hill.jaunita - 2016-02-06 20:47:03

Show by rock is an anime based on phone game app that goes by the same name.  The plot of the anime isn't anything complex or wow but it is a cute show . It is really a good show to change pace and see something cute  and light.  The op / ed songs are quite catchy even the songs  used for the concert segment are interesting . I found cute how the characters design are made especially moa the sheep . Something cute , bubbly and light if u want to see something to change ur mood.

hayden.dooley - 2016-01-27 08:38:57

Show by rock is very generic anime, after all is just a gigantic advertising to the game for mobile devices. The story and characters are the most banal you can get, i wasnt able to hold the amount of cliché inside every episode (and the series itself,a girl who come from another world and is the only one who can defeat the bad guy) The animation in the 2D side is the most basic you can get,but the CGI is the best thing i ever see so far,very fluid and colorful.The music of the anime (and of course,the game) is amazing,Sanrio is actually not only making music by his own,but enganging indie bands too (an example,Chammy Chaplets is the band Kiki* in real life) unfortunately,the only indie band you can see in the anime are the Shinimonogurui (lead by Ueda Marie the real life counterpart) but actually they never sing in the anime. 

So at the end,the anime is ok,but nothing more.Nothing is going to remain to you after you watched it. Lets hope at least the game gets a wester release

waldo37 - 2015-07-16 17:15:24

Story: Cyan Hijirikawa is a first-year high school student who has a good passion for music. However, she is very shy and doesn't have the courage to join the school's music club. But on one fateful night, she gets sucked into the rhythm game she had been playing on her smartphone after receiving an item called "Strawberry Heart".

Cyan ends up in a new world called Tokyo Midi city, a place where those who command music controls everything. There, she sees a concert performed by a chibified kemono band called Trichronika and realizes she had taken on the form of a white cat girl dressed in Gothic Lolita. However, when a "dark monster" starts to attack the concert and begins to corrupt the Melodisian stones of the Trichronika members, Strawberry Heart materializes in Cyan's hands and tells her to play something with it to defeat the monster. As she saves the band from turning into dark monsters themselves, she returns to her human form.

She is then approached by Maple Arisugawa, the CEO of Banded Rocking Records to join his recording agency. She meets ChuChu, Retoree, and Moa, the vocalist, bassist, and drummer of Plasmagica, one of Banded Rocking Record's bands. Retoree asks Cyan to join, and she accepts. Together, they all tackle and perform together in the music scene, aiming to be the best music band of all Midi City, discovering the secrets surrounding the Legendary Instruments and importantly for Cyan, to find a way to get back to her own world. (Source: Wikipedia)

Now this seems like an interesting premise for an action show with music sort of like a battle of the bands type of anime with some character interactions on the wayside when all is said and done. However, if you're looking for action and CG fights like the first episode promised, then chances are you're going not going to enjoy this anime.

Most of the episodes (mainly the first half) are spent establishing the characters, their motives, their goals, trails and tribulations, and even see some of them develop and progressively learn from their mistakes. Yep, its one of those anime, and you know what, it works... for the most part. I'm glad they decided to do that because it'll make you get to know the MCs individually and feel for some of the characters when the more intense parts come to play in the second half.

However, this also has the same problem as the first season of Lagrange: The Flower Of Rin-ne, in that they spend WAY more focus on the girls and the other band members that they come across. There are only four action scenes in this anime and two of them don't last that long and come across as predictable.

When its solely focused on the main characters, its pretty good. But when its on them and the other members, its pretty boring. Also, there are times where the show can drag, especially when it throws in some pointless fan service or random and unfunny jokes. Thankfully they aren't so apparent and frequent but... that doesn't mean its not hard to watch.

Although when the show hits it with the humor, it really works. I wasn't expecting some of the jokes to hit me as hard as they did, but the timing and reactions in some of the scenes are just a ton of fun to watch.

Another thing I like about the story is that its really addictive. Almost every episode ends on a cliffhanger, there's always something going on even in the supposed 'filler' episodes, and in the second half, it gets really suspenseful, making it near impossible to not want to watch the next episode. Sure, the battle of the bands portions are pretty boing in my book, what more than makes up for it is the said songs and performances, which I'll get to later.

Probably the worst part of the story has to be the last battle, I won't giveaway how it ends and what happens, but let's just say it's pretty anti climatic.

Animation: Let's talk about the animation on the action and band scenes first. Aside from the final FINAL battle, the action is all done in CG, however its actually pretty fluid. Its stylized and fast paced which makes it all the more interesting, there are those times where the characters stop and think about the situation but then go back to fighting anyway so I guess there's that.

It is pretty odd that the characters (male and female) are animal chibis with fashionable clothes, big eyes, and no mouths, but they do look pretty cute and cool, especially when they play their instruments. The animation is also great when it has them play their instruments too.

