So i was recommended to watch this anime by quite a few friends of mine who usually have reliable taste, so i had high expectations going in. unfortunately not only did this show fail to meet my expectations, it is barely even watchable.

Characters

This show doesnt have any good characters. every single episode there is one new tropey character introduced and has an entire arc completed within a single episode. a good example of this is kisa, who i actually thought was entering the series in an interesting way, and her arc actually might have been impactful had the writers let it sit for more than 1 episode. A MASSIVE problem this show has is not being able to sit on plot point or character arcs, its very adhd and as soon as they introduce something new, you can expect the problem or character arc is resolved in the same episode. it is a very unappealing way to tell the story and does not leave you any time to become at all invested in any of the new characters that are showing up. it just feels like lazy writing and the writer is just trying to get all of the characters introduced before whatever arc happens to be starting in season 2

unfortunately its not just the side characters who are problematic, the main 2 soumas as well as tohrus exhibit even worse writing. Tohru after watching this season is without a doubt one of the worst FMC's i have ever witnessed. Her entire character is based around this stupidly unfunny trope of well... her being really really stupid. i cant imagine who thought that it was a good idea to make one of her fundamental character traits LITERALLY STARING OFF INTO SPACE FOR NO REASON. not only this the fact that she is just treated as a vessel for resolving character arcs and literally every characters problems being fixed literally a few days, or in some cases a few hours after meeting her is just an incredibly childish way to write the story. Also tohrus hyperfixation on the animals of the zodiac is not only inhuman feeling, but also cheesy because literally no one bases their life decisions around chinese mythology

also one last side note, hanajimas "waves" literally make no sense in verse as of this season. theres no good reason for why they exist or anything.

Plot

this might actually be the only appealing part of this show besides the soundtrack (ill get to that later). unfortunately though, the writers of this show refuse to develop the plot, in all 25 episodes of this show, the ideas surrounding the Souma's are only touched upon a few times. dont get me wrong i love slice of life shows, but the show has to be actually good at BEING a slice of life to be one, which fruits basket fails miserably at.

"Humor"

oh boy where do i start. this is mostly subjective but this show is one of the most unfunny shows ive ever seen but it insists on throwing in lots of "humor" into almost every episode. If you like loud = funny i guess maybe i could see you enjoying it but honestly even if you do the humor is thrown in at such inappropriate Times that it ruins moments that could potentially feel emotional. not only that they even make fun of suicide in one episode, which i feel is in pretty bad taste

Animation and Soundtrack

the animation is fine but the soundtrack is easily the best part of this series, its good enough that even when i know that whats happening on screen is pretty thin and has little backing, it makes it feel more significant and almost convinces me that its a good show. Soundtrack carries

Last thoughts

so yeah, those are my thoughts, im sure this review will be poorly recieved by the fandom but ive said what i had to say, thanks for reading and if you could i would like insight into why people like this season of the show, maybe it gets better after this season but fruits basket season 1 definetly does not deserve the rating it has

Girls band cry is great, excellent even. One of the best anime to come out in the past few years, honestly it’s one of the best anime to come out ever in my opinion, and I can guess why you haven’t watched it

It’s the CGI, isn’t it?

Toei’s 60 fps rendered CGI was too much for you, huh? Well, that’s fine because I’m here today to give you a full review of the show and tell you exactly why this should be next on your must-watch list.

As I mentioned before girls' band cry is animated by Toei and is a full CGI show, tho only 2D animation is in the op and that is it. The show aired in 2024 and received… no reception because Toei didn't bother to advertise the release at all because they planned to let the project die after the first season. Thankfully, a few content creators in the industry took notice of the show and started watching it, and after a bit of time, it blew up in the community. Now actually has an official sub AND is on Crunchyroll, so its popularity is steadily growing, but enough about the technical side, let’s talk about the show itself

Girls band cry follows Nina Iseri, a 16-year-old girl from the countryside who felt imprisoned by her strict family, so she drops out of her high school and runs away to Tokyo, because what else would a highly temperamental girl from a strict family do in that situation? Anyways she goes on to meet Momoka, the guitarist which recently quit her favorite band(which she has a lot of emotional attachment to) and a lot of stuff happens but basically they decide they are going to start making music together and form a band. One of the things that this show excels at is accurately showing the struggles a real band would have to go through while getting on its feet. Whether it be finding members that can work together and who want to make similar types of music, individual members private lives interfering with band activities and causing problems that way, having to book real live houses and not have your drummers sister to give you freebies(sorry BTR, I do love you tho) and just general stuff that many other band anime’s fail to touch on.

This makes girls' band cry feel very real. And even more so as we learn more and more about each character. The characters in this show are VERY human, feeling they are flawed, they make mistakes and they have complex interactions both within the band members and with those in their private lives. Especially the main two (Nina and Momoka) are fully fleshed out characters, we see the full extent of not only their relationships but their personal mental health struggles in a way that I have never seen in ANY other band anime’s(though MyGO!!!!! Gets close) even outside band anime’s it’s incredibly rare to see something with characters this fleshed out. I’ll leave it at that, though.

Yes, for many people the CGI looks like a turn off, but honestly the CG is really good, dare I say better than land of the lustrous, and even if you don’t find it so I still highly recommend you watch girls band cry as it is a masterpiece. My final rating is a 9.7/10, and is currently my 6th favorite anime of all time.

Thanks for reading, and I truly hope you choose to watch if you haven't already.