this anime sound very generic and unmemorable.

[Character]

The characters are...meh. Cyan is the generic protagonist and she does well...generic protag things (caring for her friends and sometimes rivals, being confused about what's going on around her, doing the big save the world thing at the end of the anime, and etc), Retroree doesn't really have a personality other than being the otaku-like character and having a crush on the protag, Moa was my favorite but I admit that mostly because of her character design nothing about her personality really stood out to me either, ChuChu fills in the generic big sister trope for Cyan. The secondary characters are...well secondary characters.

[Enjoyment]

Ehh

[Overall]

It's definitely not the worst anime ever but even I've watch mediocre anime that at least had one thing interesting about it.

Characters have too many details.
Plot is broken.
Bad mix of characters.

It's not the best thing ever but it could be better. Also for a music genre anime it lacks a lot of music. The characters are still cute and enjoyable with their development and relationship between each other. It also has a good moral to the story, looking forward to season 2 which better have some improvements.

The is very good it just needs to tone down a bit on the details, I know they are main characters but still, too much detail is never good. The bands in the series need a bit more time to ... develop and get them to know so Show By Rock! was definitely a bit rushed which led to a lot of drama. Not a very good combination of action, drama and feels. At least the music in it was enjoyable, they just had to be a bit longer.

The Video Review is up, but here the written review.
This cute music anime doesn’t know whether it wants to be a mature show or a kids show.

Story - 5/10

The story starts off as Cyan is struggling to join the school’s band, due to her shyness to communicate with others. However although she is shy and a bit of a clutz, she is actually a rather talented musician. Cyan decides to wait another day, before asking to join the band, until one night, she was playing a music game on her phone and gets sucked into the mobile game world, known as MIDICITY. There is ... a crisis in MIDICITY, where these gigantic beings known as Dark Monsters are threatening to capture the hearts of every musician in the city. Cyan, quickly defeats one of these monsters with the help of her new guitar and is scouted by an agency to come and join the band known as Plasmagica. Now this band aims to get big around the city, while also dealing with inside issues with the band members, while also trying to prevent the Dark Monsters from destroying everything.

The show’s pacing is kind of fast, given the fact this show looks a lot like a kid’s show. Every problem is usually solved within the episode that it’s introduced. Problems seem to come and go too quickly. Now if this is a kid’s show, that’s usually fine, but the problem I have with the story, is there is some dark or mature parts in the story. There is some sexualise scenes and some disturbing scenes, which might not be right for a kid. However because the show feels structured towards a young target audience, with every episode feeling like something new, the plot does take itself to different scenarios, ranging from enjoyable ones to less than enjoyable ones. But like the pacing of the show, the conflicts and issues felt like they were solved too quickly. This kind of given off, in the first episode when Cyan realises she’s been sucked into another world, but doesn’t seem to care.

Characters - 7/10

Cyan is the main protagonist of Show by Rock!! She was transformed to cat-girl when she entered MIDICITY. Now she is a nervous, shy and clumsy girl, with the talent to play the guitar incredibly. Her goal is to simply play in a band, so when Plasmagica asked her to join, she greatly accepted. Cyan fulfils the role of the character with a pure heart, as she is trying to make sure the band doesn’t have any conflicts and she doesn’t want to be seen as a burden as well. During the course of the series, we get to see her grow from a measly nervous high school student who can’t enter a band, to a girl full of confidence in her music play, which she has plenty of.

The leader of Plasmagica is Chuchu are rabbit-girl. She tries to play the big sister to everyone, making sure the band works hard as she believes the better the band, the better chance she has at a solo career, however because of her wanting to pursue a solo career, she gets jealous when Cyan starts outshining her.

Retoree is the bassist of Plasmagica and a Dog-Girl, she seems to appear as cold and cool first, but this is an act to hide her sensitive and introverted side. She’s joins the band in order to make friends. And also she seems to have a crush on Cyan.

Moa is the band’s drummer and a Sheep-girl. She pretty much fulfils the role as the happy girl, however she never really has any problems in the show, only the fact that is from Outer space. And the problem that gave her was did she want to go back to space or stay with her band, which was solved very quickly.