When it comes to the 2D parts... it's also nice to look at. The backgrounds are all colorful and stylized, looking like a neon Tron world or what you might find at Las Vegas. The character designs are for the most part pretty good, as everyone has features that make them stand out... no seriously. There are some exceptions to this sadly, like how some of the characters are shadowed out and we never see their faces or see much from them even though they're important characters, seems kind of lazy on their part.

Animation for that is alright as well as the lip syncing, though there are times where you see still images which is a big disappointment. Also there's this moment in the last episode that looks pretty c:

Sound: For a show about music, you'd think the music would be good, right? Well... yeah, it is. The songs in this are really cool and catchy, whether it be bubbly or mystic, my favorite is the one performed by Tsurezurenaru. Oddly enough, the only ones I wasn't a big fan of was the OP and ED. Sure the images are really great, but I thought they were just terrible annoyingly cute J-pop songs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPp9inhZvrY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CaoaMtW_wT4

When it comes to the voice acting, the main girls sound a bit too high pitched, but they can perform there parts relatively well (the other girls aren't much better unfortunately, but you'll get to them). The guys in the show either sound too deep or too feminine, not meaning to sound rude when saying that by the way.

Characters: The character cast is great and like I said develop and get better as it goes on, in regards to the main characters, I'll get to the villain later...

The main character Cyan (yeah I don't know why she's named after a color like that either) is good at music, but is also very shy and timid in the beginning, wanting to join a music club in her school but not having much chance. When she gets into the world and knows more about the people around her, she becomes more every going and caring and eventually learns how to be brave...

ChuChu (um, yeah and I thought Black Rabbit from Problem Children was a weird name for a rabbit girl) is an honor student of a school she attended, she is rather strictly mannered but sociable. However she can be prideful in certain situations and easily gets the most development outside of Cyan even though she starts off being bland-ish.

Retoree (get it? Cause she's part retriever?) is the smart girl in the group and uses her smartphone anytime, making her shy and unsociable. She wants to make friends but is uncertain how. I thought she'd be a tsundere at first, but she shows her nice side a lot more often than her not-so-nice side, but her internal conflicts are obvious but are still pretty sad :c

Moa is a nice girl who turns out to be an alien who came to the world to investigate on it. By the way that is not a spoiler, you learn that pretty early on. Sadly, her storyline goes absolutely nowhere, and she doesn't really contribute much in the drama aspect. Also she says Pyuru at the end of every sentence Pyuru. Cause why not Pyuru.

And there's also the talking guitar Strawberry Heart, or as Cyan calls him: Mr. Berry (Berry-san). I actually find him pretty decent well. His voice is weird, but I like his enthusiasm in wanting to help Cyan and the twist centering on who he really is is a great twist, you most likely will see it coming but I still find it fantastic :D

Then there are the 'secondary' characters, the all boys band that's also been founded by Maple called SHINGANCRIMSONZ! Honestly, I love these guys.

Sure there personalities are pretty one note. Crow, the leader is vulgar and impulsive, Aion is calm and thinks highly of himself, Yaiba is timid and hence, has a huge respect to the Bushido and Rock Spirits, and Rom, despite having a rough and tough personality, is level-headed and is the voice of reason between the other's arguments.

Yeah they sound like horrible characters, but the way they're written and animated really makes them entertaining to watch and prevent the show from being a total downer, but they do have a serious episode which is really good. In fact most of the comedy involves these guys, for real :D

Unfortunately, all the other characters are forgettable. Some of them seem pretty good on paper, but they sadly don't get much screen time or any development whatsoever, which is a real shame cause I want to like a lot of these girls. I would have loved to see Cyan interact with the guys that she saved in episode 1.

And with that being said, let's talk about the villain. Um, how do I put this? He's a horrible villain! His design is stupid, his motives are weak, his laugh and voice suck, and he's not even much of a threat! I think the show would have benefitted greatly without him and the dark monsters were more of a mystery... or at least make the villain complex and interesting.

Enjoyment: The addictive-ness in this alone and comedy alone, made the show enjoyable for me. I wish the villain, climax, and side characters were better though, nothing is sadder than wasted potential. But for what it is, it's still a pretty good anime~

Overall: If you want to watch a show where character fight with the power of music, you're probably not going to enjoy this. But if you don't mind that there isn't much action and prefer to see the characters and like the battle of the band concepts, I think this is a pretty good watch, non stop (not really non stop though)!

Pros: Interesting premise, glad that they focused more on the characters than the fighting, animation is really great, girls look cute in the outfits, animal chibis, great music, pretty backgrounds, developed main characters, SHINGANCRIMSONZ are hilarious!

Cons: Story is unbalanced, pacing can drag sometimes, side characters are not memorable in the slightest, the villain is horrible, the anti-climax, some of the jokes are pretty painful, some plot points are never resolved.

