Show By Rock!! Mashumairesh!!

It all starts with a girl from the middle of nowhere with a dream of music and making it big. Now if you heard that before I wouldn't be surprised at all since it seems to be a commonly used trope in media. But despite the start there is so much that Show By Rock Mashumairesh!! is able to do with it that puts it a cut above the rest. For while our main character, Howan, comes to the big city with dreams of rocking the world what she gets is something even more powerful and meaningful, strong bonds and friendships and a tight knit ... group where she can belong.

The big highlight in Mashumairesh for me are the characters and their interactions. The way that the characters are built up I think are quite organic and are done exceedingly well. Despite most of our cast being in a band together from the start it's clear that they are new to this and that they aren't that close to each other. Mashumairesh does a good job of having them interaction with each other and provide fun moments while also showcasing the distance that they have. This allows them to grow closer together and become more of a conceive whole which is one of the main themes of the show. There are a couple of arcs about the characters and how their friendship grows and I think it does a good job of showcasing how distance is created despite being able to interact daily and have fun. There is a lot that goes into a friendship and while fun times and interaction is great and usually leads to a strong friendship there is even more that can make a bond strong. And while a casual friendship is nice, in order to get more and to have more there needs to be a connection made, one the allows the others to see more of the person exposed and to accept it for what it is worth. And while I think the whole cast does a great job of opening themselves up to each other and connecting, I think there are two really good examples of these strong bonds in Delmin and Ruhuyu, and Howan and Himeko.

Delmin and Ruhuyu get less focus but I think there is a lot of strong bonds showcased between the two. They play into a tsukkomi and boke type of interaction with Ruhuyu being the tsukkomi and Delmin being the boke and I think it's done very well. They bounce off each other really well and there is a lot of liveliness and fun in their interactions. Ruhuyu plays herself up in a really fun way and I enjoy seeing all the different ways she tries to force her lunatic theme into everything. And while at first it is sort of accepted as the show goes on Delmin and the others poke fun at it and rib off of it more and more usually in fun ways. It's just fun seeing the way that they play around with each other. It feels like an authentic friendship experience one where each party isn't afraid to tease each other. This also happens with the band as a whole and Himeko as they grow closer to her. Overall the two of them are able to develop and get depth in the process of them becoming better friends. So even though their fun interactions were there from the start their bond is able to become so much more as they share more of themselves with the band. This is not just true of them but the whole band leading to strong characters and a strong impactful bond.

Howan and Himeko's relationship is in my opinion the highlight of the show. It's very nice to see a bond come from nothing be able to grow into a thriving powerful relationship between the two of them. They clearly leave an impression on each other with their interactions and you can see how the two of them are able to become so close to each other over the course of the season. One aspect that I really liked was how the show covered Himeko's initial distance from the group, how she handled herself, and why she did it. Despite being in the group from the start the show does a great job of showcasing her distance and her issues even despite not addressing them into later. It then is able to expose those issues while she gets development and in that process she is able to grow closer to the band and in particular Howan. It felt like Howan and Himeko were a perfect pair together and were both able to fill up what the other needed most. The two of them share something special and it's magical to see. It's specially nice to see how Howan's joining effects Himeko and how she ultimately grows from it. They also just make a very adorable pair that melts my heart.

The main characters were of course the focus but there were other important characters that I think were also done well. There was the boy's band, who doesn't get as much focus and thusly doesn't have the same depth but does make up for it in comedic moments. They too have parallels with coming together and growing closer although they were much more antagonistic to begin with. They have some strong episodes that show how music has grown on them and how they themselves have grown on each other, which I think went well. There was also a ShinganCrimsonZ cameo which had to be some of the funniest stuff from the show. There was also ReijinSignal who got a good amount of development despite the limited time they had in the show and served as a very good counterpoint to the main band. One of the interesting aspects that Mashumairesh covered was the difference between playing music for fun and bonding and playing music to strike it rich. And while the two can (and do) go together I think there is a clear divide between ReijinSignal who is a professional band, that is adeptly skilled at their craft and Mashumairesh and the paths that they take. The show does a good job of showing their different paths and the ways that it effects them and what they can gain from it. Both paths are looked at as valid, and are just different paths.

While the characters and their interactions were definitely the highlights there were a lot of other strong aspects that made the show shine. The art in general was very nice and I love the style and atmosphere that Midi City has. I think it perfectly captures the mood that it's trying to go for. This dark and night-life filled city with its neon lights and filled to the brim with music studios and the like. It feels like a great combination of the rock and the pop styles that the show and game at least traditionally cover. You can feel the music scene that revolves around the city, that rock 'n roll experience of staying up late, playing gigs, and having a lively city with so many bands running around. The atmosphere of the show is really nice in general and the show knows how to set up its scenery well to match the feelings such a place is supposed to invoke. The character art also pops and looks very good and strong which is nice. As expected of a music anime the songs are pretty good and nice to listen to. The choice to have many Show By Rock songs from the game show up in the background on the radio is a good unique way to both get those songs played but to have actual realistic background noise in places like the eating establishment that they frequent.

