Goyavoyage's den

[(belated) Februaryuri 2025] Girls Band Cry

Girls Band Cry promotional poster

(base post on Februaryuri 2025 here!)

Girls Band Cry (2024)

by studio Toei Animation, directed by Kazuo Sakai, written by Jukki Hanada, with music by Kenji Tamai and Togenashi Togeari

13 episodes

Summary

Nina Iseri just arrived to the big city, and she won't go back - no matter how much her family calls her; no matter how different it may be to live in an apartment by herself; no matter how unused she is to the city life. The rage and the hurt emanating from her is almost palpable.

Moving out has its perks, though: Momoka, the ex-guitarist of the band she used to adore, Diamond Dust, is performing nearby the same day. Nina has to tell her how much her songs meant to her, how they helped her get through the harshest moments of her life.
And this is a good thing, because Momoka had planned on giving up on her music career after this performance, shaken by a rift with her ex-bandmates over their commercial image. But faced with Nina's bluntness and her plea not to give up on music, Momoka ends up reconsidering her choice.

Nina and Momoka eventually form a new band, slowly joined by three other girls despite Nina's initially prickly reaction toward most people. But their road together is paved with quabbles over the band's name or finding their sound together; and more importantly, with big fights about whether they can make their new band successful without compromising on who they are, like Diamond Dust did...
... And at some point, Nina herself may need to confront her past, as it crystallizes both into her family trying to visit her, and into Diamond Dust's newest member.

CW

Though some of the band's characters deal with somewhat heavy themes, the series never uses this for shock value, and instead holds its characters kindly as it slowly tells what they went through.

This mostly includes elements of bullying, depression and suicidal ideation in the background of lead character Nina, addressed in a very heartfelt way. She notably opposes both her school and her family for being stiffling environments at the root of all this, and the narrative sides with her. This also induces a few moments of panic attacks in early episodes, which are really well-written and meant to be empathized with.

As a briefer instance, band character Rupa has hints of losing her family to a car accident, and suffers one brief instance of racist comment due to her South-Asian heritage; and the narrative makes it clear she is tired of putting up with this.

Comment

It's simple, really: Girls Band Cry is my favorite 2024 anime1; and one of my favorite animes, period. It is so righteously full of rage and hope against an unjust world, with such a raw, larger-than-life, idealist protagonist, that I can't help but think about it oh so often.
Its use of 3D is simply the most expressive I've ever seen in the medium2; its themes are striking; its characters are really likeable; its band drama is great; and its songs are both perfect for the series' tone and also incredibly good by themselves.

We'll talk again about the songs in the Extras section; let's mention the themes a bit more.
I said it before in an earlier review, but Girls Band Cry's most general theme is fitting in and whether to conform with others' expectations of you - and it questions when rocking the boat is a better option. Sometimes that can be done without breaking a relationship; but sometimes there's just too much pent-up anger for that. And what else is a better outlet for anger - and, sometimes, for the complicated feelings around these broken relationships - than making rock songs together?

Some of the cast keeps it all in. Subaru, for instance, silently struggles with her grandmother's renowned acting career, which forces her to pursue a legacy in acting she isn't interested in. Rupa is grieving a lost family and putting up with racist microaggressions at her job, and she won't show anything of it at all.
Some of them have been burnt before. Tomo is a perfectionist whose blunt criticism and high standards broke a band once, and she's afraid of the situation repeating itself. Momoka, the most prevalent character behind protagonist Nina, refused to accept her previous band's transformation into heavily marketed idols, and is now living in dashed dreams - unable to really believe in starting a new band with the same idealist ambitions she once had.

And then there's Nina. Nina carries such a sheer determination to be herself - a refusal to accept anything less than what is right - that it slowly spreads to her bandmates too. After all, it's what she's done her entire life: she couldn't not. She refuses to conform if it means compromising on who she is.
This has led her to some severe bullying at school. To broken friendships. To butting heads with her family over her righteous rage.
This has led her to depression and suicidal ideation, too - the series doesn't shy away from exploring these topics in some of its most moving moments.