Also recommend: Mermaid Melody (the first season), AKB0048, IDOLM@STER, Lagrange

Thanks for reading my 89th review~

nyah.berge - 2015-04-11 03:43:58

Well I dont know what happened, the first 4 minutes were cool, they showed a sort of shy girl playing fool, you know typical anime girl cliché we all love, but then things did nothing but getting worst and worst. 

Appearently Cyan its teleported to another world because of some “magical influences”acquired after winning a stupid guitar in a Guitar Hero alike game. The moment the 3D-Chibi/Neko characters appear, right after her teletransportation ,you think it is a both silly and shocking idea because who in the world would even consider that something smart, enjoyable or even not fucking annoying. Well this geniuses did.

Even though taking risks has led to success in other occassions there’s no way that that is applicable here. It is simply dumb. After those minutes of “ pure brilliance” came to an end, we’re introduced to some gay-neko boyband with a ridiculously long name which I guess was meant to be funny but is not, at all, like its members.

Not even the animation, which was good, or its soundtrack which wasn’t too bad either, were able to save this first episode.
Needless to say there hasn’t been no character development yet so I can’t give my opinion on that.

So far in my opinion, I think this anime fails both in comedy and having a decent story. Two thing which I found to be one of THE MOST important points to take in consediration when producing an anime of this kind.

This anime is nothing but a sinking ship.

rwintheiser - 2015-04-10 06:55:05

woah a awesome Moe Music anime thats just fking awesome if Moe turn your on you will like it with a lot of Comedy i think i will buy a figure soon of this anime i have too much liked it and if you dont know about it a game exist on Android only available in Japan but anyway, lets begin

About The Story
a story about a girl who want to go in a Music Bands but she dont have the courage to do it so she just peek at the door and just don't do it but one night she decide to play to his favorite game on his phone and she unlock the Strawberry Heart Guitar a super rare item and at the same time she get transfered into his Music Game and discover this colorful and a world who only live with Music curious to see what is gonna happen ? thats what you gonna see if you watch it , so the story have a simple goal become a popular goal but Cyan the Main Character will need to deal with the Dark Monster because she is the only one who can do it easily anyway thats a fking nice anime

About The Animation and Sounds
the graphics in that are just amazing god dam really soo much color and 3D graphic super clean and Moe Power Explosion i want more, you have a own Light Disco Room in ur room man.. , for the sounds they are just awesome really the Opening is just fking fun i like the Ending too they are both awesome i leave you the link

Opening

Ending

About The Characters
some cool characters in this anime and a lot of Moe too but anyway

Plasmagica

Cyan Hijirikawa / thats the main characters and she have a Cat look and she is freaking cute and innocent , Moe power ftw , she can play guitar and vocal

ChuChu / i like his darkstyle without being dark and thats a Bunny o: but she play guitar and can vocal too , she is cute too...

Retoree / this one have a fall for Cyan and this is a Dog ... she is a cute girl too when Cyan say Nya his heart is pounding and become red but yeah she play the Bass and do some vocal too

Moa / she is a pink Sheep but have a cute look too... she say peru peru each time when she finish talking or begin , she play with a drum and can vocal too
they are all cute for be short...

Shingan Crimsonz

Crow / thats the leader of the group and he is a Hedgehog he can be stupid and vulgar but anyway he is funny sometimes because of his stupidity but he is not soo idiot .. , he play guitar-vocal and call his fan cattle and think he is the best guitarist ... xD

Aion / this is a Lion i think he have a chunnibyou or something... or idk... he is always calm but say the gods have choose him i dont remember correctly... LOOOOl he play the guitar

Yaiba / this guy make a too much big speech in his presentation and this is a Fox i dont remember correctly but i think he have a huge respect about the Rock Spirits or something like that , he play with a bass

Rom / this the only one to work... because the 3 others dont work for making money and they are too idiot for having a job so this is the serious guy in the group and the most of the time he stop the fight between the 3 others when they fight , he play the drums and he is a Leopard

Agency of the 2 bands up there

Maple Arisugawa / he is a egg but the boss agency of the 2 group he can be very funny sometimes and... he like being punished by his secretary LOOOl.. this guy is really something..

Angelica / the secretary of Maple she is a wolf and she is serious and can be funny when she want this is the plot cake in the anime i think by plot... i mean oppai and body... but we dont see her soo much but anyway thats a nice character

About The Enjoyment
how you cant enjoy a anime like that.... this is freaking funny and have a lot of Moe everything to make you smile after a bad day ... dont forget about the Comedy i have laugh a lot of time because of the Egg guy and the graphics is just too awesome to watch you have a lot of thing to enjoy... and a cute band of cute girl who singing and have animals ears and others cool bands so you cant say thats not enjoyable...this is just awesome

yes i recommand that i dont know why soo much people dont appreciate this anime... the songs in it are nice and you have a lot of Moe but if you dont like Moe things or Music genre i dont know if you will like it but for me i freaking like it... i have nothing bad to say about it

alejandrin.mcclure - 2015-04-08 01:58:48

I have no idea what is going on, but its so cute that I don't even care.