Overall I was very happy with how Show By Rock!! Mashumairesh!! turned out. Being such a big fan of Show By Rock!! I was anxious for how it would turn out especially with the whole focus on new bands but I think it went very well and it managed to live up to my expectations. I'd personally recommend it and I really had a lot of fun with it.

"Show by Rock!! Mashumairesh!!" is unironically an anime (season) I am looking forward to the most. Coming from a background of my specific joy in anime, I aim to steer towards something that has to do with music, loud and vibrant colors, cute and/or handsome characters, a ton of gender variety of characters, AND is a VERY HUGE TIE IN to a rhythm game for the smartphone. (Ideally I prefer at the arcades, but i can't be picky.) Sanrio, the godfathers of "kawaii character" culture that bought all of us Hello Kitty, My Melody, Gudetama, etc. had soft rebooted "Show by Rock!!" as a whole, ... starting off with introducting newcomers and the veteran fans (like myself) a girl band that starts of by a mix of off-SB69 ("S"how "b"y "69" (Ro-Kuu)) of: A Sanrio AniStore mascot (Howan), a virtual Youtuber (Himeko Mashima), Delmin (a massive mobage crossover game character, name shorten from "Devil Mint"), and Ruhuyu (a new member to the roster, who end up being a (cosplayer) YouTuber). I was put off a little bit by this idea, but with Sanrio commissioning their character artist to do so much kemonomimi characters outside of Show By Rock!! really hints that the future of SB69 is coming to that soft reboot I think the series as a whole kind-of needs. And... I'm okay with this. Enter the unofficial "third" season to the anime franchise! While this is NOT the same traditional SB69 anime I know, it also had to do some self-control in order to attract the new audience while still keeping it charms. (Like the strange Myumon system and why the main characters and other Myumons are all in their human/enhanced forms. There are sooo many fan headcanons for this...) I loved it when I force myself (in a good way cause I wan tto continue to remain that dedicated fan) to watch this first as priority over other anime and it paid off.

STORY: My grip here is that its a slow burner. There are two arching stories into one anime: a story about a country fox girl named Howan who was recruited for a audition to be in a gig but missed her chance at MIDI CITY, only to have a faithful encounter with a struggling indie girl band with no name. The other story involves high school boys in a delinquent boys school that NEEDS to graduate high school but circumstances back them down and the only (ridiculous) way to push onwards to graduating is to form a boy band and get their name to the big stage! While the slow burner takes place for the first half of the season, the comical additions (DOKONJOFINGER antics, featuring a cameo of ShinganCrimsomz in one episode) and the soft drama bits between the "unofficial ships" (Howan x Himeko and Delmin x Ruhuyu) makes up for the fluffy fanservice (with a exception of a shirtless Yasu... I was off guard!), and adding with some plot and a "unofficial" antagonist group (and girl band) REJINSIGNAL who are a solely independent J-Pop-esque kind of crowd that works independently to achieve a "#1 goal" and is in need of a rival group, so Rararin (their leader) took interest in Howan after she won a lotto to have a "night" with the girls. Overall, its nothing special to you all, but for me its a matter of the "bits" the anime delivers are more than good enough to satisfy my thirst for this series!

CHARACTERS: While the soft girl drama between members of Mashumairesh!! are all alright, each character showcases their talents, flaws, and what it means to accept their "quirks" for who they are! (Ruhuyu copes with her delusional acts to feel "special" for herself and admires Delmin, while Delmin wants to fit in like every other Myumon cause she is a outcast from her Devil Mint Clan (and fled to MIDI CITY). Those two make up for each other and admire and love (in a friendship way) to each other back.) What the anime did win me over even more is the comedy content and character build up for DOKONJOMEMBERS, especially Yasu. He ended up becoming my favorite for this season (and the new Show by Rock game, while waiting for Criticrista content to come over...) for his slow yet noticeable development of apprecating music, the fans he gained and wanting his band to also take this gig seriously so they can get out of the slump while also having their fun time performing! He is kind of like a tsundere in my thought, but he has a reason for it: At least a couple o fhis band mates (mainly Hacchin and Soujoun) show little interest on the surface, but deep inside they do care while the lesson applies: don't assume sudden judgement just by how they act on publlic because delusions and aggressive boy-fights are just a shield to keep their personal struggles and true feelings inside their minds.