But in some ways, music saved her. And now she's ready to pour her rage at the unfairness of it all into music in turn.

Slowly, her band grows into people she trusts - even if it means fighting over everything and menacing of breaking up every other concert. All of them support each other in addressing their tumultuous feelings on their own terms; and they end up determined to stay true to themselves no matter the pressure of the music industry - ready to give the middle pinky finger to the whole world against them if need be, and to hope for the best.

... Yeah. I really like Girls Band Cry.

The first of my only two quibbles is that there's an underlying yuri vibe3 between Nina and Momoka that suddenly bursts out into the open in the middle of the series; and then... is left absolutely unaddressed. And this sheer absence of followup feels very odd at best, and a bit disappointing at worst. Surely the series had a lot of other things to handle; but still. I don't know how much of it was censorship, or a dropped plotline, or-- I don't know, really.
It makes Nina explicitly sapphic though, so I'll still take it gladly4. And, heh, maybe we'll get more in the future sequel movie - maybe it'll hit us with some offhanded "oh yeah, we've been dating for X months now". Who knows.

My second quibble is this: I would've liked to see Nina even angrier and more at odds with her parents. It's kind of a me thing, obviously, and it's still extremely cathartic to see her being this rightfully confrontational and the narrative siding with her entirely, against both the school system and her traditionalist family structure. This means a lot, and all the more within Japanese culture, to my understanding. But still, some of the resolution feels a bit too neat5, for how angrily rebellious some of the series feels at times.

That being said, I still love what ends up being Girls Band Cry's main message. It isn't a tale of cutting ties, in spite of all its pent-up anger: it's a tale of unrelenting hope that making the decisions that feel right for you will eventually pay off. That someday you will be understood, and inspire others in ways that matter...
... and that in any case, holding onto what feels just and refusing to compromise on yourself and your values is the only thing to do - society and systems be damned.

Extra

First thing first: there's gonna be a sequel movie!! The news dropped in September and I'm still not over it. There's no release date yet, but I'm really excited about it.

Aside from that, I have to mention extensively how jaw-droppingly good Girls Band Cry's music is. This is the case of both its OST, which I've been delighted to listen to on loop; but maybe more importantly of the songs that the characters perform onstage.

The voice actresses perform those songs themselves, as part of the real-life equivalent of the band that the anime eventually brings together: Togenashi Togeari. The band, nicknamed TogeToge, exists both inside the narrative and outside of it, and has released several albums with a lot of additional tracks that the series couldn't fit - as I'll mention in more details below.

While this is a common feature of girls-band (and adjacent) animes (Love Live!, BanG Dream, Bocchi the Rock! to some extent, ...), it is extremely notable here, because the girls behind Togenashi Togeari were purposefully recruited for this dual anime/band project with little to no prior experience, neither in voice acting nor in music. This makes me all the more amazed at the intensity of many of their line deliveries, and of their songs.
If you want some very efficient summary of the voice actresses behind the characters and their respective background, I really recommend this video by Goosebumps Radio. There's also this interview by AnimeNewsNetwork that I find great.

Now, I've said all that, but two of the voice actresses, Mirei and Natsu (respectively Subaru and Tomo's VAs), have been on hiatus since the summer of 2024 due to health reasons. They have returned to do voice acting work since; but I'm not sure whether they'll return to musical performances at any point. I mainly hope they're ok.

Despite this, Togenashi Togeari has kept releasing songs.
It released two albums around when the anime aired, unsurprisingly called Togenashi and Togeari; it's been regularly dropping singles since then; and it released two EPs in November and December of 2025. Those latter two, aptly named Let's give them the pinky finger and I'll live with my heart on my sleeve!, have been carrying me through the past few months just like the first albums did back in 2024.

So, now is the part where I get really excited about Togenashi Togeari's music.

