The characters account for a lot of what makes the show so good, and one prime example of that is Nino. Nino is like most shoujo MCs. She falls completely in love with the jerk-like male MCs and thinks about them all of the time. (Although at least she is more aware rather than being in constant denail.) Now in most cases, this can be annoying as it takes what could be a complex interesting character who should have multiple layers of interest and simplifies them down to just liking boys. As if boys are all that matters to a girl. However, Nino is able to subvert this with a couple of key facts.
Most female shoujo protagonists are just your average girl. They're boring, dull, and average. Nino isn't average. Nino is weird. Nino is troubled. While everyone else does the normal school life, Nino walks around with big headphones listening to music and spends lots of time singing aimlessly at the beach. She doesn't appear to think on the same wavelength as others do, and she frequently doesn't listen to others. Even in the show, there were multiple times where the characters told her that she was weird, and her response was to shrug and say, "Yeah I'm weird. That's who I am." She even says she wears a surgical mask because it helps her from screaming. Repeatedly she's had spasms on stage and erupted into an unpredictable emotional mess. None of these actions are normal. Some of them may be experienced by certain subcultures, but rarely would those people consider themselves as normal. Every bit and part of her down to the way that she things directly flies in the face of a normal girl. And because of that, it's much easier to accept her tunnel vision.
Especially when one digs into her past life. As in the premise, she got close to both of these boys and twice where they cruelly ripped away from her world. She got close to them and cared about them only for them to disappear. I too had a childhood that consisted of hopping from friendship group to friendship group. I changed schools twice in elementary school, and twice did my friends move away. I didn't have a constant friendship group. I didn't have friends that lasted longer than a year. It messes with your mind, especially when you're that young. It feels like nothing will last forever, and it feels like only a matter of time before fate rips you apart. And if she's anything like me, and I think she is, when this is combined with the need and want to be close to others it results in a mindset that can idealize someone so heavily, and eye them so much, that they become one of the most important things. They are what matters. They are the reason for moving forward. Combine this with other emotional problems and it becomes a disaster. The disaster that Nino is.
I don't want to belabour the point too much but there were moments that Nino had that reminded me of myself. There were neurotic moments that she had that may seem crazy to most but mirror exact moments and things that I have done before. For who she is Nino is a great character, one that likely also suffers from mental illness, and that's what makes her so relatable and perfect for the role. She isn't a competent average girl reduced down to just BOYS, she's a struggling obsessive mess who wants the happy times of her childhood back.
And then there are the boys. In the usual shoujo series, the boys are dicks with pure hearts inside even if they never show it. And overall one could say that these boys fit into these roles, however, they also break apart from them at the same time.
In the case of Yuzu, he is possessive and wants Nino all to himself. There are parts of him that want her to be his and only his. But at the same time, he wants the best for her as well. Throughout the show, he is stuck between trying to further himself and his own goals or whether to support Nino in her goals. Sometimes he takes steps towards his own wants grabbing her and pushing her closer to him, while other times he listens to her. He listens to her wants and tries to help her out and give her advice. He tries to help her make her goal. He routinely does this, weakening his own position but he does it for her. It's the strive of love where one wants something so badly but they also want their love to be happy. It's a feeling that is so relatable and so human. Humans aren't perfect beings, they have conflicting wants. And the way that Yuzu expresses it I can understand it so well.
Although I don't relate to Momo nor do I care for him much I do think he's also another really interesting character who has his own baggage. His struggles are the struggles between maturity and the childlike wants that still reside in a person. While he wants to have Nino and go back to the times of yore, he has a job and has things that he has to take care of. He can't go back to his sweet escape, and he feels like he has betrayed Nino, and betrayed his childhood. He takes his steps forward never looking back. The struggle he faces is another struggle that many face. When we grow up can we still desire for the things we wanted before? Our childhood dreams? In Fukumenkei Noise this conflict takes an interesting role in the relationship between them.
Even the side characters are well written and rather than them all be jerks to each other they're all overall nice, although flawed. Miou and Nino help each other out and give each other advice even though it's not always in their best interest to do so. And that's just the serious moments, there are also lots of fun playful moments between the band, Yuzu and Nino, Nino and Miou and others. It feels like more than just melodrama, it doesn't even feel like melodrama sometimes. While there are a few exaggerated moments, (like their parents) for the most part it feels like the result of their feelings and their ills. Even with some of the more hyperbolic emotional moments it never felt out of place. It felt so right.
The music also plays an important role. Not only are the ideas on muse interesting, but they're very accurate given my own experience. I am a composer myself and I know the value of a muse, and how different emotions can sway one's writing, and their playing and all of that. And Fukumenkei Noise has this down to a T. Not only that but they're able to create music and lyrics that not only fit the show and the characters that write them but that are generally well written and convey strong emotions even better than most songs. They come from the heart and shine with the emotions that lie in them. Hayami, Saori did a great job with Nino's singing as it feels so emotional and it feels so authentic. I have tried to sing with raw emotion and it's really hard. But she is able to nail it so perfectly that I feel the emotion dripping from Nino's voice as she sings, and it hits me right in the heart.
The way that music is used to both express themselves and release the emotional tension that's inside them is so well done. It mirrors the struggles of the plot and it enhances the struggle of the plot. Fukumenkei Noise is a music anime in the truest sense of the word. Not only is it about music but the way that it lives and breathes and relates to the themes of the show and the emotions of the characters it ends up working so perfectly well.
I think the story is overall great. It's a basic story but the musical themes, and the ways the characters drive the story are fantastic. The art is mostly great and works well with it too, except for when they do the CG. Why did they do the CG it looks awful.
Overall this show is an underrated gem. The characters are fantastically designed and the music fits so perfect with what the show does. It may have some of the typical shoujo trappings but it actually works to the shows advantage because of how well they're done and how well they work. Most shows aren't able to get me to relate to even one character, but here both Nino and Yuzu feel like kindred souls lost in the same struggle and emotions that I am. I am in awe at Fukumenkei Noise's ability to speak to me, and it's ability to write well naused characters. This show may be ripe with teenage melodrama, but it all fits so right.