Show by Rock!! Has a huge range of supporting characters, each one of them just as enjoyable. Plasmagica’s brother band ShinganCrimonZ, I would say is more enjoyable to watch than Plasmagica, as the guys all have such cool dynamic that makes them shine. There are multiple bands that play in the anime, so there’s good decent chunk of supporting characters, playing different music. However overall, the character interactions along with the story felt rushed, as their interactions with each other felt like they ended too quickly. The characters may be likeable due to their wide range of personalities, but none of them have interesting backstories that added towards the plot that much, they felt like they were there for the sake of having multiple bands.

Animation and Sound - 4/10, 8/10

The art style is very cute and moe. With every character being made to look very cute, with blushes everywhere. The colours is very bright to show the cutesy, light hearted art style. Every character has a unique design. But for some reason, the audience look like chibis all the time, which gives the vibe, you can’t be a performer if you’re short. The art style is fine, however, there is some fan service that really gets in the way and distracts from the cute art style, which is rather weird. For a music anime, I expect the musical performances to be the best part of the anime, sadly its worst part of the anime. Because every performance actually puts all the characters into some 3D CGI world, which looks so bare-bones. The performances looks so simplified, there really is no atmosphere to them. Also the Dark Monsters don’t look that well animated, in fact the whole sequences in the 3D world looks clunky. Because of the art style and the choice to go 3D, I have feeling they were trying to appeal to kids, which is fine, if it wasn’t for the parts that it tries to be really mature. Honestly why couldn’t we have performances where it was beautifully animated in 2D, instead of the 3D.

The music being played however is kind of enjoyable to listen to. It’s just ruined by the performances, but only slightly, if you take that away, it’s still enjoyable to listen to. The music what you expect from this time of genre, it’s really catchy and upbeat most of the time. Also because there is a lot of different bands in the anime, we get a nice range from more traditional music, to heavy metal to pop etc. And I find them all rather enjoyable, I only wished there was more and longer performances, because the performances are either cut short to fight a Dark Monster, or shows the spectators backstage. But I also guess fewer performances is sort of a good thing, so we don’t have to watch that CGI.

Enjoyment - 6/10

I had a lot of high expectations going into this anime, which was ruined by the 3D animation. If there were more better done 2D animation performances, I would’ve enjoyed this anime much more. However I find the target audience for this anime confusing, as it has mature themes in it, but the style that it goes for appeals to this generation of kids. Some of the comedy is definitely for kids, and some of it centres towards a more mature audience. The characters are enjoyable to watch, giving the music more variety to listen to. Which has a pretty good range of different rock tracks, I just wish some of them were longer to listen to. I thought the story was solved way too quickly, and there wasn’t enough music to be played to make the experience very that deep.

Verdict - 6/10

For the story of Show by Rock!! I give it a 5, as I found it has a rather basic story, stopping monsters from taking over. The fact also the show doesn’t really know if it wants to be a kid’s show or a more mature show. Also the fact that almost every issue is solved really quickly, all with usually the same method.

For the animation and sound, they get a 4 and 8 from me. The moe art style, is fine for me, may not appeal to other people, but the 3D animation just really lets down the entire anime. Because when you’re watching a music anime you expect the performances to be great, however in this case it’s the worst part of the show. Everything looks bland and clunky. The soundtrack however is pretty good, because there’s a huge range of different rock tracks to be heard and each one of them enjoyable, only wish some of them was longer.

For the characters they get a 7 from me. Even though some of their interactions felt rushed, the main characters stories were interesting enough. The supporting cast is a likeable cast, and really adds dynamic to the show, especially ShinganCrimsonZ which I found more enjoyable than Plasmagica. It’s just that the supporting characters were there for the sake of having lots of bands.

For my personal enjoyment, I give it a 6, as I couldn’t really decide whether this was kid’s show or a slightly more mature show. The story felt rather rushed, but the characters were likeable somehow. The performances however were the most disappointing part of the show, because of the animation, only the music was saving them. It sucks because for a music anime, I’m expecting to enjoy the performances the most, but they were the least enjoyable to watch.

For the overall score of Show by Rock!! I give it a 6/10. The music still sort of saves the performances, but not a whole lot, the story and characters are bearable enough to find it enjoyable, but the target audience is left to be desired. I recommend this anime to maybe music fans, just have in your mind, the 3D animation isn’t really eye catching.