I can't recommend enough listening to it. I find it powerful, intense, and so so good. The songs featured in the series are particularly great - from the very opening, Wrong World, which is maybe one of my favorite openings period6 - but there are a lot of others to listen to on loop in TogeToge's albums. Some of the really striking ones that come to mind right now include Hurtful and Painful, Underneath or Answer to Extreme. I've also listened a good amount of time to Fragile Violet among the singles, and many from the new EPs have been a core part of my playlist of the past few weeks like arrow, Against all answers, Thirsty, anxiety or Give me life.

I also heavily recommend watching the music videos (MVs) for the songs that have one. Their cool animations tend to add extra layers to the series.
Additionally, those videos often have have lyrics translated to English if you need so, which also adds to the experience: the songs tend to be rather dark in their themes of anger and depression, and rightfully denounce a broken society with an energy that I find them extremely cathartic.
Here is the MV playlist; it contains the clips of the inserted songs from the anime but also a dozen more, and it is really worth a watch.

I'll mention a few of those MVs for good measure: the MV for Ideal Paradox, that I find very yuri-coded7 and touching in its grief; the lyrics for Lonely fate to be destined, which means a whole lot as a song written by Nina to thank Momoka for how much her music helped her; the MV and lyrics of No one, which give a fantasy dungeon party vibe to the series' characters while being some kind of retelling of their story...
... but the one that stays with me the most may be the MV and lyrics for Hurtful and Painful. I find it absolutely blatant in its message about destroying an (educative) system with cruel expectations, depriving of individuality. This contributes to why I love and admire Girls Band Cry, too.

I'll stop the ramble here and end this long and last (belated) Februaryuri 2025 post by mentioning that, as a growing multimedia franchise, Girls Band Cry has also bloomed into a bunch of other projects8 that I couldn't find translated in English anywhere so far, including:

I don't know whether I'll be able to access any of this someday - probably depending on my progress in reading Japanese more than anything else. Still, I'll still happily cheer the franchise on as long as their members are doing ok, and will keep hoping for a great sequel movie.
No matter the media, I'll be delighted to meet with those characters again; and all the more if they get to be angry, sapphic, and weathering tough band decisions together.

In the meantime the original series remains, to me, one of the best animes out there. I hope it gets to make you feel things too.

  1. Depending on when you ask, my second place for 2024 may be either Delicious in Dungeon rather obviously, or Jellyfish Can't Swim in the Night despite its caveats. If we squeeze them ex-aequo the third place is Tonari no Youkai-san, that I cover among things I liked in 2024;I've written an old post about it on cohost that I may repost here someday.↩

  2. My other pick for best 3D being the anime adaptation of Land of the Lustrous, of which I'm still desperately waiting for a second season.↩

  3. To be honest, there is also a yuri vibe between pianist Tomo and bassist Rupa: the two are canonically each other's makeshift family; and Tomo is glaringly averse to physical contact overall, yet she manifests a clear physical closeness with Rupa. Considering Rupa is 23 and Tomo is 17, though, this does make their age gap too large for comfort, so I'm a bit confused about that... But anyway, we need more of these two in the movie in any case. Rupa is great and still much of an enigma; and I really really like Tomo, who reads kinda neurospicy to me for some reason.↩

  4. This is all the more fun considering Nina kinda discovers that gay people are real in the very first episode. That existence of gayness as a side topic in the series gives me hope that it will become a main topic at some point too.↩

  5. I mean, her family locks Nina out of her appartment at some point, and this is not addressed! heck!↩

  6. and also, that same opening has a wonderfully catchy remix in the series' OST. I just love it.↩

  7. Let's be real, the fact that the protagonist of the MV heavily reminds me of Sorawo Kamikoshi from Otherside Picnic gives it bonus points in my mind.↩

  8. Togenashi Togeari has also performed live several times, notably in the famed Tokyo venue called the Budokan last September - a performance which is the characters' goal in the series. It's additionally been part of a few crossover live concerts with bands from the BanG Dream franchise.↩

#februaryuri 2025 #girls band cry #yuri