ANIMATION: The key art style had a subtle make over if you do notice, especially of how the character eyes are designed. In the past, the Show by Rock!! game has a lot of variety of hired artists into the SB69 team and the studio that formerly did the first two seasons and the shorts had to make what do to match the key features of each character into the anime. The new game all now had a consistent "eye style" which are probably resulted to having one key character artist doing all of the shots, thus affecting the Mashumairesh!! anime. I was put off at first, but when going onward watching the anime, the quality control and animation has improved a ton thanks to Kinema Citrus (oh, I did not know they worked on Shield Hero, good to know!), and Polygon Pictures for the 3D CG scenes. Show by Rock is (in)famous within the anime community for using "monster encounter" and "stage performing" moments in full 3D animation for the Myumon models. While 3DCG is not everyone's cup of tea, SB69 wouldn't have a visual appeal that makes what this franchise is fully known for without these over the top animated moments. In this season, Polygon Pictures renders the models and setting to look as close to the feel of the new mobile game's Live2D appeal for the Myumon art which to me felt like a nice touch to a well defined soft reboot.

OST, OP and ED: I have to combine all of this into one category because the songs performed for the OP and ED are also performed by the fictional band Mashumairesh(!!). If you are a seasoned SB69 fan and did see the first two seasons (and shorts) for the anime, the OG fictional girl band Plasmagica had a high-paced and high-energy girly touch to their songs, which probably explains the foundation of the band and the overall franchise. For Mashumairesh(!!), their style is more toned down and adding a touch of emotional feelings to their songs and lyrics, even for a OP and ED song. "Hiromenesu" (the OP) ended up becoming my fave Mashu-Mashu song that I end up looping the full track (which you can purchase at the iTunes store) at a certain grim time of my life (if you all know the events happen in early 2020, then you get it why it means a lot!). For the other bands, DOKONJOFINGER are also what made the show pretty fun due to their music! "Ido Shudan wa Bike Desu" and "Kaban niwa Tepan Desu" are... Strange picks for song titles, but their songs have this fiery hype energy that sets apart from ShinganCrimsomz, and I think I would rather root for them over the OG visual kei band! REJINSIGNAL is a new kind of addition and define their "take" of a band. They are a EDM-fusion pop band with a variety of genres they tackle (including a "emotional" song to trump down Mashu-Mashu on the band battle...) and it takes a bit to appreciate their style. (This ain't the first time SB69 had at least slap one EDM band into their game...) Finally, the general background OST for this season recycles elements from the previous season's back log of tracks, as well churning a new OST for this specific season, which again was a nice addition coming from a anime that is now going beyond Season 3! (As of writing this review, SB69 Twitter announces a new 4th season for the franchise!) Overall, their music collection helps contributing to this anime and script/story and I have encountered no issues when it comes to the sound track! (Though agian, this is a mere opinionated review, so don't take mines fully for granted...)

"Would I recommend it?": Yes and no...? THe "no" part coming from your own behalf. If you are into music, comedy, some Sanrio cuteness (or their take of ikemen like Sanrio Danshi), some slow burner development and MUSIC (again had to say that), then I say pick it up...! If you are not into any of theses categories, then I say don't. However, in terms of the previous seasons: You may not have to watch the first two! Mashumairesh(!!) is a fresh restart after all! It also helps decompress band focus to just three, so it makes room for them to develop and get to know them! However, if you are that one person that actually saw the grim trailer for the first season and hoping for some "Dark Monster" encounters: You are NOT getting those in this season! If you are new and wanted to see that stuff, go back track to the first season! If you need a anime to cope at some dark times but do not want some intense drama, I thik this season handles it pretty well! if you do love SB69 as a whole but are on a budget, the best you can do is to support the global release of the band singles on any digital format! You can also play them on Spotify as well!

For me, I think 2015 and onward helped me a lot with personal cope through Show by Rock and its tiny community of fans. I am also a sucker for "kawaii culture" but also in need of mixing with "anime culture", and this anime rounds up into one package with "music culture" as a bonus! I hope this review is helpful, because I really want to put this up just after finishing Episode 12 and needing to share my feelings and love into one review, while also being honest in a opinionated matter! I hope your future is bright like Mashu-Mashu!

Full truth: I love Show By Rock. The first two seasons of it, at least. The first season, while objectively nothing to write home about in the public eye, I personally thought was fun, funny, dramatic, silly, awesome, and reveled in its sparkly, musical silliness. The second season, I feel, improved on many of the first seasons flaws, though it itself isn't without its problems, and was still just as fun and entertaining. I own both seasons on Blu-Ray and when I heard that a third season starring an entirely new cast of characters was going to air, I was hyped as hell. I really ... thought I was going to enjoy this one, and having a new cast of characters can actually be refreshing if done right. Sadly, Mashumairesh had a promising start but ultimately failed to reach beyond mediocre.

