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Hoo boy. I finally got along to reviewing this one. Contrary to what MAL says, I finished this anime a while ago, and I thought I needed a little bit of time to think about it before writing this review. Turns out I needed a LOT of time.
I actually started this anime because I'm sort of an ironic fan of vampires, unless they sparkle. EVEN appreciating it ironically, if you look at this anime objectively, its not very good, though it could have been quite awesome.

(Note: Spoilers will be preceded by (SPOILER ALERT) and ended with (END SPOILER). Though I don't think there ... will be many spoilers, you have been warned.


Story //3//
Giving this anime's story a quick look shows its mediocrity quite effectively. This anime features a main character who wants to rid the world of vampires (who oppress the humans) by killing every single one of them. Now, lets replace the word "vampires" with the word "titans" and you get a different anime altogether- ok I'll stop now.
Giving a bit of depth to the story spices it up a bit, but it still can't cover for it's frankly plain premise. The MC's best bud, who sacrificed himself to free the MC, is (SPOILER ALERT) a vampire. This creates emotional angst and complicated emotions- or it would if the MC even knew about this fact before the last episode! (END SPOILER) The resistance group the MC is a part of uses demons as weapons to destroy the vampires, which I thought was an interesting concept and perhaps the best part of the series.

Art //6//
I came for the art, and stayed for the art. Honestly, if the only thing you have going for you is your art style, there's something wrong. Even then, there were a surprisingly high amount of still images during fight scenes and pretty unoriginal character designs (as far as body shape and eyes are concerned). Some things I did like were the army uniforms and the demon weapons.
wow such small likes

Sound //5//
I thought the opening was interesting, but nothing super memorable. The ending song was meh and the score itself was not something I noticed.
So, not bad, but not good.

Characters //2//
.......
....
...
hhhhhhh
This is what really drove me away from liking this anime. The characters are basically all repeated tropes with surprisingly low amounts of character development! Even the "interesting" character, Shinoa, I found boring and shallow! Aghhh the characters could have been cool! I don't mind things like the anime genre's rampant infestation of tsunderes infecting this anime but seriously..... I totally forgot about the pink-haired guy, (googling noises) Shiho.
Also, this may seem like a minor complaint, but it bugged me to the end. The MC, Yuichiro, was referred to as Yuu through the whole dub. (I didn't watch the sub) So every time they were talking to him it sounded like they were saying: "You can't do that You!" "You feels like that's the right thing to do!" etc. This is how I felt through the whole anime. "You are so stupid!"
Cause that's how Yuu is.
*facepalm*

Hey, I said it was a minor complaint!~

Enjoyment //6//
For this anime, I watched it in "enjoyment/guilty pleasure" mode. So, I was willing to watch whatever the anime threw at me, barring the aforementioned sparkling vampires. That's a deal breaker.
Seriously though, I enjoyed it until I thought about it the next day.

Overall //3.5/4//
Let me just say this. If you're good enough at separating yourself from any sort of critical thought about anime, you might enjoy this anime.
Still, the poor character designs/development and the only decent presentation, combined with a really lacking story create an anime that only truly generous people will remember for a long time. At least some people will remember it for it's nose-breaking mediocrity.

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!