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.