So instead of focusing on Cyan and her band Plasmagica, the story focuses on an entirely new character, Howan, a girl living in the snowy countryside who wants to make it big. She decides to go out to Midi City for an audition...only for her to loss her form and be unable to do so. But she finds a band performing on the street and they invite her to join them. Touched by their kindness, Howan decides to join them, proposing that they start a band together and see if they can make it big, just like Howan always dreamed. Yeah, tell me you haven't heard this premise before. Unoriginal as hell, though unlike the original show, there's no evil villain out to destroy the world, so any conflict is scaled down. I've heard someone say Show By Rock would be better as a pure slice of life show rather than have a more urgent save-the-world conflict, and I could see where they were coming from, but with the way Mashumairesh was executed, this shows that going that direction may not have been the best idea.

I'll get the positives out of the way first. For one, the animation is quite good. The original show was made by Bones, but Mashumairesh was animated by a different studio, Kinema Citrus, who you may know worked on shows such as Tokyo Magnitude 8.0, Made In Abyss, Rising of the Shield Hero, Is The Order a Rabbit, and other shows. While I do feel the character designs are way too ridiculous and over the top for their own good (Himeko's huge hair curls, anyone?), the show still feels true to the feel of the original, and while the CGI chibi models don't have as much shading and depth to them as the first show did, they're still cute and easy on the eyes, and stay away from looking really creepy and uncanny. I'm kind of mixed on the music, though. Some parts of it are good, such as the opening and ending songs. I wasn't a fan of the opening and ending themes for both the original show and the sequel, and the songs used here are much more pleasant to listen to and less obnoxious. That said, some of the songs sung in-universe are kind of odd. The melodies and beats are fine, but some of the lyrics make no sense, especially for some of Dokonjofinger's songs. Many of them have lyrics that feel like they were just slapped together at the last second.

Speaking of Dokonjofinger...I'm not gonna lie, they're pretty much the biggest dark spot on this show, and pretty much encapsulate the show's biggest problem: Its complete lack of interest in giving its characters any meaningful development whatsoever. All of the characters, even the ones we're supposed to care about and root for, are all really bland and dull, with many of them only having one character trait that's shilled to high heaven and that's it. Ruhuyu's whole adding the world lunatic to literally every word she said and shouting it every chance she had got old really fast. No, show, giving your character an annoying quirk and having them do nothing but said quirk all the time does not make a good, endearing character. Nearly every single character has all the emotional depth of a wet paper bag, and not helping matters is that the characters are implied to have interesting backstories, but they're never explored or fleshed out in any way, except with a throwaway line of dialogue here and there that's never followed up on. Tying back to Dokonjofinger, not only are they the absolute worst characters in the show, because they're all annoying as hell and their plight is completely inconsequential to the story, their whole setup is a complete logical disaster (They've done bad things and are about to get expelled from school...but to avoid that, their principal makes them form a band and forces them to compete with other bands. How can any principal expect problem teens to be able to get along as a band and NOT be scared that they'll just use it as a means to cause even more trouble?! And they do exactly that!!) and they get a crap ton of screen time but no meaningful development that'd make the audience care about them. How little does this show care about its characters? Here's an example: In Dokofin's introductory episode, the narrator explains that Joe's hobbies are, I shit you not...giving blood and receiving IV treatment. SHOW, THOSE ARE NOT HOBBIES!! Nor do they add any kind of depth and nuance to a character whatsoever! Out of all of them, Hachin is the absolute worst, because not only is he an annoying brat who always starts fights, even with his own bandmates, for kicks and giggles, he's got an especially grating voice that makes you want to stick needles in your ears. Think Asta from Black Clover but ten times worse.

The characters all stay the same throughout the series, and as a result, nearly every important moment they have near the end of the series not only feels fake, but completely unearned. It's especially bad because the creators wasted their resources on showing the bands having fun and wasting time on pointless activities, like a curling contest of all things, when they could have used that time and their resources to really flesh out their characters and make the audience care about them. Unfortunately, every character is dull and remains the same, with Dokofin's worst qualities never changing at all. Say what you will about the original show and its second season, it at least recognized its flaws from its first season and tried to rectify them in its second season. I mean, it's no sacred masterpiece, but it at least tried and put effort into making you care about the characters, even if its writing could be all over the place at times. Mashumairesh just feels like a shallow imitation that can't stand on its own two feet.

It's a shame, because as flawed as the original Show By Rock is, I still enjoy watching it, and I wanted this show to be good as well. Overall, while Mashumairesh isn't utter crap, I can't recommend this show, even for Show By Rock fans. It went too far with showing silly band shenanigans and lost sight of what made the original show so good. So I'd give this one a miss.